Take it away, Brian.
All right. Thanks to Paul Street on the Street. Hey, grab your Bibles. Turn to Luke 12. That's in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke. Third book in the New Testament. They're in the Gospels. We're going to be looking at a parable that Jesus told in Luke 12 in just a moment. But before we do that, a couple things.
Some of you already got in line, already bought a book. We're really excited because in 2025, our church turns 100 years old. 100 years old. Yeah, so we're celebrating 100 years. And when you get older, like you start thinking about, are we going to be able to pass this on to the next generation, right? If we're old, we want to pass this on. I'd love to one day, you know, be near my deathbed and hear that Compass is still going strong. And man, we are going strong.
I don't know if you noticed the light bulb wall. Anybody been paying attention to the light bulb wall? We've got 586 little sockets to put light bulbs in. We do that every time somebody gives their life to Christ. Right after they get baptized, they go to the light bulb wall and they put in a light bulb. They dry off first, so don't worry. But they put the light bulb in and that represents life change. That represents someone who stepped across the line of faith and gave their hearts, their lives to Jesus.
And man, we have only 10 spots left on the light bulb wall. 576 people have done that this year. And man, that is a record for our church. First time we've seen that number. We know God is at work and we give him credit for that. And so we're thinking 100 years old, we want to do this right. How are we going to celebrate 100 years?
Well, first of all, we're going to do a reverse birthday. Instead of giving ourselves gifts, we're going to give gifts away. And it's going to be a great year. I can't even tell you all the things we're going to do. It would take too much time. But we're going to celebrate lots of those things throughout the year.
One of them though, I haven't given you stuff I didn't give the nine o'clock. So you better be with me in the message. You're going to be with me in the message if I give you stuff I didn't give the nine o'clock. Okay.
Hey, so we're going to plant a church in Guatemala. Okay. And when we do that, we're going to work with Compassion International to sponsor over a thousand kids. So imagine that you could go on a mission trip in 2026 or maybe late 2025. And instead of going all the way across the world, 16 hours on a plane, four hours, 15 minutes, you get to Guatemala, you meet the pastor, you see the church we built with the dollars we spent, and you get to meet the kid that's on your refrigerator that you're praying for every day. That's going to be an amazing mission trip.
So that's one of the things that we're going to do as we give away birthday presents in celebration of our hundred year. But the other thing we did is we said, man, we want to get back to the basics. We want to make sure we're focused on the right thing because our mission is what? To lead people to find and follow Jesus Christ. And so we said, I can't think of a better thing to do next year through our message series than focus on Jesus for 52 weeks.
So we're using this book, Quest 52. My friend Mark Moore was a pastor. He was a pastor. He was a pastor. He was a professor for 20 years at Ozark Christian College. And he wrote this book. He's a New Testament professor. So he gets it. And he called it a 52-week journey into the heart of Jesus. So every week in 2025, we're going to be focusing on Jesus and we're going to be in the gospels. And it's going to be amazing, man.
And we basically are saying this, give us a year focused on Jesus and it'll change your life. And we say that without blinking because we know it's true. So grab a book. This starts in two weeks. We're actually going to start it at Christmas because if you know the beginning of the story of Jesus, it starts with the birth of Jesus.
So we're going to start with a Christmas series in just two weeks and it's going to take us through 2025. So grab one of these. You can get them for $10. If you go online, you can't get them for that. Mark gave us a great deal. We got a bulk rate deal so that we could sell these for cheaper than you can buy them on Amazon.
And so what you can do is spend 15 minutes a day, it says, reading through the material, pursuing Jesus, spending that time with just him. Then you come on the weekend and we take it deeper. We give you a whole message on that story from the gospels. And then you go to your life group. You think, well, pastor, I'm not in a life group. Well, in 2025, you need to be in a life group, right? So that when you take this book to your life group, first of all, a big church gets smaller because you got all your friends right around you and you're like, oh, it doesn't feel big anymore because there's my family.
And then secondly, you get to do the discussion questions and take it a little deeper. So, man, I can't wait for us to spend this time with each other, but focused on the one who is the head of our church, Jesus himself. So grab one of these books. That's going to be in two weeks when we start the Quest 52 series.
And then I also want to give you a little update. We're talking about giving in this series. And one of the things we did a few weeks ago was we asked you to generously give your best gifts so that we could take a portion of our offering and give it to Samaritan's Purse. We sent a total gift amount of $30,000 to Samaritan's Purse.
Yeah, to help with, that's awesome. Yes. To help with the flood that was going on in the Holy Land and in Western North Carolina and other places like that. And so I got this week a hand-signed letter from Franklin Graham thanking us for our gift and also giving us an update on how we used our money. And I thought, I want to share this with you.
So he says, Hurricane Helene was the worst storm that anyone in this region can remember. The devastation is unbelievable and will require years of recovery. Our disaster relief teams are working from six locations to serve hurting people in Western North Carolina, Eastern Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida. Staff and volunteers are cleaning mud and waterlogged material out of homes, cutting up fallen trees, tarping damaged roofs, and much more.
Over 24,000 volunteers have come alongside us so far, and much more will be needed. We used helicopters to fly over 350 missions to deliver critical supplies to storm victims in isolated areas. Now that more roads are passable, we are trucking in heaters, blankets, and other necessities. We also opened up an additional site in Florida to help hundreds of families whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Milton.
So at the end, he just says, thank you again for your gift. He asked us to pray for those families, so I hope we won't just give and say, all right, we took care of it. We still need to pray for all that's going on in that area of the world, but I just wanted to give you an update. Well done. Your generosity makes a difference in the lives of people that you may never meet. So, well done.
So speaking of generosity, before we go, before we get into the message today in Luke chapter 12, I want to remind you about a couple classes that we have available. Because, you know, inevitably, we do this only once a year. We come to a series like this, and you're like, oh, the church only talks about money. You must not come here very often, right? We're giving away money every week through the Dollar Club.
But we do this once a year, and we do this because Jesus taught about this. And yet, inevitably, you know, maybe you feel a little frustrated, like, man, if you knew my finances, Pastor, this just makes me feel bad every time I hear a message. Because I want to be generous, but I'm in so much debt, I don't feel like I can be.
So I want to offer you Financial Peace University. Dave Ramsey came up with this Bible-based financial plan. And basically, it's helped millions of people, literally, get out of debt. We did this class recently, and we had 23 families go through it. And they finished the class over about nine or ten weeks, graduated from the class. And in that ten weeks alone, they eliminated, as a group, $37,000 of debt.
So it's possible, and I would encourage you, if this is you, if this is a class you need, the resources are available. You can text FPU, Financial Peace University, FPU, to 57321. We're going to start those classes again in January. And there's more information out on the patio if you want it.
A second class, though, some of you are thinking, well, man, I don't need that. I'm not in debt. Praise the Lord. Good for you. And you're thinking, I do know that God wants me to maybe use my blessings and my resources in ways that I haven't. And so we've got another class called Kingdom Stewardship. And it's going to start today. It's only one session, so you don't have to come, like, multiple weeks. But today at 12:45, right after this service, you can go and you can take this class.
My friend Michael Gothier, who's been at this church for 17 years, he's written the book, Truth in Financial Planning. He's teaching this class. He taught this class even before I was here as a pastor. And he's excited to teach it again today. So if you need a class like that and you're thinking about your giving formula and how to use your resources that God's given you, right, for kingdom purposes, I hope you'll take the class. It's today at 12:45.
You're thinking, I can't stay around today because I need to go and see the Cardinals lose or something. No, I'm just kidding. They're playing good, aren't they? They're going to do well today. I hope the Steelers beat the Ravens. Yeah. But anyway, if you can't come today, the same exact class is offered at 6:30 on Wednesday night, okay? So if you're able to do that, I would really encourage you to think about one of these two classes.
So let's dive in. Luke chapter 12. And I want to start with this. This is an age of discontent, isn't it? The world that we live in today, everybody wants more. Little kids want more toys, more TV time. Teenagers want more freedom and more popularity. Adults want more money and more possessions and more leisure time. And as we age, we want more health. We want more friends. We want more loyalty from our kids.
And I guess not many of us could actually say, I don't want anything. We're not a very contented culture. No matter how much we have, it seems like it's not quite good enough. And yet, no people in the history of the world have ever had more possessions or more freedom, greater health than we do. And yet, we find ourselves complaining about what we don't have.
And I guess it's because we're taught this from the time we're little kids, right? We're taught life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Like this is what makes the world go round. That last part is what our existence is all about. So we work hard all day, right? We work hard to earn the almighty dollar because we're told the more you have, the more you'll be loved. The more you have, the more you'll be respected. The more you have, the more lasting impact you can make. The more we have, here's the worst one. The happier we will be.
Bigger house. Not huge. Come on. Just a little bit bigger. A new car every two years. We deserve it. Me, me, me. Mine, mine, mine. More, more, more. We keep hoping that that next thing, that next it that we're searching for is going to be the thing that's the source of true satisfaction for our soul. And maybe for a few minutes or perhaps a few days we really think that we've achieved that, we think we got it and then it wears off, right? It always wears off but we always want more.
Even the most grateful person among us still knows the ache for more and the problem is we go after certain goals and sometimes those goals are elusive and we don't see all the dangers between where we are and where we think we wanna be and we can easily discover at the end of our lives that we've been heading down the wrong road all along.
In fact, I wanna talk to you today and Jesus wants to talk to you today about a man who spent his life chasing a goal and it ended up being the wrong one. As the saying goes, he climbed the corporate ladder only to discover it was leaning against the wrong wall. Jesus went so far as to call this man a fool because his priorities were so messed up and truthfully, he didn't. Truthfully, I meet a lot of people and maybe you do too who have messed up priorities, people who are suffering from this fatal disease of acute mine-itis or affluenza, right?
I read about an elderly woman from California, Miss Hollis Sharp. She used to take her dog Jonathan out for a walk every evening after dinner and as any responsible dog walker would do, she always carried a plastic bag to clean up after her little dog Jonathan. During their walk one night, a mugger jumped out from behind the bushes, shoved her to the ground, grabbed her plastic bag and ran off with his prize. She suffered a broken arm in the attack but kept a positive attitude. She told the police, I only wish there had been more in the bag to give him.
Friends, money and possessions have a way of revealing character, don't they? Some people like that mugger will do anything to get more and some people like that elderly woman only wish they had more to give. And whether you have a lot or whether you have a little, your attitude toward your stuff says a lot about you. It might be money, it might be the things money can buy, but we all face the danger of misplaced priorities when it comes to our stuff.
And that's why it's so crucial for us to figure out how to get beyond the stuff and actually live a life of thanksgiving. That's the season we're in, right? It's about keeping our priorities straight despite the temptation to always long for more. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 16, 26, what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? What good is it if you gain it all? If you gain the whole world yet lose your own soul?
The truth is we can definitely love stuff too much. You see, we can talk all day about what's important, about what we believe, about what we value, but nothing says that we really value it and we really believe it like how we spend our time and how we spend our money, how we view our stuff.
This parable that we're gonna look at that Jesus told the audience that day is gonna kind of take a negative example to make a point, but I think if we'll pay close attention to it, we can actually learn some positive lessons and be motivated to do the right things by the story that Jesus is gonna tell.
So let me, let me kind of set up why Jesus even told this story in the first place. Luke chapter 12 verse 13 says this. Someone called from the crowd. So Jesus is teaching. Someone called from the crowd. Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father's estate with me. Jesus replied, friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?
Now let me help you with the context again. This question is so bizarre and let me tell you why. Jesus was often asked questions by people, but Luke, as he tells us what's happening here in these previous verses, says that Jesus was speaking to a huge crowd of people. He wasn't just in a little room. There's thousands of people there, and here's what he was talking about. Right in the middle of his teaching, he's talking about the danger of the religious leaders. He's talking about how to overcome fear, and he's talking about what you do when you're persecuted for your faith, and all of a sudden, in the middle of that teaching, this guy shouts out, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.
Like, I want what's mine. That would be like me preaching along one weekend and I'm talking about loving your neighbor and somebody stands up and says, and don't do this, by the way. Hey, how come Starbucks only serves their pumpkin spice latte in the fall? Tell them to serve it all year long. I mean, talk about random, right? You'd have to assume that person wasn't listening very closely to the sermon.
So that was the guy in Jesus' audience that day. He'd been thinking about how mad he was at his brother. Maybe his brother was sitting just three rows in front of him in the crowd, right? When Jesus is talking. We don't know. But he kept thinking about it. He kept churning inside until he couldn't stand it anymore. So he blurts out this command, telling Jesus what to do so he could get what he wanted.
It's likely he was the younger brother. No offense to younger siblings. The reason why is because the Old Testament law was set up so that the oldest son in the family always got a double portion of the inheritance. So maybe this younger brother didn't like that, didn't think it was fair. He wanted his equal share. Jesus wisely refuses to get involved in their little argument, but he did use the man's interruption to say some important things about stuff.
So let's look at what Jesus said. So after he was interrupted, Jesus said this, Luke 12, 15. Jesus said, beware, guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own. I like that last line. Life is not measured by how much you own, how much stuff you have, right? Jesus says it's all meaningless. He says, beware. Why? Because it's dangerous to focus too much on what you have.
And to prove the point, he tells a parable, like Jesus always did. He told a great story. He tells a story, and here's the example he uses. It says, he told them this parable. The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? I have no place to store my crops. And then he said, this is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.
That's where that phrase comes from, by the way, the Bible, right? So this guy had a great year. And sure, he worked hard, but he worked hard every year. This was just something special. This was a banner year, and he wanted to make the most of it. However, he didn't give a single thought to sharing with those in need. He wasn't concerned at all about his family or his friends. He certainly didn't consider how he might honor God and thank him for such a great harvest.
He thought all this goodness was manufactured by him, and he thought it was all for him. He only cared about himself. And if you think I'm being a little hard on him, a little extreme, just go back and look at the verses, how many times he uses the words I or my in those verses. I try to emphasize it for you.
Now, I've met dozens of people, and maybe you have too, who have a lot of money, and they are as kind and generous, as humble as they can be. But there really are some people, just like this guy, who think that they're better than everybody else, and they think that the universe really does revolve around them. This was the rich man in Jesus' parable. He didn't care. He didn't care about anybody but himself.
So much he could have done with these resources, but it wasn't even on his radar. And so Jesus says, your time is up. Your life is over. It's done, right? That's what he says. Look at these verses. In the blink of an eye, he says, this is what I'll do. I'll tear down my barns, build bigger ones. I will store all my grain and my goods. I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things. You have plenty of things laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry.
But God said to him, you fool. This very night, your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? And this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself, but is not rich toward God.
Now, friends, again, like I told you, it's a very negative, wow, kind of, I mean, he died, right? A negative kind of story, but we can actually learn some positive lessons that can help us not end up like the rich fool. So let's look at those. Grab your note sheet. Take a few notes with me today.
Here's number one. Write this down. Stuff does not equal significance. Do you believe that? I mean, what you have does not define who you are. Did you get what Jesus said in verse 12? He says, life is not measured by how much you own. Life is not measured by how much I own. In fact, say that with me, ready? Life is not measured by how much I own, right? Do you believe that? Do you really believe it?
Because think about it. Have you ever judged someone by their stuff? I mean, what kind of house they live in or what kind of clothes they're wearing or what kind of car they drive or don't drive? Or maybe, how about this? You ever thought that your life would be better if you just had more stuff? Like that you'd be more fulfilled and more content and more happy? Or maybe that people would like you more, even respect you more if you had more.
Sometimes people want more because of pride. Hey, look at me. Sometimes people want more because of greed. I love stuff, my stuff, more stuff. And Jesus said, just because a person has a lot of stuff doesn't make him more important than someone who has very little. Stuff does not equal significance.
And yet, even if we're saying, oh, that's right, pastor, I just think we still struggle with this. And let me give you a great example. You know, when you're sitting, you're watching TV and the commercial comes on that you really want to turn. You don't want to watch it because it's just tearing your heart out. You're seeing all the little kids starving over in the foreign country. And you're thinking about what they have. And you're like, man, that's so strange, isn't it?
I mean, so strange how those people live. I mean, look at those little houses and one room and they're all sleeping in there. And man, look at what they're wearing. And they're not even wearing shoes. And I mean, they're eating, they're taking, you know, stuff down to the river to get to get. And you're like, they're so strange.
Can I just be honest with you today? They're not the ones that are strange. Most of the world lives that way. We're the ones that are strange. We're strange. Like, you think I'm strange because I talk with an East Tennessee accent, right? But we, my friends, are the ones who are really strange.
In fact, let me prove it to you. Watch this. You ready? One dollar, two dollars. Who wants it? You see how crazy that is? Nobody even flinched. You're like, well, it wasn't a hundred. I mean, two dollars, pastor. I'm not flinching for two dollars.
Do you realize how crazy that is? Do you understand that 53% of the world lives on less than two dollars a day? Like, that's their whole day. And you're just like, I'm not even going to flinch for that. I don't even know if I'd flinch for a 20, pastor. That's crazy.
We're the ones who are strange. In fact, let me ask you this. How many access points to clean water do you have at your home? You ever thought about this? How much clean water you have access to? And I'm not just talking about your sinks. Well, I've only got three or four sinks in my house, pastor. Hey, I'm not just talking about your sinks. You got to talk about your showers, right? You got to go around your house and look at all the ones where you can plug a hose in and have clean water if you needed it.
You got to go to your dishwasher. You got to go to your laundry room and look at your washer for your clothes. I mean, some of you got a tub that's separate from your shower. So you got to count the shower. Then you got to count the tub. You like, fill it up with all this clean water and you sit in it and soak for a while and then you let it run down the drain, right?
How many access points to clean water do you have? Do you know what most of the world does to get clean water? Most of them carry around big jars like this, pots like this, and mostly it's women that have to do this. I'm just not sexist. I'm just telling you the truth. Most women in these cultures will have to take a big pot like this, like some of the ones you're seeing, and they will go down to the river, wherever that might be, could be two miles away, and they fill it up and they bring it back, carrying it on their heads, bring it all the way back to their family.
And you know what they do with that bucket of water? They cook, they clean, they wash the clothes, they take care of all the kids, everything they need to do that day. In fact, little aside for you, you know that funny phrase that we use sometimes, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater? You know where that came from? Like some families, they only had this amount of water. And like the mom's using it to cook and clean and do all that stuff with it, and then they let the men, because that was kind of the society, bathe first, and then the children, and then the women, and then finally at the very end, when the water's murky and kind of dirty at that point, they're bathing the babies. And you could lose a baby in that. And that's why they said don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. That's a true story. That's how that works.
That's the way most of the world lives. In fact, I added it up. If you had to go two miles to get a pot of water and bring it back to your family in order to get the amount that you would need to flush the toilet one time, you would have to go two miles and two miles back. You'd have to do that once. To run your dishwasher, you would have to make that trip two miles there and two miles back six times.
To take a five-minute shower, maybe take a five-minute shower, yeah, only five minutes. You'd have to go there, two miles, and there back nine times. To do a load of laundry, you'd have to go two miles, two miles back 10 times.
Somebody asked Sarah Barton, missionary to Uganda, is it true that in America, people leave the water running while they brush their teeth? Like, am I the only one? Yeah. And then she said this, could it be that wealth can create people that take God for granted? Just as it creates people who take water for granted?
I'm telling you, we're the ones who are strange. Stuff does not equal significance.
Here's the second lesson we learned. Write this down. Saving is not the same thing as hoarding. Comedian Stephen Wright says, you can't have everything. Where would you put it? Right? And yet that was this guy's problem in Jesus's story. He already had barns, plural, to take care of himself but he wanted more. See, he went way beyond saving for the future. He was only thinking about stockpiling everything for himself, way more than he needed.
My crops, my barns, my grain, my goods. 11 times in this little speech he used the words I or my. The only time he used the word you he was talking to himself. I'll say to myself, you have all you need, right? Eat, drink, and be merry.
So many ways this rich man could have done something positive with his abundance. He could have sold the excess grain and then given the money to build a school or a church or an orphanage or a hospital. He could have shared his crops with those who didn't have such a good year. He could have paid to send missionaries into places where the gospel had never been before. And yet his total outlook focused on hoarding his wealth for himself.
Friends, the Bible commends you the man who saves but it condemns the man who hoards. Hoarding is when we stockpile our resources for ourselves but we refuse to give to God and we refuse to give to those in need. It's not about planning wisely for the future. It's about trying to have so much that you're untouchable, right? It's about trusting in our resources rather than trusting in God.
Now listen, it's wise to save. It's godly to plan for the future. Proverbs 21:20 warns that a foolish man spends whatever he gets. Proverbs 13:11 says further, he who gathers money little by little makes it grow. So saving is good. It's about discipline yourself not to squander all your resources.
Hoarding though is different. It's about selfishly keeping all that you have for yourself. This is about balance, right? Because we all know some people that work so hard to save for a rainy day that they never even enjoy a day of sunshine, right? And then we know others who spend money they don't have on things they don't need trying to impress people they probably don't even like, right?
And Jesus says the person who keeps everything he gets for himself is a fool. Save, don't hoard.
What else can we learn from this story? Number three, write this down. Wealth does not ensure happiness. Notice the rich man in this story didn't even thank God for his blessings. He just saw his wealth and he didn't even thank God for his blessings. He just saw his wealth as a means of being lazy rather than a spirit of joy and a spirit of thanksgiving.
We see a spirit of selfishness. I'll take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But when is it ever enough? You ever find yourself saying when I get blank then I'll be happy? You ever said something like that? Or when I achieve this certain level in my career then I can be content? Or when I save this amount of money then I can be content?
Friends, having more might make your life a little easier, but having more will not make you happier. In fact, if you're looking for things to make you happy, I promise you the feelings will be short-lived. Stuff cannot change your character for the good. It will not make you a better person. It will not permanently improve your outlook on life.
You may shop for therapy, but those feelings will not last. And a life of consumption always leads to despair. Isn't it interesting that some of the saddest people we know in the news and in our circle of friends are people who think that stuff can bring happiness to their lives, right? It can't.
But humble generosity, giving, living on less than you could so that you can contribute to worthy kingdom causes, that's the antidote to acute mine-itis. That's the antidote to affluenza. That's the antidote to despair. If we're going to put God first, friends, we've got to look beyond ourselves and leverage some of our resources to advance God's purposes in the world, to help the poor, to relieve suffering, and to build the impact of our church, His church.
Well, there's one more key lesson. Are you with me so far? Write this last one down, okay? Here it is. It's a real important one. Prosperity cannot guarantee security. Boy, we get that, right? We get that one mixed up a lot, don't we? Proverbs 11:28 says trust in your money and you go down, but the godly flourish like leaves in the spring.
And listen to what Jesus said again about the rich fool in Luke 12:20. God said to him, you fool. This very night your life will be required of you. Then who will get everything you've worked for? You see, this man actually never considered what lay beyond his self-serving life, did he? He wasn't thinking about it. He was thinking about it. He was he never thought that his life might actually come to an end at some point.
I mean, he never even thought past retirement and a life of luxury. He was all about trust funds and security deposits. But friends, you can't trust in funds and deposits. Can't bring you security. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 16:26? What good is it for a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul?
The Russian novelist Tolstoy years ago wrote a story called How Much Land Does a Man Need? And in it, it kind of takes place in the frontier days in Russia. It's a story about a hardworking farmer who sets out to buy as much land as he possibly can. His farm grows over the years, just like the man in this story, though he's never content.
Finally, in the story, somebody offers to sell him as much land as he can stake out in one day for only 1,000 rubles. He's like, wow, this is the deal of a lifetime, 1,000 rubles. And so he could leave at sunrise but he had to be back to the starting point by sunset or he received no land and he would lose his money.
So he started running north at dawn. He went as far as he dared to go and then he drove a stake in the ground. And then he headed east, right, until he was exhausted and he drove another stake in the ground. And then he ran south until he nearly collapsed and he drove another stake in the ground and he turned toward home as the sun began to set, heart pounding, sweat pouring.
When he arrived, when he arrived back at his starting point, his heart gave out and he collapsed to the ground. And Tolstoy asked, how much man, I mean, how much land does a man need? Well, they gave him his land, six feet by two feet.
Friends, if you gain the whole world but lose your soul, it's all a waste. After Jesus finished his story, he said in Luke 12:21, a person is a fool to store up, but the man that stores up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.
In fact, there's a couple that learned that lesson really well and I want you to hear their story right now. She said something I thought was real important that I kind of said last week. You know, for a lot of people, it's kind of a last thing, isn't it? I mean, as you're thinking about your relationship with God and you're thinking about actually making a decision to cross the line of faith and give your heart and your life to him and surrender to him, you know, it's kind of the last thing people hold on to, especially here.
And in this story, we see we don't want to be like this rich fool. This man died without enjoying all that he had selfishly gathered. He died with no plan to pass on his wealth to other people. And most importantly, friends, he died with no plan for eternity.
Stuff does not equal significance. Saving is not the same thing as hoarding. Wealth does not ensure happiness, and prosperity cannot guarantee security. Now, listen, I'm guessing one of those areas is probably a problem for you. And Jesus says this kind of thinking is foolish. You'll be so much better off handling your money wisely. Spend carefully. Save consistently. Give generously. You control it rather than letting it control you.
You understand, right? Stuff does not define you, but the bottom line is your attitude towards stuff does define you. Remember what Jesus said, if you get really rich here on earth, but you don't have a rich relationship with God, that you're a fool. What good is it to gain the whole world and lose your soul?
So you're going to have to decide in your life at some point who's going to be first, God or money. In fact, there's a whole passage in the Bible about this. You can't serve both God and money. And it was all about who's your God. Because if you choose to serve money instead of God, then you're saying he's not first. This is first. And so this technically becomes your first. This is your functional God.
And that's why you would be a fool, to put your hope in wealth. And Jesus says, no, there's a better way to live. In fact, I want you to think of it this way as we wrap up. How many of you know with absolute certainty that you're even going to be here tomorrow? Anybody? Yeah, I didn't think so. My hand's not up either. Right?
So here's another good question. How much then do you have to spend to communicate something really important? How much do you have to spend to communicate something life-changing? Well, let me give you the answer. Because the only thing that matters in this world costs God everything. Right? And you can't buy it in any store in the universe. But you can receive it into your life as a gift from him.
I would guess the single most widely known verse in the Bible is John 3:16. Right? In fact, it's going to come up on the screen. Let's say it together. Here it is. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. That whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
God has set the example for what real life looks like. How do you communicate something that's really important? How do you communicate something that's life-changing? How much do you have to give? You have to give everything. And God went first. God went first. He's the greatest giver. He loved you first. He gave his life for you.
The Bible says, while we were still sinners, Christ died, before I ever committed my first sin, Jesus had already decided he was going to die on the cross to pay the price for those sins.
So friends, I hope you're hearing by now that this series is really not about money. Why are we even doing this series? We do this like once a year. Because Jesus talks about it. And he knows how close it is to our hearts. He knows that that may be the last thing we're holding on to that's keeping us from crossing that line of faith.
So if you want to be like the giver who went first, and gave everything for you, then remember, this is not even about your money. This is about your heart. Give your heart and your life to Jesus. And if you've never done that, I'm going to pray for you in a moment. We're going to have our prayer partners come right up here.
And if you'll just walk across the room during this next song, we'll help you every step of the way. Now you've already sung the words, right? You can have it all, Lord. Did you mean it when you sang it? You can have it all, Lord. Every part of my world. Wow, that's a hard one to say, right? That's a hard one to sing.
Because most people are like, God, I want you to have all this, but can I just keep this one little part right here? I mean, God, I mean, I'm good with this. I've given you all this. I mean, that's pretty good, right? But God gave it all. He gave everything.
So we have to sing, and we have to mean it if we're going to give our lives to him. You can have it all, Lord. Every part of my world. Take this life, and breathe on this heart that is now yours.
We're not going to sing that song again, but we are going to sing a song that's a time of invitation. Let me pray for you, and then we'll do that.
Father, thank you. Thank you that you love us so much that you were willing to give it all. That Jesus, you raised your hand and said yes to the ultimate rescue mission. You came to this world, and you didn't even have a place to lay your head.
And yet you lived that perfect life that we could never live so that you could be the perfect person and the perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross. You died the death that we deserved to give us hope, to give us forgiveness of our sins, eternal life, and a home in heaven with you forever.
So Lord, help us not to be afraid because we got a God that loves us that much. Help us not to be afraid to give everything to you as well. Lord, give us courage in these moments to take the steps you're asking us to take.
And Lord, whether it's filling out that commitment card that you're asking us to take, that's right there in front of us, that's just between you and us. Deciding to tithe, deciding to go beyond, deciding to take a class.
Lord, even above and beyond that, I pray that right now, those who need to decide to start by giving their lives to you would be encouraged to do that. So Lord, meet us where we are. Work by the power of your Holy Spirit in these moments we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Well, let's stand together. We're gonna sing this song, our prayer. Our prayer partners are waiting right here. If you'll meet us up here at the front, we'll help you every step of the way. Thank you.
on Nov 17, 2024
