If It Bears Fruit...

Have you ever been in a situation where it takes you a little while to figure out what's really going on? You're thinking, what's really going on in this situation? There's a presenting issue. It's often the way we talk about it. There's a presenting issue, and then we go, as we start to deal with the presenting issue, we start to realize that that's not really what's going on. That's just what's being talked about. You know what one of the most common presenting issues is that you will face in our day? It's universal to all of us. And it's this, it's fairness. People will gripe and they will complain and they will get all wrapped up about what's fair. And the expectation is that things ought to be fair. Life ought to be fair. Work ought to be fair. Wealth ought to be fair. Health ought to be fair. Marriages ought to be fair. Education ought to be fair. Everything should be fair. And so everyone around us and us,

can find things in areas of our life where we ourselves have said, that's not fair. Why do they get that, but I don't? Now, there are a couple of ways to deal with this gripe, this complaint, this presenting issue of fairness. One is to try to make everything fair, to flatten everything out. To remove wealth and poverty, everyone's just going to be the same. Well, that doesn't work. If you're into government, if you're into politics, and you understand ideologies that try to do this, that try to make everything fair, what it does is destroy the economy. It destroys those countries that do it. It doesn't work. Fairness is not God's design. His intention is not to say, let's make every bit of this fair. It's not fair. God didn't create a world that was fair, and he did it in his wisdom. And yet we expect that things ought to be fair.

And so one of the ways to deal with it, as I've already said, is to try to go along with it. You hear that that's not fair, and you go, you're right, that's not fair. Let's work to try to make it fair. And on the other side, when someone says, well, that's not fair, one of your children comes and he says, Daddy, he this and he that, and you go, I don't want to hear about it. You say it's not fair, I don't care that it's not fair, you're just going to have to go live with it. So we dismiss it. So you can either accommodate it, chase after it.

It's like trying to catch the wind. Or you can just dismiss it and go, I just don't care about it. But what I want you to see is that this morning in our text, fairness is the presenting issue. But oftentimes, I want you to learn that fairness is not the real issue. There's something much deeper going on in the situation. That's what Jesus deals with. He doesn't deal with the question of fairness. He deals with what's underneath the desire for fairness. As we study our text this morning, I want us to become, as I said, more aware, more discerning about what's actually going on in situations. You know how when you walk into an uncertain place, you're a little slower and you're kind of looking around and you're trying to get your bearings. You're trying to figure out, okay, how's this work? How's this new job work? How's this new class work? Wherever you're at, you're kind of tentative and you're trying to figure out, okay, how's everything go on here? What's really going to take a little while to figure it out?

And what I want us to do is I want us to grow in being more discerning in our relationships with other people. In the midst of conflict, especially when someone gripes and they go, that's not fair. I want us to go, okay, hold on. Is life supposed to be fair in every situation? No. And is your concern about fairness really the bottom of the matter? Or are you just trying to manipulate me into agreeing to be on your side? So I want us to become students. that understand what's really going on in situations so that we can be more helpful. In these sorts of conversations where someone comes to you and you talk and you talk and you talk about whatever the presenting issue is and you spend a half hour or 45 minutes or two hours or whatever it is and at some point you go, I don't think that's the issue. The sooner you can get to that, realizing that's not the issue, the more God will be glorified. And so that's the goal this morning is for us to learn how to

How to understand what's really going on and know that fairness is one of the things that runs cover or is a foil for deeper sense. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word from Luke chapter 12, verses 13 through 21. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. Someone in the crowd said to him, to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, Who appointed me a judge and arbitrator over you? Then he said to them, Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed. For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops? Then he said, This is what I will do.

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 many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease. Eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You fool! This very night your soul is required of you. And now, who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who stores up treasure for himself. and is not rich toward God. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So as I mentioned already, the presenting issue is fairness, right? Jesus is teaching and someone rudely pipes up and says, it's not fair. He's got money and he's got, and I want some of it. And you tell him he needs to be fair. It seems as if that when these two brothers father, decided who was getting the inheritance, he wasn't fair in the way he decided. He gave all of it to one and none to the other. Right? You go, well, that's not fair. If you've got two sons, you should divide the spoil equally. But did you know that there's a law in the Old Testament about how inheritances should be divided amongst sons? In Deuteronomy 21, verses 15 through 17, it says, if a man has two wives, the one loved and the other unloved,

And both the loved and the unloved have born some sons. If the firstborn son belongs to the unloved woman, then it shall be in the days he wills what he has to his sons. He cannot make the son of the loved the firstborn before the son of the unloved, who is the firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of the unloved, by giving him a double portion of all that he has. For he is the beginning of his strength. To him belongs the right of the firstborn. Now, it's a difficult passage, and why is it difficult? Because it starts out saying, if a man has two wives, and we're going, well, he shouldn't have two wives, and I say, you're right. You're absolutely right, he shouldn't. But at this time, what's one of the problems, the principal problems with a man having two wives? There's going to be an incredible amount of bitterness and strife and tension between those women. And the man, inevitably, is going to pick one, and she's going to be the loved one?

and then there's going to be the other one who's not the loved one. Now, what happens if they both have sons? What this law is telling us is that even in this situation, which is difficult, it's not the norm, even in this situation, the rights of the firstborn still apply. Even if the woman you don't love has the oldest son, because then what's the father's inclination going to be with that son? To not give him the inheritance because he's the son of the unloved. Even in that instance, the Lord says no. He's the firstborn. You give him a double portion. That was the right of the firstborn in the Old Testament in Israel. And you say, well, that's not fair. And I say, you're right. What do you want me to say? The oldest son got a double portion. That's what God said. Your gripe's not with me. Your gripe's with how God does things. Do you believe that the way he does things is good or bad? So he gives the firstborn a double portion.

And these men come to him and he says, that's not fair. So the first thing you learn is it's not all or nothing. This man wasn't given nothing. He just wasn't given an equal share with his brother. And so he comes and pleads to Jesus and he says, that's not fair. Make it right. Tell him to give me what's mine. Except that he already has what's his. He thinks his brother owes him something. He calls out Jesus to make his brother be fair. he's essentially accusing his brother of sin, of breaking the law, of not doing what was right. When in fact, that brother only received what his father had given him. Do you feel the tension already? This isn't fair. What do you want to do in this situation? If this comes to you, he got two candies and I only got one. What's the parent supposed to do?

Give me the extra one. We only had three and the two kids, and I'm going to break it in half, or we'll steal it. That's what David does. Give me the third one. It's the daddy tax, right? But you take it, and then what do the kids do when you want to break the thing in half? They are scrupulous, and they pay, which piece is bigger? I want more. And so they don't actually want fair. They don't want fair. No one ever wants fair when they're the ones being benefited. We only want fair when we feel like we're being slighted. God's world's not fair, guys. And it's good. The world that God made is good. And he didn't make it where everyone would be exactly the same and get all the same stuff and have all the same benefits and all the same hardships. That's not how God's will works. And so this man comes to Jesus and he says, make it fair. My brother's not doing right. And what would we want to do? We want to get in there and say, yeah, I don't think that is fair. But Jesus is...

wise. He's God. And he doesn't engage man. Instead, it says, man, who appointed me a judge and an arbiter between you? This man's demand, the brother's demand, was that Jesus break the law. That's what he wanted. And don't we understand that when we think life's not fair, all of a sudden obedience just kind of becomes questionable. Well, do you really have to do it if it's not fair? He doesn't make any bones about coming to Jesus and saying, it's not fair. You're God. Make it fair. But for Jesus to do that, he would have had to been told to do it. He would have had to been commissioned to do it. He answers this man by saying, who appointed me? Who delegated me the responsibility of being a judge and being an arbitrator? Think of it for a minute. When your kids were to come to you and they were to be fighting and arguing, this is just one small example.

They come to you and they've got a question. It's not fair, Daddy. Do you ask the question, is it my job to fix this problem? To make it fair? Sometimes the answer is no. Especially if you're the one who gave your kids the stuff. You know, everyone wants fair, wants the green beans to be fair. But nobody wants the ice cream to be fair. And in my house, the 10-year-old gets more green beans. than the three-year-old. You know what else? He gets more ice cream than the three-year-old, too. That's not fair, is it? So the three-year-old comes and goes, that's not fair. I say, that's okay. I did that on purpose, for a reason. It's okay. I want you to be content with what you have, son. I'm your father. I'm not your judge. I'm not here to make your world fair.

Aside from that, I would do my kids a disservice if my goal was to make everything fair for them. Because the world's not going to do that for them. The world's not going to be concerned with, oh, were you taken care of well? Did you get to do your thing? And was everything equal? And did you have your opportunity? If you've got a job and you're older and you've been out in the world, you realize that's not how society functions. And to the extent that we try to make society function that way, we harm it. It doesn't work. Fairness is not a foundational principle of Christian faith. Things aren't fair. So this man demands that Jesus break the law. That he ignore the law. That he make an exception to the law. And Jesus says, who appointed me? Who gave me the authority to do that? And so when someone comes to you and has a conflict, or they have a gripe, or they want to complain about somebody else, it should cross your mind, is it my place to hear this or to do something about it? And if it's not,

then don't. No one, not even Jesus Christ, was allowed to decide which laws had to be obeyed and which ones had to be ignored. And he's the son of God. He's fully God himself. And he didn't take liberty. If anyone could take liberty in this circumstance, it would be Jesus. And he responds, who appointed me? Who delegated this to me? Is it because he couldn't have done a good job? No, Jesus Christ would have done a perfect job of legislating fairness if that was his his desire, but he didn't. In Matthew 5.17, Jesus says, Jesus didn't come to remove the law's requirements. He didn't come to change what God had already said. He came to fulfill it. He came to obey it. And so this man's request to Jesus Christ is wrong.

It's wicked. Would it be too much of a stretch to say that this man's devotion to following Jesus Christ was hinged upon? Jesus' response? If you, God, give me what I want, then I will do what you say. Who's the boss in that situation? Who's the sovereign? Who's the one calling the shots? It's not the Son of God. So Jesus refuses to entertain this man's demand. He refuses to fulfill it. He says, who appointed me a judge and arbitrator over you? Nothing wrong had actually happened. The man was requesting that something wrong happen. But let's change the situation a little bit, okay? Let's say that the request was a legitimate request. He stole from me. That's my cow. He stole it last night. Would you please tell him to give me back my cow or my land or my wife or my whatever that was mine and he took?

It's a legitimate request. What should Jesus do then? He stole your cow. And he knows it's yours. And you know it's yours. What should Jesus do? Should he give him his cow back? Maybe. I mean, that would be right, wouldn't it? What happens if Daniel steals my cow? And I go to Daniel and say, Daniel, give me my cow back. Daniel says, I'm not going to give you your cow back. It's not your cow, it's my cow. It's in my field. And I say, it's my cow. It's got my mark on it. It's mine. Give it back. No. What happens in that situation? We go to court, right? That's what happens. My right, I have the right to have my cow back. My brother stole it. I'm going to take him to court and force him to do it. What does Paul say in 1 Corinthians? He says, I say this to your shame. Is it so?

that there is not amongst you a wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before him believers. All concerned about their right, all concerned about what's fair, all concerned about everything being done as it should be. Paul goes on and he says, actually then, it's already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. That's the defeat. That's the problem. You guys are suing one another over your rights. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your own brethren. So is it God's hard and fast rule that everything always be fair when there actually is a legitimate concern about things being fair? And right, the answer is no, it's not. What are you supposed to do when someone steals your cloak? Get your cloak back, right? No. Give them your shirt. What are you supposed to do when someone hits you? Hit them back? No. Turn them the other cheek.

And you realize in every one of these situations, what was done was wrong. It wasn't right for them to steal your cloak. It wasn't right for them to hit you. And yet you don't have to exercise your right to get what's yours. There's a bigger gospel logic going on here. Mercy and grace, which are not fair. The nature, the essence of mercy and grace do not function. On the spectrum of fairness. And mercy and grace are superior to fairness. Because they don't say, give me what's mine and no more. And it doesn't say, I'll give you what's yours and no more. That's not how grace and mercy work. That's not how God is. He's not a stringent, miserly, I'll give you what is yours and no more type of God. If he was, we'd be undone. We'd have no hope.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is not fair. It's not fair that the perfect Son of God would have to take our sins onto himself, be forsaken by his Father and killed, having done no wrong. That's not fair. That's not fair. And yet it is God's way to be merciful, to be gracious, to be kind, to be generous. And so even in the situation where you have a right to something, someone really did defraud you, they really did do something wrong, it's not a foregone conclusion that you get to go get what's yours. You have an obligation to serve Jesus Christ and to honor him in the way that you behave in that situation. Would it not be better for you to be wronged or to have been defrauded than for you to deny your Lord? Because life wasn't fair. Give it back to me. It's mine. So that's how the man speaks up. Tell my brother to be fair.

Jesus says, that's not my job. And he says it to the man, and then he turns to the crowds. Because Jesus is teaching, and this man interrupts. He speaks up. He's angry. So Jesus addresses the man directly, and then he says to them, Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed. For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. So why does Jesus say that? What is he saying? What he's saying is very simple. The man who spoke up is greedy. He's greedy. He wants more than what God has given to him. He's a greedy man. And so Jesus warns the whole crowd, here you are, you spoke up. Beware and be on your guard against every form of greediness. You see Jesus is teaching what's really going on in the situation. Fairness is what's presented, but greed is what's going on. And Jesus addresses the greed. That younger brother has been given everything that's his. He's not ill-provided for.

Unprovided for. The problem is he's not content. He's greedy. And he demands that God give him more. That is greed. When you look at someone else's life and you look at what they have and you go, that's not fair. I want that. Lord, give me that. What's going on underneath that is greed. If I could draw you a Venn diagram up here and I were to... draw a circle and put greed inside of it, and I draw another circle and put the word covetousness inside of it, or envy, you'd see that there's a lot of overlap between these things. They're very similar. This younger brother is covetous of what his older brother has. He envies his wealth. He wants it for himself. He's greedy. And I think that this is probably the most common understanding of greed is covetousness. We see that someone else has something, and we want it.

So is that covetousness? Yes. Is it envy? Yes. Is it greed? Yes. Note that Jesus warns them not to be on guard against that specifically, but for all types of greed, every form of greed. And so we learn that greed doesn't just present like this. Greed does not just present when other people have stuff and we want it. That's one way. It's a very common way. Because that's not fair. We're the ones lacking. We're the ones without. We're the ones that have... been left out to dry. And so we're greedy. We want. We have what we need, but we want more. We're going to come back to this point in a minute. But Jesus goes on and he tells them, he says, And so he's telling the crowds, if someone has more than you, that's not anything to desire because That's not what's most important in his life. That's not what's most important in your life. That's not what should be at the top of your list of priorities for what you need. I need to have more wealth, stature, power. That's not what should be at the top of your list. Even those who have all of the things that you want, that's not what defines their life. Why? Why don't those things define their life? Well, because those things are temporary.

They're temporary. What benefit is a man's money when he dies? It's of no benefit to him. He doesn't get to take it to heaven. The Egyptians got it wrong, right? They got lots of stuff wrong. But one of the things they got wrong was filling the tombs full of wealth. When Jesus goes on in the parable and he says, who's going to get your wealth, you fool? You died. Who's going to get your wealth? What happened to all the Egyptians' wealth? Robbers broke in and stole it. Those spirits, those dead people, they didn't take it to their afterlife with them. Thieves stole it. So what does all your wealth benefit you when you die? It doesn't. It doesn't. You don't get to take it with you. So don't prioritize something that only is temporary. Prioritize things that are not temporary, that are permanent.

Job said in chapter 1, verse 21, he says, Job understands how in God's economy, life goes around full circle. You come in weak, vulnerable, helpless, naked, and you live your life. And as you come around toward the end of your life, it heads back towards those things. It heads back towards weakness and vulnerability. and exposure and nakedness. All the stuff that you had in the middle of the circle, it's not there when you die. It's certainly not there after you die. On top of that, everything that we have, even all of the good things that we have, we have received them from God. We've received them from God. It's all His. He gives and He takes away according to His own perfect will. To some He gives many good things, and to some He withholds those same good things.

And we want to say, well, that's not fair. And they say, you're right. It's not. It's not designed to be. God didn't fail by not having that be fair. But it takes humility to realize that that's a feature of God's will. It's not a flaw. It's not a bug in the system. It's a simple truth that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And he does it from a position of wisdom that we don't enjoy. Something we need to remind ourselves of and others constantly. Temptations to greed and to envy and to covetousness are always present in our hearts. All you have to do is wake up, read the news, get on your social media, go to work, drive, see somebody else's car, whatever. Look at your bank account and be aware if someone else has more. It's always right there. The temptation is always right there. Sin is always at the door, crouched down, waiting for you to open it.

So Jesus tells them, even when a man has an abundance, his life doesn't consist of his possessions. And then he goes on and he tells them a parable. The land of a rich man was very productive, and he began reasoning, the rich man, to himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? He said, this is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I'll store all my grains and goods. I'll say to my soul, soul, you've done such a good job, you don't have to work hard anymore. Love life. That's what I'm going to do.

So why does Jesus tell this parable? Well, because this parable, this man in the parable, the rich man, he's equating him to the older brother who has an abundance, who has more. And he said, even when a man is rich and he has all kinds of stuff, that's not the point. That's not the thing that we should be looking for or pursuing or driving towards. This man in the parable has more than he can store. He has a surplus. He has a super abundance of crops. Now, as I've already mentioned, I want to say again, the surplus that this man in the parable, and a parable is not a true story, right? It's a story. But this man in the parable had more than he needed. And his response when he had more than he needed was greed to keep it. He was greedy. And he wasn't greedy for someone else's stuff. He was greedy for his stuff. You understand? It's a different type of greed.

He wasn't looking at everyone else's stuff. He's looking at his own. Look at this. So if surplus, if this superabundance comes from God, what should this man have done with his abundance? He should have at least inquired of the Lord, what should I do? You've blessed me. You've given me more than I need. What would you have me do with it? But why don't we want to ask that question? Because you're afraid the answer is going to come back, give it all away. Make yourself poor. Make it fair. You're a rich man. You've got to make it fair. That's why you don't ask God, because you think he's going to make everything. You've got to be fair. You see poor people, you've got to be poor like the poor people. We're so fixated on life being fair. From either position. You're poor. It's got to be fair. I need more. You're wealthy. I'm not going to deal with God because I don't want him to make it fair. Fairness is our ordering principle of life, and it's wicked. So instead of inquiring of the Lord, this man reasons with himself. And he decides, I have an idea.

I'm a rich man. I've got more than I need. This is a great opportunity for me. I'm going to tear down my barns and build bigger ones. God, I have somewhere to store my stuff. I've got to be a good steward of what God's given me. That's how we would talk about it. God gave it to me, and I'm a good steward. I need to be a good steward, and so I need to clearly tear down my perfectly good barns and build bigger, better ones. I have the money to do it. I'm a rich man. What happens to the poor man when he watches that?

Well, he gets greedy. He gets greedy. Well, look at that. He's got so much and he's got even more and that's not fair, Lord. And we would be deceiving ourselves to think that wealthy men don't do those sorts of things to flaunt in front of the poor. Do people who are wealthy flaunt their wealth sometimes? They do. Not always. But a lot of the time they're very aware of their worth and their wealth and what they've got and how they got there. And they're glad for you to know about it too. And so they signal, they demonstrate. So this man decides he's going to tear down his barns, build new ones. I want you to realize that greed is presumptuous. Greed is presumptuous. And depending on the circumstance, greed is presumptuous in different ways. In the case of the poor man, greed is presumptuous in thinking that fairness is the ordering principle. It presumes that God's supposed to make everything fair. That's not true. What's the rich man's presumption? The rich man's presumption is that he's going to actually need bigger barns next year.

And what he demonstrates is his foolishness. Because what happens in the world of agriculture, do we every year have a bumper crop, have a surplus, have more and more and bigger and bigger? Nope. We don't. We don't. So what's going to happen to his barns in five years when there's a famine? They're going to be empty. And you say, well, that's why he should hold on to his grain so that he's not poor then. So he has an abundance. And I say, okay, well what about the people who in the year of the surplus didn't have an abundance and had a need? What's the priority here? Is the priority taking care of yourself and making sure that you have provisions for many years to come because you're greedy or providing for the needs that present right in front of you when you have the means to meet them? Greed is what's at work in the answer to that question. So this man is not generous with his surplus. He's greedy. He keeps it all to himself. Now,

What does generous with his surplus, what do you think that means? It means he has to give it all away, right? Because that would be fair. We've all got to be fair. So for him to be generous, he has to take a loss. Do you know that that's not true? If that's true, then Joseph failed in Egypt. Remember when Joseph was in Egypt, and he'd gotten himself to the point of being second in command under Pharaoh, and he's stored up. all of the wealth for the kingdom. He wasn't storing it up for the king. He was storing it up for the kingdom. And what happened when the famine came? Open the door, go take what you want. It's all yours. No, that's not what Joseph did. What Joseph did was sell it. You need some grain? Okay, here you go. We have a surplus, we have an abundance, and we'd be glad to sell it to you. You don't have the land to grow it. His family came from a land where there was a famine. They came in. The famine was great in the land.

They came from far away. They couldn't grow the crops. They had money, but they had no food. So they wanted to come and trade for food. And that was a good thing for Joseph to do, to sell to them. Pharaoh still profited from the surplus. What happened when the people didn't have any more money? Oh, now it's free. Nope. Give me your land. And at some point you read the account of Joseph and you think, Joseph, you're not being very nice to these people. You're being a strict, harsh taskmaster, and I say, you know what? If you were in line, in Joseph's line to get food, you'd be glad that you had food available to you and that you had something to be able to give for it. It's the height of wickedness to think that you should be given things without ever having to work for them or pay for them. We live in a sowing and reaping society, and it's appropriate that those who sow well wouldn't have to just give away all of their hard work to those who don't work hard.

Now here's the interesting thing. First it's like, oh, generosity means give everything away. And I said, no, generosity can mean working with people and trading, taking what they do have for what they need. That can work. And you say, okay, so I don't actually have to give anything away. And I say, what did Joseph do with his family? He didn't sell it to his family. He gave it to them. They gave their money. And what did he do? He gave it back to them secretly. So what is generosity? Well, it's having an abundance. It's blessing other people with it. It's sometimes charging them money for it and sometimes giving the money back. That is the opposite of greed. It's not this wooden, rigid, I have to do this because that's what happened. No. You can't be greedy. You need to be generous. That's the problem with the man in the parable. He's not generous. He's only concerned about himself and what he has and what he needs and about his provision.

And Jesus condemns him and says, you fool. You fool. This very night your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you've prepared? This rich man's a fool. He's a fool because he's greedy. He's a fool because he only thinks about his own provision and not the provision of others. You remember Job's words, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Job wasn't about his earthly possessions and Job lost a lot. And what it says right after, in Job 1, right after Job says these things, it says, in all of these things, Job did not sin in what he said. When all of his children and all of his wealth and everything was taken away from him as a test, he trusted God. Blessed be the name of the Lord. He didn't turn away from God. That's what his wife wanted him to do. Turn away from God. Everything that's good in our life has been taken away. And he says to her, you speak as one of the foolish women speaks.

Shall we accept good things from the Lord and not adversity too? What does Job understand that we don't understand? What does he understand that this rich man doesn't understand? He understands that there's a God in heaven that he has to do with. And that his business with that God is more important than his business and his affairs here on earth. And that it's possible to be faithful with your affairs here on earth, but be poor toward God. That's what the rich man in the parable was. So is the man who stores up treasure for himself here on earth, but is not rich toward God. Job understood that. Do we understand that? Or are we greedy? Do we long for the day that we'll be the rich man and have the rich man's problems? No, because we don't think rich men have problems. I think everything's easy for them. Everything's comfortable. This man's greed, the rich man's greed, kept him from realizing his need. One of the things you have to realize is that comfort and ease in this life does not prepare you well for the life to come. It doesn't prepare you because it doesn't teach you that you need anything.

This rich man didn't think he needed anything. But when he died, it was too late, and we're told that he was not rich toward God. He didn't have what he needed, and it didn't end well for him. When we stand before God, our earthly possessions are not going to sustain us in that time. What you have now, what you want to have in the future before you die, won't be with you when you stand before God. It won't benefit you. It may be that the things that you stored up here on earth will actually stand as a testimony against you. You seek wealth, you seek comfort, you seek ease, you seek the things of the world all while you're here, and you get them. And then when you go and you stand before God, will you be rich before him, or will you have a whole testimony of your life standing against you saying, this is what was important to this man. This is what he spent his time pursuing. He was a greedy man. So what's our application? There's three of them. The first is, as I said at the beginning,

You have to understand what's really going on. Who wants to tell this younger brother that he's being greedy? Who even thinks he's being greedy? You have to see what's going on. Fairness was his covering. But Jesus says, be aware, be on guard against every form of greed. The second application is we need to have an intimate understanding of how we are greedy. None of us, not one person in this room is exempt from greed. It will manifest itself differently in each one of us. Some of us will be, well, I'm poor, and so my greed often looks like covetousness. And some of us, your greed's going to look like you won't let anyone have what you have. Or when you do let someone have what you have, you'll do it like the Pharisees did it, making sure everyone knows how generous you were. Greed can take on many forms. The final application is don't store your treasure up on earth.

Don't store your treasure up here on earth. It will not last. And I'm not saying that being hardworking and reaping the fruits of your labors is bad. That's a good thing. Honor God with it. Work hard. Get the fruit of your labor. But don't love it. Don't love it. It's harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle. Be careful with wealth, which is different than saying, be poor. There's temptations that abound in every direction. Being poor doesn't remove the temptation from you. It just changes what the temptation will be. So instead of storing your treasure up here on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, like the Egyptian tombs, store your treasure up in heaven where there aren't thieves and there isn't moth or rust to destroy. When you have an abundance, seek God about how you should use it. Honestly. Don't have an answer in your head already about how you're supposed to use it.

Trust God to tell you to use it. And read scripture and see. You should be encouraged by what Joseph did. He sold the good stuff. He sold the surplus. That was appropriate. It's also appropriate to give it away. Neither one of them is inappropriate. So trust God and don't be all bollocked up about what the answer will be because you have a misunderstanding about fairness and that everything has to be fair. Everything is not fair. And that's to our benefit that it's not fair. When you see a need, and you have the means to provide for that need, and you feel called to do that work through God's Word, through the Holy Spirit, do it. It's always easy to take care of yourself. You know, when Paul's teaching in Ephesians about marriage, he tells husbands, love your wives as you love yourselves, for no one ever hated his own flesh. It's not hard to know your own needs and to attend to them. We all do that naturally.

But Philippians tells us to not look out for our own interests, but also for the interests of others, because that's what Jesus did when he came to earth. So when you see a need, and you have the ability to help and to meet that need, do it. Don't store your treasure up here on earth. Serve God. Glorify God with the means that he gives you here on earth. Our first priority must be loving and serving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And right behind that's our neighbor. Same thing. The last thing I'll tell you about storing your treasure up on earth is the one who stores his treasure up on earth, the one who's rich in this world, has far less joy than the man who stores his treasure up in heaven. The man who's faithful to his wife and who loves a woman for 50 years has joy that Hugh Hefner never understood. You understand me?

This wicked man who's now died and gone to realize the fruit of his life has realized he screwed it all up. And it's too late. But boy, every picture of him is a happy picture. And doesn't he have the life and doesn't he have the joy and the ease and everything that everyone wants? I say, nope, he doesn't. Because he doesn't know what it means to love a woman. To have a wife and to care for her for year after year after decade after decade. What a sweet thing. Who has more joy? The one who stores his treasure up in heaven. The one who serves God with the way he lives his life. Not the one who pursues his lusts. Not the one who's greedy. And no one except the Lord God will tell you that. The world will tell you that if you satisfy your lusts, if you're greedy, you'll be happy. And you won't. You'll be far more happy if you store your treasure up in heaven. If you use the resources that God's given you to bless other people. You will have more joy in this life than the wicked.

And you will have infinite joy in the life to come, where they will have infinite misery. So don't be greedy. It's very destructive. And every one of us has things that, you know, you think, well, am I poor or am I rich? And I say, you may well be both. You're probably lying to yourself if you think, well, I'm just poor. I'm poor in every way. I don't have anything to give anybody. Not true. Not true. Don't be greedy. Don't be covetous. Store your treasure up in heaven and serve God. with everything he gives you, and you'll be rich toward God.