Take your Bible and turn to Luke, chapter 12, verse 13. We’re going to read through to verse 21. I’ve entitled the message this morning A Fool and His Money, A Fool and His Money, and that title will become apparent as we read God’s word. Luke 12, verse 13, I’m reading from the new King James translation of inerrant and holy scripture. Speaking of Jesus, then one from the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me,” but he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or an arbiter over you?” He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”
Then he spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully, and he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ He said, ‘I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods and I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods led up for many years, take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” God said to him, ‘Fool, this night your soul will be required of you, then whose will these things be, which you have provided?'” So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God, so reads God’s word.
The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard tells an interesting story of two robbers who entered a jewelry store and did something rather strange. They switched the price tags. They took the $10,000 price tag off an exquisite piece of jewelry and they put it onto a $10 custom piece, and then they fled. Then, the shop opened the next morning and for a time no one was the wiser. Elated customers bought $10,000 rings for a few dollars, while others bought a $9 necklace for thousands of dollars. See, they didn’t steal anything, per se, but they did steal the value. In fact, Kierkegaard goes on to say this. “My point is obvious, isn’t it? The people of my day have no ability to tell the truly valuable from the virtually worthless, not just in commerce but in the world of ideas, to our age, is putting on a veritable clearance seal. Everything can be had dirt cheap. One begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.”
Now, I want to take that idea and want to kind of run with it as we come to view the parable of the rich fool, the idea of the switching of price tags. Because, if you and I are not careful, cultural influencers, slick marketeers, a spirit of covetousness, and even demonic deception can switch the price tags on life, where the spiritual gets devalued and the material gets overvalued. Jesus says to that man, “Be on guard.” He says to his disciples, “Be on guard,” and we need to be on guard because we can be hoodwinked and the living for the seen, not the unseen. The temporal, not the eternal, the things of the world, and not the love of the Father, and that would be a massive mistake. When the price tags are switched on life, we overvalue the material, and we start believing that money is the proper currency for buying fulfillment in life. The more we have, the more we are. That’s the lie. You’ve heard people say, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” Not true, and this parable will prove it.
The more you have doesn’t mean the more you are. Net worth is not the measure of gross happiness. Imagine a Mexican businessman comes up from the south of our border, visits Orange County here, goes into the South Coast Plaza, and he eyes up this beautiful piece of jewelry for his wife, and deciding that’s the one for her, he plops down 10,000 pesos. Then he’s immediately told, “I’m sorry, but pesos are no good here.” In Mexico, pesos are worth something, but in the United States, they’re not the right currency for doing business. I want to take that and apply it in another direction. Money is not the right currency for buying happiness. Money is not the right currency for buying fulfillment in life. Money can buy you food but not appetite, medicine but not health, acquaintances but not friends, servants but not loyalty, joy but not true happiness. Winning the rat-race doesn’t mean you’re a success. It might just mean you’re a rat.
Let’s come and look at the story told by Jesus in Luke, chapter 12, verses 13 to 21. Here we’re introduced to a rich fool who has business acumen. It’s off the charts, but whose moral acumen is in the toilet. He values the wrong things, he loses sight of eternal life. The tragedy of this man is that he bankrupted himself eternally in the pursuit of the material. We could take the words of Jesus in Matthew 16 and 26 and impose them over this story. “What does it profit a man if he gains the world and the things of the world, but loses his soul, separated from God forever because he made the wrong choice?” He allowed the price tags that God has put on life to be swapped. Now, let’s put the text in its context very, very quickly.
It’s bracketed and book-ended on the one side by the thought of fear, and on the other side by the thought of finances. Just before we get to the story, Jesus has told his disciples, “You know what? Persecution is going to come your way, but don’t fear him who can kill the body, because the man that can kill the body, that’s all that he can do, but fear him who can kill the body and soul in hell forever.” Then, on the other side of this story, he’ll deal with worry and anxiety and a preoccupation with stuff. He’s warning his disciples with this story, “Don’t neglect the eternal perspective.” There’s a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. There’s eternal reward to be had. The price of taking up a cross. On the other hand, don’t become preoccupied with the material, because life doesn’t consist in the things you eat, in the clothes you wear, in the car you drive, in the roof over your head, or your zip code.
As we look at this parable or this context of the parable, want to see four things, the encounter, the evaluation, the example, the exhortation. Number one, the encounter. Look at verse 13. “Then one from the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ He said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you?'” In the midst of Jesus teaching on hell and the fear of God, this man rudely interrupts Jesus, almost is a heckler and he tries to change the subject. He doesn’t want to hear about courage, he doesn’t want to hear about judgment day. He doesn’t want to think about the fear of God or one’s accountability, the one’s maker. No, he wants Jesus to adjudicate a family dispute. There’s an old statement. Where there’s a will, there’s a lot of relatives, and that’s what’s going on in our story.
It seems like this is the younger brother within the family. If you go to Deuteronomy 21, verse 17, the older brother in the family gets two-thirds of the inheritance, the younger gets a third. One guess is that the older brother is making this argument. “Rather than parcel out the inheritance, let’s keep it all. Let’s build it. Let’s do whatever, try and hold it in the family. Let’s continue to turn a profit as much as we can.” There’s a bit of a prodigal spirit in this younger brother. “No, I want my third. I’m gone.” There’s a fight going on, and in that day sometimes the rabbis, the teachers, the Jewish leaders would get involved and adjudicate these kind of civil matters, and that’s what this man calls Jesus, “Teacher, rabbi,” but you’ll notice Jesus was having none of it. Jesus was no ordinary rabbi, no ordinary teacher. He was on mission. He had come to deal with the effects of Adam’s disobedience, God’s judgment on man and on the earth. That’s his mission, right?
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe in him should not perish,” because death comes because of sin, physical death and eternal death, and the wages of sin is death, but Jesus has come to pay for our sin in his death, in his atonement on the cross. That’s what the mission is. He’s come that we may have life, true life within life, which is a relationship with the God who gives life, and he’s come according to one John 3:8, to destroy the works of the devil. That’s what Jesus has come to do. He’s got a big hairy audacious goal. He’s not going to get involved in a piddly dispute between two brothers. He’s got better things to do, bigger fish to fry.
Leon Morris in his commentary says, “Jesus came to bring man to God, not property to man.” This man’s issue was not Jesus’ mission. His emergency was not Jesus’ emergency, and what I like about this, it’s not the heart of this passage, but it’s worth just detailing, that in life and in ministry, Jesus’ worked at keeping the main thing the plain thing. It’s so easy to get distracted, so easy to get on a side road in life, so easy to focus on the secondary. Jesus would remind us, here, “Hey, man.” Actually, when he calls him man, it’s almost dismissive. “Hey you, bro, that has nothing to do with me. Get out of here.” He’s keeping his eye on the ball. In fact, when you go back to Luke nine, verse 51, you see this being worked out, where we read about, Jesus set his face as a flint to go to Jerusalem.
He’s got the cross on his mind. He’s got the work of the father and redemption on his mind. In fact, he warns people about distractions and secondary things when it comes to the kingdom. Someone said to him in verse 57 of Luke nine, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go,” and Jesus said, “Foxes have holes. Birds of the air have nests. The son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Then he said to another, “Follow me,” but he said, “Lord, let me first go to bury my father.” Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead, but you go and preach the kingdom.” Another said, “Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house,” and Jesus said, “No one having put his hand to the ply and looking back is fit for the kingdom.”
See, they’re saying, “First,” and Jesus is saying, “No, those first things are secondary things, and that’s the mistake you’re making.” We’re back at this kind of thought, right? Second Timothy, two, verse four, speaking to the pastor, says, “The pastor is like a good soldier. He doesn’t get entangled in the affairs of this world.” Is that saying a pastor shouldn’t own a home? Is that saying a pastor shouldn’t take care of the material well-being of his wife or his family? No. Is it saying a pastor can’t own a car go on a vacation? No, what it is saying, but like a soldier, and we’ve heard from a couple of men this morning, from Marines and Army men, that, you know what? When you’re a soldier, domestic things are held loosely. They have to be, because you’re off to war. You’re off to war, and when you’ve got war on your mind and possible death in front of you, you know what? Cutting grass on the lawn, stacking boxes in the garage, just doesn’t seem as important.
My friend Steve Lawson in his book Legacy Tells of Walt Disney, we’re just a few minutes here from Disneyland in California, Walt Disney was ruthless in cutting out anything that was good if it competed with the best. In fact, Ward Kimball, who worked on the famous Snow White cartoon, recalls that he and his team worked on 240 days, on a four and a half minute sequence. Remember that sequence of the dwarfs in the kitchen making soup with Snow White and they wrecked the place? Well, actually you don’t, because it wasn’t in the movie. That was cut out. It was good. Walt Disney looked at it, commended the animators, and said, “That’s good, but it’s breaking the sequence of the movie. It’s a bit of a distraction.” That ended up on the editor’s floor. Good, but not best.
My friend, we’ve got to keep editing our life down to the best, down to the eternal. Remember that scene in Luke 10, 38 to 42, and Jesus goes and spends time with Martha and Mary. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet and gets taught by him, hears his word, and Martha’s kind of bothered by this. She’s in the kitchen. Shouldn’t her sister be in the kitchen with her? What’s wrong with Mary? She goes in and it’s written all over her face, and Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you’re troubled and distracted by a lot of stuff.” “Well, tell Mary to come and help me.” “No, Mary has chosen what’s needful and what’s good and the fruit of what we’re doing won’t be taken away from her.” You’re going to read that. I want you to have circled those words, needful, good, eternal. Jesus is saying, “Martha, I love your instinct. I appreciate you trying to serve me, but right now I’m breaking the bread of life. Sit down and hear from my word.” Martha was allowing the pressing to crowd out the needful. Martha was allowing the good to get in the way of the best, and Martha was focused on the temporal, while Mary was focused on the everlasting, the eternal.
Guys, I know it. You know it. This story in Luke 12 reminds us of this, that life is not always about the bad and the good. It’s often about the good and the best. Are we by God’s grace, with a disciplined mind, are we seeking to choose, when we’re at crossroads, when we’re at moments of decision? “No, what I’m about to do is the needful thing, the best thing, and it plays into my eternal prosperity.” That’s the encounter. Number two, the evaluation. The evaluation. Jesus detects a greedy spirit. See, Jesus can make this judgment. We don’t always know the heart, but I think in both his words and his actions, Jesus saw something about his disposition, his heart and his spirit. He was greedy and he was covetous. Look at 15. That’s got to be the case, or Jesus wouldn’t have said this. He said to them, he immediately turns to his disciples, having encountered this heckler with the wrong priorities, with no thought of the spiritual, Jesus turns and says, “Take heed and beware of covetousness.”
Why would Jesus say that? Because I think he detected that in the heart of this guy, and now he pivots and teaches his disciples, because he’s dismissed this guy. “Man, I’ve nothing to do with you. I’m not getting involved in that.” Then he turns and says, “Now guys, did you hear that? Did you see that? Learn from that. That’s greed, that’s materialism. That’s the spirit of covetousness.” Because, as we’ve said, Jesus had just talked about the fear of God. Jesus had just talked about the danger of eternal damnation in hell where one faces conscious, eternal punishment from God. That man had no thought of the spiritual, no concern for the eternal. “Jesus, can you help me get my hands on some more stuff?” Whoa, so Jesus evaluates this. Two things. He warns and he weighs. He warns and he weighs.
Number one, he warns. Greed is the insatiable desire of getting the world and the things of the world. Now, as Christians, we’re not non-materialistic. The Bible doesn’t condemn riches our prosperity. First Timothy six talks about wealthy people, and talks about, God has given us all things to enjoy. Appetite and desire are not in and of themselves wrong, but you notice, I put a qualifier on the front of that. Greed is the insatiable, inordinate desire for things. It’s a defining of one’s life. It’s concluding, “If I don’t have what that other person has, I can’t be happy, and until I get it, there’s something missing in my life, something incomplete, and I feel sad about that.” That’s what we’re talking about. That’s what Jesus warns about. Not the material per se, but the elevation of the material above the spiritual, of trusting in on certain riches, of placing one’s happiness on things.
We’re warned by Jesus here to beware of covetousness. That’s echoing, isn’t it, the command of Exodus 20, verse 19, “Thou shalt not covet.” Hebrews 13:5 tells us that covetousness ought not to shape the conduct of our lives. Think about this, guys. It was the sin of greed and avarice that drove Adam and Eve out of the garden. Greed and covetousness was at the heart of man’s fall, because Eve saw what was good to the eye and desired it. God had forbidden it, but she desired it, and the desire for that was inordinate and insatiable. She was willing to disobey God over it. That’s how damning and dangerous and devastating greed can be. We lost Eden because of greed. You would attach pride to that, also. In fact, according to first Corinthians six, verse 10, “A lifestyle of covetousness will keep a man out of heaven,” because a lifestyle of covetousness tells you about that man. He’s carnal, not spiritual.
Listen to Al Mohler. “Today’s entire commercial economy is built on the foundation that not only encourages us to have what we want, but to want what we don’t have.” We live in a society and operate within an economy of covetousness. We thank the Lord for the wealth and the material prosperity of our country. On the other hand, we also should consider it a very dangerous place to be. We live in an economy that encourages us to be covetous. Doesn’t every advertisement on television, every picture on the billboard, tempt you and bait you to have what you don’t have, and not to be happy until you have it? It’s against what Jesus says here. He warns.
Secondly, he weighs, he weighs. Jesus states the reason for the warning. Go back to our text. “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” That is a text and a half. It’s a verse I’ve kept as close to my consciousness as I can, and it is a reminder to not measure life by the material, not to define success by stuff. In fact, it can be rendered this way. Even when a man has more than enough, his wealth does not give him life. Ecclesiastes 5:10 tells us that the accumulation of stuff doesn’t bring greater happiness, doesn’t make us more than we were before the purchase of the thing. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This is vanity.
Listen guys, life doesn’t consist in the things that you possess. Just making it practical, Jesus is saying this. “Drink yourself drunk, eat yourself full. Enjoy the exotic, dive into the finer things of life, and on the other end of it, there’ll still be a hole in your soul, because you’re not simply material, you’re not simply a stomach. You’re a soul. You have a body and you have a soul. Life is not fine in the gifts life affords, but in the giver of life itself.” Write down Romans 11:33 and Colossians 1:17. In one way or another, those two texts simply say this. We are from God, we were made by God, and we were made for God. God is most greatly glorified in us when we are most deeply satisfied in him.
As John Piper would say, that’s what Jesus came to give us. “I’ve come that you might have life.” When he’s speaking at the people who were alive, what life did they need? A deeper life, a spiritual life, a life lived in the relationship with God who gives life. We need to wake up, in the United States, to the lie of capitalism and consumerism. I didn’t say that capitalism’s wrong, I just said there’s a lie attached to it, and it’s pronounced here in the United States, and it’s preached all over the western world, and it’s this. That the more you have, the better off you will be. That’s the lie. Want to be happy? Wear certain clothes, drive certain cars, drink certain beverages, visit certain countries, then you’ll be happy. That’s not true. The rich and the famous tell us it’s not true. Jesus tells us it’s not true.
There’s nothing wrong with those things. God has given us all things to enjoy in the proper place and in the proper proportion, and as long as you’re sharing that with others and you’re not on some selfish trip of self-preoccupation, but none of those things can become ultimate. None of those things can take the place of God. You can read Job 31, 24 to 28, and see that, and then Jeremiah nine, 23 to 24, that says, I’m paraphrasing in an edited form here. “Let no man boast in his knowledge, and let no man boast in his riches, but let him boast in that he knows God and is loved by him, and has been richly blessed by him through grace.” Jesus here reminds us that life does not consist, nor is it measured by a man’s possessions. Wall Street and Main Street has nothing to do with the true meaning of your life.
Having more doesn’t mean you have more of life. Monetary wealth doesn’t add value to your being. Rich people are just as sad as anyone else. Write down Ecclesiastes two, verses three to 10. Ecclesiastes two, three to 10. I’m going to take the time and just read this passage. Let the word of God do its work. This is Solomon, a very rich man. He’s taken an inventory on his life. We’ve got a little bit of a diary here in Ecclesiastes, and the thesis is this, that, you know what? “I spent a lot of time trying to find life under the sun, find joy under the sun, find meaning in the things that I had to enjoy under the sun, and I came to realize that true life is to be had by enjoying the God above the sun who gives meaning to life under the sun, and who reminds us that all the stuff is simply a gift from him, not to be mistaken for the giver himself.”
Listen to these words. “I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom and how to lay hold in folly until I might see what is good for the sons of men to do under the sun all the days of their lives. I made my works great. I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens, orchards, fruit trees. I made myself water pools, swimming pools, so to speak, from which to water the growing trees of the grove, acquired male and female servants. I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than anyone else in Jerusalem. I gathered myself silver and gold and special treasures of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers and the lights of the sons of men, musical instruments of all kinds. I became great and excelled more than all who were before me. Whatever my eyes desired, I didn’t keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done, on the labor that I had toiled, and indeed it was vanity, a chasing of the wind.”
That’s striking. I mean, Solomon would’ve been in the People magazine. He’d have been headlines in Forbes, but if he was writing his own article, he would say, “What does it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul?” This is the lie of capitalism. This is the lie of consumerism. We are not stomach, we’re soul. Made for God, and we’ll never be satisfied until we’re at rest in him. Romans 14:17 is a text worth looking at. “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Wow. CS Lewis said this. “God made us, invented us as a man invents an engine.” A car is made to run on petrol. It would not run properly on anything else. Now, God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel of our souls. We were designed to burn with him. There is no other. That is why it’s just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there, and yet, that’s where many men are, apart from God under the sun, like Solomon, living it up. They think the next car, the next motorbike, the next vacation, “That’s going to do it, that’s going to fill my tank.”
No, you’re made to run on God. You’re made for his glory, and God is most deeply glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, and we will be most satisfied when we glorify him, when we live our created purpose. I like the story of the nun who ran out of gas at the side of a road. She had realized there was a little gas station a couple of miles back and so she hoofed it back to the gas station and asked the attendant for a canister with some gas, and he said, “I don’t have that, but you know what? Let’s do this.” He went to the fridge and he pulled out a big two-liter Dr. Pepper. He emptied it out, filled it with gas, and sent her on her way. She got to her car and she opened the gas cap and was pouring in the gas out of the Dr. Pepper bottle when a motorist came by and said, “I admire your faith, Sister, but that’s not going to work.” I like that story. “I admire your faith, Sister, but that’s not going to work.” Cars don’t run on Dr. Pepper, and human spirits don’t run on the material alone.
Guys, it’s all about a deep and an abiding relationship with Christ. You want to be a happy man? Be a man of God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a lover of scripture, a man who believes that the greatest enterprise in the world at this very moment is the church of Jesus Christ. Let’s get to the example, the example. Now, Jesus tells this story. Like all good preachers, Jesus illustrates, and he tells him about a man, a man who’s doing well. Business is booming. He’s going to build greater and bigger barns. Bank account’s looking good. The market’s bullish, not bearish, for him. In fact, he’s thinking, “You know what? I think it’s time for me to sit back and take it easy. Maybe go to the beach, put my feet up, get myself a nice glass of wine and just enjoy the fruit of my labor.” This man would’ve been the subject of a human interest magazine. No doubt, he would’ve been invited to speak at the Chamber of Commerce dinner. He’s the epitome of success. He was the talk of the town, the envy of the neighbors. He’s the poster child of health, wealth and prosperity. He intends to recline, wine and dine and shine all the way to the sunset, so has an enviable life.
Notice, from heaven’s perspective, God says this guy’s a complete disaster. He’s a fool. You see that in verse 20, but God said to him, “Fool, this night, your soul will be required of you.” This guy was not wise. He was a fool. What the world celebrates, God condemns. He wasn’t a success. He was an eternal failure. In first Samuel 26, verse 21, Saul says of his treatment of David, “I have played the fool.” The thing I appreciate was that Saul knew he was a fool and admitted it. This guy was a fool and didn’t realize it. He had no sense he was a fool. He had business acumen but no moral acumen. He had no sixth sense. He had no sense of the invisible, the eternal, the unseen. Jim Elliott, the martyr, said, “He is no fool to give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose,” but this man was a fool. He kept defining his life by the things that death would ultimately take from him and he would lose.
Let me just jump into the story for a couple of minutes. Stay with me. I’m going to give you an outline I borrowed. I was going to say stole, but that doesn’t sound good. I borrowed from Erwin Lutzer. I’m pretty good at coming up with my own outlines, but I’ve never seen a better outline on this story than the one by Erwin Lutzer. Here’s what he said. This man made three mistakes. Number one, this man mistook his body for his soul. This man mistook his body for his soul. Look at verse 19. In fact, let’s look at 18. “I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops in my goods, and I will say,” notice this, “To my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods led up for many years. Take, eat, drink and be merry.'” Souls or spirits don’t eat and drink, bodies do. This man, he should have said, “I will say to my body, ‘We’re going to eat and drink to our heart’s content,'” but he didn’t, because he mistook his body for his soul.
This man was one-dimensional. He put all his eggs into the physical existence basket. His life was one-dimensional. He only saw what could be seen. He had no perspective on the unseen. He was focused on the temporal, the material, blind to the eternal. He forgot that he was body and soul, material and immaterial. In fact, Jesus had just taught that. In Luke 12, four to five, “Don’t fear him who can kill the body and do no more. Fear him that after your body has been killed can kill your soul in hell forever.” “Hey Jesus, I want to talk to you about a dispute with my brother.” Just over his head, he had mistook his body for his soul. Guys, you are body and soul. Your body is a wonderful thing. It’s a precious gift. It’s a tool, and someday Jesus is going to resurrect it, so we’re not immaterialists, but you’re also a soul, you’re also a spirit, made to connect with God the spirit. There ought to be a dimension to your life that can’t be defined by the material, can’t be valued by dollar signs.
This man, like all men, was made for fellowship with God, and he overlooked that. Don’t you be overlooking that. You need to get saved. You need to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. You need to pursue Christ with all your heart. John 17, three. “This is life eternal. This is life at the optimum, that they might know you, the true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” That’s life, guys, knowing God. Get JI Packer’s book Knowing God and start reading it, devouring it, praying your way through it. This man mistook himself for God. Not only mistook his body for his soul, he mistook himself for God. Six times in a space of a couple of verses he uses the personal pronoun, the perpendicular pronoun, I. Six times. Wouldn’t you say he’s a little preoccupied with himself? He spoke in such bombastic and presumptuous terms. “I’m going to build my barns bigger and I’m going to sit down and enjoy life. I know I have years to enjoy this. I’ve got to where I wanted to be. This has been part of the plan. I had a 10-year plan for this and a 10-year plan for that, and now I’m going to enjoy the fruit of all my wise planning and hard work.”
Really? You fool, because you have mistaken yourself for God. To borrow the words of James four, ought he not to have said, “If the Lord wills, I’m going to do that,” but this man was such a small package. He was wrapped up in himself. The man who’s wrapped up in himself is such a small package. What a bore. Is God not greater than you? Is life not greater than you? Are others not just as important as you? What are you doing wrapped up in yourself? Love God and love your neighbor. Forget about yourself. Guys, the middle letter of the word sin is I, because sin is selfishness, and focusing on himself, he forgot that he was a steward. He forgot that he was accountable to God. This man mistook his body for his soul. This man mistook himself for God. Finally, this man mistook time for eternity. Isn’t that a good outline? This man lived as though the world was all that mattered, and he acted like he was the captain of his own soul and the master of his own fate.
Those are the last words of Timothy McVeigh, by the way, when they lethally injected him for the Oklahoma bombing. “I’m the captain of my own soul. I’m the master of my own fate.” Well, he soon discovered that’s not true. Look at verse 19. “I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat and drink and be merry,’ but God said to him, ‘Fool, this night your soul,'” notice these words, “‘Will be required, demanded of you.'” This is a word in the Greek that means a loan is due. If someone has borrowed money, this is the word that will be used when someone comes and says, “I require the money back.” See, according to Ecclesiastes 12, verse seven, when you and I die, our soul returns to the God who gave that soul life, and then that soul will give an account to God who gave the life for the life the soul lived. Scary. When you and I have to give an account for all those minutes, all those hours, all those choices, all the things we looked at, all the things we did, didn’t do, said we were going to do, scary stuff.
Fear him who can kill the body and soul in hell. That’s what this is reminding us, that you and I are immortal and accountable to God. Before we get to our last and short closing point, let me just reinforce this thought of eternity. Bob Jones Senior, the founder of the University in South Carolina, stood a chapel one day on that great campus and said, “Every successful person I have ever known came at some point in his life under the dominating power of some great idea that made him what he was.” Right? I mean, think about that. From Henry Ford and automobiles to Steven Jobs in computers, something grabbed them, something they imagined, some goal. They were captured by it and they set about achieving it, and so the Model Ts started to roll off the production line in Detroit and the Apple computer was born. Look at any successful life, and at some point, something dominates them and drives them and defines them. Dr. Bob Jones said when he was 11 years old, walking a dusty lane in Alabama, something grabbed his imagination that he never let go of, and it never let go of him. Do you know what it was? It was this that he would live somewhere, someday, forever.
That’s a thought and a half. You’re going to live someday, somewhere, forever. There’s a heaven above and there’s a hell below. There’s life everlasting, and there’s life everlasting marked by destruction and death. In fact, listen to Dr. Jones, in his own words. “It dawned on me in a flash that I had to live somewhere forever. I said to myself, ‘It doesn’t matter whether I want to live or not. I may prefer to die and sleep a dreamless sleep in the silent dust, but I cannot do that. I have to live somewhere forever. I’ve got to live as long as God Almighty lives. I’ve got to live until God dies. I’ve got to live until the angels sing a funeral dirge over the grave of the Almighty. That will never be. Like it or not, I’ve got to live forever. Therefore, since I’ve got to live forever, I’ve got to learn how to live for the forever.'”
That’s powerful, and that’s what this guy forgot. Fool. “You haven’t given one thought,” Jesus says, “To eternity, heaven and hell and judgment. You mistook your body for your soul, you mistook yourself for God, and you mistook time for eternity.” Guys, don’t make the mistake. Brings us to the final exhortation. Look at verse 21. Jesus is wrapping up. A good sermon has an illustration. Right? In fact, let me back up. A good sermon has a point, a proposition. Life doesn’t consist in the things you possess. That’s the proposition. Jesus illustrates the proposition by the story of the rich fool, and every good sermon has a proposition, illustration, application, and now Jesus applies the sermon. Verse 21. “So is he,” Jesus is saying, “You are like the guy in the story. This is your biography. Let’s pray it is not your ending.” “So is he who lays up treasure for himself but is not rich toward God.”
Boy, that’s a wallop, isn’t it? Jesus is saying to you and to me and anyone listening to this message, “Are you the kind of person who is stocking the shelves of your life with stuff while your spiritual cupboard lies bare? You’ve got no resume with God. You haven’t been born again. You haven’t been graced by the undeserved riches of Jesus Christ in a relationship with him.” Jesus pleads with this covetous man, pleads with everyone in earshot not to gain the world and lose their souls. Mark eight, 35 to 37. Let’s just re-engineer the text for a minute or even reverse engineer the text for a minute and conclude with a challenge. See, Jesus is calling us to be rich toward God. Don’t be like this guy who was rich but not toward God. Didn’t give God a thought. Maybe a little prayer at the holidays. Maybe he’d drop in the church or synagogue once in a while if his wife badgered him enough. Maybe he was there when some of his friends died, but he was rich, but not towards God.
Jesus said, “Don’t be like that. Be rich towards God. True wealth lies in knowing the God who owns the cattle on 1000 hills.” Listen to these words in Psalm 50, verses 10 to 12. This is God speaking. “For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on 1000 hills, and I know all the birds of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field. They’re mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine in all its fullness.” You know what I love about knowing God, among many things? I know the God who owns everything. That’s why I don’t need to worry, because he can give me of what he is creator. He can create stuff that’s not even yet created. He’s going to take care of his people. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, and when you’re the Lord’s, man, you have all things in one. Jesus invites us to be rich towards God.
This is a sermon in itself, but I see many of you taking notes. I’m just going to go down a list of things. I kind of put my pen down or stopped typing on the computer when I got to that the other day, and I just said, “Okay, what does it mean to be rich towards God?” I just went through my kind of biblical Rolodex and some passages and ideas kind of seemed to connect to each other. Wouldn’t you say being rich towards God involves cultivating a poverty of spirit? Isn’t that where richness towards God begins, with your impoverishment, with your acknowledging that you’re nothing apart from him? Because of your sin, you deserve his wrath. Shouldn’t you and I be marked by humility and a sense of smallness in the light of God’s glory and holiness? That’s where richness toward God begins, where you begin to own your own poverty and recognize that he is willing to enrich you. Matthew five, three, right? “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Number two, I wrote down, “Live contentedly with hope in God.” Live contentedly with hope in God. That would be one Timothy, verse six. Godliness with contentment. That’s great gain. In the same passage, in verse 17, it talks about putting your hope in God. Number three, bold in faith, and being un-anxious. James two, verse five, talks about being rich in faith, rich in trust. Having a big, bold trust in a big, bolder God, and not being anxious about anything, because God is great, and if your faith’s in him, you have nothing to be anxious about. That’s why Jesus said, in Luke 12:28, our very passage to his disciples, “Why are you worrying? Oh, you of little faith. Value your Bible. You want to be rich towards God? Then appreciate what God appreciates.” Psalm 19, verse 10, says what? “God’s word is more precious than gold.” True. I hope so, and that’ll show up in the time you give to it compared to other stuff.
We say we value it, but we don’t spend a lot of time in it, studying it, appreciating it. It means spending money on God’s kingdom. Luke 12, 32 to 34, talks about laying treasure up in heaven, investing in the things that matter to heaven. The church, missions, caring for the poor. First Timothy six again talks to rich people and says they need to be generous in sharing with others what God has abundantly shared with them. That gets you into the whole field of tithing, giving to God’s work. Are you rich toward God? Finally, treasuring Jesus above everything else. That’s maybe the best passage. Philippians three, four to 11. Paul uses an accounting term. He uses commercial language. “What things were physically, materially, politically gained to me, I forsook them that I might gain Christ. I counted all things lost. It’s rubbish compared to the treasure that he is.” Right?
That’s the story, the other parable, whether we covered or not, I’m sure, of the pearl of great price, the guy who finds a pearl in a field and then he goes and buys the field because the pearl is greater than the price of the field. Whatever price he had to pay for the field, it was worth it because the pearl in the field that he bought was inestimable. That’s the story of Jesus. What are you willing to sell, give up, turn from, to have him, enjoy him, and treasure him in a world that buys the lie of commercialism and capitalism? Guys, as we close, George Truitt was the pastor of First Baptist Church Dallas, today pastored by Robert Jeffress. He tells a story about being invited to a ranch in west Texas. A west Texas rancher invited him to his spacious and palatial home. He enjoyed a sumptuous dinner fit for a king, and after they were done eating, they went up onto the veranda at the top of the home. That old rancher got himself a cigar. He bit the end of it and stuck it between his teeth, lit it up, and began puffing. He said to the preacher as he pointed southward, “See that man-made lake? Everything in that direction’s mine.”
Then he pointed east to cotton fields and he said, “See those cotton fields? Anything in that direction’s mine.” Pointing north, great herd of cattle. “Everything in that direction’s mine,” and with great pride, he said it. Taking one more puff on his cigar, he turned to the setting sun and he said, “Everything in that direction’s mine except the sun.” After he was done, the old preacher pointed heavenward and said, “What about that direction?” Guys, what about that direction? Are you rich toward God? Don’t mistake your body for your soul and don’t mistake yourself for God. Don’t mistake time for eternity. Oh, the fool and his money. Don’t allow this world to switch the price tags. Heaven, the Bible, Jesus, the church, eternal souls, those are the things that count. You want to know how rich you are this morning? Add up all that money can’t buy and death can’t steal, and that’ll tell you how rich you are. Add up all that money can’t buy and death can’t steal. My friend, that would leave you with Jesus, the pearl of great price. I hope he’s yours. I hope you’re laying hold of him and laying hold of eternal life.
Father, we thank you for our time and the word. Thank you for this body of men who recognize, even after a good hearty breakfast, we can’t live by bread alone, or bacon. We thank you for the word, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for these engaging stories of Jesus. As one writer said, the parables are like going to the movies in the Bible. We’ve got visual dramatizations of truth. Jesus told us in propositional form, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the world and lose his soul?” Then he tells us a story that vividly outlines it. We can imagine that man. We might be that man, and we see that kind of man all around us in Orange County. All we have to go is down to Newport Beach, and we’ll see the cars and we’ll see the homes, and we’ll see fine dining. Lord, we’d admit, they’re not evil things in and of themselves, but they become evil when they replace you. When we set our heart’s desire on that stuff and when we’re fools enough to believe that life consists in what a man possesses. No, life consists in possessing Jesus and being increasingly possessed by him, so that all we once counted dear and built our life upon, we reject, and count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.
Lord, take us home. Help us to reflect on this. Help us to keep this message in mind as we look and see and teach stuff. Help us to keep coming back. It’s about our soul, it’s about God, it’s about eternity. Help us not to loiter on our way to heaven. Help us not to be hoodwinked by a materialistic world. Help us to fight to make sure that we have the right price tag on the right thing, for we ask it all in Jesus’ name. Amen.