Hamilton Baptist Sermons
21/7/24 Am Luke 12 v 13-21 - Craig Dyer
Good morning folks, as Kenny said, reading his chapter 12 of Luke and we'll start the verse 13. "Someone in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide in hertons with me.' Jesus replied, 'Man, who appointed me a judge or an abbot of between you?' Then he said to them, 'Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed.' 'A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.' And then he told him, 'This parable.' The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.' And they'll say to myself, 'You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.' But God said to him, 'You feel? This fairing night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but does not rich towards God. And may the Lord add to the blessing to the reading of his word this morning. We sit down every one good morning to you. Let me add to the welcome Kenny's already given you. And it's a real joy to see you with us today. Test our thoughts and our attitudes, we've just sung. Test our thoughts and our attitudes in the radiance of your purity. I think the parables, I think, to me have been a little bit of a surprise already. These are parables that I haven't preached before, certainly not in living memory. And coming to them freshly for this short summer series in July at HPC, I've been surprised by how my thoughts and attitudes have been tested by them. I don't know if you've found that already. I've certainly found that. It's been surprising since we turned to chapter 8, two Sundays ago, that we discovered there Jesus didn't devise parables to make difficult concepts easier to understand. That surprised me when I looked at it afresh. But he devised parables to make further understanding impossible unless we interact with him and his word. That's the purpose of the parables. And when you heard the Lord Jesus speak a parable back in the day, you had to think about it. You had to ask what do it mean in order to make any progress. And the same is true for us today as we interact with the Word of God. And last week in chapter 10 with the Samaritan, we found as we looked at the context and the precise issues that Jesus was tackling, that he wasn't outlining our moral responsibility to our neighbor. So much as he was revealing our moral bankruptcy. After talking to some of you last Sunday and this week, you were all very gracious about it. But I almost felt as though I'd come into your house and when we were talking, I'd taken a marker pen out my pocket and drawn a mustache and a beard on the picture of your great granny that hung in the place of honor over the fireplace and I'd vandalized something of great joy to you and something that was very precious. What a thog that guy is. I felt like I'd done that with a with a beloved parable that we kind of knew and understood and felt safe and comfortable with. But actually we discovered what the Lord Jesus was teaching there that though perfect adherence to the Old Testament law wouldn't bring us to eternal life if we could adhere perfectly to it, reality was it was utterly unattainable for us. What we know, what we need is not a standard but a Savior and that's what we have in the Lord Jesus. But isn't it very striking that across history and around the world that parable that we looked at last week has been has been made to stand for the importance of being a good child. And actually Jesus was teaching the very opposite of that. Now if you went home a bit sore last Sunday having had a well-known parable recast and vandalized let me reassure you I'm not trying to be novel not trying to be controversial I'm not trying to find a new approach to an old parable I'm only trying to see and understand what's actually here and let these parables speak for themselves and if you'll trust me not to vandalize another biblical treasure let's turn to chapter 12 and to the passage that you very hopefully read to us this parable of the rich fuel and I'm glad to see it's a little bit more straightforward than last week. There are two main points that sit right on the surface of this text and we'll see them I think very plainly but I warn you that they are the complete antithesis of the way that you and I have been trained to think. They are the polar opposite of the way that billions of people think life works so we're going to have our thoughts and attitudes tested this morning. Let's get to it the setting of this short parable is teeming multitudes around Jesus and hostile questioning of Jesus. Glance back with me for a moment if you have your Bibles open which I hope you do glance back to the very end of chapter 11 verse 53 of chapter 11 and Jesus went away from there as he went away the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say chapter 12 verse 1 in the meantime so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were trampling on one another. So there's the immediate setting for this parable that we come to this morning. It's a picture of enormous and unrelenting demands on the Lord Jesus. Everybody wanted a piece of him either to help them or to harm him. In the chapter 11 shows us pretty clearly the scribes and the Pharisees were out to harm him to press him hard to have him speaking to like like question time about so many different things that at some point he might stumble, put his foot in it and tread on a landmine as it were. But then somehow a solitary voice is heard verse 13. Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Do you ever remember appealing to your parents like that? "Dad, tell him," as a gentleman sitting down here this morning on my left who certainly heard these words spoke to him. "Dad, tell him," "Mom, tell him." "Teacher, tell him." But in fairness, if you were in a situation where you felt that you were being unjustly treated and something that had been intended to become your property was being unreasonably withheld, you might have done exactly the same as this guy did. That kind of injustice eats away at us, doesn't it? It dominates our skyline. It consumes us to the point we can think of nothing else. And it wasn't unusual back in the day when this parable was spoken. It wasn't unusual for people to consult teachers in a case like this. And if you were in the crowd and you were listening to teachers often happened, not just to Jesus, but to other Jewish religious leaders and teachers, you might well ask a teacher to weigh in. And your hope would be that the teacher would swing in behind you with the authority that that teacher has and back you to the hilt in your complaint. And here was Jesus to whom thousands were coming. Can you imagine the impact of recruiting Jesus to your case, to your cause? I don't know about you, but I was grateful to the Lord for southerly intervening in the intended target of that bullet that was seconds away from Donald Trump's head last weekend as far as we can see. And I was grateful not only for his life spared as someone who needs to come to know the Lord, but also because I could only imagine the chaos that would have followed in the United States and then the knock on impact around the world if he'd been assassinated. But I fear more for Donald Trump this week than I did with all the security laps last week as he crafts his word to suggest that God is on his side, that he has recruited God to team Trump, that the Lord has come out for Trump and bizarrely his supporters are casting him as some kind of messianic figure, some who should know better. Well, it's the same thing here. This guy in the crowd, and what he doesn't know is that the Lord Jesus is going out again in chapter 12 as the sword of life-giving seed. We got that from chapter 8, didn't we? That's what Jesus is doing as he teaches this vast crowd. And this guy, like what we saw in chapter 8, is he is just like a walking, talking pathway. His heart is as hard as the tarmac in chemistry. He's like a pavement. And what Jesus says so far just bounced off him completely. Let me tell you what that was. You don't have to, you don't have to read, just listen. Try to imagine yourself in the crowd. And when I get to verse 13, I'm not going to read the bit that said someone in the crowd said to him, I'm just going to let you hear how it would have sounded. So just picture what Jesus said. I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more they can do. I warn you whom to fear. Fear him who, after he has killed his authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. I'm not five sparrows sold for two pennies, yet not one of them has forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not. You're more of more value than many sparrows. And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the son of man will also acknowledge before the angels of God, the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. Everyone who speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, don't be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you will see. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to see. Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Did you get it? Talk about not reading the room. Talk about not choosing your moment. Even as I read what Jesus said in the run-up to our section this morning, one that a hundred questions in your mind. One that a hundred more important things that you would have wanted to say, Jesus, tell us this about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Tell us this about owning you before men. Tell us some more about that. Can you explain this? Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Verse 14, Jesus said to him, man, who made me a judge and arbiter over you, arbitrator over you. Lea Morrison, his little tendial commentary points out that this is a stinging rebuke from Jesus, doesn't necessarily read like that to us. But the form of address, man, in the ESV, is exactly what Jesus said, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you. It's far from cordial. Jesus addresses this man as a stranger. He refuses to have anything to do with this. So far from successfully bringing Jesus into the family property dispute, the man has actually succeeded in bringing a strange between himself and the Lord Jesus. What a terrible thing. And someone said, the Lord Jesus came to bring people to God, not to bring goods to people. He is though. Jesus is though interested enough to focus on this particular form of hardness of heart that made this man like a pavement instead of like soil in which the seed of God's word would be sown and blindness of mind that caused this man to disregard what Jesus was saying. Jesus is interested enough to focus on that and to speak to the whole crowd about it. So we come to the first of our main points this morning. Number one, here we go. There's more to you than the stuff you have. There's more to you than the stuff you have, verse 15. 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 one's possessions. You'll notice there from the beginning of verse 15, speaking to them, the Lord Jesus is addressing his point not just to the man who tried to engage his services as a legal advisor and enforcer, but to everyone who's listening to these thousands who are trampling on each other, speaking to them. And this immediately tells us, doesn't it? That in the judgment of the Lord Jesus, the trouble with this man who came very inappropriately and blurted out the only thing he cared about in the world, the inheritance that he was due, the trouble with this man could be the trouble with any of us. And I found it's the trouble with me, so I invite you to find that it's the trouble with you this morning. And so the Lord Jesus, because of that, gives us a caution and a reason. The caution is, verse 15 at the beginning, take care, be on your guard against all covetousness. Covetousness is just greed. Jesus says, guard against greed. That's the caution. Guard against greed. And we begin here to see a series of statements in this section that are completely counterintuitive. They are the opposite of the way that we naturally think. Greed is self-indulgence. Greed is wanting and or taking for myself more than I strictly need on the understanding that having excess of whatever it may be will be a great help to me in life. And it will defend me and it will protect me and it will build me, having more of what I just need will be a real blessing. So we indulge ourselves and we gather more, we accumulate more than we need to. We talk about retail therapy, don't we? It's interesting, therapy or me time. We find ways to treat ourselves and we do these things on the understanding that this is a little compensation for all the hassle. And this little exercise in self-indulgence is for my good. So we embrace covetousness that is seeking excess. We embrace that as a friend. We say, it's on my side. It's nice to me in a world that's not nice to me. But Jesus says far from embracing it as a friend, we should protect ourselves from it as a foe. Very interesting. The way he says verse 15, "Be, take care, be on your guard against all covetousness." He sees greed, not just as something that is generated within, but as something that will attack us be on your guard against it. Not truly enough, we run our guard from anything and anyone that might take our stuff. Of course, we run our guard against that. But Jesus cuts right through that and he says, be on your guard against your attitude to your stuff. Because far from helping you, your attitude will harm you. Far from assisting you, your greed will attack you, guard yourself against it. You see, the promise of stuff, and I use that term, the promise of stuff and more stuff and more time for our stuff is the promise in my head and your head of benefit and recovery, of therapy. But very strikingly, as we move from his caution to his reason for the caution, Jesus explains why all the stuff in the world cannot deliver on the promises we assign to it. So verse 15, "Take care, be on your guard against all covetousness." Four, we move from caution to reason. One's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. There's more to you, more to your life than your stuff. And of course, on one level, we all know that. We know when we walk through the cemetery, don't we? We tend not to put on headstones marking the graves of those who've been buried, details of the person's cars that they drove and clothes that they enjoyed wearing and trips that they made and memberships that they had and trophies that they polished. And we don't do that, not just because engraving is so expensive. We don't do it because that life now ended, did not consist in the abundance of that person's possessions. We now know that when the life is over. Two dates and a note of how you fit it in the family is how we sum it up, perhaps whether spiritual truth added, which is a good thing to see. But I've often thought how different a life is remembered after it's finished in comparison to what pretty well defined it when that heart was still beating. We know in the end, all the person had and accumulated did not cover the life. We know in the end that that person's life did not consist in the abundance of their possessions. But what did she talk most about? What was he most interested in? Where did he, she spent most time invest most energy, invest most money? What were his, her values? How were they actually expressed? What was the driving force in life? What did their internet browsing history reveal? And before we defend ourselves from what's not being attacked here, before we defend ourselves, "Well, you've got to have stuff." There's nothing wrong with stuff. And there's nothing wrong with having stuff, stuff in hobbies and interests, by and large, not always, but by and large and morally neutral. And Jesus isn't saying that the way to be cautious is to give everything away and move to a hermitage. No, it's our heart's attitude to our stuff. It's wanting an excess because an excess will give me additional security. It will help me to feel that the ground under my feet is that bit thicker and stronger if I have that excess. It will give me a sense of well-being, taking comfort in what we've accumulated, or being envious of what others have accumulated. That's what does the damage. Estimating my value as a person according to what stuff I have and devaluing others according to what they don't have, that's the insanity that the Lord Jesus is warning us to be on our guard against. But it's an insanity that we have completely bought into. We can't help it, and we somehow, without ever seeing a word to our children about it, somehow they pick it up from us, that our value is in what we have, and we treat others according to the value we apportion to them, which is linked to what we think they have or don't have. And very lovingly, the Lord Jesus, hearing this man pipe up, and knowing as Martin Luther later said, that our hearts are idle factories, ideal oil. They're just idle factories. They will just produce idols for us to worship. The Lord Jesus lovingly gives us a caution with this reason. One's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. These things are no clue to the reality of the value of a person's life. Did you watch the window of a final last Sunday afternoon? Did you see her royal highness, the Princess of Wales? And did you see her walk in and get that standing ovation? The world at her feet, delightful person by every account, unimaginable wealth and privilege at her disposal. But ultimately, a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mum battling with cancer, and in her own words, not out of the woods yet, and we pray for her recovery. But she knows this, that one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. She knows that, doesn't she? What you sow thee? Well, what's the alternative? Blance down to verse 22, and I'm only going to mention this in passing. He said to his disciples, "Therefore, I tell you, here's the alternative. Do not be anxious about your life, what you eat, about your body, what you put on, about your car, what you drive, what your house, where you live. Life is more than food, the body more than clothing. Drop down to verse 30, interesting. All the nations of the world seek after these things." You got the picture? See why Jesus is doing what he's doing? One man pipes up with his inappropriate question that reveals the issue that's facing everybody. So Jesus tells them, verse 15, the whole crowd, and now in verse 30, all the nations of the world seek after these things. And your father, notice this, your father knows that you need them. That's why I said that this stuff is not the problem. Your father knows what you need. So instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you, not taken from you. This is not a parable about how you will end up with less. These things will be added to you when you seek his kingdom. There's more to you than the stuff you have. I need to hurry on. There's more to you secondly than this life you live. Verse 16, he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. He thought to himself, "What shall I do for I have nowhere to store my crops?" And he said, "I'll do this. I'll tear down my barns and build larger ones, and then I'll store all my grain and my goods." As you know, I write the text out long-hand on a piece of paper to get it out of the two columns in my Bible so that I can see the shape of it and what's going on. And when I came to verse 18, I got my pencil and I should have used my marker that I used on your Great Granny's picture, but I got a pencil and I drew a solid line under verse 18 right across the page because it seemed to me that a line was crossed now in the internal processing of this wealthy landowner, as Jesus tells us about him. Until the end of verse 18, he was reacting perfectly wisely to the challenge that his bumper crop had raised for him. And it was a great problem to have. He was literally a victim of his own success. And Jesus lays emphasis on the decision-making process. He lets us know what this man was thinking, and it's all good up until this point. He has a solution that will help him help him to avoid unnecessary waste. He's going to the trouble and cost of redeveloping his storage facilities. But there's just a hint that he's beginning to think beyond the immediate practical need for a crop-storied solution. We're told there that the new building will be for more than just the grain. He's putting all his eggs in one basket to mix my metaphors. He's going to move all his goods in there too. Do you see that in verse 18? And this new place is going to be a kind of treasury. And as Jesus tells the story, who knows the human heart, he's helping to give us a bit of buy-in here. He's helping us to see yes, that's what I'm like. He tells the story about this landowner who as he considers all this crosses a line, verse 19. And I will say, in any of you says to myself, but actually to my soul. I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry. It's like the sign when you're going through the parchars at the airport and you see your flights not cold yet. And it says, relax. It says exactly that, eat, shop, be merry. Doesn't work for me. Now remember, there's a man standing there whose request for Jesus to intervene and sort out his brother has been refused. And presumably as this real man, real historical man stands there and listens to the parable, he's thinking, well, it's okay for the landowner. I wish I was in that position. I wish I could be having to tear down my barns and build bigger ones, but my brothers are fusing to give me the what's and what I'm entitled to, this inheritance. And this preoccupation with gain. And this assumption that stuff is the road to contentment. And more stuff is the road to greater contentment and security and meaning in life. That's what the Lord Jesus is tackling here. But do you hear the key change in the parable? Suddenly this man, as Jesus speaks of him, thinks of that the day when the new facility has been opened. After the old one's been torn down and the bulldozers have been in and leveled the ground and the hard cores gone down and the foundations there and the things built up. And he pictures that great opening ceremony as his wife cuts the ribbon. And all his friends come to celebrate with him. And they have a cheese and tops event later or whatever it may be. But what the man's really looking forward to is when all the friends and neighbors have cleared off and it's just him and his grain and his goods and his soul. And he imagines that his soul will be well fed and nourished. When his soul realises how bulletproof he is going to feel when he sees the wealth he has accumulated. Even if the market crashes now it won't touch him. Even if the mortgage rate rockets he's free and clear. No longer will he be worrying about crop infestation or floods or droughts to ruin the harvest. Soul you have ample goods. And then he assumes that this life is all there is. And he assumes that the future is guaranteed by his material success. So you've ample goods laid out for many years. The future is mine. All this is mine. And therefore the future is mine. Relax. Eat. Drink be merry. And incidentally don't think for a minute that the God of the Bible is cross with people who relax. The whole point of what we read from Jesus saying in the next section is do not be anxious. He's not against you relaxing. He just wants you to relax in reality, not unreality like this bloke. Verse 20 God said to him, "Fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things that you've prepared. Who's will they be? It's an amazing new storage facility. All the grain and all the goods and all the lovely avenues and passageways that you can walk up and down and comfort your soul with all that you've achieved and all that you own and possess and the excess of it. Who's will they be when you've gone? So is the one, verse 21, who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. I wonder do you see the point? Test our thoughts and our attitudes. Are your thoughts and attitudes being tested as mine are? There's more to you than this life that you and I are currently living. We are eternal souls and we're going to live forever. Everybody is going to live forever. Somewhere, either with the Lord in glory or away from Him in hell. This life, good or bad and for most of us is a bit of both, is not all there is. And can I tell you, if you struggle with this this morning, you'll only be five seconds beyond the moment in history when your soul is required to realize the compelling truth of the very thing that Lord Jesus warns us of here. You'll be five seconds beyond that moment when your soul is required. And if you don't see it now, you'll see it then. And when we're gone, we leave everything. In our first home, Meghan and I had a neighbour called Eddie, a lovely Yorkshireman. And with apologies to anyone from Yorkshire for my effort at the accent, he used to say to me, "Greggy boy, there's no pockets in shrouds." And at first I thought shrouds was a place. I was thinking, "That's funny. There's nobody has any pockets?" It's not a place. It's what we wrap the dead bodies in. No pockets. You can't take it with you when you go. That's what Jesus is saying here. And the Lord Jesus is not portraying God here as a cosmic killjoy who points, pounces to snuff out anyone who forgets him. This is not a vindictive God. Think of the millions of people, billions today, who will not give a thought to the one who gives them every breath. And he will bless them for 80 or 90 or 100 years of life. He's not a vindictive God, actually lovingly. What the Lord Jesus shows us here is how terrifyingly easy it is to be among the sharpest, shrewdest, most successful operators on the planet. The smart money, the top 1%, but being the category labeled "full" for your eternal existence, because we feed our souls on stuff, and we find meaning and comfort in excess of stuff, and therefore we have no appetite for the maker and sustainer of all things. We want the gifts, but we don't want the giver. Surely it's for love of us that the Lord Jesus issues this very strong warning and caution. And in the end, this is not about Jesus wanting your stuff and your money. Did you think that this morning? That being rich towards God means giving him some of your treasure, and then that makes him happy, and as long as you share, he doesn't mind you having some. It's not that at all. Look at those who have been rich towards God in the immediate context, glance back to chapter 11, verse 13. It's very inadequate just jumping in here, but Jesus says, "If you, then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" He's a giving God. He's the God who gives. He's not a taker. Being rich towards God is not about painfully parting with some of your dosh to satisfy God that he gets a bit of a cut. He's the giver. He's not the taker. Being rich towards God means that you realize he's the giver, that you go and say to him, "My soul is longing for reality. I'm not finding it in my stuff, even in excess of my stuff. Will you give me the Holy Spirit?" How much more will the Father give the Spirit to those who ask him? Chapter 12, have a look at this, verse 32, "Fear not, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." He's not a taker. So, notice verse 33, "sell your possessions, give to the needy." What we're going to do for us, it will provide you with money bags that do not grow old with a treasure in heaven that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys for where your treasure is, then your heart will be also. Being rich towards God means investing in your relationship with him so that he is the sole supplier of your heart's desires. You and I can't enrich the owner of the universe. What can being rich towards God mean? It cannot mean make him richer. What it does mean is finding all the riches in him, all that your sole desires, all the security and contentment that you need. He doesn't need our stuff, but he cautions us and reasons with us that we should set loose of our stuff, sit loose to it because he knows how deadly our relationship with stuff can be. There's more to your life than the stuff you have, and there's more to this life, there's more to you than the life we now live. We're going to live forever somewhere. Will it be with the Lord in glory in unimaginable paradise forever or cut off from him? Because we filled our lives and our souls and our priorities with things that cannot satisfy. Let's pray together, shall we? And as we pray, please listen to this from Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians 6, and just listen to how the greedy get a mention here. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. How we thank you heavenly Father this morning. As we draw this time in your word to a close and as we prepare to come to break bread, that you are in the business this morning of testing our thoughts and our attitudes of exposing the natural folly that seems to be so wise. And how we thank you that we are part of a company who were exactly engaged in all the evils we've just read of and more. But we thank you that you've washed us and sanctified us and justified us. We thank you that you're redefining in your people our relationship with sex and our relationship with what we worship and our relationship with money and drugs and alcohol. Thank you that you're redefining that, you've washed us, you've sanctified us, you've justified us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. And we pray this morning that your word would have that power amongst us to help us not only to test our thoughts and our attitudes but to turn from them and to turn to you. In Jesus precious name we pray. Amen.