Sermon
"Beware of Covetousness" - Luke 12:13-21 - Mar 8th, 2026 - Pastor Scotty Brown
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Well, ifan you got a Bible, turn to Luke chapter 12.
Luke 12 chapter mention
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That's where we're going to be.
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Still a whole lot of shaking going on in the world.
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Hoping everybody's paying attention.
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Hope you're getting up and you're watching.
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And kind of watching Israel, watching Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine,
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China. I mean, it's all over the world. Cuba, they say, is kind of in a pickle. They may not last much
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longer. You know, the Bible says that everything that can be shaken will be shaken. And I don't know
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what it would take for people to turn to the Lord, but I would hope that it wouldn't take much more
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than what we see going on in the world, realizing that we, I don't know about you, but a lot of times
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when you see how overwhelming it is the things going on in the world, how small it makes you feel.
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And it can strike fear in people's hearts, and yet the Lord has encouraged us.
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When you see these things, don't get all upset, right? Be faithful. Stay close to the Lord.
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Be faithful unto death, and he'll give us a crown of life.
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and well that's easier said than done sometimes but anyway we're going to get in God's word this
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morning and hopefully we'll be encouraged by the things that we read a lot of times Jesus doesn't
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pull any punches and the truth is is very painful at times and so there might be some truth
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that we see today that might check us simply because we're Americans
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anybody proud to be an American?
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Amen.
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I'm so thankful that I live in this country,
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and yet I think it can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time.
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But we looked last time at the Holy Spirit,
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and we want to, I don't know about you,
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but I want to be walking in this spirit,
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and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh,
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and trying to stay away from hypocrisy.
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That's how Jesus started this chapter.
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Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
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And so in this passage, we get another beware from Jesus.
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When Jesus says, beware, we probably should beware.
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Right?
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It's very elementary, I realize, but we should take.
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it to heart when the Lord says beware. And we finish up in chapter 12, verse 12, where it says,
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for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. The God's Spirit
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desires to dwell in us and to give us wisdom, to give us His word, and that we might be
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able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And the Holy Spirit says,
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the best way to go there, and he will meet you in that moment when you need him the most.
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And so we're going to read, we're just going to read through seven or eight verses here.
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I think it's from verse 13 to verse 21.
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So read along with me.
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It says, then one of the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to defied the inheritance
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with me.
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But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?
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And he said to them, take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
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Then he spoke a parable to them saying, the ground of a certain rich man yielded plentiful.
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And he thought within himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no room to store my crops?
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And so he said, I will do this.
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I will pull down my barns and build greater.
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And there I will store all my crops and my goods.
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And I will say to my soul,
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soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.
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Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
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But God said to him, fool.
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This night your soul will be required of you.
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Then whose will those things be which you have provided?
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And so is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.
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Let's pray.
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Lord, thank you.
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Thank you for the truth of these verses, Lord, that Lord encourages us to be careful what we put our trust in.
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And so, Lord, may we find ourselves today putting our trust in you.
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Lord, that the truth of your word would cut deep into our hearts and just the reality of what and who we are.
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are, especially what and who we are apart from you. So Lord, would you teach us this day? Lord,
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may we take these things to heart. May we truly realize, Lord, and pursue becoming rich
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with our God and that our treasures would truly be in heaven, in Jesus' name. Amen. So we have another
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beware here from Jesus in this passage. And so it is beware of covetousness.
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and so Jesus seemingly right off the back gets pulled into an inheritance dispute.
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You ever seen those?
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It's the most brutal.
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I think it's second only to murder, which I think it's caused murder in some cases.
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And he seemingly gets pulled into this where the then a, then one thing,
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from the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
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Now, this would be probably uncomfortable to get involved.
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You know, the scripture says not to get involved with other people's affairs.
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I think it's in the proverbs, well, it says if you start getting involved and sticking your
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nose into other people's business, it's like taking a dog by the ears.
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You're going to get bit, right?
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So don't do that.
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But when it comes to inheritance, people get pretty uppity.
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And what do I want to say?
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Just all they can think about is what you're going to give me.
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You know?
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And my dad was actually talking to me about this the other day, about my inheritance.
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And I'm thinking, I wonder what the others would say about this.
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Right?
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Would they agree with him?
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Would they not agree with him?
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And it's like, just let the people who are leaving the inheritance, make a decision,
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live with the decision, and go on about your business.
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But people don't do that.
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No, they get all watered up.
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We got invited, my wife and I.
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to some extended family.
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The gal in her 90s was getting ready to pass,
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and they said, we're divvying up all this stuff at the house.
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Come over.
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Take what you want.
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So we get over there, and her adult children are in their 70s.
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And I'm watching, I'm going, this feels kind of weird,
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going through somebody's stuff.
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And they're not even gone yet.
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I mean, she's not even cold.
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And we're going through the stuff.
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And I remember I overheard the oldest boy said,
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this is the end of life.
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This is what it is.
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You accumulate all this fodder, all this stuff.
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And then people divvy it up.
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And praise the Lord, they weren't fighting over it, right?
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But I'm just going, wow.
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And so Jesus kind of, he's going,
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Now, wait a minute.
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You want me involved in this whole inheritance thing?
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I don't think the Lord is that interested in our stuff.
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Right?
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He don't care about our stuff.
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Stuff don't do nothing for us.
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But make our garages cluttered.
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That's what stuff does.
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Jesus is concerned with our soul.
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He's concerned with your soul.
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He could care less about your stuff.
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You should care less about.
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your stuff because it's just stuff and it's going away so he says he says but he said to him man who made me a judge
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or an arbitrator over you or your stuff now it is interesting they considered jesus a rabbi right
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and in the Jewish society disputes were often brought to the rabbis to settle.
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But it's like Jesus going, I'm not going to do this.
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I'm not going to get in here.
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Okay, you can have the oak chair and you get the disposable chair, right?
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Kind of divvying the stuff up.
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And in that culture, the firstborn, so he says, tell my brother.
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Because the firstborn, the firstborn, when,
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When it came to the inheritance, the firstborn got two-thirds of everything that the family or the father left.
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And then the other siblings that were behind him got to divvy up the third that was left.
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Right?
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So if you're firstborn, you kind of had it made in the shade, so to speak.
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Right?
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So maybe this kid thought he was getting robbed or whatever, and he wanted Jesus to intervene.
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but Jesus goes, I'm not the partitioner.
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I'm not going to partition up your stuff or divide it.
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Because obviously he's not concerned with this stuff.
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And in verse 15, he says, and he said to them, take heed.
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So he takes this situation and he uses it as a teaching moment for those who were around him.
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And it says, and it says he says to them, the people who are around, take heed and beware of covetousness.
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I probably don't say that right.
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But for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
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These, these possessions of ours, isn't it funny that sometimes you think that if I just had that,
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it would be so much easier.
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I remember years ago talking to a rancher friend of mine that I worked for.
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He was in his late 70s, and he was telling me that his wife always told him,
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their whole married life, his wife always told me,
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if I just had another $100 a month,
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he said, so I'd give her $100 a month.
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And about a year or two later, if I just had another $100 a month,
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is that covetousness i i think it is right it's uh the the the word for it here is is obviously the
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the thou shall not covet is the tenth commandment you remember that right remember the ten commandments
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that that one's always easy to remember and um but in the greek the word covenous is it's
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play onyxia.
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Pleonicia is the
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pronunciation of this word,
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and it means
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lusting for a greater number
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of temporal things
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that go beyond what God
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determines is eternally best.
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I like that. That's a great
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definition of covetousness.
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I'll say it again.
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Lusting for a greater number
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of temporal things
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that go beyond what God
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determines is eternally
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best. Granniness. Right? You just, you want more. Years ago, I heard a preacher talking about a bunch of
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billionaires that they asked the question. You guys got billions, right? So how much is enough?
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Just a little bit more. Just a little more. They're never satisfied. And then when they get all
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that, they're kind of like, they become these little hoarders. You know, I used to hear stories about
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Howard Hughes and, man, they get all wotted up about, you know, about little penny things.
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Just, no, that's only cost a few cents. I worked for a guy like that one time. I wrote some
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horses for him. He was a doctor in the Magic Valley. And him and my friend went to the store one day.
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And his friend, my friend was, our mutual friend was telling me, he said, that guy is so tight.
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I said, really?
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He said, yeah.
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And he had money coming out of his ears.
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And he said, we went.
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I was helping him fix some stuff at his house because he was too cheap, right?
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He wouldn't hire it done.
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So he'd asked me to come do it for free.
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And he says, hey, we need a handful of those screws.
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And he says, grab a handful of them screws.
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And the guy goes, and this guy with money running out his ears, he goes, at three cents a piece?
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He looked at him like, really, you're that wotted up about three cents apiece on those screws.
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But that's, it's just, it makes you weird.
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When you live in this place of thinking, I just got to have more.
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I think every person, especially every follower of Christ, you need to determine in your heart very soon in your Christian life, how much is enough?
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How much is enough?
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I've always had enough my whole life.
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There were times when we were kids, we didn't know what we were going to eat, but we always had enough.
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I mean, I mean people showing up on our step, giving us, and leaving bags of groceries and knocking and running.
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We always had enough.
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God saw to it.
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You know, the Psalmist says that I've never seen the righteous or the offspring of people who love God begging for bread.
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We never had to beg for bread.
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Now, we didn't have the best clothes or any, but we always had enough.
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And everyone needs to determine in their own heart, how much is enough, especially us here in the West, that we're so fat and so blessed.
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We take so much for granted.
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And we still think we have to have a little bit more.
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Are you serious?
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It was very convicting for me going through this.
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And so the last part of verse 15,
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for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.
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And so often we think it does.
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We think that if I just have a little bit more, my life would be better.
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So you're putting trust in these things to give you life.
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When the only one who can give you life is the author.
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of life. That's the only one who can give you life. Things can't give you life. Money can't give you life.
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They won't, these things won't hold your life together, if anything, that probably tear your
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life apart. And I think Jesus is pointing us to, in a direction that many people struggle.
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going to.
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But he's the one who gives us life.
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Not things.
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John 1028.
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And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.
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Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
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Is that an incredible promise or what?
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You find that life in him?
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Because it's there.
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And he told us in another place, the words that I speak to you,
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they're spirit and their life.
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Have you noticed that if you'll consistently read God's word,
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there is a, there's life that comes to you?
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Encouragement?
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Just reading through the book of Job.
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I'm just thinking, man, I'm so glad I'm not Job yet.
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Right?
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I ain't out of the woods yet.
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But notice what the 10th commandant entails here.
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It's not just stuff.
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It's other things too.
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Exodus chapter 20, verse 17, it says,
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You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
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You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
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Oh, there's a lusty one.
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nor his male servants, nor his female servants, nor his ox,
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nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbors.
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And how often I see and I've been guilty of it myself,
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oh, I want one of those, right?
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It's never crossed your mind, but as soon as your neighbor gets it,
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I want one of those.
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And it can be anything, right?
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it could be a wife or a car or a house
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and I'm going to go ahead and just
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read through 16 through the 21 again and he spoke a parable to them
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so Jesus goes okay you guys need to get this
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so he speaks this parable to them saying
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the ground of a certain man yielded plentiful, and he thought within himself saying,
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what shall I do since I have no room to store my crops?
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I'm at a loss.
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I've been so blessed.
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I have no place to put everything that I have.
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But he doesn't say that, does he?
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He doesn't recognize that the fruit of the ground that yielded plentiful would come from somebody else.
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So he said, I will do this.
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I will pull down my barns and build greater.
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And there I will store my crops and my goods.
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And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.
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Take your ease.
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Eat, drink and be merry.
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But God said to him, fool this night, your soul will be required of you.
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Then who will those things be which you have provided?
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And so is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not.
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not rich towards God. It's like, that's all you get. It's all you get. I mean, that bumper sticker
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that people try to convince themselves is true that says, he who dies with the most toys wins,
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right? No, he who dies with the most toys wins, nothing. That's how it should read. He wins. He wins.
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So three things about this guy before we leave today.
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First of all, he's greedy.
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This guy's greedy.
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Just give me, give me, give me.
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Got to have more.
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And greed has no allowance to recognize God's goodness or blessing in God's grace.
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Right?
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It doesn't allow that to happen.
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It's just no.
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Look what I've got.
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Look what I've done.
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You remember Mabikinezer.
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That was his ploy.
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when he's standing over there over his kingdom.
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This is after Daniel interprets his dream about the statue,
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and he's going, look at this great, great empire I've built.
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Kaboom, that very day.
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Finito, it's over.
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You're going to be like an ox.
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Burr.
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And he ate grass like a cow for the next seven years.
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God put him in the pasture, put him out to pasture.
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Because why?
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He didn't recognize God.
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He didn't humble himself.
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He didn't realize what God had given him.
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That's what greed does.
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Makes you totally blind to how blessed you are.
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Totally blind.
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And this guy, he's blinded by his greed.
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I've got it made in the shade.
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I will never be in want.
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Oh, really?
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Really.
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See, you know what's going to happen tomorrow.
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You know what's going to happen tomorrow?
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I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.
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I'm probably going to take my last breath tomorrow.
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Good chance of that, right?
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Because I am a terrible driver.
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Paul talks in 1st Timothy about this.
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He says,
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Godliness, it says, now godliness with contentment is great gain.
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But those who are full of greed,
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they have no content.
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They're not content.
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for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we carry nothing out.
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And having food and clothing with these we shall be content.
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But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts
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which drown men in destruction and perdition.
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For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,
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for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierce themselves through with many sorrows.
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Godliness with contentment.
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Loving God.
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Contentment.
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That means you might live in a tent,
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but you can be content living in a tent.
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If you have God in your life,
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no, nope, got to have more.
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It's got to be bigger.
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The writer of Hebrews encourages us in Hebrews 13-5,
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it says, let your conduct be without covetishnessness.
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Be content with such things as you have,
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for he himself has said, I will never leave you or forsake you.
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Isn't that good enough?
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Is that good enough?
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No, I got to have Jesus and.
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I got to have Jesus and a 5,000 square foot home and a Lamborghini.
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No, you don't.
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There's such a big difference between needs and wants.
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What you want?
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I used to love that song. It's called More of You.
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That's what I need. I need more of him.
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And less of me.
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For Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 16, verse 26,
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for what prophet is it to a man?
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if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul
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and what will a man give an exchange for his soul?
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You thought about that?
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What are you going to give?
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An exchange for your soul?
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Nothing.
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So the guy is greedy.
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Secondly, the guy is selfish.
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In verses 17 and 19,
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and he thought within himself,
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Watch this. And he thought within himself, what shall I do since I have no room to store my crops?
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And he said, I will go down. I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build greater.
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And I will store my crops and my goods. And I, I, I, I, I. He's got an eye disease.
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In these three verses, 11 times he mentioned himself, my, and I.
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eye. That's all they can see. All he can see is himself. He's become so selfish. He's actually
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talking to himself because he has no one else to talk to. He's so selfish.
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It reminds me, it reminds me of the story in Luke chapter.
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chapter 16 when Abraham is talking to the rich man who had died.
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You guys? Yeah, the rich man, he's, he's alive. He's in this place of torment.
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And he and Abraham are having this conversation. And he says, hey, tell that beggar dude, that
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Lazarus, tell him to dip his finger in some water and come and wet my tongue. Man, I am torment. It's hot in here.
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And Abraham says, he says, remember,
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remember in your lifetime.
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You had good things.
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And you didn't give
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not even a drop of water
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to Lazarus, who was outside your gate,
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a poor beggar.
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You didn't give nothing to him.
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And now,
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he's comforted and you're tormented.
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If that doesn't strike fear in your heart,
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it should.
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Paul tells us,
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In 2 Timothy, chapter 3, 1 through 4, it says,
2 Timothy 3 chapter mention
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But know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come for men will be lovers of themselves,
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lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
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unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors,
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headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
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that's selfishness right there in a nutshell but the Lord calls us to be selfless
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not self-ish but self-less in fact it was a prerequisite to be a disciple
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Jesus said, he who would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, his instrument of death, and follow me.
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I don't, we don't understand this stuff, right? It was in our staff meeting the other day.
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One of the guys said, well, I'm in the top, right, I'm in the top 93% of the richest people in the world.
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And I said, I was thinking, well, maybe you should be building our church.
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But he was basically saying, no, I'm an American.
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And Americans, Americans, in comparison to the.
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the world population are the richest in the world.
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We are the richest people in the world.
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All Americans.
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Not just, you know, they said if you have two televisions in one car, you're in the top
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5% of the richest people in the world.
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Seriously.
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It's all relative, right, to how you grew up.
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Like I said, we never wanted.
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I would never say that my family was wealthy.
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You know, we were fractured and scattered and divorce and all these things, ex-convicts and, you know,
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drugs and alcohol and all the poverty that that brings.
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But we were still up there in the type of.
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top 5% of the richest people in the world, even in our struggles.
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So Paul talks about it again.
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I think the Bible talks about money more than any single subject.
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Jesus definitely talked about it more than any one single subject.
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he talked about money.
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I hate talking about money.
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Except for maybe to bring some conviction.
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But First Timothy,
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Paul tells Timothy in chapter 6, verse 17 and 19,
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command those who are rich in this present age
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not to be haughty, not to be haughty,
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nor to trust in uncertain riches,
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but the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
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Everything you have, you've been given.
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What do you have that you didn't receive?
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Well, I worked tired for my retirement investment portfolio.
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Right?
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I deserve that pension I'm going to get.
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Do you really?
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Who gave you the ability to work?
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To be strong, to be wise.
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who gave you all that? What do you have that you did not receive? And see, greedy and selfish people,
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they don't see it that way. They see, oh, that's me. I gave myself that. No, you didn't.
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You can't even create one breath of your own. It's a gift from God. One beat of your heart.
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That's the God of heaven who gives you life. Paul says,
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we move and live and have our being in him.
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Without him, none of us would survive.
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This would be a room full of corpses in a second if God removed himself.
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I lost my place.
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Verse 18, let them do good.
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They be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share,
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storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal
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life. Get outside of yourself, right? That wasn't in the scriptures. That was a Scotty add-on, right?
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But get outside of yourself. Find somebody to go help. What do you do with the life that God's
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given you? Just go help somebody. There's all kinds of needs out there. You can show up at the church and sweep
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floor over at the new building you could you could bake some cookies and take it to your neighbor some
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some of us are so worried about ourselves and our future we forget about the needs that are
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around us go to a rest home and bless the people by reading a book or singing a song i used to take
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the kids to the rest home at the school and we would sing and and and
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Pray with them.
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Go see someone in the hospital.
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We hear people all the time in the hospital.
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You don't have to know them.
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If you know of them, go and say, hey, I love showing up at the hospital.
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And you walk through the door and people are looking at you like,
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I don't think I know you.
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Well, I'm just, I heard you were in here.
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So I just, I was going to come pray for you.
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Can I do that?
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Usually people are pretty agreeable.
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I've had a few people tell me, go bother somebody else, would you?
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I wonder if they've seen the studies on prayer.
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Prayer works.
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Right?
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They've done hospital studies about people being prayed for in the hospital,
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not knowing that they would pray for,
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the study shows that they recover quicker than people who are not being prayed for.
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because doing these things, you guys, that are outside of maybe even our comfort zone,
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that's where you find life.
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That's why Jesus said, right?
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He would come in after me, let him lay down his life, pick up his cross, and follow me.
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By laying down your life and your selfishness, right, you find life.
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That's just how God works.
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lastly first of all this man was he was greedy then he was foolish and lastly or excuse me then he was
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he was selfish and then lastly he was foolish
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he's foolish because he says i will say to my soul
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the only one talking to this guy's soul is himself i don't know about you but i need the lord to speak to
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my soul.
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Because I don't have very good advice.
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I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years.
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Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.
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But God said to him, fool.
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You fool.
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You've lost sight of the end of your life.
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you haven't taken that into consideration.
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I'm convinced as a believer, you guys,
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we need to take that into consideration every day.
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You haven't taken this into consideration that,
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what's he say?
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This night, your soul will be required of you.
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Then whose will these things be what you have provided?
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He was foolish.
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His mindset was eat, drink, and be merry.
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Eat drink and be merry?
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That's the, that's called hedonism.
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Not heathenism, which it runs a close second, right?
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But hedonism, H-E-D-O-N-I-S-M, hedon-I-S-M.
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And this is hedonism.
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Heedonism says that the,
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good is found in the avoidance of pain and the attainment of pleasure. That's hedonism.
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The Sereniac's seed, or excuse me, creed was get as much pleasure as you possibly can,
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get drunk to excess, right, get intoxicated, eat to the point of gluttony, enjoy. And,
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join sex until you're satisfied by it.
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That is the good life.
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It is found in eating and drinking and being married.
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Let's have a party.
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Let's be happy.
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Let's eat and drink.
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Now, I like to eat as much as the next guy.
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But not to the point of abuse.
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It's like self-abuse.
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Then the Epicureans, they come along, and their philosophy was not,
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not that, you know, not that crass, hedonism, but was because that could always end in frustration.
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So you're either bored or frustrated when you're into hedonism, one or the other.
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If you get too much pleasure, you're bored, not enough pleasure, then you're frustrated.
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The Epicureans thought, we must refine this.
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We want just enough to drink and just the finest cuisine.
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We want just enough to fund that we will be epicureans with fine taste and keep the level of pleasure at the optimum place.
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That sounds like Americans to me.
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Right?
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That sounds like us.
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That's what we want.
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R.C. Sproles says this.
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He says,
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The creed of American culture is not the Apostles' creed.
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I would say amen to that.
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It is the hedonist creed.
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Let's get it now while we can.
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You only go around once.
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Let's have a party.
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Eat, drink, and be merry.
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Is the creed of the fool.
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The stupidest thing you could do with your life
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is to spend it seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
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And that's exactly what we want to do.
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So it is interesting.
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This phrase, eat, drink, and be merry, it's an old one.
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It's really old.
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Thousands of years old.
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But he forgets part of it.
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Right?
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Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
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Oh, that's the part he doesn't want to talk about.
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Right?
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That's the part most people don't want to talk about.
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They like the pleasure part, right, and the fun part,
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and the going, you know, great guns in that direction.
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But what about dying?
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And that's where the problem lies.
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And that's why God says, you fool.
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You fool.
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You don't realize.
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that tonight, today, your life will, your soul will be required of you.
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That's what so many people are blind to when they live their life just in a selfish manner,
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just focused on self.
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They become fools.
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It says that about the educated in Romans, professing to be wise, they become fools.
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Proverbs 11 4 says
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Riches do not profit in the day of wrath
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but righteousness delivers from death.
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I like what the good news version says it this way.
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Riches will do you no good on the day you face death,
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but honesty can save your life.
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Right?
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Just be honest.
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Be honest with yourself and be honest with God.
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I was just talking to a brother and sister for service started.
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She says she works with people who say, well, I'm good.
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She goes, no one's good.
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God says that.
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Right?
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That's a lie right there that people believe, oh, I'm a good person.
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There's no such thing.
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You need Jesus.
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If you were a good person, you wouldn't need Jesus.
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You could just be good and God would accept you.
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But the Bible says whoever doesn't have the son is condemned already.
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I love this last verse and I'm going to close with this.
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But it says, oh, excuse me, it's the last part of verse 20 that really gets me.
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It says, this night your soul will be required of you.
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Then, whose will those things be which you have provided?
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Right.
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Here we are.
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Back rummaging through the people's stuff at the end of their life.
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This is it.
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This is it.
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Solomon talks about this in Ecclesiastes chapter two.
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Check it out.
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In Ecclesiastes chapter two, if you have a Bible, you can turn there.
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Verse 18.
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And it says, then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun,
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because I must leave it to the men who will come after me.
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And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool.
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Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I took.
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toiled in which I have shown myself wise under the sun.
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This also is vanity.
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Verse 20.
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Therefore, I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun to a man who is not labored for it.
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This also is vanity and a great evil.
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Think about it.
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You work your whole life.
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You can build up, you know, your stuff pile.
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in your garage,
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and then you leave,
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and you leave it to these people
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who haven't worked a day for it.
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Not, if it's nice stuff,
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there might be a good fight over it.
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But listen, they don't appreciate that.
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You just take it for granted.
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If my dad passes and leaves me something,
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which it probably was not going to be much,
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I won't appreciate it.
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That's how hard my heart is.
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I won't appreciate it as much as if I would have worked for it.
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That's for sure.
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We live in an entitlement age that is, it's putrid.
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It's nauseating.
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and it's selfish.
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I'm wondering if we could be that brother or sister
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that when it comes to something,
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getting something or not,
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we're willing to yield and said,
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no, you just take it.
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I want to be able to have Thanksgiving dinner with you.
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Not going to fight you over it.
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that's the character of Christ Jesus
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and that's the character that few of us have
-
as sad as it is to say
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Psalm 107 verse 9 it says
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for he satisfies he satisfies the longing soul
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you want your soul to be in a good place
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have the Lord satisfied and fills the hungry soul with goodness.
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Again, the good news translation says,
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I wait patiently for God to save me.
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I depend on him alone.
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He alone protects and saves me.
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He is my defender and I shall never be defeated.
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He who lays up treasure.
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for himself and is not rich towards God is like this rich fool, greedy, selfish, and foolish.
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I pray that the Lord would grant that no one in this room will ever be called greedy, selfish, and foolish by God.
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Take heed, Jesus said, lest you succumb to covetousness.
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Let's all stand, shall we?
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Father, we
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We praise you
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that you truly can satisfy
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every longing in our soul.
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Lord, I pray that you would teach us a simple truth.
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Lord, just the simple truth between wants and needs
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and Lord, that we know we would know that our greatest need is to be close to you,
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is to have experienced the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Lord, that you have washed us.
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You have made us new, Lord, as we put our faith and trust in you.
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And your great sacrifice on the cross that wasn't just for my sin,
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but it was for the sin of the whole world.
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Lord, and that you offer to us a life that is abundant apart from the stuff.
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So Lord Jesus, I just pray that by your goodness, you would put that goodness in us.
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Lord, that we would share it with one another.
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And Lord, that the whole world would see that we are your disciples for our love for one another,
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our willingness to yield to each other.
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and to be Christ-like in all of our ways, Lord, our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.
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Help us to do that, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Hey, if you need prayer, if you're one that you're kind of given to some of this,
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I'm probably going to join you over here too, but the prayer team's going to be over here
-
while these guys do this last song. Please feel free to come down.
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Be prayed for. Maybe you just need to stand in from somebody.
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Maybe you need a healing.
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come and be prayed for.
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God bless.
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Has a great week in Jesus.