What God Has in Store for You (Luke 12:13-21)- Pastor Kenneth Collins Maple

Amen. And let's take our Bibles now and open

them to Luke. Luke chapter 12. We're going to

Luke 12 · chapter mention

look at verses 13 through 34. I initially had

12 or 21 rather. But I think we need to see.

This parable that we're gonna look at we need

to see it in its context We need to see the teaching

that follows the parable now what we're doing

today is Looking at just one parable we finished

our series through the book of Jonah Lord willing

we're gonna start our new series on the miracles

of Jesus But today we just look at this one parable

and and there's a good reason for that Typically,

each November, this church has a sermon on stewardship.

And I know how I used to hear that when I was

a boy growing up in church. The preacher would

say, I'm going to preach on money today. And

I would groan. I hope that you're not groaning

with this today. Because we must recognize that

what we have comes from God. And what we have,

we should use to glorify God. And what we have,

we should use to help others. And so let this

be encouraging to you to use the wealth that

God gives to you for kingdom purposes. And we

can do this whether we find ourselves with a

lot of wealth or just a little. We can do this

whether we are children who might have a piggy

bank. or whether we're adults who have saved

for years. And so listen to this text. This is

Luke 12, 13 through 34. Someone in the crowd

said to him, him being Jesus, teacher, tell my

brother to divide the inheritance with me. But

he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator

over you? And he said to them, take care. and

be on your guard against all covetousness, for

one's life does not consist in the abundance

of his possessions." And he told them a parable

saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully.

And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For

I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said,

I will do this. I will tear down my barns and

build larger ones. And there, I will store all

my grain and my goods and I will say to my soul,

soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years,

relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to

him, fool. This night, your soul is required

of you and the things you have prepared, whose

will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure

for himself and is not rich towards God. And

he said to his disciples, therefore, I tell you,

do not be anxious about your life, what you will

eat, nor about your body, what you'll put on.

For life is more than food, and the body more

than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither

sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor

barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more

value are you than the birds? And which of you

by being anxious can add a single hour to his

span of life? If then you are not able to do

as small a thing as that, why are you anxious

about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they

grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell

you even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed

like one of these. But if God so closed the grass

which is alive in the field today and tomorrow

is thrown into the oven, how much more will He

clothe you, O you of little faith? And do not

seek what you are to eat or what you are to drink,

nor be worried for all the nations of the world.

Seek after these things. And your Father knows

that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom,

and these things will be added to you. Fear not,

little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure

to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions

and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with

money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure

in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief

approaches and no moth destroys. For where your

treasure is, there will your heart be also. Let's

pray. Father we thank you for this text And we

thank you for this parable and we remember why

the parables were written They were written to

edify and so Lord I ask that as we study this

parable and the teaching that follows Lord that

we would really truly take it to heart and Serve

you with everything we've got these things we

pray in Christ's name Amen I was in a worship

service in Bulgaria in a small village. A few

of you have been to this village before. This

was years ago. We're having a worship service

and we had our typical time of singing. We had

our time of prayer. We had our time of reading

scripture and explaining of scripture. And then

it kind of turned into a bit of a Q &A. And one

of the young gypsy men asked me, He said, you

are rich. Why are you here? I don't remember

my entire response to the young man, but I said,

I'm not rich. I'm not rich. I was wrong. We are

rich. We are richly blessed. Indeed, In this

sanctuary, we have different levels of people

where you are with finances and things, but we

can all say because we are here, we are richly

blessed by knowing Jesus. But we also have received

from the very hand of God everything we have.

You're wearing clothes today. You drove or somebody

drove you here today. Most of us will go home

today and eat lunch, right? We are indeed blessed.

And so, when a young gypsy man who has spent

his entire life in despicable conditions, in

orphanages, living on the street, when that young

man says to you, you are rich, you say yes, but

you also point him to Luke chapter 12 verse 21

Luke 12:21

and say yes, we must though be rich towards God.

And that's what we're talking about today, being

rich towards God. You see the setting for this

parable, don't you? You see what led to it. There

is this man in the crowd. It sounds like he interrupts

Jesus. Can you imagine interrupting the greatest

teacher of all time to talk about this situation?

Can it not wait, right? Jesus has more patience

than I do. This man says tell my brother to divide

the inheritance with me Now this this isn't entirely

uncommon rabbis in Jesus's day some of them would

have definitely done this but Jesus does not

and The reason is because this Jesus has a mission

to do and he's sticking with his mission and

you can see verse 15 Kind of tells us the lesson

here Be on your guard against all covetousness

For one's life does not consist in the abundance

of his possessions. The abundance of possessions,

of riches, of treasures is not what life is all

about. It's not. And so today, if you find yourself

in love with your stuff, if you find yourself

in love with your bank account, if you find yourself

in love with your credit cards or your home or

your boat or whatever it may be, This parable

is for you, and this parable is for me. We need

to see what all of this means. Where is Jesus

going with all of this? And so he helps us. And

he does so with the help of a parable. And so

he tells this story, and initially the parable

begins in this way that we might say, This is

a good problem to have. You've got all of this

grain, all of these crops. It's abundant. You

don't know what to do with it. This is what we

call a good problem. You've all heard people

say that before. Well, that's a good problem.

Notice it's always the case the person who says

this is a good problem to have is not the one

who has to solve it. Kind of like when you have

a fall festival and you have more show up than

you think and so you have to do a rescue mission

for more hot dogs, right? It's a good problem

to have. This man is blessed, right? But notice

the wording of it. Does Jesus attribute the all

of the wealth, all of the grain, all of the abundance?

Does he attribute it to the man? Does the man

have a green thumb? No. Jesus attributes it to

the land. The land does this. The land produces

this. The prosperity then is from God. who made

the land and who made the crops. This man is

quickly falling into a very serious error that

wealth can trap us. Wealth can trap us into only

thinking about ourselves. Wealth can trap us

into materialism. Wealth can trap us to thinking

that we're the ones who are bringing about all

of the good things in our lives. Wealth, if we're

not careful, has us just thinking about wealth

and not other people. Now I can feel it welling

up inside a little bit, and maybe you can too.

As people in the West, people who have money,

many of us, We want to come quickly to the defense

of our wealth, don't we? It seems that any time

someone preaches or teaches on wealth, somebody

has to say, wait a second, wealth isn't wrong.

And that's true. It is true. Money, having money

is not wrong. We can see that. to at least two

of the Ten Commandments have to do with wealth.

You're not supposed to steal people's things,

and you're not supposed to covet those things.

So surely it's okay to have wealth, but why is

it that our first, the first thing that we do

when we talk about wealth is to come to the defense

of it? Sometimes when we do that, I wonder, are

we loving our stuff more than we're loving other

people? Are we loving our stuff more than we're

loving God? How much do we really need? How much

time do we spend thinking about our stuff rather

than spending our time striving for the kingdom

of God? You're probably like me in that you have

ordered something online before from a website.

And in order to get that special deal of 15 %

off, you give them your text, your phone number,

your email address, and then you proceed to get

blown up by all those texts and emails forever,

right? These companies are very good at these

things, right? They kind of feed upon us in our

need for more. We ought to be using what we have

to serve God. and to serve his kingdom. And we

should also recognize how scripture shows us

the many times that people have been ruined by

their love of money. You remember Solomon. Solomon

had a lot, right? And it got to him. He wasn't

guarded against these things. You might remember

Ananias in Sapphira from Acts chapter five, right?

Who. kept back some of their proceeds and essentially

lied to the Holy Spirit. The problem is the heart.

Maybe the rich young ruler of Luke 18, whose

chief obstruction to following Christ was his

stuff. He had made all of his things and his

wealth into an idol. And that's what this man

is doing within this parable. This man thinks

to himself, What am I to do? And there's nothing

wrong with that. At least to begin, we might

say the man is showing some wisdom here. He's

thinking what to do. But one of the first problems

that I see from this man is he doesn't acknowledge

God in the parable, does he? He does not acknowledge

God with this incredible harvest, right? And

so he thinks to himself, what am I to do now?

I'm very thankful that he thought this to himself

and didn't say it out loud. Can you imagine saying

that out loud around other people who might not

have quite the harvest that you do? They would

not have liked him very much. And so he thinks

to himself, what am I to do? And without consulting

God, he makes a decision. I need bigger barns.

I need bigger barns. And part of that sounds

wise, too. It sounds like he's planning for the

future, but in reality, he's not even planning

for that very night. Wisdom should have had him

consulting the Lord, but he doesn't, and he's

also not concerned for the well -being of others.

There's nothing to suggest in the parable that

he's going to build these bigger barns in order

to store food for other people, because look

at verse 19. And I will say to my soul, soul,

you have ample goods laid up for many years,

relax, eat, drink, and be merry. He wants the

good life. He thinks he has the good life, right?

But remember the purpose of this parable, that

we would not covet, that we would not be greedy.

that we would not hoard things for ourselves.

Sometimes we do that with our wealth. Rather

than using it for kingdom purposes, we keep it

for ourselves. We don't look out for the needs

of other people. God though gives us so that

we can provide for others. And so this is what

a Christian should do. We must look out for other

people. And what a great thing it is within this

church that we do things. where we do look out

for other people. We've got the Operation Christmas

Child Boxes. We've got the Deacon's Fund, which

provides for these things. We care for one another

with what we have. But this man, he has no interest

in doing that. And part of his problem is he

makes a very serious assumption. Notice what

he wants to do with this incredible harvest.

He wants to put his feet up and enjoy it. And

it says he wants to enjoy it for many years.

And so this man makes a dangerous assumption.

He assumes that he will always have his wealth.

And he assumes that not only will he always have

it, but he's going to live a very, very, very

long time to enjoy it. But friends, this is the

reality of our wealth. It's fleeting. The writer

of Ecclesiastes says here, it's vanity. Let me

read to you from Ecclesiastes chapter two, 18

through 19. The writer says, I hated all my toil

in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I

must leave it to the man who will come after

me. And who knows whether he will be wise or

a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which

I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This

also is vanity. The writer of Ecclesiastes, he

gets it. Later on, he's going to say that wealth

doesn't satisfy. But the man in the parable,

what he is doing is he's thinking it will satisfy.

And in doing so, he's breaking the first commandment.

He is making his money, his wealth, this harvest

into an idol. Friends, when wealth becomes the

thing that we think the most about, when we elevate

our gifts over the giver, we are making idols

out of our stuff. This is delusional to think

that our things will truly satisfy us. Just ask

somebody who has ever lost it all. If you know

anybody who's ever made a very bad investment

or maybe they've been through some sort of tragedy

or loss and they have lost so much, they will

tell you, guard against these things because

they will not satisfy. If wealth is your God,

it will lead to your destruction. This is the

truth that Paul talks about within 1 Timothy.

If you will, go to 1 Timothy chapter 6. And no

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

doubt you've heard part of this before. This

is important. I would tell you to put a bookmark

here or underline it, highlight it, maybe all

of it at one time. 1 Timothy chapter 6, I'm going

1 Timothy 6 · chapter mention

to read verses 9 and 10. But those who desire

to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare,

into many senseless and harmful desires that

plunge people into ruin and destruction. For

the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

It is through this craving that some have wandered

away from the faith and pierced themselves with

many You cannot love God and money. If you love

your money, you are making an idol out of it.

And the Bible would call that foolish. This is

how Jesus refers to this man of this parable.

Look in verse 20. God says to him, fool, this

night your soul is required of you. and the things

you have prepared, whose will they be? The Bible

doesn't throw around the word fool all the time.

It's very intentional about this word. You see

it in Psalm 14 about one who doesn't believe

in God. To not believe in God is foolish. And

this man is acting the fool. He may say he believes

in God, but his God is his wealth. His God may

be his stomach. And it's foolish to be more concerned

with the treasures of this life than eternal

life. And so this man, he thinks he will live

forever enjoying his wealth, but this is very

clear. This night, your soul is required of you,

it says. And we know this from the book of James,

chapter four. We are not promised a single day,

are we? You are not promised a single day. And

so do not put off knowing God until a later time.

Don't wait until the crops run out. Don't wait

until the good times become bad. Don't wait until

the wine goes dry. Don't wait. You must believe

in Jesus Christ to be saved and to receive ultimate

blessing. If you think that you are happy now

with the things that you have, friends, Jesus

is preparing a place for you that you cannot

believe. Do you know what God has in store for

you? When we give all of our attention to treasures

in the here and now, we neglect what's in the

storehouses of God. Listen to what Jesus says

here. What will it profit a man if he gains the

whole world and forfeits his soul or what shall

a man give in return for his soul? Look at verse

32 Fear not little flock for it is your father's

good pleasure to give you the kingdom It's the

Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Are you worried about small things all the while

God is giving the kingdom? This indeed is foolish.

I like how Psalm 84 puts this. This is what we

have to look forward to. This is who we ought

to be. For a day in your courts is better than

a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper

in the house of my God than dwell in the tents

of wickedness. For the Lord God is a son in shield.

The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing

does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts

in you. Will God hold back anything? That He

has promised for us. No, of course not. And what

is the kingdom of God but the King? Jesus. And

you, by your union with Christ, you are joint

heirs in the kingdom. Why does God love us like

this? Why does He care for us like this? Go back.

into our chapter and look at verse 24. Consider

the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have

neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds

them. Of how much more value are you than the

birds? God values you, Christian. God loves you.

And so do you know him? Do you know God through

Christ? If tonight were to be your last, would

you walk through those eternal doors into his

blessed presence? Would you go to the place that

Jesus calls paradise? Are you rich towards God?

Do you know Jesus? And if you know Jesus, what

are you doing about it? We just celebrated Reformation.

day, week, month, whatever I want to call it

recently. And I went over some of the characters

of the Reformation. And one of them really shows

what it means to be rich towards God and to lay

up our treasures in heaven. His name was Peter

Waldo. Some of you will remember me talking about

Waldo. Peter Waldo lived in France in the end

of the 1100s into the 1200s. And Waldo was very

wealthy. wealthy, but he heard someone speak

on this passage, either this passage or Matthew

19 about giving our treasures away to people

who need them, about being rich towards God,

and it impacted Waldo. And so what Waldo did

was he gave away his wealth to people who were

in need. But he also did something very special

with some of that wealth. He gave it to some

scholars to translate the Bible into the common

language of the people. He gave up his wealth

so others would hear and know who Jesus is. Friends,

that's how to be rich towards God. That's how

to lay up your treasures in heaven. Because the

reality is that even for this man in this parable,

He did have a place to put all of his grain.

He did have a place to put all of this food.

I like how Church Father Ambrose put it. Oh,

foolish friend, he says, referring to this man,

you have room, you have barns, the cupboards

of the needy, the house of the widow, the mouth

of the orphan. There were places to put all of

this. and there are places for us to put what

we have into the hands of people who need it.

God has given you the kingdom and he is at work

in your lives conforming you more and more into

the image of Jesus that you would serve him with

everything that you have, that you would be rich

towards God and acknowledge that everything that

you do have is from God's providential hand.

And so what you do have is not really yours.

And so use what you have to serve other people.

Invest in the kingdom. And how interesting that

is. To be rich then is to give. To be rich is

to give. That's the exact opposite of the rich

fool. And so friends, give to God with joy. Give

in your tithes and your offerings. Support kingdom

work by providing for missionaries. Give your

time in investing in the lives of others. Give

your talents recognizing where they come from.

Give yourselves to the kingdom of God because

God has given you his kingdom in Christ Jesus.