Take heed and have a need

Luke 12:13-21

Luke (15) The Parable of the Rich Fool (12:13–21)

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

The Setting: A request was made for Jesus to give a judicial decision.

A . A man desired his brother’s inheritance

Was listening to Jesus speak and decided to appoach him

Sternly replied, as if offended

Had just spoke on God will provide all your needs.

The man did not get the message

1. How many of us hear the word, but do not understand the word?

How many of us, ignore the word because it does not fit the situation we want to solve.

B. Jesus sternly refused to render a verdict

2. The wealthy should fear: Life does not consist of things

A. The warning against greed: Watch out: beware

Jesus warned him twice. to not focus on things.

Not saying you can’t have things, just saying the letter k is before the letter t in the alphabets.

(kingdom, then things)

He had a third of the inheritance so he was ok, but he wanted at least half.

B. The big sin: Greed or covetousness

C. The Big ‘I’ (6 times in vs 16, 19) aggressively self-centered

This showed how even though he was materially wealthy it just wasn’t enough, which caused him to puff up.

D. The big mistake: self indulgence & extravagant living

3. The wealthy should fear: A man’s life may be required & demanded tonight

Put your spiritual wealth before your material wealth, because, man does not know the day or night, or hour that he may be called.

4. The wealth should fear this: Wealth is not permanent- someone else gets it.

Earthly wealth does not go with you. You store it up for others to have, If you did not use some of the materalistic wealth for the kingdom, you might not have been wealthy at all.