The Foolishness Of Greed Series

The Foolishness of Greed

Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)

Brad Bailey - September 22, 2019

Series #39

Text: Luke 12:13-21

Intro

We are continuing our ongoing series and focus on “Encountering Jesus” …through the Gospel of Luke.

And this Fall we encounter Jesus engaging us with some of the most defining questions about life… about our orientation and direction.

When disoriented ….we lack clarity in terms of direction… and we will be destined towards a tragic destination.

Ex – My basketball game as child… went and scored… wrong basket

Today…Jesus wants to help us not find that we have gone the wrong direction.

He wants us to understand our relationship to material wealth and possessions.

Luke 12:13-15 (NIV) ? 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."

Jesus is in the middle of a sermon teaching his disciples to fear God alone, when he is suddenly interrupted by a man who is dissatisfied over what he considers to be an unfair division of his father’s estate between himself and his brother.

Not uncommon for rabbis to be asked to settle family disputes…but Jesus saw the real issue. This was not the plea of a man desperate for keeping his family bound together in care for one another.

This man really didn’t ask Jesus for a decision on what would be a fair division of the estate, he just demanded, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me!”

Here is Jesus… the savior of the world… promised by God… and this man interrupts him to see if he would provide a legal settlement in his favor.

(Tragically the dividing of estates has been the source of that which has torn family bonds apart. Suddenly there is immediate material gain at hand… and all hope and vanity rises up to take hold of it.)

Jesus won’t provide a legal assessment…but rather a spiritual one.

Jesus sees what is at hand… and he names it: greed.

Jesus knew that this family feud over inheritance was only a symptom of a greater problem…. greed.

In fact the “you” in verse fourteen is plural indicating that he presumes that both brothers have a problem with greed. As long as both brothers are suffering from greed… no settlement would be good.

The man wanted Jesus to fix his problem… but Jesus’s response reflects that the most important thing is not for him to solve his problem but to transform his heart.

I think if we are honest… we might consider “How often have we gone to God asking him to change our situation rather than asking him to change our heart?”

Jesus doesn’t see merely the division of material good…but the far larger tragedy of souls whose who orientation about this life is lost.

Warns them…and us… of GREED.

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." – Luke 12:15

The word Jesus used that is translated here as “greed”… is sometimes translated as covetousness. [1]

It refers to… a driving desire to get more… to take more… more than we need.

Greed is “the lust to have more than one’s fair share, … more than we need … which is never fully satisfied.”

Jesus saw a life of material management swirling around them… and needs to speak to it… how much more today.

And he confronts greed’s central belief…

“One’s life does not consist in the abundance of His possessions.”

Stop… and listen. Jesus wants us to hear those words.

They are words that nearly everyone would say they agree with this…and yet few if any of us actually believe…as least as deeply as we need to.

Jesus says there is “one’s life”… that is you…and there is possessions… and those possessions add nothing to the essence of who you really are.

And so the lust… driving force…for stuff… reflects what we could call a disorienting control.

Malcolm Forbes was one of the wealthiest people to have lived in our time. The billionaire publisher was the one who came up with the oft-quoted phrase, "He who dies with the most toys wins."

Mr. Forbes has since passed away and like so many others… the very thing that drove them seems to have defied them in the end. [2]

Jesus continues in verse sixteen with a story… or parable…often referred to as “The parable of the Rich Fool” in which the Lord captures the foolishness.

It is a picture of life that is rooted in the belief that our life does consist in the abundance of our possessions.