The Grip of Greed | The "S" Word | Trinity Sermons

Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of

Trinity Sermons. This week we are continuing

our series on the S -word, where we are diving

into the seven deadly sins and their impacts

on our lives today. Today we're going to be learning

about greed, something that we all struggle with

in many ways that maybe we don't even recognize.

We value security, we plan for the future, and

we keep striving for more. And while that's not

all bad, greed keeps us trapped in cycles of

wanting that ultimately hurt us and everyone

around us. Today's reading is from the Gospel

of Luke, chapter 12, verses 13 to 21. Someone

Luke 12:13–21

in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother

to divide the inheritance with me. Jesus replied,

Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between

you? Then he said to them, Watch out, be on your

guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not

consist in an abundance of possessions. And he

told them this parable. The ground of a certain

rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 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'll tear down my barns and build bigger

ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.

And I'll say to myself, You have plenty of grain

laid up for many years. Take life easy. Eat,

drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You

fool. This very 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 whoever

stores up things for themselves but is not rich

toward God. The gospel of Christ. Hey, I want

you to take a look at this. This image here.

Behold, cast your eyes upon this. This is Apophis.

Apophis is named after the Egyptian god of chaos,

which doesn't sound too promising. Apophis is

an asteroid about the size of three hockey arenas.

And in the year 2029, it is going to have a really

close call with... planet Earth. It was just

a few weeks ago, we were being told that there

was a 3 .7 % chance that Apophis was going to

strike Earth. And then NASA changed their mind.

And they said, actually, no, no, it's going to

miss Earth completely. And then they've kind

of put a little asterisk besides that. And they

said, well, it could still hit Earth if it got

nudged by another asteroid. Cue the nervous laughter.

Ha ha ha, that won't happen. That won't happen,

right? Because if it hit us, it would be devastating

this thing is going to come so close it's going

to pass beneath some of our satellites for sure

right but if it hit us it would be disastrous

it would be like a thousand megatons of tnt going

off all at once 20 times the size of the largest

nuclear device that's ever been detonated on

earth the impact would actually have ripples

the first thing if it were to hit water of course

it would create tsunami that would devastate

coastlines if it were to hit land And the blast

radius would be hundreds of kilometers, could

flatten entire cities just like that. And then,

of course, there's the dust cloud that would

be ejected into the air. That would affect everything

from climate to crop production. And then, of

course, we have to add the whole economic consequence

of it. The economy would surely crash as well.

But don't worry. NASA's got their eye on it.

They're monitoring Apophis very, very closely.

What we should be worrying about and what we

should be looking at is the asteroid that we

can't see. The one that we're not. And that's

right. There is something else out there, a danger

much harder to spot. In fact, it's not out there

at all. It's in here. It's in our lives. It's

in our hearts and our habits. And we call it

greed. We've been working through this teaching

series now throughout Lent called The S Word,

looking at the seven deadly sins. We started

by looking at pride, and then we looked at envy,

and then last week we looked at sloth, and today

we come to greed. This is going to be a real

tough one for us, actually, because the thing

about greed is you just don't see it. Like Apophis,

I dare you, go out and look into the night sky.

Look up there. You will not see it. You won't

see it. It just blends into the sky. It's shrouded

in darkness. Is that a star or is that Apophis?

I don't know. But it's there. And it's deadly.

And it's coming for us. And greed, too, is really,

really hard to see. We don't see it. We don't

see it when we look at our world. I don't see

it when I look in my own life. But it's there.

And here's why we don't see it. By the way, I've

given you some notes today to follow along because

there's lots of important stuff I want to share

with you about greed. But here's the first reason

why we don't see greed. And that is because we

have rationalized it. Greed, we say, is what

makes the world go round. Greed is good. Greed

works. Our capitalist consumer culture depends

on greed to function. It drives innovation. Greed

fuels the economy. It rewards ambition. We need

greed. You need greed for your own security,

for your own success. For the system to work

the way that we have set it up, we need greed.

Greed is the spur of industry. It's how the world

works. That's why we don't see it. We rationalize

it. But secondly, we also normalize greed. We

say, oh, greed, I think it's just the way things

are, right? I mean, it's like the wallpaper.

It's like the stars in the sky. It's just in

the background of everything we do. right and

we don't recognize we just say oh it's saving

up i'm just buying more i'm just growing my wealth

that's not greed no no no no that's just good

financial planning right it's it's common sense

this is just what everyone does no greed is not

a sin it's just it's just my lifestyle choice

right and then the third reason we cannot see

greed is because it's commercialized this is

the strategy of modern advertising create some

discontentment in you, and then sell you the

solution. Greed in this way is completely manufactured.

Advertisers spend billions of dollars telling

you you need this, you gotta have this, this

will make you happy, you deserve the upgrade.

And commercialism, it's funny, it doesn't just

say you need to buy this, it says you gotta build

your identity around this. We don't go shopping

just to... Because we need something. We go shopping

in order to feel something. That is commercialism

at work. It's just everywhere. You don't even

see it anymore. But the fourth way that we kind

of... greed is invisible to us is that we have

baptized it. Greed is not just something that

exists out there. It also exists right in here,

right in the church, right? It's the preacher

who says, right, God wants you to be rich or

wealth is God's blessing or the more you give,

the more you're gonna get. This is some kind

of spiritual investment plan, right? Greed can

be baptized by religion. I've came across this

Will Willimon quote. It said, greed is no longer

a sin, it's a strategy. It's preached from the

pulpit. Yikes! I'm the guy who usually stands

here and preaches from the pulpit. So what does

this mean? It actually kind of scares me. Is

he talking about people who preach some kind

of prosperity gospel? Or perhaps he's talking

about the fact that sometimes we don't even want

to touch this topic with a 10 -foot pole, and

so we avoid it at the risk of offending people.

Well, guys, Guys, today we're going to talk about

it at the risk of offending people. Because when

you stare up at the night sky, you will not see

Apophis. It's hidden. And you look around our

world and look inside yourself, you will not

see greed because we rationalized it, normalized

it, commercialized it, and baptized it. The man

in Jesus' parable today, he didn't see greed.

He didn't look greedy. Look at this guy. He's

not stealing, right? He's not cheating. He's

just building some bigger barns, right? This

looks like good financial common sense, don't

you think? Economic wisdom, right? We don't see

greed. Jesus does. Jesus says, watch out. Watch

out. When do you say watch out to someone? You

say watch out when you see something that they

don't. They're about to step into traffic. Watch

out. They're about to step over a cliff. Watch

out. Right? Some sins we can see. Greed is not

one of those sins. Jesus says, watch out. You

don't see it. I see it. But you don't. Like Apophis.

just because you can't see it doesn't mean it

won't kill you. And when greed breaks in to the

atmosphere of our lives and makes impact in our

hearts, there are ripples of devastation. The

first... ripple of impact is personal unhappiness.

It totally sounds strange, but research shows

that greedy people, while they may have more

income, they are no more satisfied. In fact,

they have lower life satisfaction. And that's

because greed always wants a little bit more.

A little bit more money, a little bit more house,

a little bit more in my closet, right? One more

upgrade, one more step. Greed works this way.

You get the raise. You buy the upgrade, you get

the new toy, you enjoy it for a bit, but then

something happens. The goalposts shift. Now it's

a little further. You got to get one more thing

to get to that point. And then you get that.

And then the goalposts shift again. See, greed

is not satisfied by getting. It is only satisfied

by getting more and more. Look at the man in

our story. Look, when his barns were full, did

he say, oh, I've had a really successful year.

I achieved my goal. No, he said, I better build

bigger barns. And I'll tell you what, once those

barns are full, he won't say, I'm satisfied now.

No, he'll say, I better build bigger barns to

hold on to more and more wealth. Greed will not

let you be happy with what you have, only with

having more. You know, I remember when we moved

into one of our first houses, it was this old

house, I want to say 75, maybe 100 years old.

And I remember looking at the closets. And the

closets were like tiny. There were these little

compartments. They were like two feet deep. Like

one of my shoes like fit the depth of that closet.

And I think one of those closets held just my

sweaters. And I was like thinking, what did people,

where did people 75 years ago keep all their

clothes? And then it dawned on me. 75 years ago,

people didn't have as many clothes, right? They

had a couple of dresses, not 25. They had a couple

of pairs of pants, not 14. Today, though, we

don't ask, you know, when is enough? We just

build bigger barns, bigger closets, walk -in

closets, walk -in closets with, you know, walk

-in closets within them, right? You know, Jim

Carrey said that I think everybody should get

rich and famous so that they know that it is

not the answer. right? Freddie Mercury once said,

you can have everything in the world and still

be the loneliest man, and that is the most bitter

type of loneliness. Or how about the Roman poet,

Horace, who, you know, was around Jesus' time.

He said, the one who is greedy is always in want.

That is the first point of impact, my friends.

Personal unhappiness is where it starts, but

then it ripples out from there, ripples out.

The second ripple that greed has isn't just personal,

it's planetary. There's an environmental crisis

that comes with greed. Put simply, here's how

it works. Greed fuels overconsumption, which

drives environmental degradation. If greed is

never satisfied, then the earth can never rest.

Our need to possess more, faster, cheaper, inevitably

leads to the depletion of the world's resources.

Life will become unsustainable at some point

because of greed. So there is this connection.

You don't see it. you never see it between sheen

and tmu and you know the next iphone uh and there's

a connection between that and the rainforest

and coal reserves and species extinction and

global warming and sea levels it is actually

an open question how long our planet can survive

our greed You know, Gus Speth said, you know,

I used to think the top environmental problems

were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and

climate change. I thought that within 30 years

of good science, we could address these problems.

I was wrong. The top environmental problems are

selfishness, greed, and apathy. And to deal with

those, we need a spiritual transformation. So

that is the second ripple. It's an economic crisis.

But another ripple comes, and even more destructive

than this. It doesn't just hit our happiness.

It doesn't just hit our environment, but it hits

the poor. Greed keeps whole populations in poverty.

Global supply chains rely on things like sweatshops

and unjust wages and exploitation. Why? To satisfy

greed. Man, oh man, prophets like Amos, they

railed against this. They sell the innocent for

silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They

trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust

of the ground and they deny justice to the oppressed.

When we have too much, others have too little.

Look, the rich guy in our reading today, he is

not thinking about others. Just look at the language.

He thought to himself, what shall I do? I have

no place to store my crops. And I'll say to myself,

you have plenty. Thomas Aquinas said that greed

is actually a sin that is directed at one's neighbor.

You can't have so many riches without another

person lacking them. So greed turns us inward

and we ignore our responsibility to others. Now

the final and most dangerous ripple from the

impact of greed is spiritual emptiness. This

is the deepest devastation of all because greed

becomes our God. Something that takes the place

of the one true God. You see, God is meant to

be our hope. He's meant to be our comfort. And

he's meant to be our protection. But greed sneaks

in and says, hey, I can do those things for you.

Come on, right? I can give you hope. I can give

you comfort. I can give you protection. You don't

need God. You just need this and this and this

and this. You see, wealth and possessions become

our God. The rich guy in Luke 12, He turned,

not to God, but to money for his security and

his future. He says, I've got plenty laid up

for many years. I can take it easy now. I've

looked after myself. I've got enough stuff. We

say, that guy's a great financial planner. God

says, he's a fool. He put his faith in barns,

not in God. His barns are his God. So yeah, greed.

You may not see it coming, but when it hits,

It's going to be an extinction -level event in

your life, in this world, right? Justice will

be extinct. Your happiness will be extinct. Faith

will be extinct. And even this world probably

won't survive it. So, are you feeling depressed

yet? How are you feeling, right? You probably

feel like Jesus' disciples. I'm reminded of the

time that Jesus once told his disciples, he says,

it's harder for someone who is rich to enter

in the kingdom of heaven. It's actually easier

for a camel to go through the eye of a needle

than for someone who's rich to enter the kingdom

of God. And his disciples, like us this morning,

probably said, oh my gosh, then who can be saved?

So depressing. But listen, with a twinkle in

his eye, Jesus looked at him and said, you know

what? Yeah, it's kind of impossible for a man.

But with God, all things are possible. We can

deflect the asteroid of greed. We can, in fact,

destroy the asteroid of greed. Let me tell you

about DART. NASA's... Double asteroid redirection

test. This is amazing. In 2021, NASA launched

a rocket at a very small asteroid called Dimorphos.

And they wanted to see whether that rocket could

actually change the trajectory of a smaller asteroid.

A year later, DART collided, as it was supposed

to, with Dimorphos. Boom! And... Success, actually.

The trajectory of that little asteroid changed.

And they even blew some of it to pieces. In fact,

in 2029, we're going to have a meteor shower

because of some of the debris from the DART project,

right? Well, guess what? There is good news for

the problem of greed. If we act soon enough,

we can deflect it. We can destroy it. And we

can avoid the devastation that comes with it.

And all it takes is for us. to launch a new way

of thinking and all our lives will be saved.

So what is this new perspective? What is this

new way of thinking? It is simply this. You got

to start thinking this way, that everything we

have is not owned, but loaned. Everything you

have is not owned by you. It's loaned to you.

Everything, your money, your house, Your job,

your car, your time, your body, your opportunities,

it's all on loan. What do you mean? Well, first

of all... It's loaned to you from God. You know,

scripture tells us over and over again that we

don't truly own anything. Every good gift is

from above. Psalm 24 says, the earth is the Lord's

and everything that's in it. Why don't we just

say that together? Because that is one of the

most powerful statements I came across this week.

Let's say this. The earth is the Lord's and everything

in it. God has just loaned us this stuff for

a while, and one day we're going to have to give

it all back to the true giver. When we become

followers of Jesus, we actually acknowledge something.

Nothing we possess is really ours. You know,

that's why Jesus says crazy things like this.

He says, any one of you who doesn't give up everything

he has can't be my disciple. We say, well, what

is Jesus saying? Jesus saying I have to be poor

and live on the street? No. He's just saying

you got to open your hands and you have got to

acknowledge that none of it is yours. God is

the owner of everything you have. That's the

shift. That's the rocket, right? But we say,

oh my gosh, Rob, I earned it, right? It's mine.

I worked for this. I sacrificed for this. Yeah,

you worked hard. But to say it's mine because

I earned it fundamentally ignores countless variables

that were outside of your control. The health

you didn't create, the doors you didn't open,

the economy that you didn't engineer to get your

wealth, the breath in your lungs that you didn't

generate, the place you were born, the family

you were born into, right? Your opportunities,

the strength, the skill, that door that was open

at just the right time. Did you have anything

to do with that? No. Your paycheck, your business,

your savings. You didn't create any of those

things out of nothing. They're not yours. They're

not mine. God warns us not to say, oh, my power

and my strength has produced this wealth for

me. He says, instead, instead, remember the Lord

your God, for it is he who gives you the ability

to produce wealth. You're not a self -made person.

Neither am I. You may have filled the barns.

But God gave you the seed and the soil and the

sunlight and the seasons. Everything we have

is loaned from God. That's a big rocket. But

not only is everything we have loaned from God,

but it is borrowed from God. You see, Christians

have always insisted that wealth and resources

are to be used for the common good. So you see,

your wealth wasn't just loaned to you to bless

you. It was loaned to you to bless others too.

Meaning, get this, the extra that you have is

probably meant for someone else. Basil the Great,

who was this bishop in the 4th century, he actually

called accumulation theft. Theft, who am I stealing

from? He says, It's the hungry one's bread that

you're hoarding. It's the naked one's cloak that

you're retaining. It's the needy one's money

that you withhold. Let me put it in modern language,

right? The money for the expensive coffee that

you purchased this morning, you borrowed that

from the child who's going to school this week

without breakfast, right? The winter coat, the

new winter coat you have in your closet beside

the four other ones that you don't wear, that

was borrowed. From the homeless person that you

passed on your way to work. The money that you've

saved for retirement, some of that was borrowed

from the sweatshop worker who made your hiking

boots that you've only worn two times. Greed

isn't about what I keep. It's about what I keep

from others. What we borrow from others. And

I know, oh God, well what if I don't have enough?

What if I need it later? What if I run out? Greed

often hides behind these fears. It's rooted in

fear, greed. There might not be enough. But the

Bible says God will supply your needs. Not all

your wants, but God will supply your needs in

Christ Jesus. You know, Jen Hatmaker, she wrote

this book called Seven. It's an interesting little

book. And what she did is she decluttered her

closet, like I need to do, pairing down everything

to seven items. And she said, I'm just going

to wear these seven items for a month. Why? To

change my perspective. And then she wrote, she

said, I used to look at my closet and think,

what if I need this someday? Now I try to ask,

what if someone else needs it today? This is

the shift, people. This is the shift. This is

the thinking that we must launch in order to

divert the asteroid of greed. Everything we have

is loaned from God. Everything we have is borrowed

from others. You start thinking that way, and

the trajectory of the asteroid of greed will

change. Now once we've made that shift, Not just

to deflect greed, we can actually destroy it.

And so in closing, let me just share with you

four other very practical rockets that you can

fire at greed to eliminate its power in your

life. You ready? Here they go. First racket,

first rocket. What a racket. Track your spending,

right? Your budget is a theological document.

It shows what you believe about security and

about God and joy and all that stuff. You see,

greed loves to stay in the shadows. But when

you bring it out into the light, bring your budget

out into light, record what you spend your money

on when you spend it. Record what you save your

money for when you keep it, right? Do that for

a month, right? Because to destroy greed, we

got to pay attention, right? And you actually

might be shocked what you discover. That's the

first rocket. Just track your spending. Here's

the second rocket. Avoid temptation. Right? Don't

go to the mall if you don't need to go to the

mall. Right? Don't go into any environment that

makes you feel discontent and greedy. You know,

maybe you got to unsubscribe from those marketing

emails. Maybe you got to unfollow that influencer

who is always trying to sell the latest thing

to you. Right? Greed is fueled by comparison.

So cut it off. Cut it out. Starve it. And just

avoid those temptations. The third rocket, this

is going to sound like a strange one, but practice

Sabbath. Sabbath is a crucial antidote to greed,

and here's why. Because every week, Sabbath reminds

you that the purpose of your life is not to consume,

it's not to earn, it's not to accumulate. On

Sabbath, what we do is we disconnect from the

whole consumer system, and we rest in God. Oh

my gosh, greed hates Sabbath. Greed wants to

keep you accumulating, keep you acquiring. Sabbath

says, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. My

worth and my security come from God, not stuff.

And the fourth rocket, I'm going to say this

is the big one, so I'm just going to say it.

Tithe. Tithe intentionally. This is perhaps the

oldest advice that we have on record about how

to handle money. Tithing. is when you decide

ahead of time to give away one -tenth of your

income to those in need, to the church. What

better way to remind you that everything belongs

to God than to habitually give him back that

first portion? Tithing says, God, you gave me

100%. God, you're going to let me keep. 90%,

but God, the very least I can do is offer back

to you that 10 % that was yours in the first

place, right? If we spend on ourselves first

and then give away what we have left over, then

we're still in the mindset that it's ours to

do with as we please, but giving it away, right?

It loosens our attachment to the stuff and increases

our attachment to God. And if you're tithing

now, you know what I'm talking about. You know

that there is nothing, like tithing, to reorder

your loves, to reorient your heart, to liberate

your soul from the grip of greed. The only antidote

to greed is generosity. And you can't think your

way into generosity. You have to give your way

into generosity. So friends, that asteroid is

real. But so is the solution. Greed may be invisible,

but Jesus saw it, named it, and warned us to

watch out. So don't just go home tonight and

stare into the night sky. Let's do something.

Let's shift our perspective from ownership to

stewardship, from mind to God's, from self to

others. And if we do those things, we will not

only divert, But we will destroy the power of

greed in our lives and in our world. Thanks be

to God. Amen. Thank you for listening to this

week's episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon

was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville on

March 30, 2025.