Sermon Tone Analysis

lass=MsoPlainText style='line-height:150%'>/ One of the most important things you need to know when you play a game is to know what it takes to win.

What’s the aim of the game?

//            Take a game like checkers, for instance.

The aim of the game is to annihilate your opponent.

The winner is whoever makes that last jump and clears the board.

The aim of the game is to get it all.

/

/            On the other hand, you have a game like Uno, where you start off holding 8 cards, and through strategy, luck, and remembering to say “UNO” when you hold one card, you try to get rid of all the cards in your hand.

The aim of the game is to give it all away.

/

/            You’d never win a game of checkers if you’re constantly trying to give up all your pieces.

You’d never win a game of Uno if you try to collect as many cards as possible.

If you want to win, you have to keep in mind the aim of the game.

/

/            This is true about the game we call life.

Understanding the aim of the game is essential if you want to be a winner.

Misunderstanding or ignoring the aim of the game will make you a loser./

/            It’s especially important to know the aim of the game of life.

Some people say winning the game of life is all about getting as much as you can.

They have stickers on their nice expensive vehicles that say something like, HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS WINS.

/

/            A lot of us buy into this philosophy.

Even some of us who don’t have much still gaze enviously at those with more and say “I wish I had what he had.

I wish I could afford the things she can.”

Our culture pushes this as the aim of the game of life: the more you have, the happier you will be.

The aim of the game is to get all you can.

/

/            But what if life is not like checkers?

What if life is like Uno? What if the aim of the game is not to get it all, but to give it all away?

/

/            This morning I want us to take a look at what Jesus says about the aim of the game of life in *Luke 12:13-34*.

Let’s begin in *vs.

13-15*.

/

*PRAYER*

*            *Some smart-aleck described preaching as "the fine art of talking in someone else's sleep."

I'm not sure that's true, but I do know that one of the problems a preacher deals with is the danger of losing your audience’s attention.

Even the Lord Jesus struggled with this problem.

Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd, talking to them about life and death, about hypocrisy and hell, about the love and fear of God.

He says if you fear God, you don't have to fear anything else.

But as Jesus is moving through the middle of his message in *vs.

13-14* , a man elbows his way to the edge of the crowd and interrupts Jesus and says to him, "Teacher, divide the inheritance between my brother and me."

I don't know this man's specific problem.

Evidently he and his brother are squabbling over the estate that his father left.

There's no bitterness greater than bitterness between brothers.

One thing is sure: this young man has this quarrel at the center of his life.

The birds will never sing again for him, the flowers will never bloom again, the sun will never shine again as brightly until somehow he get what he thinks is his fair share.

This petty obsession keeps him from hearing what Jesus says.

Here he is, standing in the presence of the God and his mind is fixed on gold.

Jesus turns to him and says, /Man, who made me a judge over you?/

What Jesus says is, /You have stood here and missed it.

You somehow think that I have come only to settle your petty family dispute./

Jesus is not saying judging and dividing are wrong.

He knows such disputes have to be settled.

He is simply saying that isn't the reason He came.

He didn’t come just to be a Judge, or a Good Teacher, or a Good Example; Jesus Christ came to bring God to man and man to God.

He did not come to make bad men good or good men better.

Jesus Christ came to make men and women who are spiritually dead alive.

That’s what He’s been trying to tell this hardheaded man, but he hasn’t been listening.

He is so obsessed with these worldly priorities He hasn’t heard what Jesus is saying.

I wonder what kinds of obsessions that keep you from hearing Jesus?

You and I often come to Jesus with an agenda, something we’re looking for Him to do or be, and we miss what He wants to say to us.

Our prayers are structured around getting what we want from God, coming to the Lord not to ask what /you /can do for /Him /but what /He /can do for /you.

/That’s what this guy does and he misses the point.

What exactly makes him miss the point?

Jesus zeroes in on his problem in *v.15* /“Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”/

*           *I would like to see these words from the lips of Jesus plastered across the 21st century.

Covetousness is one of those overstuffed religious words that’s lost its cutting edge.

We don't take covetousness very seriously.

We somehow think God had nine good, solid commandments, but he wanted to round out the list and make it ten, so he threw covetousness in at the end.

We don't really think it's a first-class sin.

But Jesus tells us we have to understand what covetousness is if we want to understand what the aim of the game is.

First of all, let’s define what we’re talking about: /covetousness is simply craving more of what you have enough of already./

Jesus says /that's not life/.

Life does /not/ consist of the things you possess.

The aim of the game is /not /to get as much as you can anyway you can.

Yet if there is one message that comes to us in 10,000 seductive voices, it's the message of our country and our century that life /does/ consist of things.

You can see it on a hundred billboards as you drive down the highway.

It is the message from the sponsor on TV.

It is sung to you in jingles on radio.

It is blared at you in four-color ads in the newspapers.

We're like the donkey that has the carrot extended before it on a stick.

The donkey sees the carrot and wants it, so the donkey moves toward it, but the carrot moves, too.

America, because it is after that carrot made up of things, gives itself to the largest junk business the centuries have ever known.

Yesterday's new car becomes today's trade-in and lands on tomorrow's junk heap.

Yesterday's mansion becomes today's boarding house and tomorrow's slum.

When we acquire things believing they will satisfy, we discover we're still empty.

But on we go, worried about things.

Jesus says, /"Beware of covetousness.

Beware of craving more and more of what you have enough of already."/

And then to drive home that lesson, Jesus tells a story.

It’s a story about a man who made his money in agriculture.

He's a wealthy farmer.

We don't even know his name.

But in that community in the long ago, as well as in our community today, most folks would feel he understood the aim of the game.

We constantly measure people by what they have rather than by what they are.

Don't misunderstand.

Riches in and of themselves are not evil.

Some of God's great men and women were people of means.

Abraham, measured by the standards of his day, was a very wealthy man.

Job came through his suffering, and as a result God rewarded him with great wealth.

David and Solomon were wealthy kings.

We are indebted to a man of wealth, Joseph of Arimathea, for providing the tomb in which they put the body of our Lord.

But for every verse in the Bible that tells us the benefits of wealth, there are ten that tell us the danger of wealth, for money has a way of binding us to what is physical and temporary, and blinding us to what is spiritual and eternal.

It's a bit like the fly and the flypaper.

The fly lands on the flypaper and says, "My flypaper."

When the flypaper says, "My fly," the fly is dead.

It is one thing to have money, another for money to have you.