Sermon Tone Analysis

Luke 12:13-34

 

! Introduction

Helmut Thielicke tells the story about a child who “had shoved his hand into the opening of a very expensive Chinese vase and then couldn't pull it out again.

Parents and neighbors tugged with might and main on the child's arm, with the poor creature howling out loud all the while.

Finally there was nothing left to do but to break the beautiful, expensive vase.

And then as the mournful heap of shards lay there, it became clear why the child had been so hopelessly stuck.

His little fist grasped a penny which he had spied in the bottom of the vase and which he, in his childish ignorance, would not let go.”

Is that what we are doing with our lives?

Are we holding on to what is to us a treasure but which is in comparison worthless?

“Jesus talked much about money.

Sixteen of the thirty-eight parables were concerned with how to handle money and possessions.

In the Gospels, an amazing one out of ten verses (288 in all) deal directly with the subject of money.

The Bible offers 500 verses on prayer, less than 500 verses on faith, but more than 2,000 verses on money and possessions.”(Howard

L. Dayton, Jr.) Do you ever wonder why so much?

As we continue our study of Luke, we come to a passage which invites us to consider where our treasure is.

Please turn to Luke 12:13-34 and let us see what Jesus had to say about our treasure.

! I.

Where Is Your Treasure?

12:13-15

            The occasion to talk about treasure is provided for Jesus by a man who had a justice issue to discuss.

Why did he come to Jesus?

Well, Jesus had talked about justice as being a significant concern.

In Luke 11:42 he accused the Pharisees of neglecting “justice and the love of God.” Jesus was sometimes called “Rabbi” which means teacher and it was not uncommon to ask rabbi’s to make judgements and decide difficult issues.

The answer of Jesus to the man’s question may seem somewhat insensitive to us.

The man probably had a legitimate reason for making this request.

His brother may have refused to give him his share.

These kind of things happen, in fact when it comes to inheritance issues, a lot of strange things happen in sibling relationships.

For Jesus to refuse to help him seems unfeeling.

Perhaps Jesus did not address his concern because that was not why he came to this earth.

Jesus said to him, “who appointed me a judge between you?”

But then as Jesus turned to the crowd, we see that Jesus had a deeper concern.

He drove his words straight to the heart of the matter, and straight to our hearts.

He warned the man, the crowd and us against greed.

What is interesting, however, is his definition of greed.

He does not define greed as we would suspect.

He does not define greed as an unreasonable desire for money which causes people to grasp for it in immoral and illegal ways.

That is greed in its grossest form.

He rather defines greed as the belief, the value that our life consists of our possessions.

He says “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

With that statement, he got right to the heart of what greed is.

It is not only doing something illegal, or something which hurts others, it is the belief that unless we have more, we will not be able to live.

Jesus directly attacks what is our societies assumption of what is normal.

U.S. News & World Report revealed a survey that indicated that the percentage of college freshmen who said they considered it an important goal to "become wealthy" was 74.

Those who said it was important to "develop a philosophy of life" was 43.

The man who came to Jesus made getting the inheritance his first priority.

Getting stuff was the first priority of many people in Jesus day and nothing has changed for our day.

Instead of finding value in life, relationships or God, most people find money to be their highest value.

God’s judgement on that is revealed in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5 which both identify greed as idolatry.

That this value should be revealed in the situation of an inheritance is not surprising.

I have heard of many situations in which major family conflicts have occurred because of inheritance.

I know of one situation in which a parent was in the old folks home.

One of the siblings went to visit the father on a regular basis and over a period of time was able to persuade her father to give her money to buy a car.

Later, when the father died and the inheritance was divided, that same person tried to get a larger portion of the inheritance.

Needless to say, family relationships were completely broken.

As we listen to Jesus talk to the man, we are invited to evaluate our own hearts and ask, “where is my treasure?”

!

II.

Treasure Possessed 12:16-21

            The parable that Jesus told applies this question to one side of the situation.

The man described in the parable, was already a rich man.

One year, this already rich man had a bumper crop.

The yield was great, the quality was there, the price was good and the input costs had been low.

I mean, he was thrilled that everything had worked out.

In fact, for once, his crop was so good that he was considering the possibility that he would never have to work again.

In terms we might use today, “he had arrived.”

The only problem he had to deal with was adequate storage so that the elements would not destroy all his abundance.

If he had adequate storage, he could simply live off the abundance and really enjoy life.

We might be tempted to think, “what’s the problem?”

When we have, we want to make good investments.

Why?

Is it not so that we can “store up in barns and take life easy?”

What is wrong with this?

I do not think that Jesus was saying that it is wrong to have.

I do not think that Jesus was saying that it is wrong to invest.

I do not think that Jesus was saying that it is wrong to take good care of our investments.

Then what is the problem?

In 1929 when the stock market crashed, many people lost a lot of money.

We hear about people who committed suicide because of that crash.

Why did they do that?

They did it because their whole life, their security, their confidence was entirely wrapped up in their possessions.

We fall prey to the same temptation very easily.

There are commercials on television which talk about “Freedom 55.”

The implication is that, if you invest wisely, by the time you are 55 years old you will have enough to live on securely for the rest of your life so that you will never again have to worry.

What is the problem with that kind of thinking?

It is the same kind of thinking that caused the devastation for people who experienced the crash of 1929.

They relied on their money.

I started work when I was 25 and immediately I began to be part of a pension plan.

Each year, I would get a report of how my pension plan was doing and most of the time I just put the papers in a file.

One year, the plan performed particularly well and the investment gain was far more than the contributions I had made.

That was the year I also realized how much money I already had in that account.

Do you know what I thought at that point?

I thought, “because I have a good pension plan, I will be OK when I retire.”

How easy it is for us to get to the place where our treasure is in the things we have.

When that happens, we begin to have faith in our investments, bank account, pension plan or insurance company.

Then we have made the same mistake as the man who wanted Jesus to divide the inheritance.

We have made the mistake of thinking that our life consists in the abundance of our possessions.

The folly of such thinking is pointed out by Jesus in the parable.

The rich man who thought “Take life easy for many years” did not realize that he had come to the end of his life.

All his abundance which he so rejoiced about for his personal security would be distributed to all kinds of people who had not worked for it.

He himself would not enjoy one part of it.

His life was over.

Such is the folly of those who store up things for themselves and rely on them.