The Outward Man and the Inner World: a Bible Study from Luke 12

Scripture says, and one of the companies said unto him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

And he said unto him, Man who made me a judge or a divider over you.

And he said unto them, Take heed and beware of the covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain man brought forth plentifully.

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do?

Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

And he said, This will I do.

I will pull down my barns, and will build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

Then who shall those things be which thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

This passage talks to us about the diff the distance between the inner man and the outer world.

The distance between the inner man and the outer world.

We have in this passage the story of a man whose outer world was flourishing, whose inner world was crumbling.

Did you ever see the bumper sticker?

He that has the most toys wins.

Well, he that has the most toys does not win.

For look what Jesus said in verse 15: A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

The story and purpose of life is not to can all you get and get all you can.

The purpose of life is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, to live as a servant and sacrificing for the needs of others.

Or in Wearsby said of this passage, people say that money does not satisfy.

But it does satisfy if you want to live on that level.

What a great take.

He continued, people who are satisfied only with the things that money can buy are at a great danger of losing the things that money cannot buy.

People say money talks.

And at the moment he needed to speak, he did not speak to God.

He spoke within himself.

And he really portrays for us a man who was thriving on the outside and was crumbling and disintegrating on the inside.

What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and built all of his barns and he lost his own soul?

The distance between the inner man and the outer world.

Let's get into this text this morning.

Notice, first of all, the soil of a rich man.

The soil of a rich man.

Jesus is talking, of course, he's interrupted actually by one in the company who wants the Lord Jesus to litigate a strife within his family.

Speak to my brother, tell him to divide the inheritance with me.

And just note of this question that this man had lots of legal precedent in order to solve this family crisis.

This was not why Jesus had come.

Jesus hadn't come to litigate between all of the interpersonal disputes that people have.

Jesus was not easily sidetracked by things.

I had a friend call me yesterday and was uh dealing with the situation, and it just seemed, it seemed like someone had taken a stand on a really, really small hill.

And it took me back to the Valley of Elah.

I was with John Reynolds several years ago.

We were in the Valley of Elah.

We're going down to a brook to gather five smooth stones from the brook to bring back where David picked up a stone to kill a giant.

And Dr.

Reynolds said on that day, don't spend your life fighting midgets.

And I thought, man, how great is that?

Some people just spend their whole lives fighting the smallest things.

You got to pick the hill you're going to die on, don't you?

And the fact is you only die one time, so make sure it's something worth fighting for.

So Jesus, he does not really get sidetracked in smaller things.

He knew that this man had recourse in this inheritance dispute.

And the fact is, the dispute over the inheritance is not really the thing that's going on here.

That's the other thing Jesus does so wisely.

The problem is not the problem.

The presenting problem is the dispute over the inheritance.

That's the presenting problem.

The real problem is not that this man has things.

The problem is that things have this man.

He's owned by the things he thinks he owns.

He's not a master, he's a slave.

He's a slave to the things that he desires in his life.

And so Jesus says, look, when you do the accounting of your life, you look at your investments, you look at your bank accounts, you look in the uh the garage, you look in all the things where you might bestow your goods, that does not quantify the person that you are, your soul, and it's standing with God.

That truly is who you are.

So out of this question, Jesus gives this amazing parable about a man whose soil brought forth plentifully.

Now, just a few thoughts I had of this passage this morning.

First of all, there's no record in Scripture that he himself was personally responsible for the abundance of his harvest.

I mean, if you really think about it, if a man has an effective harvest, uh, it would have been the combination of favorable weather, healthy soil, disease not uh affecting his crop, market conditions, and God sending forth the rain would have brought forth a great harvest.

It's as if he's willing to take credit for that which he had nothing to do with.

It was God's favor on his life that produced a great harvest.

And so if promotion comes, it comes not from the East or the West, it comes from God.

If success comes, how many people are chasing success today only to find it and not recognize it for what it is?

And it was God that brought that into their lives.

So there's no record in Scripture that this man could lay claim to all the good things that God had brought in his life.

There's a second thing I thought here.

There's no record in Scripture in which this man blessed God for the abundance of his fields.

There's no indication in the passage that the man saw this harvest and he said, Oh, God, thank you for being so gracious and so generous to me, a humble, hell-deserving sinner that has been touched by the marvelous grace of God.

I am what I am because of the grace of God.

I read this thing recently, and I've got to go back and find it.

Um, on Paul's view of himself evolving throughout his life.

Early in Paul's ministry, he was trying to be humble, but by the end of his life, he says things like, He's the chief of sinners.

There's a condescension in his soul.

He begins to recognize more fully that it's yet not I, but through Christ in me.

There's no record he ever stopped and thanked God for his blessings in his life.

Thirdly, there's no record in Scripture that he blessed others through God's goodness on his life.

What a strategic moment.

What a strategic opportunity for this man to be generous, to be charitable, to share the blessings of God in his life with others.

What is it, Dave Ramsey who says, uh, live like no one else, so you can give like no one else.

That's a different approach to can all you get and get all you can, is to live like no others do, so that you can give.

The purpose of getting is to give.

Give and it shall be given unto you, is what Jesus says.

There's no indication that he called the local food bank or his local church, or he didn't do anything other than self-serving in that which God had brought into his life.

The soil of a rich man was plentiful.

And then notice number two, it exceeded the capacity of his barns.

The harvest on this particular year had exceeded his capacity to store all that had grown in his gardens.

Now I want to say very quickly here, abundance is not sinful.

I just quoted Luke 6.38.

Given it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over shall men give into your bosom.

Abundance is not sinful.

I think sometimes churches have so preached against being covetous that we've preached against God's good blessing in people's lives.

I don't know the last time I went to J.

C.

Penny.

It's been a very long time.

But J.

C.

Penny was uh a great Christian man, James Cash Penny.

And when he started his business, he determined he would give 10% of all of his profit to God.

And he saw that that not only was something a Christian should do, it just made good business sense to do that.

And he said, I think I can give 20% of all my proceeds to God.

And then he saw that his business was being blessed about 20%, and he said, I can give 30% of my profit to God.

And then he saw that he really couldn't outgive God, and so he started giving 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, past 80% of his profits he gave to God.

What a blessing that James Cashpenny was.

Abundance is not sinful.

So what was sinful?

It was his ingratitude, his mindlessness, and his misperceived wealth, is the thing that God addresses here in this passage.

If Jesus were against sinful men, he would have not been willing to lay in Joseph of Arimathea's tomb.

It's not abundance that God is addressing, it is that things occupy the throne of this man's heart, the soil of a rich man.

Now notice number two, the soul of a pondering man.

Now, this is very interesting.

Notice how the text progresses here.

His ground brought forth abundantly, plentifully, verse 17, and he thought within himself, saying, When his outer world blossomed, he went within immediately.

He said within himself, What shall I do?

Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits.

And then he said, This will I do.

I will pull down my barns, I will build greater barns, and in those bigger barns I will bestow all my fruits and my goods, and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.

You can retire now, eat, drink, and be merry.

You can live as if you need nothing and no one the rest of your life.

The soul of a pondering man.

What is the soul?

Well, it says in Genesis 2, verse 7, the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.

Genesis 2:7

He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.

Now the Bible does not seek to draw a distinction between a soul and spirit or heart, those words that we find in our Bibles.

These words define man's inner world.

Now, there's a theological controversy we're not going to get into this morning.

Or do we believe that man is made of three parts?

Is he made of two parts?

Is he spirit, soul, and body?

Is he soul and body?

Is he a multifaceted view?

Is are these all different distinctions?

Soul is different than spirit, spirit is different than heart, heart is different than will, will is different than mind.

And we could get into that.

But I think the indication of Scripture is that man is both material and he's immaterial.

He is physical and he is spiritual.

There's an outer world and an inner world that all of us live seamlessly between.

Now we shouldn't compartmentalize our lives either.

We should not say, well, this is my body, but that's my soul.

And, well, that's my soul, but this is my body.

God created us as a unity of parts.

If we want to say God is a trinity or a tri-unities, Father, Son, and Spirit, we are a unity of parts in that soul has an effect on body, body has an effect on soul.

For example, if you were stressed, now I'm a pastor, I don't deal with any of that, but some of you probably dealt with a lot of that.

If you had stress, okay, is stress an emotional, uh psychological thing, or does stress have a physical outflow to it?

Yeah, both, right?

If I were sick, this is why Paul's thorn in the flesh is helpful for us.

Something in his flesh, in his body, has tormented him.

And what does he say?

He's saying, I'm having a hard time spiritually.

Why?

Because he's a harmony of parts, he's a unity of parts.

Things felt in the body have an effect on the soul.

That's why the temptation of Jesus is so remarkable.

Because the Lord Jesus, tired and hungry and thirsty and alone, is victorious over temptation.

I don't know any man that could say that.

If a man is hungry, how many of the women here could testify?

When a man is hungry, he tends to be less a Christian, right?

Or tired.

We excuse things in the spirit world for events in the physical world, and the fact is they all go together.

That's why he gave us the Sabbath is to rest, because we not only need rest for our souls, rest for our bodies as well.

So the Bible doesn't draw a line between spirit, soul, heart, mind, but it does make a distinction between the body and the soul.

So the body is not soul, and the soul is not flesh.

Paul says, I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.

C.

S.

Lewis said this.

I think it's really important.

You are not a body that has a soul.

You're a soul that has a body.

This earth vehicle means that humans are embodied souls.

The body is superficial, though it's real.

It's superficial and temporary.

You are your soul.

Your body is just the outward expression of what's going on on the inside.

John Ortberg said, the soul, okay, as we get older, we know this is true, the soul knows a glory that the body cannot rob.

He said, in some ways, in some cases, the more the body revolts, the more the soul shines through.

The only thing I can depend on with my body is that it will fail me.

Then he said, somehow my body is mine, but it's not me.

Now, if we were having a funeral today and we had a casket up here, we would recognize, and we would we would be appropriate to say that is so and so.

And it is so and so.

But we also recognize that the most significant part of that person has been separated from that which we view and see.

That's not the real them, though it is them.

The real you is the soul, the inner man, the real man, the inward man.

Though the outward man perish, the inner man, Paul says, is renewed day by day.

Billy Graham said, our soul is that part of us which can know God and have communion with God.

It isn't tangible.

That is, you can't see it or detect it in a laboratory.

But that doesn't mean it isn't real.

You can't beautify or love in a test tube, but we all know they exist, and the same is true of the soul.

Now let's talk about this man for a moment.

We talked about his soil.

Now let's talk about his soil.

Jesus doesn't care about the soil, he's most interested in the soul.

That's what he's interested about you.

That's why people say, God just wants my money.

Are you serious?

He doesn't need your money.

God's interested in you.

By the way, God already owns all of that anyway, which we're going to see here in just a moment.

He's interested in you, the real you.

Now, notice, first of all, this man addresses his soul as if it were a separate entity to be satisfied through material ease and pleasure.

In other words, when his outward world flourished, he spoke peace to his inner self.

And he made a mistake that outward flourishing could produce peace in his inner life.

He made the mistake that if I'm a success in the world, I'll be at peace in my soul.

If I can arrive to success in my career, I'll have peace in my soul.

If I'm liked and prominent and applauded and successful, and I drive the car I want to drive and live where I want to live, and buy what I want to live, and go on the vacations I want to go on.

That will bring peace to my inner world.

And Jesus says, a man's life can't consist that way because what you own and where you go is not who you are.

We learned that from Solomon.

Whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them.

I withheld not my heart from any joy.

My heart rejoiced in all my labor, this was my portion of all my labor, and I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought and on the labor that I had labored to do, and behold, all was vanity.

Andrew Carnegie said, The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.

Tom Brady, after winning three Super Bowls, said on 60 Minutes, Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and I still think that there's something greater out there for me?

I reached my goal, my dream, my life, me.

I think, God, it's got to be more than this.

I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be.

I mean, I've done it all.

I'm 27, and what else is there for me?

Don't make the mistake that your soul is different from your body.

Our inner man is not a separate man, it's the same man.

It's the same man.

The soul, the soul's vulnerability lies not in its separation from the body, but in its integration with the body and will that can be turned away from God.

Notice number two, he addresses his soul as his own.

I will say to, what's the word?

Verse 19, and I will say to my soul.

Well, that's a mistake.

Ezekiel 18, 4 says, Behold, all souls are mine.

As the soul of the Father, so also the soul of the Son is mine.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die.

God, as creator, lays claim to every soul.

In fact, the soul's very existence is contingent upon God's sustaining power.

Paul says that God gives to all men life and breath and all things.

Yet beyond creation, we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

Paul says, Ye are not your own.

You're bought with the price.

We are dual owned by God.

Through creation and redemption, he makes the mistake of speaking to his soul as if he owns it.

He does not own it, it is on loan from God.

You like reading books?

The book Soulkeeping has been a great help to me.

And in Soulkeeping, Ortberg says that when we die, we give to God that which he most desires for us to have.

We present our souls to God.

Here's my resume, God.

I'm not interested in that.

Here's my bank account.

I'm not interested in that.

Here are my ex I'm not interested in your experience, your exploits, your education.

You're going to give your soul back to God.

The real you will stand before Jesus Christ someday.

He did not acknowledge that the soul is the place of identity and personal responsibility.

He did not account for the value of his soul.

What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world and lost his soul?

What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Now I think this is interesting, and I know we've gone a little deep today, but for most of my ministry, I thought that meant that what would it profit a man if he gained the whole world, lost his soul, and went to hell?

And that is true.

But that's not exactly what Jesus is saying here.

Can I just tell you I've known Christians who sought to gain the world and lost their inner selves?

They lost their soul too.

They lost their way, their relationship with God, their place with God, their values.

They sometimes even in ministry, people use ministry as a means of seeking to gain the world.

Paul said that.

He said he profited in the Jews' religion above all of his fellows.

What was he trying to do?

Gain the world.

You can gain the outer world.

That's why we must have a proper view of God and a proper view of success.

The soul is eternal.

It's eternal.

The body, the temporal.

The soul, eternal.

It's incalculable in its value, isn't it?

The soul.

I'm reading again from Wartberg.

He said that sin disintegrates our soul.

He said, If I sin, I am disintegrating my body from my mind.

I hate.

But I can't admit it even to myself, so I must distort my perception of reality to rationalize my hatred.

I disintegrate my thoughts from the reality.

Then he said that sin ultimately makes long-term gratitude or friendship or meaning impossible.

Sin eventually destroys my capacity for enjoyment, let alone meaning.

It distorts my perception, alienates my relationships, inflames my desires, enslaves my will.

That's what it means to lose your soul.

I will say to my soul, what a mistake he made.

Well, we've looked at the soil and the soul.

Number three, notice the stall in the purposes of a rich man.

So I'm going to build a big barn and I'm going to put all of my goods in it, and I'm going to retire, and I'm going to buy a big lazy boy rocking chair, and I'm going to eat, and I'm going to drink, and I'm going to be merry, and I'm going to live for myself.

I'm going to live for myself.

You might retire from your job, but we should never retire from God.

Nobody retires from God.

And that's exactly what he's doing here.

I don't need anything.

And isn't this the danger of riches?

To believe we found a place in our lives in which we need nothing and no one.

Well, we all know that there's some things that money can't buy.

So what does this parable teach us about God?

It teaches us that our plans are not greater than God's sovereignty.

Notice what it says here.

I'm going to build these barns and I'm going to retire.

And verse 20, God said to him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

Then who shall those things be which thou hast provided?

Now remember, this started with the young man saying, Talk to my brother that the inheritance could be divided, and Jesus is now saying, You're going to die tonight, and they're going to be fighting over all your stuff.

Have you seen that happen?

I'm sure you guys have seen this happen.

People fight over people's stuff.

Had a dear friend pass away in Kentucky, and he was a state trooper, and he was part of a very high-profile police shooting back in the early 80s.

He had an assault rifle that a retired judge had given him.

And he was collecting all of these resources to build a Kentucky State Police Museum.

So he had a lot of guns.

And Les he liked to talk.

And he'd promised a lot of things to a lot of different people.

And so he'd probably promise that assault rifle to four or five of his friends.

So those country bumpkins couldn't wait five seconds when Les passed away to call Betty and say, I want to come get that gun.

And she called me and she said, Pastor, I need you up here, and I need you here now.

She says, I don't know where that gun is, but I need to find that gun and I want every weapon out of this house.

So I came up there and I was preaching the funeral with her nephew that was a sheriff in Eustace, Florida.

We're going to go through that house and find every gun.

And said, I remember where that gun is.

He showed it to me.

Well, it wasn't where I thought it was, but we eventually found it.

We found 350 guns in Les's house.

350.

When they auctioned off his guns, she made$300,000 and$200,000 in an ammunition auction.

I thought, what are we preparing for, Les?

Somebody's going to fight over your stuff.

Somebody said, I'm giving while I'm living, so I'm a knowing where it's going, right?

I don't want my kids to fight over my stuff.

Our plans versus God's sovereignty.

His plans to hoard rather than to steward or to give it away.

His plans to take ease rather than stewarding his life daily was overcome by God saying, You don't have any more time.

None of us know how much time we have.

Number two, our values versus what God values.

This man had estimated he was worth whatever his barns would hold.

And God said, I'm not interested in the value of your possessions.

I'm invested in you.

Verse 21.

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

Our values versus what God values.

We used to sing a song in college with eternity's value.

May I live each day for Jesus with eternity's values in view.

I wonder if we would live our lives today differently if we thought not about today, but eternity.

God's values.

And then the last contrast here our riches versus God's riches.

Notice that little phrase in verse 21 is not rich toward God.

Mrs.

Young would spend her life in a poor house.

Her father, her, her husband was a preacher.

And he didn't have any money.

They built a home in Kentucky, and there were some people in the community in his church that jealous that the preacher had a house.

While the preacher was out of town, they came to burn his house down.

It's a true story.

Years ago.

And when he died, his wife didn't have anywhere to go, and so she lived in the county poorhouse.

Somebody came to town to see her.

And they came to see her, and they began to console her for where she was and what had happened in her life.

And you know what she said?

She wrote a song about it.

My father is rich in houses and lands.

He holdeth the wealth of the world in his hands.

Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold.

His coffers are full.

He has riches untold.

I'm a child of the king.

A child of the king.

With Jesus my Savior, I'm a child of the king.

A tent or a cottage, why should I care?

He's building a mansion for me over there.

That's the Spirit.

Our riches are God's riches.

Notice what Paul said to Timothy, and I'll close.

1 Timothy 6, verse 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.

1 Timothy 6:6

For we brought nothing into this world, is certain we can carry nothing out, and having food and raiment, let us therewith be content.

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which draw drown men in destruction and perd, for the love of money is the root of all evil.

Which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Our riches versus God's riches.

Man, what a story Jesus gave this young man who said, Tell my brother, you know what I want to say to him?

It's not my brother, not my sister.

It's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

And he went home that day with a lesson I hope he did not soon forget.

And we benefit from that truth under the surface about being grateful to God for his blessings.

How many of you could really say today, as much as in me is, I am grateful for what God has done in my life.

Amen.

And we can be grateful.

And God has been generous and good to us.

And we should rejoice in God and be gracious and grateful and generous because of what God has done for us.