The Good Life, Luke 12:13-21
Introduction
By the time I met my father in law he had been a used car salesman for more than thirty years. For the bulk of that he owned a buy here pay here lot. He could always get a great deal from him, but you just had to know that any car you got from “Big John” was likely to be uniquely equipped.
My wife and her brother tell stories of their first cars. My wife once drove a car off of his used car light with no headlights. So her father gave her a really big flashlight and told her to hold it out of the window with one hand and drive with the other.
Another time he gave my wife’s aunt a Cadillac that had an electrical problem with the power windows and as she drove through a tropical storm in Florida the drivers and passengers side windows and the moon roof just kept going up and down uncontrollably. No matter what she did with the controls it didn’t matter. She got soaked!
A few years ago when my wife and I had moved to Florida, she and I bought an old fixer upper house near the beach in Tarpon Springs. There was a lot of work to be done on that house and I needed something to haul away old debris and yard trimmings. So, my father in law gave me a little green Ford Ranger pickup truck for free.
He lived about 40 miles from us so one day I and a friend from the church drove over to Zephyrhills to pick up the truck. My friend drove my car back to Tarpon Springs and I drove the truck back.
The truck had 4 wheel drive and for a 15 year old vehicle the truck appeared to be in really good shape. As I drove the 40 miles back home though, I noticed that the steering wheel was really shaky once the speed went over about 30 miles an hour.
After I had driven about half way back I realized that the front wheels were shaking noticeably as I looked out the window down at them. I drove pretty slowly back and then when pulled into the driveway of my old house I got stuck on the curb. I gave the truck more and more gas but it didn’t go anywhere.
Finally I gave it a bunch of gas and much to my alarm, the left front wheel fell off!
I called a repair garage that came to my house, picked up the truck, and repaired it. Apparently the 4 wheel drive gears had malfunctioned and had caused some problem with the axel which caused my wheel to fall off!
While that is where I would love to end the story of my little yard truck that I would eventually nickname “the beast,” the story doesn’t end there. On my way home from the repair shop in the beast I had the most frightening thing which has ever happened to my while driving happen…
I was driving home traveling north on US Highway 19 which happens to be rated as one of the most dangerous roads in America when, as I gently depressed the brake petal to stop at a stop light, I realized that I had no breaks. I pumped and pumped the brakes and nothing happened.
I ended up bumping the tires into the curb and pumping and pumping the brakes until just before I rear ended a car in front of me the truck slowly rolled to a stop! Luckily the story has a good ending, no one was hurt and as it turns out the brake line had corroded. I had the brake line replaced and used the truck for a couple of years as I re-landscaped the property.
Transition
But that day when the brake lines went out and I lost control of the truck it as if the thing I owned, owned me. That’s how it is so often in our lives, the things we hold dear, hold us captive.
Scripture
Read Luke 12:13-21
Wrong Attitude
The central issue that Jesus is dealing with in this passage is not really money at all. He is dealing with our attitude towards it. In Jewish culture the children had the inheritance divided between them.
The eldest child would receive a double portion while the other children would receive equal parts. Most likely the brother spoken of in the passage is the oldest brother who wanted to keep the entire inheritance for him self.
The older brother in this case was filled with the spirit of covetousness or greed. Rather than grieving over the loss of his father or caring for his siblings, the oldest brother only cared for getting as much as he could for himself.
In the first part of this passage Jesus is making a point about the wrong attitude that many of have about money. He is speaking to the spirit of covetousness that so often takes root in our lives.
The point here is not at all that money is inherently evil but that when we love money more than people, then just like the truck that would not stop when I asked it to, our possessions possess us.
When we love things more than God then our desires can take over our lives until we are consumed with wanting more and more stuff and more money to get the stuff. I our constant pursuit of the good life, we abandon charity for covetousness.
In leadership magazine, Bob James tells the following story:
“Recently I laid a small circle of poison around a hill of stinging ants. Thinking the tiny granules of poison were food, the ants began to pick them up and carry them throughout the colony. I returned later to see how well the poison was working. Hundreds of the stinging ants were carrying the poison down into their hill.
Then I noticed a hole in the circle of the poison. Some of the poison was moving the opposite way—away from the hill. Some smaller, non-stinging ants had found this “food” and were stealing it from their ant neighbors. Thinking they were getting the other ants’ treasure, they unwittingly poisoned themselves.
When we see someone with more than we have, we must beware. The hunger to beg, borrow, or steal our way into what is theirs may poison us spiritually.”
In Matthew 23:25 Jesus says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (ESV)
Let us not be like the Pharisees of Jesus day. Learn to be content with what God has already entrusted you with. Be a wise steward of what you have rather than being consumed with what you want. The cure for covetousness is contentment.
I Timothy 6:6 says, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.” (NASB)
Treasures in Heaven
Learn to be content – storing up your treasures in heaven. Even the finest things in this world are fleeting. The best foods have short shelf lives. The finest cars use too much gas. Even the greatest of homes are destroyed easily by a colony of tiny little termites.
But contentment means much more than simply recognizing the flaws of possessions. Godly contentment comes as we allow ourselves to focus on the beauty of God’s eternal love for us more than the fleeting beauty of the things that this world offers.
The point is not that wealth is bad and things are evil. God created us with both a body and a spirit. It is right to enjoy the things of this life, but it is dangerous to love the things of this life more than people and more than God.
If we focus too much on possessions and money we can easily find ourselves trapped by our possessions and enslaved to our desires to get more money to get more possessions. Covetousness, greed, is a snare in which all can be easily enslaved.
Proverbs 11:6 says, “The righteousness of the upright will deliver them, But the treacherous will be caught by their own greed.” (NASB)
Conclusion
Today, choose to lay up your treasures in heaven. If you are wealthy be generous with your wealth. Love people through your wealth; build up the kingdom of God.
If you are not wealthy be generous. I have found that is often even easier for the poor person to get caught in the trap of greed than the wealthy person since they are busy trying to get more of what they don’t have.
Whatever you have, learn to be content with what God has entrusted to you. Remember, it isn’t wrong to earn more to live in security and provide for your family. It is the love of money that is dangerous. It is the constant pursuit of the good life that dangerous.
The real good life comes in knowing God and loving others. The good life is to live with peace of mind, peace in your spirit, and love in your heart.
Let us pray.
