Some of my favorite cartoons growing up were the Road Runner cartoons. Take a look at this 30-second excerpt from one of them (show Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote—Free Bird Seed). Do you know? In not one of the 49 Road Runner Cartoons produced does Wile E. Coyote ever get the Road Runner.
It reminds me of a lot of people, who are in pursuit of the good life. They never get it. That’s because they pursue all the wrong stuff—stuff like possessions, power, or pleasure, thinking that stuff will give them the good life, but they always end up empty.
Do you really want to live the good life, then I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12. Luke 12, where Jesus tells the story about a man who pursed the good life and missed it, just like Wile E. Coyote.
Luke 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (ESV).
According to Jewish custom, the eldest son received twice the inheritance of any of his siblings, so perhaps this brother was a little envious of his older brother and wanted more. Whatever the case, he wanted Jesus to help settle the dispute between him and his brother over exactly what was a fair and equitable division of assets.
Now, in Jesus’ day, people often asked rabbis to help settle personal disputes, especially if they involved ethical issues. So this brother’s request was not out of line. However, Jesus response must have rattled him and the audience. It was not the usual response.
Luke 12:14-15 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (ESV).
Unlike most rabbis, Jesus refused to help settle the dispute between these two brothers. Why? Because He saw something in their hearts that no settlement would satisfy. He saw covetousness. So Jesus gets to the root of the issue and warns them to guard against all forms of greed. Why? Because life does not consist in the accumulation of stuff. My dear friends, if you want to live the good life, do what Jesus says here and…
PROTECT YOURSELF FROM ENVY.
Get safe from greed. Guard against covetousness and be content with what you have.
In the Greek, “covetousness” is literally the desire to have more (BAGD) but having more never satisfies ultimately. It always leaves you wanting more. Mark Twain once described it as “a limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities” (Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, 1996).
Author Bill Bryson noticed many changes when he returned to America after spending 20 years overseas. One observation he made involved the number of choices available to the American consumer:
Abundance of choice not only makes every transaction take ten times as long as it ought to, but in a strange way actually breeds dissatisfaction. The more there is, the more people crave, and the more they crave, the more they, well, crave more. You have a sense sometimes of being among millions and millions of people needing more and more of everything, constantly, infinitely, unquenchably (Bill Bryson, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, Broadway, 1999, p.246; www.PreachingToday.com)
Getting more always leads to wanting more, which keeps you from ever being satisfied, which keeps you from living the good life.
Marshall Shelley, director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Denver Seminary, wrote in Leadership Weekly:
My wife's father is a Kansas farmer. He's spent a lifetime raising wheat, corn, milo, beef, and along the way some sheep and chickens. One morning while I followed him around the farm, we talked about the differences between city living and a rural lifestyle.
“Most city folks I know expect each year to be better than the last,” he said. “They think it's normal to get an annual raise, to earn more this year than you did last year. As a farmer, I have good years and bad years. It all depends on rain at the right time, dry days for harvest, and no damaging storms. Some years we have more; some years we have less.”
Shelly said that “law of the harvest”—some years being fat and others being lean—applies to much more than agriculture. Growing in spiritual maturity requires gratefully accepting the “seasons of more” and the “seasons of less” that God weaves into specific areas of our lives—our friendships, marriage, career, finances, ministry, and spiritual growth (Marshall Shelley, Leadership Weekly, 11-30-10; www.PreachingToday.com).
Hebews 13:5 says, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”
Dear believer, be content with what you have, because you have Jesus, and He is all you need or could ever want.
John Bogle, in his book Enough, describes a party a billionaire hedge fund manager threw on Shelter Island. At the party, successful author Kurt Vonnegut informed Joseph Heller, another successful author, that their host had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds. “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough” (John C. Bogle, Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life, Wiley, 2009, Page 1; www.PreachingToday.com).
Tell me. Do you have “enough?” If you do, then you’re well on the way to living the good life. For Jesus said, “If you want to live the good life, protect yourself from envy.” Then…
PREPARE YOURSELF FOR ETERNITY.
Get ready for the next life. Look ahead a hundred years and live for that day.
Luke 12:16-20 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ (ESV)
That rich man was a fool for two reasons: 1st, He thought everything belonged to him. No less than 10 times, he uses the word “I,” “me,” or “my” in his thoughts to himself. And 2nd, He thought he would live a long time when Jesus said he would die that night.
In his record-breaking run on "Jeopardy," Ken Jennings won more than $2.5 million.
During that run, Jennings checked a book out of his local library with advice on how best to avoid the difficulties faced by people who experience financial windfalls.
“There are unbelievable statistics,” Jennings said, “that three-quarters of all people who have some big windfall are out of money within two to five years. So many people are not smart about it. So I think it would be very ironic if I got the money for being smart and then did, like, something incredibly dumb with it” (Randy Kennedy, “’Jeopardy!’ Whiz Ken Jennings Loses,” New York Times, 12-1-04; www.PreachingToday.com).
No matter what God has given you, don’t do something incredibly dumb with it. Don’t be a fool like the rich man, who thought that he owned it all and that he would live forever.
The late Bishop Edwin Hughes once delivered a rousing sermon on “God's Ownership” that put a rich parishioner's nose out-of-joint. The wealthy man took the Bishop out for lunch and then walked him through his elaborate gardens, woodlands, and farm. “Now are you going to tell me,” he demanded when the tour was completed, “that all this land does not belong to me?”
Bishop Hughes smiled and suggested, “Ask me that same question a hundred years from now” (Bennett Cerf, Leadership, Vol. 1, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com).
Colonel Sanders once said, “There's no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery” (Colonel Sanders, Marriage Partnership, Vol. 10, no. 1; www.PreachingToday.com).
So, don’t be a fool. Realize that God owns it all and life is short! Then live accordingly.
Tony Evans, Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, said, “God doesn’t bless you just so you can build bigger storage spaces. He blesses you so that you can also bless others” (Tony Evans, The Tony Evans Bible Commentary, 2019).
All your stuff belongs to God—your bank account, your cars, and your house, your clothes, your TV’s, and your furniture. All your stuff belongs to God. He just lets you use His stuff to meet your own needs, of course, but also to bless others in His name and for His glory.
So, manage God’s property well in a way that honors Him, because much sooner than you think, He will “require” your soul, and you will have to give an account to Him.
Donna Schaper, in her book All Is Calm, writes about the time she and her husband were young and in love on the rim of the Grand Canyon on New Year’s Eve.
As they watched the sun go down, they remembered the hotel was full and they needed a place to stay.
Her husband had a brainstorm. “I'll bet the ranger in the bottom of the canyon is lonely, especially tonight. Let's call him and see how he would feel about having some guests.”
The ranger's telephone number was in the book. He dialed, explained their situation, and offered to bring groceries down.
Gary, the ranger, said he and his wife, Gina, would love company.
A half hour after dusk Donna and her husband were on their way down. After an uneventful passage down the curving canyon, they arrived at the bottom. Gary and Gina invited them into their large cabin and served them a nice dinner. Then they showed Donna and her husband their “sports room.” It was full of abandoned sports equipment—high-class hiking boots, expensive back packs, fancy hats, and even fancier walking sticks. “People can walk in easily enough with all of this stuff," Gary said, “they just can't walk out” (Donna Schaper, All Is Calm, St. Mary's Press, 1999; www.PreachingToday.com).
So it is with life. You can accumulate a lot of stuff on your journey, but you cannot walk out with any of it. So, don’t live for this life. Live for the next.
I find it interesting that Donald Trump recently expressed his hope that his efforts at bringing peace between Russia and Ukraine would help get him into heaven. The problem is no one gets into heaven by their own efforts, no matter how noble they are. The only way any of us gets into heaven is to recognize our own greedy sinfulness. Then depend on Christ, who died for our sins and rose again, to save us from our sins.
Please, if you haven’t done it already, call on the name of the Lord and ask Him to save you from the consequences of your own selfishness and greed. Then, in His strength, use what He has given you from now on to make a difference in your world.
Haddon Robinson, author and Gordon-Conwell Seminary professor, describes a man who opens a newspaper and discovers the date on the newspaper is six months in advance of the time he lives. He begins to read through the newspaper, and he discovers stories about events that have not yet taken place. He turns to the sports page, and there are scores of games not yet played. He turns to the financial page and discovers a report of the rise or fall of different stocks and bonds.
He realizes this can make him a wealthy man. A few large bets on an underdog team he knows will win will make him wealthy. Investments in stocks that are now low but will get high can fatten his portfolio. He is delighted.
He turns the page and comes to the obituary column and sees his picture and story. Everything changes. The knowledge of his death changes his view about his wealth (Haddon Robinson, Preaching Today, #200; www.PreachingToday.com).
Dear friends, be smart! If you want to live the good life, protect yourself from envy and prepare yourself for eternity. Then…
PROSPER YOURSELF SPIRITUALLY.
Get rich towards God. Succeed in your relationship with the Lord rather than in your riches in life.
Jesus says of those who selfishly hoard their wealth like the rich fool…
Luke 12:21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (ESV).
Oh, they may be materially rich, but they are spiritually poor. They have no real relationship with God.
Later in Luke, Jesus will make it very clear: “You cannot serve God and money” (Luke 16:13). So, you have to choose. Will you choose to pursue a real relationship with the Living God, or will you choose to pursue enriching your own bank accounts?
Please, choose to pursue your relationship with God, because “Money will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brains; food but not appetite; finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health; luxuries but not culture; amusements but not happiness; religion but not salvation—a passport to everywhere but heaven (“Voice in the Wilderness,” Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com).
A relationship with God is far superior than anything money can buy. So choose God over money.
Comedian Richard Pryor was critically burned in an accident in 1980. Later, he appeared on the Johnny Carson Show, where he insisted that when you are seriously ill, money isn't important: “All that I could think of was to call on God. I didn't call the Bank of America once” (Peter Graystone, Ready Salted, Scripture Union, 1998, p. 114; www.PreachingToday.com).
Your money cannot save you. Only God can. So come to the Father by trusting in Jesus His Son. Then work every day to improve your relationship with Him.
A child who raised a frightful cry, because he had shoved his hand into the opening of a very expensive Chinese vase and couldn't pull it out again. Parents and neighbors tried to free the child’s arm. They tugged and tugged. The child howled and howled, but eventually there was nothing left to do but break the beautiful, expensive vase. Then, as the mournful heap of shards lay on the floor, it became clear why the child had been so hopelessly stuck. His little fist grasped a paltry penny which he had spied in the bottom of the vase and which he, in his childish ignorance, would not let go (Helmut Thielicke, “How to Believe Again,” Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com).
Are you grasping useless pennies when God offers you a priceless, eternal relationship with Himself? Please, don’t be an ignorant fool. Instead, choose God over money. Choose to pursue knowing Him and doing His will over getting rich.
Fredrich Hegel, a German philosopher put it well when he said: “Life has value only when it has something valuable as its object.” Please, make God the object of your life and truly enrich yourself.
If you want to live the good life, protect yourself against envy—get safe from greed, prepare yourself for eternity—get ready for the next life, and prosper yourself spiritually—get rich towards God.
In April 1997, residents of Grand Forks, North Dakota abandoned their possessions to the rising river. Record snowfalls had melted into record spring floods. Weeks later, the flood receded, and Grand Forks was waterlogged—the air filled with a peculiar, river smell. Then, the city began the daunting task of cleaning up the mess.
Now, the flood may have ruined their homes, but it didn't ruin their sense of humor. Homeowners propped up signs in their front yards with comical handwritten messages on them: “BASEMENT APARTMENT, $10 A MONTH, INDOOR POOL”… and “REVENGE OF THE NIGHTCRAWLERS.”
One sign had a very thought-provoking message: “WE ARE NOT WHAT WE OWN.” The editor of the local Herald agreed, “If we were what we owned, we'd be far less than we were before the flood” (Greg Allison, from the files of Leadership; www. PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, please, take that message to heart: Our personal wealth does not indicate our personal worth. Or, as Jesus put it, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (verse 15). No! One’s life consists in the richness of his relationship with God. Pursue that and really live!
