A man has his priorities wrong and Jesus had to tell him this parable to address it.
You can be doing nothing wrong and yet not be right.
• The farmer wasn’t doing anything sinful but he was not doing it right.
• He is hardworking, and probably smart, seeing the way he organises his farm.
• He is rich, and that shows that is capable and doing well with his business.
• The crops are well organised and stored in barns.
• He has the foresight to plan for bigger barns, anticipating better harvest to come.
We have here a model businessman – smart, hardworking, capable and successful.
• Yet the Lord’s verdict of him surprised us. God called him a fool.
• In fact, if the story ends in verse 19: “Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” we would probably think this is a good example.
• Everything is nice. This is life. This is a very Singaporean life – we work hard, manage our life well, save enough for old age, and everything will be fine.
• We would be considered successful, and can retire in comfort.
But the story did not stop there. Jesus went on with a verdict on the man’s life.
• It kind-of spoilt this fairy-tale story. God spoke in verse 20 and called this rich farmer: “You fool!” and revealed that he will die that very night.
• It comes as a surprise. It is not expected.
• He did not expect that, neither did we.
That is the problem. We did not expect a lot of things.
• We go through life day in and day out, thinking that we have ‘forever’ to live.
• We have many things to do, and we are happily doing them. We did not pause to question them, nor did not consider the significance of what we do.
• Honestly, we do not expect Jesus to come tomorrow. That would really mess up my plans. We are not prepared to leave this world, not at least for the next 10 or 20 years. We do not expect to lose our job, our health, my freedom…
• But that’s not real, and we know that. Time is not in our hands.
We need to PAUSE and let things settle down.
• Only then can you see clearly what are temporary and transient, and what are not.
• Only then can you re-orientate your stuff and do that which is eternally significant.
• If that someone in verse 13 had thought about it, he would not have quarrelled with his brother over the inheritance, putting his possession above his relationship with his brother. What is most important?
Let do a short exercise. Think of all the things you’re doing today.
• What are some things that have lasting, eternal significance? You’ll be surprised!
This farmer has no time for that. He is too busy preparing for his crops.
• He thought he had so much to lose and nothing to gain, but the truth is he did not achieve anything of lasting significance.
o He has only earthly possession but no heavenly treasure.
o He has only temporary goods but no eternal reward.
o He has only concerns for himself but no regard for God.
• He is not rich toward God, in Jesus’ words (in verse 21).
What he has been doing, all his life, has been earthly, temporary and self-centred.
• There is nothing seriously wrong with earthly concerns, but if that is all that you are busy about, something is wrong. God says you are a fool.
• Take the advice from King Solomon.
Eccl 2:18-23 “18I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labour under the sun. 21For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labours under the sun? 23All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.”
I came across this interesting but sad story.
A man was dying at home in bed, about to breathe his last. His family was making preparation for the funeral.
This dying man could smell the aroma of his favourite chocolate chip cookies baking downstairs. He wanted one more cookie before he died. He dragged his body out of bed, rolled down the stairs, crawled into the kitchen, and reached out a trembling arm to grab one final cookie.
Someone smack his hand and said, “Put that back. They are for the funeral.”
This rich man had many cookies, and he thought they were all for him.
• Verse 19 he said, “I will say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.’ Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’”
• One more harvest. One more barn. One more cookie. That night, he passed on.
• Once at the funeral of a very rich and famous man, many curious people asked, “I wonder how much he left behind.” Someone said, “I know… He left it all.” Everybody always leaves it all.
After telling the parable, Jesus summed up the lesson in a single line, to make sure no one missed the point (v.21): “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
• The objective of our life is to BE RICH TOWARD GOD.
• Have you been rich toward God? Has your security been in God, or in barns? Where have you invested your money, your time?
• Don’t live as if you will always have tomorrow. The rich fool parable is not just a parable, it can be real. It can happen to you and me.
• My uncle’s demise reminded me. I must always be prepared… not to be morbid, but be prepared.
SQUARE FILLERS (in John Ortberg’s book, When the Game is Over, It all Goes Back in the Box)
A calendar is filled with squares, and each square is another day. We live one square at a time. A wise Dutchman named Lewis Smedes wrote about this several decades ago:
I bought a brand-new date book yesterday, the kind I use every year – spiral-bound, black imitation leader covers wrapped around pages and pages of blank boxes.
Every square has a number to tell me which day of the month I’m in at the moment. Every square is a frame for one episode of my life. Before I’m through with the book, I will fill the squares with classes I teach, people with whom I ate lunch, everlasting committee meetings I sit through, and these are only the things I cannot afford to forget.
I fill the squares too with things l do not write down to remember: thousands of cups of coffee, some lovemaking, some praying, and, I hope, gestures of help to my neighbours.
Whatever I do, it has to fit inside one of those squares on my date book. I live one square at a time. The four lines that make up the box are the walls of time that organize my life.
Each box has an invisible door that leads to the next square. As if by a silent stroke, the door opens and I am pulled through, as if by a magnet, sucked into the next square in line. There I will again fill the time frame that seals me – fill it with my busyness just as I did the square before.
As I get older, the squares seem to get smaller. One day I will walk into a square that has no door. There will be no mysterious opening and no walking into an adjoining square. One of those squares will be terminal. I do not know which square it will be.
We are all square fillers.
Don’t waste those squares.
At a seminar meeting, the speaker stood in front of a large group of people with a roll of stickers in his hand. Behind him on the platform were tables filled with props that represented the stuff of our lives – a car, a house, a tiny desk that stood for our jobs.
The speaker roamed the stage and placed a red sticker on each item. He explained to the crowd that they may not be able to see it from where they were sitting, but each sticker contained the same word: TEMPORARY.
He said, “Everything that I’m putting a sticker on is temporary. It will not last. It will fade away. We invest our emotions in them because when we acquire it, it gives us a little thrill. And we think the thrill will last. But it does not. It fades. And eventually, so will what we acquire.
“If you are living for what you see up here, then you are living for what is temporary. Temporary satisfaction, temporary joy, temporary meaning. It will come to an end – but you never will. It will leave you with a terrible emptiness.”
Finally the speaker plastered red stickers on everything sitting on the stage.
Temporary. This word would have saved the rich farmer.
• Wise people build their lives around that which is eternal and squeeze in what is temporary.
• Not the other way around - to be thinking about temporary things, and then squeeze in God, on and off.
And then the speaker went on, “There is only ONE thing in this room that is not temporary. There is only one item that you will be allowed to take with you from this life into the next.” He took out a roll of blue stickers. He had a little girl join him on stage, and he put a blue sticker on the collar of her dress.
“When you get to the end of your life and take in your last breath, what do you want your life to have been about? What will make it rich in the eyes of God?”
People.
You are forever. People are forever. We are to love people and care for their soul.
• Think for a moment these two words: ‘forever’ and ‘temporary’.
• What are some things you need to paste the red sticker ‘temporary’?
• You may need to stick one on your computer, TV set, the clothes in your closet…
Then take the blue stickers with the word ‘forever’ and walk around.
• Put them on your children, your parents, brothers and sisters in this church…
• Don’t forget to put one on your forehead as well.
For the things in our lives are only temporary.
• The day is coming when the titles on our resumes will no longer impress anyone.
• No one will remember the trophies you’ve won, or the clothes you wore.
Steven Covey once asked in a seminar:
Do you know what the common topic of conversation at deathbeds is?
• No one talks about the movies. No one talks about the TV shows.
• The topic that revolves around the deathbed is FAMILY.
• How are my grandchildren? What is my sister doing? Where is my son? Why isn’t my wife here?
All that will be left is love. That which is done out of love for God will last.
• That man should have loved his brother, and not his inheritance.
• Is there some people in your life you need to show more love and care today?
Matt 22:37-40 Jesus replied: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: `Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
• Love God and love people. Love God, and you will love people.
• Love God BY loving people. Love people and your love for God deepen.
