Whose Is It Anyway

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WHOSE IS IT ANYWAY?

February 10, 2008 Jay Davis Robison LUKE 12:13-31

Have I got a stock tip for you

For 6 yrs running, voted Most Innovative among Fortune mag’s

Most Admired Companies revenues of over $100 billion

7th largest company on fortune 500 but announced $618 M loss

It collapsed shares went from $80 to less an $1

Enron publicity machine hid poor business practices\accounting

conned unknowing employees, & investors of their money.

Lives were shattered because $$ powerful thing

Most of the world’s major religions and philosophies talk of $$

Native American "Miserable as we seem in thy eyes, we consider

ourselves much happier than thou, in this, that we are very content

with the little that we have." (Micmac chief)

Buddhist Whoever overcomes his selfish cravings, his sorrows fall

away like drops of water from a lotus flower. (Dhammapada, 336)

Ancient Greek "Nothing in Excess." (Inscribed at Oracle of Delphi)

Hindu "That person who lives completely free from desires, without

longing… attains peace." (Bhagavad-Gita, II.71)

Islamic "Poverty is my pride." (Muhammad)

Jewish "Give me neither poverty nor riches." (Proverbs 30:8)

Taoist "He who knows he has enough is rich." (Tao Te Ching)

Jesus spent much of his time teaching about possessions

Luke 12 Jesus teaching several thousand people when one asks

1. Jesus will you REFEREE FOR ME?

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Vs 13 TNIV

Now as pastor deal with families after death

Often there is a battle over $$ and possessions

Issue here not moral but the real issue here was GREED

Jesus recognized here question was not fairness but greed

Responds Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed;

life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. Vs 15 TNIV

Most of us have our needs covered

Principle: Possessions DO NOT = LIFE life no defined by what have

Found in life when have something new feel on top of world at 1st

New shirt crisp smells new feel confident look now stain at lunch

New car drive smiling soon cost $$ or someone w\newer faster car

New house, well something went wrong and I had to fix it

Any new material possession wears out and if try to fill

Crying of our heart for significance when in US know

get something else but even that cannot fill us Jesus points to

2. The sin of AFFLUENZA

Affluenza is a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition

PBS special called it a dysfunctional relationship with $$ & wealth

Show said includes inability to delay gratification & face frustration

false sense of entitlement, loss future motivation self-absorbed,

workaholic rampant materialism & consumerism

People in all economic levels buy into belief $$ solves all problems.

Far from guaranteeing happiness, can destroy happiness,

or at least exacerbate existing problems.

Symptoms: DEBT, because happiness found in stuff

DOGGED PURSUIT OF MORE, next whatever

ACHE FOR MEANING, is heart of issue

FAMILIES SHATTERED, when all falls apart

By age 20, average American has seen one million commercials.

How much do you think million messages are balanced by messages

from the Bible like we’re hearing this morning?

Avg hour-long TV show has 20 min of commercials so watch 2 hrs,

indulge in affluenza must look at self not others.

Possessions do not mean affluenza attitude is difference.

To prove a point Jesus tells a story about a farmer

Now before we rant and rave on this guy

We’d want this farmer IN OUR CHURCH

He worked hard for all he had, not a big spender, not a thief

He’d been successful at financial planning

He did not obtain his money by unethical means.

He doesn’t seem to be a guy who’d take advantage of his friends

He wasn’t a loan shark or a shady lawyer or a dishonest merchant.

If he ever tried to hurt anyone, Jesus doesn’t mention it.

After all farming tough then as it is now to much rain or not enough

Guy wasn’t lazy & this one year he had a bumper crop of lifetime

Problems in the parable

Jesus is not condemning man for working hard & being successful.

Problem is not his outward success. Problem was in his heart.

And that’s what makes this story so tricky—& so universally true. This isn’t a parable about the dangers of being rich and successful. This is a parable the dangers of having the wrong kind of heart.

We may not all be rich, but all can have wrong heart 4 problems

HE DIDN’T GIVE GOD CREDIT FOR WHAT GOD HAD DONE

Jesus spoke of a man who rich, who’d honestly earned what he had. No problem but man saying to himself look what I have done