The Rich Fool - Luke 12:13-21 (August 2, 2026)

And open it to the book of Luke.

If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be one under a chair around you.

We'd love for you to grab that and use that this morning.

You can also open up your bulletin and find the passage there, even a few pages, take some notes on if that would be helpful.

You know, this summer we've been making our way through little parts of Luke.

We've been focusing on the parables of Jesus.

These are little short stories about everyday normal life that Jesus infuses, packs with spiritual truth.

This morning we're gonna look at Luke chapter 12, verses 13 through 21.

Luke 12:13–21

We're looking at the parable of the rich fool.

Now, before we dig in, I wonder if there's anything you've got your eye on right now.

Do you know what I mean?

What's in your Amazon wish list?

Maybe if you're like us, you have multiple wish lists.

We have a wish list for each member of the family.

We have wish lists for different aspects of our house and different things that we're getting ready to do.

What's on that Amazon wish list right now?

Or more, maybe there's something that you've got your eye on that Amazon doesn't sell.

Maybe you're looking for a new home, a new vehicle, maybe you have your eye on a new job, maybe even an upcoming vacation.

You know, it maybe even something that you have your eye on that isn't even all that realistic.

It's a bit of a dream thing that you'd love to have.

What do you have your eye on?

Because there is something, isn't there?

There's always something.

We always want something.

We always want more.

We want more video games if you're a kid.

Maybe not even if you're not a kid.

We want more clothes.

We want more money.

We want more house.

We want more nights out, more fun.

We want more.

Snate Bargatzi says, often I grew up in the 1900s.

And in those ancient days, we used to have these things called malls.

And they were filled not only with stores as they're filled today, they were also filled with people.

Not as much the case today.

When I was growing up, you went shopping.

And one of the worst experiences that you could have, maybe one of the most dissatisfying feelings that you could have was to go to the mall and leave it empty-handed.

You ever grew up in like when I did, did you ever leave with nothing?

So dissatisfied.

Now I feel like we have that feeling all the time.

Because as I've gotten older, I'm starting to realize something that we're always shopping now.

That in some sense everything is a store.

You know, sometimes we'll go to someone's house and we shop their home.

And I love those appliances.

That decor would look great in our house.

I love what they did with their backyard.

We drive around town and we shop neighborhoods.

Man, what a great community location this would be.

I love the size of their lot.

We even shop people's jobs.

Oh, if I could have that commute, if I could make that amount of money, if I could have those hours, or if I could have those coworkers.

We even hop on social media and we shop people's lives.

We get on social media and we think, oh, if I could have their life.

Or maybe we think, many of us, a way to get that is if I could be their friend.

We're always shopping.

Friends, I wonder if there's a more underrated commandment than the tenth commandment.

Here's what the tenth commandment says if you're not familiar with it, Exodus 20, verse 17, it says, do not covet your neighbor's house.

Exodus 20:17

Do not covet your neighbor's wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Now, maybe you don't covet the Divinity's goats.

Maybe you do.

Probably many of us aren't looking at other people's donkeys or oxes, but we are looking at their stuff.

We want what other people have.

We're a covetous people, which means we're also a greedy people.

Those two go hand in hand.

They are uh very good friends.

See, we want more and we want what others have.

Friends, this isn't just a problem for us, though.

This isn't just a modern problem, it's a human problem.

This is an age-old sin.

In fact, this is why Jesus tells the parable that we're gonna look at this morning.

If you were with us last week, you might remember that that parable was difficult.

It was confusing, it shocked us.

This parable this morning isn't so much.

This parable might be the most normal of all the parables that Jesus tells.

In fact, when we look at it in a moment, you might even think this is too normal.

We might read this parable and think, what possibly could even be wrong in this parable?

This feels just like normal, everyday life and wisdom.

And yet at the very end of the parable, we're gonna see that God calls this man a fool.

Now that doesn't carry much weight to us.

Modern day language would probably be an idiot.

He says, Jordan, uh Jesus says, what normal, ordinary ways that we so often think, Jesus says is idiotic.

It is foolishness.

Jesus in this story is rebuking our covetous greed.

He's telling us that it's not just stupid, it's sinful, it's not just dumb, it's deadly.

It is.

Church, I I probably imagine that all of us, I hope, want to fight the greed in our hearts.

And Jesus' parable actually gives us a well of wisdom in which to do so.

Here's our main idea this morning: don't relish worldly riches.

Be rich toward God.

Don't relish worldly riches, be rich toward God.

Here's the passage.

Read along as I read it.

Verse 13 Someone from the crowd said to him, Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

Friend, he said to him, Who appointed me a judge or an arbitrator over you?

He then told them, Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions.

Then he told them a parable.

A rich man's land was very productive.

He thought to himself, What should I do?

Since I don't have anywhere to store my crops, I will do this, he said.

I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there.

Then I'll say to myself, You have many goods stored up for many years.

Take it easy.

Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.

But God said to him, You fool, this very night your life is demanded of you.

And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?

That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

We're gonna look at two points this morning, and it's just gonna be our main idea.

The first point is don't relish worldly riches.

Don't relish worldly riches.

Now, Luke actually gives us a context for this parable that Jesus tells.

Jesus is teaching, and someone interrupts him, cries out among the crowd, they've got a request of Jesus.

And this man is likely a younger brother, because an older brother would have control of the inheritance.

But it seems like this older brother, his older brother, isn't sharing the inheritance with him.

And so he makes a request of Jesus.

What he wants to do is get Jesus on his side.

That's a pretty common tactic, isn't it?

My guess is probably every single one of us have tried to employ something like that.

You try to get people on your side in an argument or on your side in a position.

That's what he's trying to do with Jesus.

But Jesus isn't interested in taking sides.

No, Jesus, as usual, cares far more about the heart.

See, Jesus is not going to treat the symptoms, he wants to cure the disease.

And Jesus is even showing us here that the problem, the disease, is not the inheritance.

It's actually something much deeper.

It's greed.

Look at what Jesus says in verse 15.

Watch out and be on guard against all greed.

All greed.

And that word greed actually has the same root word as covetousness.

It is a coveting greed.

And Jesus is going to take the rest of this passage to, including the parable, to admonish us against greed.

Why such a warning?

Why does Jesus think that greed is so dangerous?

Well, I want us to see three key reasons why from the passage.

First thing I want us to see is that greed looks for life in the wrong place.

Greed looks for life in the wrong place.

It is deeply dissatisfying.

It is foolish.

This is actually the first reason that Jesus gives, the very reason that Jesus gives right after the command.

Look at the end of verse 15.

Why is it that they should guard against all greed?

Because one's life is not in the abundance of his possessions.

Now it's really important that we understand that word life.

That's a key word.

And in Greek, there's actually different words for life.

Three primary ones.

There's the word bios.

You might think of the word biology.

When we're talking about that kind of life, we're talking about life versus death, something that is physically alive.

But there's also a Greek word suke.

If you were to see it, it would look like psyche.

It's the same word for psychology.

That's where we get our psychology word from.

It's talking about the inner person, the personhood, that life.

But then there's another biblical word.

The biblical word is zoe.

And that's almost a word that we don't have an equivalent for.

At best, we could maybe use the word vitality, that's getting in the right direction, but it's not there yet.

Zoe means full life, real, true, genuine life.

And here's what Jesus is saying.

That sort of life, real life, isn't found in possessions.

It's not found in having stuff or in getting more stuff.

Now, friends, see, deep down, we want Zoe life.

Like we want real, full, true, genuine life because that's what we were made for.

We were made for real life.

And Jesus is telling us that we cannot find that sort of life in things or in stuff.

Now, I don't think that's that new to us.

I think most of us know that.

That there aren't, there's not some real true life in our stuff.

I don't think that's a new thing to us.

In fact, I don't think most of us are in danger of misunderstanding what Jesus is saying here.

I think most of us know it.

I think our problem is that we don't actually believe it.

You can know something and not actually believe something.

I spend a lot of times at a lot of my time at a baseball field or baseball fields, especially during the spring and the summer.

And a lot of times I'm, unfortunately, I'd like to be on the baseball field.

Most of the time I'm standing outside watching.

And I know that a baseball is not gonna have enough velocity.

No matter how much really velocity it has, it's not gonna have enough to go through a fence.

And yet, how often, almost every time, when a foul ball is drilled off a batter's bat and it's coming right at me, you know what I do?

I try to catch it.

In that moment, I know there's a fence there, but I don't think that fence is actually gonna help.

I know it's the ball's not coming through there, but I don't really believe it.

There's a difference between knowing and believing.

There's a difference between knowing and living.

Now, here's why this is so important.

Because I think we need to be more honest with ourselves.

We know that life isn't in possessions, not true, real life.

But sometimes when we hop on Amazon or realtor.com, head out to Lowe's or the car dealership, when we watch slash shop reel after reel on social media, sometimes we do so.

And we need to admit it because we're sad, because we're bored, because we're lonely, because we're frustrated, and we think it'll make us feel better.

Sometimes we look to stuff to make us feel better.

The truth is we sometimes think that that job promotion, that upcoming vacation, it will make everything better.

It'll make us happy, it will fulfill us.

See, sometimes our life is saying, if I had this thing, then I'd have life.

Real true life.

See, friends, we might know that life is not in the abundance of possessions.

So often we live otherwise, don't we?

Friends, I don't want us to overlook the wisdom here.

Because not only is Jesus telling us and showing us that true life is not in these things, it's also a reminder that the more that we think it is, the less we'll actually enjoy such things.

I don't know if you've ever gone with your kids to like the arcade.

It's the best illustration I can think of.

So often, what arcades have become now is about getting more and more tickets.

That's the goal.

You're just playing games to get more tickets.

But you know what happens at the end of that?

Is that you spend all that time trying to get more and more tickets and you find out that you didn't enjoy the game.

None of the games.

And you go home with a really cheap trinket that's probably gonna break in an hour.

All of us watch it and we see it and we think, what are they doing?

And yeah, that's exactly what we do every day.

That's what greed does.

See, greed not only makes us want more, it actually decreases our joy in those things.

It's so deceptive.

See, we actually what greed does is it promises life and it really takes life from us.

We really begin to not be able to enjoy anything.

See, greed seeks life in the wrong place.

But greed is thoroughly selfish as well.

Jesus' parable is so clear.

Look at the story, it's another story about a rich man.

I told you last week, often the case.

And this rich man is a farmer.

If you look at it, his farming is going really, really well.

He has harvested more crops than he can store.

And in similar to recent parables that we've looked at of Jesus, Jesus actually takes us into the very mind of the farmer.

We get to hear the inner conversation in his head.

And look at what he says.

Verse 17, he begins to think, what can I do with this abundance of crops?

The solution seems so simple.

Verse 18, I'll tear down my current barns and I'll big build bigger ones.

I'll build ones that are big enough to store all of my grain and all of my goods.

I think that's a brilliant idea.

Verse 19, then he says, here's his vision for life.

Once he does this, he says, Oh, I'll be able to say to myself, You have many goods stored up for many years.

Take it easy.

Eat, drink, enjoy yourself.

I think for some of us, many of us, this just seems like wisdom.

Just seems like a wise proverb of the world.

Right?

What this man is doing, his sort of thinking, many of us might even think, well, is that the shrewdness that Jesus was calling for last week?

Isn't that just wisdom?

Church, I hope we can see that it's not wise at all.

That there's actually a massive crack in the foundation of this man's seeming wisdom.

Because what is at the center of all of his thinking?

It's himself.

Do you remember when we saw this in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector?

It's so similar.

Look at verse 17.

He thought to himself, what should I do?

Since I don't have anywhere to store my crops.

Verse 18, I will do this.

A little further down, I'll tear down my barns, all a little further down, store all my grain and my goods.

Verse 19.

Then I'll say to myself, you have many goods.

Enjoy yourself.

It's a rich farmer, he sees and thinks only of himself.

Jesus makes this especially clear in verse 21.

Look at it.

This man stores up treasure for who?

For himself.

That's what greed does.

When we relish riches, we end up relishing self.

See, the farmer sees only his work, he seeks only his wisdom, he plans only for his enjoyment.

Greed thinks only of self.

You ever wonder why it's so hard to actually put into practice the Bible's call to rejoice with those who rejoice.

It's harder than grieving with those who grieve.

The reason it's so hard is because we want what they have.

You can't think of someone else when you want their stuff.

You can't rejoice with them when you wish you had were them or had what they had.

That's what greed does.

It makes everything about us.

Think about all that time we spend shopping.

Certainly like actually shopping, but even when we're just shopping as we're in all of life, you know what we're not doing?

We're not thinking of other people.

Greed and grace never go hand in hand.

Greed and covetous, yes, but not greed and grace.

See, greed is friendship's kryptonite.

See, when possessions become the end, when they become the goal, what so often happens?

We've seen it throughout history.

People become the means.

We no longer serve people, we no longer enjoy people, we no longer love people, we use them.

Sometimes we even use Jesus.

Do you remember how this parable started?

What was the situation that led to this parable?

A man cried out to Jesus.

And what did this man want to do with Jesus?

He wanted to use Jesus.

He wanted to use Jesus in order to get this inheritance.

He made Jesus a means.

Friends, what's so ironic to me is that Jesus actually came to share his inheritance.

And he came to do so at the greatest cost.

This man is looking for the wrong inheritance, and he's trying to use Jesus to get to it.

That's why Matthew Henry, many famous commentator, he says if covetous Reigns in the heart, compassion is banished from it.

Greed only thinks of self, which means it rarely thinks of others.

See, greed is thoroughly selfish.

Finally, greed stems from practical atheism.

Why is greed so dangerous because it stems from practical atheism?

Maybe you didn't notice it in the parable because so often this is our attitude, too.

But the rich farmer here gives zero consideration to God.

No mention of God.

Completely ignores God's providence.

If you've never heard that word providence, it's such an important word.

It refers to God's control and God's care, his presence with us and his provision for us.

And this farmer is unaware of it.

But he shouldn't be.

Look at how Jesus opens the parable, verse 16.

Maybe you notice this.

A rich man's land was very productive.

Not the rich man.

Jesus doesn't talk about the rich man's industriousness, his wisdom, his abilities, his giftedness.

No, what does Jesus say?

The land was really productive.

This man didn't earn or achieve his wealth.

Who did?

Who's behind the productivity of the land?

God is.

This man's wealth, his riches are God's blessing.

And yet the farmer says nothing.

In fact, it looks like the farmer takes credit for it.

These are my goods.

These are my plans.

Friends, I don't think it's difficult to see ourselves here.

I wonder if you just think back to this week.

Can you think of any time when you took credit or you took pride in something that God clearly did?

Or something that God provided.

I mean, how easy is it to be like this rich man?

To look all around us, everything around us, and say, my crops, my barns, my grain, my goods, or maybe in our terminology, my money, my home, my career, my family, my life.

See, friends, that's what greed does.

That's what greed stems from.

See, this is the shock that comes in the parable.

Look at verse 20.

We're a little bit unprepared for it, but we shouldn't be.

But God said to him, You fool, this very night your life is demanded of you.

I think there's so much wisdom in this last very earnest statement of Jesus in the parable.

See, this rich man has stored up this abundance of riches for him to enjoy.

And what happens?

He dies that very night.

But notice how Jesus describes it.

He says, his life was demanded of him.

Who demanded this man's life?

God did.

God is the one who gives and the one who takes away.

See, the farmer thought that he could secure his future.

The farmer thought that he was in control, that if he had enough stuff, then he could have security and a future and joy and rest.

Remember his retirement plan in verse 19?

Take it easy, eat, drink, enjoy himself.

Sounds like a lot of retirement plans.

But he thinks nothing of God.

If anything, seems like he thinks he might be God.

You know, it's interesting to me that the other prominent instance in Scripture of someone being announced as a fool is in Psalm 14, 1.

Same thing is said in Psalm 53, 1.

Here's what it says: the fool says in his heart, there's no God.

Now, I don't want you to miss what Jesus is saying.

He's saying the ultimate fool is the one who believes that God doesn't exist.

And the one who lives like it.

That we can deny God with our lips and our life.

Ignoring God is a practical atheism.

And it is what leads to greed.

Because greed isn't found in the heart that glorifies God, it's in the heart that ignores Him.

Think about it.

If we knew the providence of God, think about how that would just absolutely slay our greed.

See, greed grows when we forget and forsake God's providence.

Think about it.

We don't have any need to hoard and store up for ourselves if we know and trust that God will do so.

We don't have to spend our lives trying to grasp control if we actually trust in the one who has control.

See, church, I hope we can see this.

Greed is no small thing.

It's so foolish, but it's also fatal.

See, it makes the things of this world, maybe ourselves especially, greater than the God of this world.

See, if we're to fight such greed, we need to see greed for what it really is.

And Jesus' parable does such a great job of unmasking it.

But friends, it does more than that.

See, we don't relish worldly riches.

Rather, we are rich toward God.

That's our second point.

Be rich toward God.

See, there's an answer to the greed in our hearts.

Friends, I'm so thankful for this.

There is an answer to the greed in our hearts.

In fact, it's my favorite part of the passage.

Look at Jesus' last three words in verse 21.

Rich toward God.

I want you to know something this morning.

And my hope and prayer is that we would actually know it deep in our hearts.

God wants you to be rich.

Now, I know saying that, you're like, whoa, I have some questions.

But you might hear this from other preachers and movements out there, even things that we've talked about this morning.

It's not the sort of richness that we might first think, but it is true richness.

See, the choice is not, as one famously said, to be rich in miseries or miserable in riches.

That's not the choice for us.

God isn't calling us to forsake our riches and instead be miserable.

That's not the call of God at all.

No, he wants us to know and obtain a truer treasure.

If we're gonna ever fight greed, we need a good defense.

We need to guard against all greed.

But we also need a good offense.

We need to be rich toward God.

So I want to take the rest of our time here to just think about what does it mean to be rich toward God?

And maybe the most difficult word we understand rich in God, it's that word toward.

Like what does that mean in this sort of phrase?

It's a preposition that we know, every one of us knows what toward means.

You most of the time you think about it directionally.

The boy is running toward the tree.

That's not what it means here.

Another way that this preposition can be used is in relationship.

Jesus is saying, be rich in relation to God.

Have a richness that deals with God.

Now, what is this God richness?

Well, I think the pair the passage actually shows us exactly what it is.

First, I want you to see what book ends Jesus' parables.

Look again at verse 15.

Jesus says, one's life, think about that word, is not in the abundance of his possessions.

Remember that word life wasn't a normal sort of word for life.

It was a word that meant full life, abundant life, true life.

And what immediately follows the parable in verse 21, Jesus says, that's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself.

Remember, Jesus says that's not life and is not rich toward God.

Being rich toward God is the same thing as having real, true life.

That's what Jesus is telling us in this parable.

And he's telling us that that sort of life, that sort of richness, isn't found in possessions.

It's actually found only in God.

Friends, Jesus says in John 10, 10, this I have come so that with the result that they may have life and have it in abundance.

Jesus uses both words, life and riches, abundance.

Now, I don't want you to miss Jesus in this, when he says, I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance, he's talking to people who are alive.

He's talking to people who are living and breathing, physically alive.

And he's telling them, you're not actually alive.

Friends, this is the very heart of Christianity.

Because we have been created by God and for God.

Meaning we receive life from God and we only truly live in God.

There's no real life, richness out or apart from God.

See, friends, this is why sin, and when we talk about the word sin, we mean ignoring or rejecting God.

This is why sin so often in the Bible is referred to as death.

Because sin is death to God.

It's being cut off from God.

It's being apart from God.

You might think of a plug that's disconnected from an outlet, or you might think of a plant or a tree that's disconnected from its roots.

That's what the Bible talks about us.

The life that we're most meant to have in God.

We have actually had that severed because of our sin.

But Jesus came to give us life.

How?

By becoming sin and death for us.

Jesus actually takes on our sin.

Jesus takes on the punishment and the penalty for our sin.

There is a real sense that in his humanity, Jesus was cut off from God.

He was forsaken for us at the cross.

But the great news of the gospel isn't just that.

Not only that he paid our penalty, but then he raised to life.

And he conquered death and Satan.

He actually conquered our sin.

Friends, here's what this means.

If we trust in Christ, we are made alive in Christ.

We are made alive to God.

See, what that means is when we trust in Christ, the Bible says that we are in Christ.

We are united to Christ.

We are connected to Christ.

What's true of Christ is now true of us, which means we are connected to God.

We're restored.

We're reconciled to our God.

Friends, this is so important.

God is the true treasure.

He is the true riches.

And so to be rich toward God is to know God.

It's to have fellowship with God.

It's to have friendship with God.

I want you to just think about how rich that is.

The richness that is in Christ.

If we are in Christ, that means that the creator of the universe is our Father.

That we're actually a child of the creator.

That we actually know God the Father's care and presence and provision.

It also means that we know and have Christ as our King, as our Savior, as our brother, as our friend, as our co-heir.

We're citizens of the kingdom of God, the eternal kingdom in Christ.

We have Christ's peace, we have Christ's grace, we have Christ's protection, we have Christ.

It also means we have the Spirit.

God, the Spirit, is our helper, our comforter, our guide, our teacher.

Friends, do you know that in Christ, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit dwells in us in Christ.

We have his strength.

We have his help.

Friends, here's why Jesus can say this in John 17, 3.

Here's what Jesus says: He says, This is eternal life.

What is eternal life, Jesus?

That they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent.

Eternal life actually isn't heaven.

It is in one sense.

Eternal life is knowing God.

Actually having a relationship and fellowship with the God of this universe.

Friends, I just want you to think what that means.

Because there's so much more here.

We could talk about this for so long, about what it means to be rich towards God, but I want you to consider why it is that we look to worldly riches.

What is it that we're hoping the stuff of this world will give us?

I think for some of us, we think that more stuff will make us worthy.

If we could just get enough stuff, we'd be successful.

We'd prove ourselves, we'd be something.

Or maybe for others of us, like the rich farmer, we think that more stuff will enable us to take it easy.

If we could just get enough stuff, then we'd be secure.

Then we'd be able to rest.

Then we'd be able to.

The other thing the farmer says, we think more stuff means more joy.

We could really enjoy ourselves if we just had these things.

Friends, Jesus is telling us so clearly that life isn't in possessions.

Riches may give us a hint.

They may be an imitation, but they are but shadows of the real thing.

The only true richness is found in God.

Here's why Paul says this in Romans 14, 17.

He says, for the kingdom of God, here's what king uh God's kingdom is.

It's not eating and drinking.

The context makes that understanding a little bit fresh, so just throw that out of there.

It's not eating and drinking.

What is the kingdom of God?

It's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

What is righteousness?

What is the righteousness that we have in Christ?

We talked about it a couple weeks ago.

To be righteous is to be right, to be worthy, to be enough.

What is peace?

Well, it's to have security.

It's to have rest.

Actually, no matter what the situation is, because our rest is in Christ, it is to have wholeness.

What is joy?

It's fulfillment, it's satisfaction.

These are the riches that we have in Christ.

See, here's the question that Jesus wants us to ask ourselves Would you rather have all the stuff of this world or would you rather have God?

Friends, that's Jesus' point.

Only a fool would answer the former.

Only a fool would want the goods of this world over the God of this world.

And let me encourage you in this.

If you think right now in your heart, being honest with yourselves, you're in danger of that sort of foolishness.

My guess is one of the reasons is because you have overlooked and underestimated the wondrous riches that are ours in Christ.

So, church, instead of storing up treasures for ourselves, let's be rich toward God.

Let's realize that we weren't made for stuff, but for God.

Let's stop making the goods of this world functional saviors.

Let's just be practical for a second.

What do you think is a richer life?

Having a bad day and hoping a full Amazon cart will make your heart full?

Or instead turning and opening God's word, hearing the wondrous promises of God and casting all our cares on Him who cares for us.

When we're bored, when we feel like blah, what's better?

Seeking to excite our souls through endless entertainment on a screen.

Or calling up a Christian friend, a brother or sister in Christ, and seeing if they want to have coffee.

Or going out and serving another member of the church or a neighbor who's in need.

See, I think being rich toward God is actually a very simple concept.

It's living in a way that shows God as the greatest treasure in the universe.

It's believing God to be better, to be more worthy, more desirable than anything else in the world.

And what's the prime way that we do so?

Well, we use the riches of this world.

Think about this.

When we use what this world most values in service to Christ, what is it that we're showing this world?

Is that the true value is Christ.

That he's actually the treasure of all the universe.

Friends, I think of Eric Liddell.

Maybe you're familiar with Eric Liddell, maybe you're not.

He was a Scottish man, early 1900s, and he was a fantastic runner.

And Eric Liddell actually gave up numerous medals, Olympic medals, in fact, an almost assured gold in the hundred-meter sprint.

And he gave those things up to gather with the church and worship God.

Wouldn't race on Sundays.

How many of us in this world, our dream would just be to compete in the Olympics?

Let alone get a gold.

But what was Eric Liddell testifying?

That actually gathering with the church and worshiping God is the greater prize.

Friends, do we believe that?

See, I want to be practical.

Most of us, that's not how we're gonna testify to God.

You're probably not going to go after a gold medal and have to give it up for God.

Most of us think an example like that feels so far-fetched.

What would it look like for us just practically to actually sort of show this same sort of treasuring of God, of being rich toward God?

Well, here's how one pastor thought that the rich man in the parable should have replied.

He said, God, this is how the guy should reply, God, this is all yours.

You've made my fields prosper.

Show me how to express with my riches that you are my true treasure and the riches are not.

I already have enough.

I have you.

I don't need a bigger and bigger safety net.

I have you.

I don't need better food and better drink and better parties.

I have you.

In fact, you've taught me, Lord, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

So use what I have for your glory and my true good.

I want to be really clear.

Being rich towards God does not mean you need to cancel your Amazon account.

Doesn't mean that you can't ever move into a new home.

Oh, a great home.

It doesn't mean that you should never take a really fun vacation, a really good, great vacation.

We should do those things.

It would be an equal slap in the face to not enjoy the good gifts that God gives us.

No, we should enjoy those things, but be grateful to God for them.

To recognize they are not everything.

Friends, we don't look to them for life.

Instead, we use them in the service of the one who has given us life.

That's what it means to be true, to be rich toward God.

It means to take all the gifts that He's given us and glorify the giver.

It really is that simple.

So, church, here's the question I want us to ask ourselves this morning: where is greed gripping our heart?

Every single place that you can think of that greed might be gripping your heart, think about its danger.

Think about its foolishness.

Think about its emptiness.

Think about how it actually takes joy from life.

Think about how it destroys relationships, good relationships.

Think about how it actually forsakes God.

And then, friends, what I think we need to think about even more, though, is that we need to remember and rehearse the richness and riches of God in Christ.

Here's the question I think should be running through our minds.

Why would we ever store up worldly riches for ourselves when we already have the only true treasure?

Friends, that's the point of Jesus' parable.

We don't relish worldly riches.

Let's be rich toward God.

Let's pray.