27. Who is Jesus?
March 06th, 2010
The Rich Fool
Jesus has been putting the religious leaders in their place. As a result crowds have gathered by the thousands. These people have been trampling over each other trying to get to Jesus. While Jesus is teaching about hell someone in the crowd asks Him a question. His question has to deal with money. What does that have to do with hell? Hell will be place where people will constantly talk about money. Now we don’t talk about money often, we go through pain staking efforts to make sure that we don’t come across like one of those places that always has their hands out asking for money because life is not about money it is about Jesus. Our rule is: if the Bible talks about we are going to talk about. Jesus spends a great deal of time talking about money. About 25% of Jesus teaching is in relation to wealth and possessions.
As we seek to understand who Jesus is so that we can learn to be like Him a part of that is going to include seeing money from Jesus perspective. The way the world deals with money is to blame others. I don’t have it and it is your fault. I don’t have as much as I would like and it’s your fault. Rich people blame social security and welfare for their problems, poor people blame the rich cheating them out of money, but no one takes responsibility. We live in a culture with zero accountability. Our culture often affects how we view money in our relationship with God.
Some people take the view of prosperity and say God wants you to be rich. They take certain Scriptures out of context to make the point: if you really are a Christian then God will make you happy, wealthy, successful, and blessed. You just have to call on the promises of God and He will give you whatever you ask for. So all the poor starving children in Africa are really just Godless heathens living in sin because if they really believed in God they would be driving around in Mercedes not searching for a meal in trash cans. This Donald Trump view of Scripture is wrong.
A second group promotes a poverty stance. Being a good Christians means you cant have money, you cant be wealthy, and you cant really enjoy life. Their idea is that the entirety of the Christian life should be summed up by sacrifice and suffering. This is Ghandi’s Bible. It is also wrong.
When Jesus talks about money He addresses the heart and motivation. The Christian life is not synonymous with poverty. It is also not about wealth. Being like Jesus has nothing to do with how much money you have. Being rich doesn’t make you a sinner. Being poor does not make you saint. Sinners are people who put money before God. Saints are people who put God before money. Look at Barnabas in the book of Acts. The guy had a lot of land. He was a rich dude and he was a Christian. When someone had a need Barnabas would sell his possessions and give the money to the apostles so they could meet the need. He had wealth and Jesus. A Biblical view of money is not about how much you have, but what you do with it.
Lk 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Lk 12:14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Lk 12:15 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.”
So this guy has money issues and he is like the world is blaming someone else for them. It’s not my fault Jesus my brother is cheating me out of my inheritance, please make him stop. His cultural view of money is now affecting his connection to Jesus. Instead of hearing Jesus and learning to be like Him this guy wants Jesus to resolve his family dispute. It was common for rabbis to be asked to judge civil matters because the Jews didn’t separate church and state like we do. Having religious authority would be the same as having legal authority on civil matters. Which is kind of cool, all they let us do is perform weddings. So this guy is trying to start the 11:00 episode of Judge Jesus.
Jesus does not actually have legal authority on this matter. He is not officially a part of the religious-political system. He does however have divine authority and the power of popularity on His side. So Jesus could very easily weigh in on this situation and force His decision on this family.
Certainly Jesus is concerned with social issues and justice, God is a God of justice, but there is something more important to Him: the kingdom. Jesus will not allow an issue like this to hinder the work and progress of the kingdom of God. If Jesus gets involved in this issue then His ministry would become flooded with similar questions. For Jesus to get involved in this family dispute would make Him the messiah that people were expecting and not the messiah God sent Him to be.
If Jesus judges this situation His ministry would be hi-jacked by judging petty disagreements rather than teaching about the kingdom of God. When you have a certain degree of respectability people will look to you to help them with their problems. The issues they bring seem very significant to them and are certainly very frustrating. But if you get involved dictating the tiny details of their lives then you will not be able to help them in the areas that really matter. Jesus will not allow this little issue to get in the way of what really matters.
Jesus deals with the motivation. The Jews had very clearly defined laws about inheritance. If this guy had been cheated then he could take his case to court and would likely win. The fact that this guy brings the issue to Jesus means he has probably already tried the proper channels and been turned away. So he looks to Jesus as a work around. He is probably trying to cheat his brother by playing the victim so Jesus will force his brother to give him what he wants but is not rightfully his. In Jewish society the first born male was given a double portion of the inheritance. This was a God given right. Likely he is the younger brother and doesn’t like getting less.
This guy would have just been given a bunch of money he didn’t earn as his inheritance. But that is not enough for him because he is greedy. He wants more. He is asking Jesus to help him get more money. He could ask Jesus anything. He has this opportunity to talk to the Son of God and what does he want to talk about? Money. Money is on his mind, it’s his highest priority, it’s his first thought. He is not listening to what Jesus is saying because he is focused on something less important.
Greed creates a desire for excess where enough is never enough. This guy is trying to increase the quality of his life by increasing his possessions. Jesus responds: life is not found in what you own but in a relationship with the almighty God. Jesus is not concerned with how big this guy can get his storehouses. He is concerned about this guy putting money before God, which we sometimes do.
We labor and slave to get the next cool piece of technology, to be state of the art, and to fill our lives with ‘stuffyness.’ We stop being content with what we have and we constantly want more. We believe that our wants are needs and they dominate our thoughts. Greed comes from not being satisfied with what you have. The lie of the American dream is: if I can get this…then I will happy. Marketing promises that this new thing is the what your life has been missing, you cant be complete without it, and when you get you’ll never need anything else. Marketing is the art of making us slaves to greed. So many people live their lives from one credit card payment to another because we are greedy. We need to have it before we can afford it, we are not satisfied without it, so we spend money we have on stuff that we don’t need. If you didn’t know you needed something before you saw it advertised then you don’t need it.
When my wife and I were coming back from our vacation this year the guy next to me on the plane had an ipad. I watched him play with it. He popped up a movie while we were flying and all of a sudden I wanted it, I needed, I kept thinking about it. I started contemplating how I could justify purchasing it. That is greed.
When we become discontent we totally miss the point of what life is about. Our focus is on the comforts of the world and not on the kingdom of God or meeting the needs of others. Here is the danger: money desires to sit on the throne of your heart. It demands nothing less than your full devotion. Either money will be your treasure or your tool. How you use it, view it, treat it, and think about it determines which it will be. Money can help you live life or it can choke the life out of you. Money wants to be your God. Either you will serve it or you will use it to serve God.
Lk 12:16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. Lk 12:17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Lk 12:18 “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. Lk 12:19 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.” ’ Lk 12:20 “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?’ Lk 12:21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
To show the man the problem of greed Jesus tells a story about a man who makes good financial decisions. He plans carefully, is effective, saves well, and as such is able to live a lavish life of luxury. This guy is able to retire early to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of his labor. The world says this guy is living the dream. Yet God calls him a fool. Why? The guy is wise. He makes good business decisions. He invested his earnings well and made lots of money. What makes this guy a fool is not his investment portfolio but his investment priorities.
He invested in personal luxury instead of eternity. He may have worked hard and earned every penny but when he dies it will go to someone else. All that hard work is just going to be given to people who didn’t earn and may not deserve it.
Greed is a sin. It is even made God’s top ten list of laws. When we long for more stuff, for things we don’t need: bigger houses, fancier cars, technology, and shoes and pursues for you girls, that is a sin. Living with a desire for more than what you have when you have everything you need is greed and it is a sin.
What we do in this life, the stuff we work so hard to gather will one day be packed into cardboard boxes and sold at a garage sale. The treasures we just couldn’t be happy without, will be sold for spare change. Our investment in this life is an investment in a season. We live in Missouri, stupid weather here is bi-polar, we should know better than anyone how fast seasons change. You will be forgotten. All the stuff you gained will be lost. It is all worthless but that doesn’t mean it is hopeless.
Greed creates a love in our hearts for things that are not God. Greed creates desires in our hearts that are not Godly. Greed leads to replace God as the king of your life. More becomes your God. Excess becomes your worship and you live dedicated to the pursuit of things rather than the pursuit of the kingdom of God. It is one thing for non-believers to give to this lie but for Christians it is wrong. Greed is essentially saying: Jesus isn’t enough for me. Even when God gives us more than we need greed says enough, is never enough.
We are God’s redemptive agents in the world. He gives us opportunities to share His love with people. So instead of giving everyone a dollar, God gives one person $2 and the other none. This way we, through relationships, can share the love of Jesus with people. That is the opportunity we have. Some people do not have enough. Some people have too much. So here is the solution: those who have in excess should share. If you have something you don’t need, just pray that God will put you in contact with someone in need, so you can rid yourself of the excess while meeting another’s need. It’s a perfect system. You get to be blessed by sharing love in a practical way, and that person gets to be blessed by receiving God’s provision through you. What a wonderful opportunity! Thank God that He isn’t a communist. He has given more to some so they can help others. What we have is a tool to express the love of Jesus. The righteous use what they have to glorify God the unrighteous use what they have to serve themselves. Having wealth is a good thing, if you worship God with it. Will you be foolish or faithful with your finances?
