Take your Bibles with me and turn to Luke 12. Luke 12. We are going to be covering verses 13-21 this morning.

Have you ever had a casual interaction, a little throw away comment someone said, that you think about all the time?

I remember as a teenager the first time I screwed up the courage to ask a girl out. She laughed and said "no" - that was bad enough, then she said "look at you." Any time I think I'm hot stuff, I see this memory of Melinda Morency saying "Well, look at you."

But that isn't the casual comment I want to talk about this morning. This casual comment was a conversation I had with my dad in line at Burger King in Hudson, NH. I was probably 15 or 16 at the time. We were just getting lunch. It was a weekend day.

And I asked my dad "Dad, what do you think life is all about?" and my dad said "Life is about getting all the toys you can."

He wasn't being ironic or sarcastic. That was literally his worldview. "Life is about getting all the toys you can."

And that shocked me. Even as a teenager I knew that wasn't anything to live for.

I've known many people with some version of that worldview. They think life is about getting. About amassing stuff. A bigger house. A nicer car. Better golf clubs. Better vacations. And on and on. They live to get.

That conversation has stuck with me for almost 30 years because it captures something so many people believe, but that Jesus directly confronts in our passage today.

He said in verse 15 "a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." In other words, life is about more than just getting stuff.

In the previous verses (that Daniel did such a good job preaching from 3 weeks ago) Jesus told us to beware of hypocrisy. But here, in these verses Jesus is going to teach us to beware of covetousness. Beware of living to get.

Let's read our text and we'll get into it.

[!bible] Luke 12:13-21 - KJV 13. And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. 14. And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you? 15. And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. 16. And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? 18. And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. 19. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. 20. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? 21. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

Let's set the stage. Jesus is preaching to a crowd of people. He's talking to them about how they shouldn't fear what man can do to them, but instead they need to fear God.

And some knucklehead in the crowd has obviously been not listening. Because he interrupts Jesus' teaching with a question that comes from his own fear.

He's afraid that when it comes time to divide the inheritance, that his brother isn't going to give him his fair share and he wanted Jesus to act as the arbiter in the situation and make sure that he got what he deserved.

This wasn't that unusual of a question. It was typical in Israel for Rabbis to serve as kind of family judges. But it was tone deaf, and kind of rude, because Jesus is in the middle of teaching important stuff here.

Unfortunately, this is very common: Very often, when a mom or dad dies and there are multiple children. They fight over the inheritance. Rather than it being a time of coming together, it tears a family apart and brings to the surface long standing jealousy.

There are families out there who never speak to each other because of arguments over an inheritance. Brothers and sisters who played together and grew up together who who become enemies over china and jewelry.

That's what was going on here. This man was just thinking about what he wanted. He was obsessed with getting his fair share of the stuff, he was terrified that he was going to lose out and he was so lacking in self-awareness that he asked Jesus about it while Jesus was teaching about not being afraid.

He was a knucklehead. And Jesus was going to use this question to teach us the second thing we should beware of.

Earlier, in verse 1 He told us "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is idolatry." In verse 15, He says "beware of covetousness."

Now, what is covetousness? What does that even mean?

To covet is just to want. It is to obsess over having a thing you do not currently have.

Kent Hughes defined it as "a boundless grasping for more." Warren Weirsbe said it is "an unquenchable thirst for getting more and more of something we think we need in order to be truly satisfied."

Jesus is very clear that life is about more than stuff. It's about more than getting. To illustrate that, Jesus told this story.

He told about a rich and successful farmer. There is nothing at all wrong with being a rich and successful farmer. It's honest work. Some of the heroes of the scripture were rich and successful farmers (Abraham and Job come to mind.)

This farmer has a good year, he has a great crop. The rains came at the right time. No pestilences. He ends up with a bumper crop and that reveals a problem.

You see, this man's barns aren't big enough for the crop. His grain bin isn't big enough. And so this man has an idea, he says "Here is what I'm going to do, I'm going to build a bigger grain bin, then I'll have years worth of harvest and all the money I need, and then I can just retire and take it easy."

Now, building a bigger grain bin. That makes sense. That's just shrewd business practice. But God calls this man a fool and decides its time for him to die and asks "who is going to get your stuff now?"

So what is wrong with this guy?

• Being successful isn't wrong.
• Building a bigger grain bin ins't wrong.
• Enjoying God's blessing isn't wrong.

So where is the wrong? Why is He called a fool?

I'm going to give you three reasons, and they are also three reasons why we need to beware of covetousness:

The first reason this man was a fool and why we should beware of covetousness is...

1. We should beware of covetousness because it is self-centered.

If you look at this man's inner dialogue, there are a whole lot of first person pronouns:

17. What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?
18. And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.
19. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

That's a whole lot of I's and My's. This man, in thinking so much about his riches, was really thinking about himself.

Notice, there is no mention of God. There is no mention of helping others. Maybe it was right for him to build a new grain bin, but maybe it would have been better for him to give away the excess to the needy. He was a rich man before the big harvest, he wasn't starving.

But no, this man is all about himself. He sees this big harvest as his ticket to a long comfy retirement.

Whenever we become covetous, whenever we start thinking we have to have this or have to have that, what we are doing is we are feeding the self. And do you know what? The self is never satisfied.

The more you eat, the more you want to eat. The monster of covetousness is never full. It's never enough. The watchword of the covetous person is "just a little bit more."

As Christians, we are called to live completely different than this. We are called to live in contentment. Hebrews says:

[!bible] Hebrews 13:5 - KJV 5. Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

Other passages tell us that covetousness is idolatry and compares it to other big sins. Think about Colossians 3:5

[!bible] Colossians 3:5 - KJV 5. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

You know, if we found a Playboy magazine under the bed of one of our deacons, most of us would be mortified (and rightfully so.) But what if we found Money magazine? What about a collection of car catalogs?

It God's eyes, they are the same thing. They are all idolatry.

We should beware of covetousness because it is self-centered.

Another reason why this rich man was a fool is because he thought this money and riches were going to take care of him for many years. thou hast much goods laid up for many years.

He was thinking, I'm good. I have so much money, I can have a nice long retirement and I'll never want for anything.

But what he didn't think about was that God was going to end it real soon, and he'd never get to enjoy this stuff he delighted in so much.

We should beware of covetousness because it is self-centered and...

2. We should beware of covetousness because it is self-deceiving.

People think having money is going to protect them. They think if they just have enough money, enough buffer, enough insurance, than they can skate through the problems of life.

And to a certain extent that is true, but what is more true is that God controls when you live or die, and there are a million things outside of our control that can ruin us - and no amount of money is going to save us.

I remember how shocked I was when Steve Jobs died. He was the founder of Apple and Pixar, and when Pixar was bought by Disney, he became the biggest single shareholder in Disney. So he was fantastically wealthy. Wealthy beyond our imagination.

But none of that money kept him from dying of pancreatic cancer in his mid-50s.

Planes crash. Tsunamis happen. You get cancer. The world can come to a halt because of microscopic diseases. Your fortune in horseshoes can go away overnight because someone invents the automobile.

What I'm saying is that you aren't in control as much as you think you are, and people with money are prone to forget that.

[!bible] James 4:13-14 - KJV 13. Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

We are prone to forget that when we are in the throws of covetousness. This man sure did.

So we should beware of covetousness because it is self-centered and we should beware of covetousness because it is self-deceiving.

Let me give you one more point...

3. We should beware of covetousness because it is short-sighted.

This man was a fool because he was self-centered and self-deceived, but he was also a fool because he wasn't preparing for the long term.

Oh, he thought he was preparing for the long term. He thought he had many years worth the stuff prepared. He had his 3 score and 10 taken care of as well as anyone could.

But what he wasn't prepared for was his 3,000th year or his 75,000th year.

I stayed in a hotel room on Friday night when we went up to visit Noah in the hospital. I didn't really like it, so I went across the street and I bought all new furniture and a new mattress. Would that make sense??

It makes as much sense to focus on making this life comfortable and totally ignore what we will do for eternity.

You see, the Bible teaches us that when we die, we do not die. When we die, we either go to heaven or to hell and then life just begins. And our decisions today, they effect us for eternity.

Jesus said this man was a fool because though he was rich, he wasn't rich toward God. He was prepared for this life, but he wasn't prepared for eternity.

One day God said "this night thy soul shall be required of thee:" That's business language. Do you know what that means, it means God was calling an audit. God was calling in a debt. This man was going to give an account to God for how he lived his life.

You know, when you are young, you think you will live forever. But if you ask any older person, they will tell you it goes by so fast. I'm not 42. I'm halfway done. I'm past my physical prime already. When did that happen? It feels like just yesterday I was 13. If the next 42 years goes by as fast as the first one, I don't have a lot of time left on this earth.

Some of you in your sixties or seventies or eighties can speak to how fast it goes by. You start seeing your friends in the obituaries. You realize you don't have much time left.

Listen, you are going to face God. It might seem like that is forever away but I promise you it is coming sooner than you think. He's going to call in an account.

And then what will matter? Will your big house matter? Will it matter that you drove a BMW instead of an old Chevy? All that stuff you have might be the thing your kids fight over and stop talking to each other over. No, the only thing that will matter is whether you are "rich toward God."

So let me wrap this up by telling you how to be rich towards God.

Conclusion, how to be rich towards God.

First, you have to take care of your eternal debts.

God is going to call the account one day. You will stand before Him, and then your biggest problem is going to be your debt. Your debt of sin.

The Bible teaches us:

[!bible] Romans 3:23 - KJV 23. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Your first problem in being "rich towards God" is figuring out how to get out of spiritual bankruptcy.

Fortunately, God has already given you the answer to that problem. God sent Jesus Christ to live the perfect life you couldn't live and He paid your payment on the cross.

[!bible] Romans 6:23 - KJV 23. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Listen, it doesn't matter what sins you've committed. It doesn't matter how bad you've been. Jesus paid it all. Jesus took care of your debt.

But for your debt to be forgiven, you must trust Jesus. You must stop trying to get to heaven on your own merit and trust His finished work.

A second way to be rich towards God is...

Second, you have to claim your eternal inheritance.

When you trust Christ, not only is your sin debt wiped away, but you get an eternal inheritance. Look at 1 Peter 1:3-4

[!bible] 1 Peter 1:3-4 - KJV 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4. To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

Because of what Jesus did, our inheritance is "reserved in heaven for us" and it will not go away. It is impervious to stock market fluctuations and to the rising and falling of kings.

Third, you have to build your eternal savings account.

Jesus said it this way in another passage:

[!bible] Matthew 6:19-20 - KJV 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

Unlike the rich man who stored up earthly treasures that he couldn't take with him, Jesus tells us to store up treasures in heaven. How do we do that? By using what God has given us to serve Him and serve others.

When you give to your church, when you help the poor, when you use your time and talents for God's kingdom - you're making deposits in your eternal account. The rich man could have done this with his abundant harvest, but instead he kept it all for himself.

John Wesley said "You should earn as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give as much as you can." That's building eternal wealth.

Let me close with this: My dad told me life was about getting all the toys you can. But Jesus tells us something completely different. Life isn't about getting - it's about giving. It's not about storing up stuff that will be left behind when you die - it's about being rich toward God.

Don't be like the rich fool. Don't be self-centered, self-deceived, and short-sighted. Don't spend your life buying furniture for a hotel room.

Instead, trust Christ to pay your sin debt. Claim your eternal inheritance. And start building your eternal savings account by using what God has given you for His glory and the good of others.