The Parable of the Rich Fool

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 You can be seated. Uh, now I I, I wanna start by reminding you of a story that that was told not long ago. There. There are these two fish that are swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish who is swimming in the other direction. And as the older fish swims by the two younger fish, he nods his head and says, how’s the water boys?

And keeps swimming. After swimming a little farther, the two fish, the two young fish look at each other and say, what on earth is water? And this is a story little parable told by David Foster Wallace at a commencement address in 2005. And the whole point of this was to explain something that we all experience all the time, that it’s really hard to recognize the water you’re swimming in.

It’s really hard to diagnose the culture in which you live because it’s the only one you know. It’s really difficult for us to talk about things that shape the very framework of the society and the world that we have built. And yet, that’s what we’re gonna be doing today. This passage that we’re looking at, I think it is incredibly pertinent.

To the church in America today. And the reason is what we’re gonna be looking at is a, a story that Jesus tells to work with people who are struggling with something that I think is the framework of a lot of our pursuit in America, which is greed. I don’t hear any amens. Amen. Out there. Anybody. Anybody.

And of course not, right? No, not us. I don’t mean you. You can’t be greedy, right? We all know that because you don’t have enough money to be greedy. It’s only that other person you know who’s got more money than you. That person is greedy, right? It’s none of us. It’s only the rich people, the billionaires, they’re the greedy ones, right?

It’s the JD Rockefellers in the history of our culture. Somebody who is credited with being one of the men who built our country. Who was once asked, Mr. Rockefeller, you’re richer than any human who’s ever lived. How much is enough money? And his response was One more dollar. It’s those people that are greedy, right?

And yet what I want to put forward is what if we have lived and grown up in a culture that is literally built on a foundation that includes both greed and another thing that’s addressed here, selfishness. Now, I think that one’s a little easier for us to see in ourselves, but I think that we see it first of all in scripture.

Uh, you know, this, this, this place where Jesus tells us this story and he is really creating an amazing character who is incredibly selfish. But again, it’s not that obvious because we live in the social media culture. I mean, how many of us recognize how selfish our social media attempts us to be? I I look at this passage, the way that this passage begins.

It begins with Jesus, uh, teaching in a crowd when a man interrupts him. And, you know, I’m really grateful. This isn’t how we always do our sermons. I mean, some people shout things from the audience, Michael Alford. There it is. And um, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s fun and it’s helpful. But can you imagine like, usually Michael’s making a joke.

Can you imagine if we all just started shouting the things that were bothering us in the middle of a, a sermon? Hey pastor, tell my wife she’s not being nice to me. Like, can you imagine what we were doing? This pastor, my kids are jerks. Like, what, what if we just began shouting out all the things? And yet when I look at this, it reminds me of social media so much.

Because isn’t this what social media is? We all just kind of throw out for everybody, whatever’s happening in our world, and, and you’re on the receiving end of this, don’t you feel like Jesus at times where it’s like everybody everywhere is asking you to comment and have an opinion, to, to shout your feelings out as if your opinion is what matters most.

And Jesus is in this moment where I love the way that he responds because I think that it can teach us a lot about how we should respond to a lot of these, you know, social media, uh, pressures to respond to every controversy, usually with zero knowledge of what’s happening in the moment. Because what Jesus does is he implo, he employs, uh, a really important doctrine called the Na Dog Doctrine.

And this is where the guy shouts out to Jesus and says, Jesus, you need to have an opinion on the way that my brother should divide the inheritance. And Jesus just looks at him and says, no dog. That’s it. How much better would our lives be if we emulated Jesus from time to time? And when asked for our opinion, when presented with something incredibly controversial and emotionally charged, and someone looks to us for an answer, we just replied, no dog.

Because what Jesus does is he, he leaves that controversial thing and he jumps into something much deeper when he instead turns the conversation to greed. In verse 15, Jesus warns and he says, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. Beware. Be watchful that that’s the first command. So there’s two commands there.

Be watchful, beware. And then the second one is be on guard. And I love this because again, most of us don’t think we need to be on guard against greed because we don’t have enough money to pay for our bills right now. How on earth could we be greedy? And yet what Jesus is saying is that you need to beware.

I mean, this is, imagine, uh, you know, when I think about, beware and be on guard, when I think about being on guard, I picture literally like, you know, the, the fencing in the Olympics, like on guard, they always start in this posture like they’re ready to attack. But imagine if one of those guys was blindfolded, like, what good does it do him to be on guard if he’s not watching out for the attack of the enemy?

Or go the other way. What if they’re always, what if they’re always watching, but they’re never taking action? All of a sudden, you’re gonna have a social media warrior who’s typing in all caps about all the things that other people are doing because they’re watchful, but they’re not taking action themselves.

Jesus wants us to avoid these pitfalls when we’re looking at greed and covetousness. And so he, he commands two different things, beware and be on guard. And this is because this is so important for us to, to realize this. Greed is subtle. Greed has a way of sneaking up on you slowly over time. I mean, we see this even in the passage that we’ve been looking at all year.

When you look at, in the parable of the four soils in Mark chapter four, the third soil is the one that reflects this idea of greed. And it’s where you see the seed of the gospel gets choked out by thorns. And Jesus explains that some people like seed sewn among thorns, hear the word, but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

Jesus is saying that the thorns that gradually grow up and choke out the word are the worries of the world. It’s easy for us to think that other people with a lot of money are the ones who are greedy. But how does this thorn of greed begin to grow in your heart? Worry about the things of this world. I mean, I don’t know about you, but as I watch the stock market, as I, as I’m watching inflation come up, I am beginning to worry more and more and more about what is happening in my life financially.

And it doesn’t feel like greed. It feels like I’m being wise and I’m attempting to prepare myself for the bad things that could be coming. Yet what Jesus is saying here, he’s saying that, you know, we, we, we need to understand that greed. It’s often not a deliberate choice where the person decides, I’m gonna become a materialistic hedonist, and I’m gonna spend all of my money and I’m gonna try and get all the possessions I possibly can.

It’s more subtle than that. It, it’s greed that slowly grows in your heart over time based on the things that you actually need. But it trains you to think I need more and more and more. And then in our culture, we look around and we see so many people on social media who are demonstrating what more we could have.

We could travel more like those people. We could have more clothes like this person. We could work out more like that person. And we begin to look around and think to ourselves, we just need more. If we just had more, we would be happy. And slowly the thorns of greed are wrapping themselves around our hearts, threatening to choke out the good things that God wants to do in us 📍 because greed is subtle.

It convinces you that that life is found in something that is just outside of your reach. And if you could just get a little farther than you would be satisfied, then you would be happy. Just a little more is the language of greed. And again, when we look at this, I, it’s, I wanna start here by explaining the context that Jesus was speaking in, but also tying it to the context in which we live.

Because greed really is something that threatens every single one of us. 📍 But Jesus says plainly, one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And so to drive that point home, Jesus tells a story. He tells us the story 📍 of the rich fool. And I love this story because again, I told you, Jesus tells this story in such a way to create like an almost comically selfish character.

Jesus describes this, this, uh, this man, this very successful man whose land has produced plentifully. Now, there’s nothing wrong with his success. That’s not what Jesus was against. There have been rich people who love Jesus. There have been poor people who love Jesus there. Jesus is not against wealth and success in business or any endeavors in your life.

In fact, he wants that for you. He would not give you the abilities that you have to create wealth so that you could waste them. He wants that for you. But what he draws out of this story that he tells is the motivation behind it. Because in just these four verses, this guy is incredibly selfish. Just do the math in, look at it in verses 16 through 20, Jesus.

It gives us this string of first person statements. I will do this. I will tear down my barns. I will, I will, I will. I I I six eyes in four verses that Jesus attributes to this. Not only that, then there are five my statements. It is I, I, I, my, my, my. What I own is what masters and defines this character in the story that Jesus told us.

And Jesus tells us this. I think that Jesus actually had a proverb in mind when he was telling us this story. I think that Jesus is giving us the inverse of Proverbs, chapter three verses nine through 10, where it says, honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce. Then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine.

I think that Jesus was telling this story as the inverse of that passage of scripture because Jesus doesn’t want you to stay poor. Jesus doesn’t want you to stay desperate. He wants you to use the gifts and the abilities he’s given you so that you can succeed in any endeavor, not just business, finance and money.

But the truth is, if we never offer those things to the Lord, if every motivation is that little statement of greed, just a little bit more for me, if like this man, it always comes down to what I want, what I need, my stuff, my passions, my glory at that moment is when you become the man in this story, who, although seemingly wise for stewarding his resources was a fool.

Because he was stewarding them for himself. And so when God speaks to him, he says, fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? The tragedy is clear. This successful businessman planned for everything except the moment that he would stand before God.

Now. In this story, we’re gonna draw out a couple of implications for us, uh, that sort of help us think through what Jesus was communicating and what that means for us. And so I’m grateful to have this opportunity to teach on this passage. Uh, for those of you that don’t know, uh, my job is, uh, I’m, I’m sort of like I help churches with financial issues and so I serve as a consultant.

And so that’s what I do all the time. I help churches work with their money and I love doing that. I was captured by this idea, uh, when I was a lead pastor of a church about five years ago, that the church could do a lot better in the way that we talk about the way that we equip people to use their money and the way that we use our money.

And so it led me on this journey over years to where now this is what I do is I help churches and man, I am such a blessing. To pastors because I’m beginning to notice a trend on the topic that I speak about whenever I am given a passage to speak about. So, I am here to be the guy who talks about money, uh, not because your pastors are worried about it or afraid about it.

Our pastors are amazing. They’ve, they’ve, they have gone through an entire series teaching on generosity as a practice that helps mold us into the image of Jesus. If you’re new here and you haven’t watched that sermon series, go back and watch it. It’s fantastic. But I do love getting to talk about money ’cause I think it’s incredibly important.

I think it’s so important that Jesus actually said, you cannot serve him and money. Think about that. He didn’t say that about the way that you use your time. He didn’t say that. He didn’t say that about the loved ones in your life. None of those things have a way of mastering our hearts in the same way that our money does.

And we feel this. I can tell you that I see this again as a consultant. I see church budgets. I help them learn, okay, you know, how should you be allocating things? And I also learn about giving patterns from people. Whenever somebody shows up to a church, the final mark that they are truly bought in and that they love this church and feel committed to stay for a long period of time is when they give.

Why is that? It’s a simple answer, because the final idol in someone’s heart that falls is their idol of money. In our culture, money is the God of the heir. In our culture, money is what America is known for. I mean, we are the greatest most industrious country in the history of the world. We are the richest country in the history of the world.

This is so important for us to always remember. Uh, I hear people complaining all the time about the one percenters and the billionaires and all of that, and I just feel the need to always remind you that if you make above $65,000 as a single individual in the United States of America, you are the richest 1% of people alive in the world.

Right now. We are ti we are stinking filthy rich. And so I love to talk about money because it’s important. And by the way, Jesus loved to talk about money. He talked about money more than he did anything else, or your money and your possessions and your relationship to them, because again, he understood the way that greed begins is by a true felt need for more money to cover the things that you need to survive in this world.

People in your twenties, like right now. I wanna be honest, there’s a cultural mantra out there that’s telling you that you should pursue your, you know, dreams. Whatever it is that you want to do, travel, live your best life. I’m telling you right now, what scripture would say is that you should be working hard to earn as much as you can in preparation for the day that you are going to have a family.

That’s what you should be focused on in your twenties. Why do we see people delaying marriage, delaying childbirth, never even having children. In our culture, most of the time they say they feel like they’re not financially ready. We need to be talking about money, and I love that I get the opportunity to talk about money, but even in doing that, I want us to see this passage.

It is only addressing the way that we deal with the greed that is present in our own heart. The way that we understand the wealth that we accumulate. And so I wanna give a couple of implications here. The first one being that even in all of our striving to earn, to get more, 📍 the first implication is we should live every day in light of eternity.

The rich fool’s great mistake was not building barns to hold the things that he had that hit the, the produce that he had grown on his fields. It was assuming that he had time to do whatever he wanted with the things that he had earned and that he believed were his. What scripture teaches is that all the things that we have are really God’s things, and he’s giving them to us so that we can use them like stewards for the things that he wants to accomplish.

And so this man looking at it and saying, I, I, I, my, my, my, he did not understand the most important thing was that he was building for his own glory in the future. And that future was coming to an end a lot sooner than he realized.

And guys, we need to understand, again, this is one of those moments where we, we gotta talk in America, we also don’t like to talk about death. I have had parents get mad at me in sermons because I plainly state what everybody knows is true. We are all going to die. We hate thinking about that so much that we don’t even like to, to get older because it means we’re coming closer and closer to death.

We idolize youth because we fear death. And yet again, just like a fish, recognizing that they swim in water, we need to say out loud that all of us are going to die and therefore we need to begin living in light of that truth. We need to stop preparing as if we know for certain that we are going to live for another 30 years, 40 years, 50 years.

And we need to begin living with the realization that we are only given 80, 90 years at best. And as this man is learning, some of us don’t have until tomorrow. There is a reality of the fleeting nature of life that we have to recognize, and it will change the way that we handle our finances. And so every one of us, Jesus’s story reminds us that eternity is not theoretical that you need, you don’t need to think about until after you die it.

It’s not theoretical, it’s near. And every day we make the decisions that reveal whether we are preparing for this life. Or for the rest of eternity. And so the first implication is we should live every day in light of eternity. 📍 The second implication that I wanna pull out of this is it is possible to succeed at the wrong things.

This guy was incredibly successful, uh, but I think about the way that he was successful at something that wasn’t as important as the other things I think about. Uh, an author, a writer named Samuel Johnson. Uh, Samuel Johnson was an incredible writer. He had a very rough relationship with his father. And yet he talked one time about how growing up, he had one memory of one great day where his dad took him fishing.

And then one day when his dad passes, he discovers diaries and he’s able to find that day in his father’s diary and his father’s diary entry on that day was, took, took Sam Fishing Day wasted.

Can you imagine how his dad being so successful in business created such a failure in Samuel’s own heart because he was succeeding at all the wrong things? That’s a great danger for every single one of us. I mean, by the world’s standards, we would’ve said that this guy is impressive. He’s, he’s productive, he’s wealthy, he’s prudent.

He makes good decisions with business, but heaven calls him foolish. Jesus wanted us to feel the weight of this irony in this moment, 📍 that you can be rich in possessions and bankrupt before God. Jesus is not condemning, planning, working, and and being successful with your possessions. He’s condemning self-centeredness.

And this is another part of the water that we swim in, in the United States at our particular moment. I understand, I, I do believe that, that, that the God of our age is, is maybe greed. I go back and forth because I think that even more the God of our age might be self-centeredness, selfishness, just look around everything as I, I, I, me, me, me.

We have people who are attempting to redefine reality around them and force others to do the same so that they can reinforce what they think inside of themselves. We find it impossible to deal with somebody of a differing political opinion than we do because we will give no ground on the things that we think are true.

We will not offer any grace to those who might dare to disagree with us. At the end of the day, when you look at it, is almost as if every single person. Believes themself to be their own miniature God. And for you to go against a God is a dangerous thing. All of a sudden, you’re an enemy. All of a sudden, it’s not enough for you to be silenced.

You need to be punished. This is the way that we treat people because we are giving into the the God of self that is present in our culture. And that’s what Jesus is saying here he is looking at this guy and he’s saying, you can succeed at achieving everything that you have ever wanted. And at the end of it, find that you are bankrupt in the most important areas of life.

And so that brings us to what then is the 📍 main point of this parable. I’m gonna paraphrase it by saying only what is done for God will last. Jesus ends the parable with this summary in verse 21. He says, so it is for the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. He’s expanding this.

This isn’t just about a story. It’s about anyone who lays up treasure for themselves and never invests in their relationship with God. It reminds me of, uh, uh, the, the antithesis of this is just the Christian realization that all of the stuff we have belongs to God. We are going to be leaving every bit of it that we amass and accumulate on the day that we die, and at that point, we’re going to spend eternity in whatever level of relationship we had cultivated with the God of this universe.

Some people. Never come to know this Lord. Some people never bow their knee to Jesus because Jesus said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. And so some people in rejecting Jesus reject their only way to the Father. And so when they reach eternity, they discover that they are separated eternally from the God of this universe.

Other people invest themselves in their relationship with the Father by studying the scripture and learning who he is by submitting themselves to the commands of Jesus and beginning to reform their own heart and lives to match the person of Jesus. And when they do that, they find that they fit into heaven when they reach eternity, and they get to spend all eternity in the presence of a God that they have known.

That they’ve loved and that they have followed. And I, I think about the, the missionary Jim Elliot recognizing a, a, 📍 a simple truth that he is no fool who gives up, what he cannot gain, uh, who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. It’s true. If you begin to focus on investing in the Lord, you might have a little bit less for yourself.

If you choose to embrace generosity, not just as a habit at church once a week, but as a lifestyle where you’re constantly holding open handedly everything that the Lord has given to you, offering it to any who are in need, you might actually not have as much at the end of your life. That’s difficult to, to totally nail down because how do you.

Value, the love that you experience with other people because you valued them more than a few more hours in the office. It’s difficult for us to understand who wins and to grade who has more and who has less. When instead of owning the boat yourself, you have 10 friends that you have lived with for years and loved and served well, and that guy has a boat, which is the best way to own a boat, to have a friend that owns a boat.

If any of you have a boat, I would love to be your friend. Let me just make that offer to you all. But the Bible says, Jesus explains to people that when you come and follow me, yeah, you’re gonna have to give up everything. But he says, when you give up your house, you’re gonna find that you have a hundred more homes.

Why? Because you’re a part of the family of God. There are people in this room who’ve experienced that something happened and they had to move out. They chose to move out, and they the, you know. For where I live, east Mark. I live a little bit north of here in East Mark all the time. When, you know, about five years ago, people would start the process of building a home.

And so they would be like, okay, we’re gonna move out of our house on this date, and then our house will, the new house will be ready, you know, two days before it’ll be perfect only to discover that when a contractor gives you a date, it’s more of like a hope and a dream that we might do this one day and you find your home being extended further and further before it’s ready.

Suddenly you’re homeless. Amen. Yeah. People know. And how amazing is it when you have parents, when you have friends that say to you, Hey, you can come and live with us. We did this one time, exact scenario in East Mark. We had friends in our church that their new home wasn’t ready. Uh, they didn’t know what they were gonna do, so we were like, Hey, just come and like live with us.

Um, they had seven kids. So that was fun. Um, but the amazing thing is they had seven kids that were more well-behaved than my two kids. So like they were cleaning up after us, which was really embarrassing. But when you come into the Kingdom of God, like how do you evaluate? Because you gave up your opportunity for all us, but look at all that you’ve gained in the kingdom of God.

I don’t know how to evaluate those things, but I’m pretty sure that when we get to eternity with God in heaven, we can trust what Paul says, that no matter what he’s lost, he’s gonna count at all as gain. And God wants us through this story. He’s imploring us. He’s telling us, recognize that only the things that you’ve done for God are going to last into eternity.

All the other stuff is gonna stay here on earth while our soul moves to join with God in heaven. I think about a poem by CT Stud. I read this in the, the opening pages of Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper. Absolutely amazing book. Recommend you read it. It’s fantastic. And he opens by telling about, uh, he, his, his parents had a placard on the wall at the sink, so that every day that that little John would wash his hands, he would be looking at a sign and it was a line from the, a poem by CT Stud.

The line that he read was, only one life will soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last. I wanna read a little bit more of the poem. 📍 Only one life, A few brief years each with its burdens, hopes and fears, each with its days, I must fulfill living for self or in his will. Only one life will soon be passed.

Only what’s done for Christ. Will last. That’s the point of this parable, to recognize that only the things we do for the Lord when we can pull our selfishness out of the equation. When we can stop always figuring out how do we gain and hold more. Instead open our hands so that we can give only when we are living in that li in that lifestyle with that mindset, will we be able to do the things that will last for all eternity.

And so we’re gonna close, I’ll invite the, the band to, to come back up. We’re gonna close like we always do by talking about, okay, so what are some practices that, that we could employ from this? And I think they’re pretty obvious. I have two of them. The first practice, of course, is 📍 the practice of generosity.

And I wanna tell you that if you want to learn to invest yourself in the things that will last for all of eternity, you need to begin investing in the kingdom of God by giving to your church. And this should not be a one-time thing. This should be a practice that you grow in over time. Some of you here, you may be young, you may have seven jobs.

You may not be able to pay for anything. But even still, the practice of giving needs to begin for you to live life in light of eternity. I would encourage you give something, and then the next step is that you would begin to give regularly. Uh, hopefully one day that as we talk about that you would be reaching the point in your financial life where you’re able to tithe faithfully where you are intentionally planning to give to the church.

And I’m telling you this, not because we need more from you. I’m telling you this because scripture makes it clear. Living a life of generosity is going to get more for you. There are so many stories that play this out and one day, what would it be like to not just tithe to our church, but to live generously in every sphere, open-handed, giving to the people who are around us?

How much richer will you be and the love and appreciation of the people around you when you’re known as a person who is generous, but giving to your church. It’s the training wheels of generos. And then the 📍 second practice is prayer. This week, if you’re in a together group, you’re gonna be, uh, sent a link and there’s gonna be 40 different questions that you can begin to ask that you can pray to the Lord over and ask him.

God, help me discern where has greed begun to grow in my heart? That prayer can begin right here. We have kneeler at the front of the room. We’re gonna take a moment to respond to the message today, to the word of God. You can come up and you can pray here, and you can ask the Lord to reveal your heart to you.

You can ask him to give you the courage that you need, the discipline you may lack that prevents you from living generously in light of eternity. We’re gonna have people around the room that you can pray with upfront on either side. We would love to pray with you. But let’s not leave here today assuming that greed is something that only happens to other people.

Let’s submit ourselves to the word and be people who grow in their generosity before Jesus. Let me pray for us. I’ll invite you to go ahead and stand and I’ll pray for us, and then let’s worship and pray.