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Luke 12:13-21 Bankrupt 5.19.19 · HBCWestminster

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  Our text this morning is Luke chapter 12. We've been going through the hard sayings of Jesus, sayings which were either difficult to understand and therefore hard to explain, or sayings which were easy to understand but hard to apply. And this morning, we are in Luke chapter 12, verses 13 to 21. Allow me to read our text, we'll pray, and study God's Word together. Beginning in verse 13. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher,
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  tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbiter over you? 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. 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.
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  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? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Lord, I pray.
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  that you would bless the preaching of your word this morning. I pray that by your spirit we would have understanding, that you would teach us the truths of your word, that we would apply them to our lives. May we not be hearers of your word only, but also doers. And it is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, you all know we are very aware that distracted driving has become a serious problem in the last couple of decades.
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  They say that an average of 2.5 million Americans are involved in a car accident every year. 1.6 million of those have a cell phone directly involved in that accident. Two-thirds of the car accidents in America are caused by cell phone usage. 37,000 Americans died in car accidents last year, and an estimated 10% of those were due to cell phones.
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  They actually considered that number to be really, really low because they said that it is hard to determine if people who had passed away were on their phones when they had done it. So the 10% are only the ones that were able to determine that the cell phones were being used. Typically takes three seconds for a car accident to occur. But the minimum length of time a driver takes his or hers eyes off the road, even to glance at a text message, is five seconds.
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  Traveling at 55 miles an hour for five seconds means that a driver will travel the length of a football field while not watching the road. They say that a person who is willing to check their cell phone while driving may spend as much as 10% of their total journey outside of their intended lane. Can you imagine that? If you're willing to check your cell phone while you drive and you're driving 10 miles, then one mile of that, you will be outside of the lane that you wanted to be in.
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  As serious a problem as distracted driving has become, there is something even more dangerous and more destructive, and that is distracted living. Every single human being, every single one, believers and non-believers alike, are in danger of living as though this earth is all there is. Live as though heaven only exists in some distant and unknowable future. And many, if you can imagine this, live miles.
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  and miles and miles of their lives outside of their intended lane. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 1 says this, Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
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  Let me read a portion of that again. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Another translation says the path or the journey that is marked out for us. Let us stay in our lanes. And how will we stay in our lanes? By fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faiths. If we are willing to take our eyes off of Jesus, then our lives will begin to drift. Distracted living.
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  is living your lives outside of the lane that God intended. And it is said that some are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. But I believe the opposite to be true. Most people, if not all people, are so earthly minded that they are no heavenly good. So fixated on the things around us that we can't get our eyes off of them and therefore have taken our eyes off of heaven and on to hell.
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  We've taken our eyes off of what matters and have become distracted by the things that will not last. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 2 says, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. When Jesus predicted his own betrayal and crucifixion to his disciples, his foremost apostle Peter took Jesus aside. You remember what he said? No, Lord, this will not happen to you.
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  I won't let it happen to you. You will not be crucified. You will not be killed. What am I doing here except for this? No, Lord, not to you. And do you remember how Jesus responded? Matthew chapter 16 and verse 23. Get behind me, Satan.
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  You are not doing the work of God, but the work of the devil. Do you remember that? Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me, Jesus said, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. You've taken your eyes off of your intended lane and are beginning to drift. You're not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men. And it is remarkable to me how often my own mind runs adrift. I say this
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  to my shame, but even during the preaching of God's Word. I can be sitting out there while God's Word is being preached, and yet my mind is somewhere else. It is startling to me how often my heart turns to earthly things, even as I sing about heavenly things. I can be singing the words, and yet my mind is somewhere else. My thoughts, my mind, my focus, my attention drifts. And our passage this morning,
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  is a warning to all those who are earthly-minded. You know, sometimes the comments I receive after preaching are so trivial, beside the point. I love, love that people will come forward and ask for prayer and want to talk and want to shake hands with our pastoral staff. You know, we typically will stay up here in the front and just offer ourselves to people. I'll do that again today.
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  People will bring people forward, visitors forward and introduce them. I love that. But it's funny to me that sometimes after hearing God's word preached and hearing things about eternity, you'll get comments that are really funny. Preach about the gospel and then somebody will come forward and say, you know, the stall in the women's restroom creaks when you open the door. Okay. In Jesus name, amen. You know, we got a busted sprinkler. All right.
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  Here we have a prime example of the worldliness and inattention of man, even during the preaching of the Son of Man. Christ had in chapters 11 and 12 been preaching for many days on topics such as how to pray effectively, on the unity of the kingdom of God, the danger of demonic attack, the blessing of obedience to the word of God. He'd been preaching and prophesying of his own burial and resurrection.
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  In teaching about the light that resides within the hearts of those who trust God, he pronounced woes on the Pharisees and scribes who claimed to know God but had no love for him. He had warned against the leaven of false teaching and had promised to give utterance to those who would defend the gospel before public authorities. And what response does he receive after this teaching? Verse 13, imagine a whiny little child, dad.
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  My brother's not sharing. Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Tell my brother to share. J.C. Ryle says this, this man was one whose chief thoughts ran upon this present life. If you look at our text in verse 13, it says that someone in the crowd.
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  Spoke up. Someone in the crowd. He'd been teaching for two chapters. If you've got a red letter edition in your Bibles, then those red letters run almost constantly in chapters 11 and 12. Almost the entirety of the chapters is red with the exception of verse 13. There's a break where it goes black. And anytime there's a bunch of red with one verse of black, look to see who interrupted.
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  Right? Jesus has been preaching and someone raises his hand during the sermon and complains that his brother's not given him what he's owed. According to chapter 12 and verse 1, this crowd was large. Verse 1 says many thousands of people had gathered and it says they were unruly. Look at verse 1. They were trampling on one another. So this is a massive group of people who were unruly and out of control.
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  And how does Jesus respond in verse 14? But he said to him, man. Now, this is a disparaging term, discouraging. There's no sympathy in this term. As if the man standing before Jesus should have known this already, should have thought better of bringing his case to Christ. It is the same word, man, that is used in Romans chapter 9 and verse 20, where it says, but who are you, oh man, to talk back to God?
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  Shall what is formed say to him who formed it? Why did you make me like this man? It sounds a lot like this man is telling Christ what to do. And Jesus here in verse 14 puts him in his place. But Jesus is also a good teacher. He says, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?
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  He does this in a way, Jesus rebukes the man in a way that would be most encouraging and actually enhance a godly response. Christ could have openly and specifically rebuked the man. That is, after all, what this man wanted Jesus to do to his brother, right? He could have done that, but instead Christ tells a parable which exposes the man's problem, but in a general sense. Notice in verse 15, he says, take care.
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  and be on your guard against all covetousness. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, another translation says. Unlike the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, when Jesus taught, he avoided the gnats and he exposed the camels.
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  You guys will recall in Matthew chapter 23, when Jesus is pronouncing judgment and the woes on the Pharisees, Jesus actually says to them, you tithe, you tithe on spice. Even your spices, you're tithing, you're giving 10%. On the tiny, tiny, tiny little things in your lives, you're giving the 10%. But on the massive things, you're stealing from people.
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  If you're stealing from people, there's no reason to tithe on your theft. Can you imagine that? If you're cheating on your taxes, don't bother tithing on it. You see what Jesus is saying? And he even at one point says, you strain the gnats. Now gnats, we know are tiny, tiny, tiny little bugs, almost imperceptible. You can't even see them sometimes. But they were so concerned with these unclean little bugs that they would actually strain their drinking water.
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  Before they drink it to ensure that none of those tiny little gnats, those little fruit flies, made it in there and died. Right? Every now and again, you look down at the top of your glass. You're like, oh, some little bug thought he could swim. Right? Tiny, tiny little thing. And you touch it with your finger and it sticks and you flick it out of there. Right? So Jesus says, look, you find the gnat in your water and you get it out of there. So you don't accidentally swallow a gnat because that would be sin. But all the while, you're swallowing camels.
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  You're straining the gnats, but you're drinking the camels. And here Jesus sidesteps the gnat and he clobbers the camel, right? He sidesteps the molehill and he pounds the mountain. Take care. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. He knew the issue was not the inheritance. He understood this man's problem to be much greater than that. It was greed.
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  residing within the man's heart. He continues in verse 15 with a statement that is really kind of the theme for this morning's message. It has to do with bankruptcy. One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. In other words, Jesus says that money is a lousy way to keep score. The rich fool attached the value of his life to the value of his
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  possessions. And instead, he should have understood that our value comes not in what we own, but in who owns us. Let us never assume that to have more is always better. And don't get me wrong, we'd all like to have more, but let us not assume that our problems will suddenly go away if we do. Those who have more often run the risk of their more having them. Alexander Bruce says it this way, if life
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  true life meant possessions, then the more the better. But we know that our lives mean something far higher. And in this passage, Jesus sidesteps the gnat, he clobbers the camel. He helps this man to understand the true value of life. And so we're going to answer this question this morning. Why was the rich fool so foolish? How was this man who possessed such material wealth actually spiritually bankrupt?
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  And there's several answers first. And in verse 16, because he failed to recognize where his wealth had come from. And so here is this parable. Jesus tells in verse 16, he tells them a parable. And notice first, the rich fool was foolish because he didn't recognize where his wealth actually came from. Verse 16 says, the land. Do you guys catch that? The land of a rich man produced plentifully. The land.
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  We so frequently forget the truth that every good and perfect thing comes from above, from the Father of lights. We so frequently forget that although we may work very hard, any blessing or reward we receive is actually by the grace of God. This man couldn't produce crops. The land produced the crops. He was enjoying the blessing of God's grace on him. And there was nothing wrong with him enjoying that blessing.
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  but he'd forgotten where the blessing actually came from. The land produced plentifully. Many years ago, when our older boys were much younger, about 10 years ago, in fact, Hallie was pregnant with our youngest son, Chase. He's nine years old now. And our second son, Zach, was about four years old at the time, sitting next to us. And our old church had this digital display.
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  hung up in the corners in the front of our building, of our sanctuary, and it would display a certain number that was tied to one of your kids. If you had dropped your kids off, then they gave you a number, right? Your number is 006. You drop your son off in the preschool room, you have your little number, and you know if they display 006, something has gone wrong. Come and get your kid.
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  Right? And so our four-year-old is watching that and he sees one of the numbers go up. Mommy, what is the number for? Oh, well, that's to let mommies and daddies know that their kids are ready to be picked up. Right? Oh, okay. And Zach sat there silently for a few minutes. You could tell he was pondering something. Something was going on. The wheels were spinning. He's thinking about his little brother about to hatch.
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  And he looks to his mom and says, when are they going to tell us our baby is ready for pickup? Oh, you don't get it. And praise God you don't, right? Oh, no, that's not how it works, sweetheart. Wait a long, long time, and then daddy and mommy will explain it to you. Right? You don't get it. He just thought, honestly, that you just go pick babies up at the nursery. They just hatch in there. And it's just, I mean, it's a blessing to everybody. You just go pick babies up.
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  You know, I take so many things for granted in my life, honestly. I have a friend who was acquitted this month of a crime he did not commit and that would have put him in jail for many years. Upon finding that news and rejoicing, it occurred to me that I should thank the Lord every morning that I don't wake up in jail. I mean, there's a blessing. I just never even knew I was taking for granted. I just didn't know. Thank you, Lord. I'm not waking up in jail today. Praise God for that.
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  We have a friend, a beloved sister of this church, Vicki Nelson, whose lungs just don't work. They just don't work. And she's been researching and doing tests all over the country. In fact, she was supposed to drive to Phoenix today, and many of us were praying for that, but her trip down there has now gotten delayed. Waiting on new lungs, waiting for a lung transplant. You know, I never...
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  I have never thanked the Lord that my lungs work. I've never done that. I've never woken up in the morning and said, thank you, Lord, that my lungs work and that they worked all night all by themselves. I mean, what did I do, honestly, to deserve that? I didn't do anything. It's the grace of God in my life. My youngest son, Chase, went to the doctor for his yearly checkup. I met my family for dinner that evening. He said, dad, I had my yearly checkup.
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  Dr. Z says, everything's okay. I thought, well, praise God, everything's okay. There are lots and lots and lots of families that would love to have everything be okay. Now, I'm not saying that we need to live in fear or paranoia, but instead that we do not pretend like our lives are our own or that our health...
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  Is our own or that our strength and power and intellectual aptitude are our own? If I have any understanding and skill, what did I do to earn those things? I didn't. What did I do to deserve those things? I didn't. This man took for granted the grace of God in his life, and that was his first mistake. His second mistake. Why was the rich man so foolish? It's because he saw his wealth.
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  as his security and as his opportunity for ceasing to be productive. He saw his wealth as his security and as his opportunity for ceasing to be productive. Look at verse 17. 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 my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul.
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  You have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry. Planting some grass as we all are. We are all fixing our yards in the month of May, although it's supposed to snow again this week. We're all trying to get our yards into shape so that our HOA doesn't get mad at us. And I was over at Home Depot this week buying topsoil for my garden and some spots in my grass I'm trying to fix. I noticed at Home Depot they were selling
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  bags of steer manure. And I thought, isn't that a strange thing to sell? When does it become manure? Right? At what point does it stop just being cow poop? Honestly, at some point it stops being that and turns into this. At some point it stops just laying in a field and becomes something we're willing to buy. What a weird phenomenon this is.
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  You know when it happens? When does it stop being one thing and become something else? And the answer is when we decide to put it to use. When we decide to use it, it suddenly becomes valuable again. One of my favorite things to do with our staff, we go to lunch every Wednesday. And every Wednesday, I ask all these random questions. We all drive to lunch together. And I'll ask, what's your favorite music? When you were growing up.
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  What was the music you always listened to? Or what was your guilty pleasure music, right? You don't want anybody in the church to know, but this is the music I used to listen to. And I'm not going to tell it. I'm not going to divulge all the secrets, okay? But this last week, I asked the staff, what are your favorite movies? And typically, the peanut gallery sits in the back. That's the pastoral staff. Usually, Lori sits in the front, okay? And so I'm getting all these answers from the back seat and some pretty funny movies and embarrassing ones. But Lori said,
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  you know, one of my favorite movies is Hello, Dolly. She said that. So I switched the music on Spotify and we listened to the soundtrack of Hello, Dolly on our way to lunch and back. She said, I love those old musicals. I love them. And you guys, I must confess, I have seen that movie. I remember pieces of it. One piece that I do remember about the movie Hello, Dolly was when Barbara Streisand says, money is like manure. Remember this? It's only useful.
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  If you spread it around, otherwise it's just a big pile, right? Money's like manure. This rich fool thought that wealth was to store up and save rather than to use. Now, everybody pay attention for just a second. I am not saying that saving your money is a bad thing.
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  Scripture calls us to be wise stewards of the resources that God has given us. The story of Joseph is a brilliant example of the Lord's provision before times of famine. You imagine during those seven lean years, how many people looked to God and said, God, you're not providing. And God said, yes, I did. It was 10 years ago. But during the time of plenty, you blew it all.
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  And now that there isn't as much, you don't have anything saved. We should absolutely be wise stewards of our money. The question is not whether we should save our money. The question is rather, what are we saving it for? Most people in our country save so that someday they can do nothing, right? That's what this man wanted. Relax, eat.
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  Drink, be merry, you've saved. Now enjoy that fruit by doing nothing. Believers instead should save so that someday they can do everything. Our mindset must be the exact opposite. We save so that someday we can devote our lives in their entirety.
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  to the advancing of the kingdom of God. We work for years and years and years and years for somebody else to tell us what to do, but someday we get to the point in our lives where we can stop working for them and start working for him. That's what we do with the money that we have. 1 Timothy chapter 6, command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God.
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  who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment, command them, that is the people who have money, command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, to be generous and willing to share. Can I just encourage those who have done a good job at this? They worked hard for many years. They saved. They were wise stewards. And now we're at the point in their lives where they're thinking, you know what, I don't really have to work anymore.
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  For many years growing up in churches, I heard the word retirement preached like it was a bad word, like a dirty word. The Bible doesn't say anything about retirement. Well, I'm going to work. Listen, that's not it. If you have come to the point in your life where you're able to retire, praise God, do it. And then give yourself. Give yourself to the Lord. 100% of my time, Lord. Just because you're retired doesn't mean you have to stop working. Just because you're not working doesn't mean you cease to be productive.
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  There are plenty of people who work but are not productive, right? And there are plenty of people who are productive but stopped working a long time ago. Did you know that City Kids exists because of people who have retired? That is why it exists. I'm not kidding. They were the brain behind it. They are the back behind it. They are the financing behind it. It exists because of people who have adopted this mentality.
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  I worked for somebody else for years and years and years. I'm done. And now I'm going to work for the Lord. Lord, whatever years I've got left, whatever strength I've got left, I'll go play soccer. I'll go jump rope. Right? Lord, use me. Might fall down once or twice. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 5. Paul speaking to Timothy, I've been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois.
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  You know why Timothy walked with the Lord? Why he knew the gospels? Because of his grandma. His grandma taught it to him. Titus chapter 2. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers nor addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they, the older women in the church, they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children.
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  If you find yourself in that period, the sunset of your life, grab onto the kids in the sunrise of their life and teach them to love their husbands and to love their kids, how to run a home, how to be involved in the church. Teach them. Don't check out. Do the exact opposite. Check in. Be engaged. Titus chapter 2 similarly encouraged the young men to be self-controlled. Man, if there's one thing that young men need, it's that.
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  Self-control in everything. Older men set an example by doing what is good. We should actually become more involved the older we get and not the other way around. So that's second. He saw his wealth as his security, opportunity for ceasing to be productive. Notice third, he presumed. He presumed. In verse 19, I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink.
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  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? He presumed, he presumed two things. First, he presumed that he would possess his wealth in the future. We will not possess our earthly wealth one second longer than we possess our earthly bodies. The only lasting possession we will have is the eternal grace of God in salvation. And so let us ensure that we are investing in that, in what will last. But second, he presumed,
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  that he would even be alive in the future. Jesus says, you fool. This night, your soul is required of you. The word for fool literally means without mind, without sense, without understanding. You'll note that just as the rich man believed himself cunning, I figured it out. Just as he was declaring his intelligence, the Lord declared him a know-nothing.
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  Matthew chapter 16 and verse 26, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul? It doesn't matter how wealthy we get on this earth if we are poor in heaven. And last, verse 21, he misunderstood what it means to actually be rich. He didn't understand the definition of true wealth. Verse 21, Jesus says, so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
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  And although this man had become rich by the world's standards, he was poor before God. The enemy of our souls would love for us to believe that this life is all about how much we can get, more the better. But the wise man does not think only of worldly treasure, but of treasure in heaven as well. J.C. Ryle says many owners of millions of pounds are paupers before God. And church, let us not live distracted.
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  Let us not go miles and miles and miles outside of the lane that God has mapped out for us. Let us set our eyes on heaven and not become lulled into thinking that this earth is all that there is. Let us not forget that the man of God may be broke, but he has gold tried in the fire, Revelation 3 says. The man of God may be homeless, but 2 Corinthians 5 says he has a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
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  The man of God may not have his name on bank ledgers, but his name is inscribed in heaven's book. Luke chapter 10. The man of God may have his clothes and cash, moth eaten and rusted, but he has a treasure incorruptible in the life to come. 2 Peter chapter 1. And Lord, I pray that we would fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
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  God, be glorified again in the preaching of your word and may we hear it. God, it is so difficult not to be distracted by the things of this world. God, may you remind us that there is so much more life to come after our soul is required of us. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.