I well remember my uncles and my Dad would have a drink at the pub or at home: "First the day!" they would say. Well, here is first this month...

Hi everyone,

It's been a busy month even though we had a weekend at Timaru recently. Next month we are off to Geraldine...ho hum for the holidays! (another ancient saying attributable to my brother, Russell.)

Below is the first for this month...

What Kind of Riches Do You Want?

Luke 12:13 “Then one from the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’
12:14 But He said to him, ‘Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?’
12:15 And He said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’
12:16 Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: ‘The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.
12:17 And he thought within himself, saying, “What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?”
12:18 So he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.
12:19 And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’
12:20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’
12:21 ‘So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. ’ ”

Introduction

We in NZ all have plenty, plenty of things.
It’s not wrong to have things.
It’s not wrong to make and to keep profits either.
In today’s passage from Luke, Jesus did not say it was a sin to own things or to make a profit…and He certainly did not say that anywhere else in the Bible.
Jesus sometimes spoke about avarice, greed, stealing, usury, taxing people too much. Jesus said: one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’ (14)
I like the Dictionary.com definition of avarice: “insatiable greed for riches; inordinate, miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth.” (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=avarice)
“The itch of covetousness makes a man scratch what he can from another.” (Thomas Watson) (Gathered Gold, John Blanchard, Evangelical Press, Darlington, England, 1984; ‘Covetousness’ p.53)
Surely here was Jesus’ chance to say being rich was evil. But he does not take it, because it’s not what He believed and it’s not true.

The Politics of Guilt
There has been a bad misreading of what the Gospels say about wealth or riches. The politics of guilt have been used to make people feel bad if they are wealthy and feel as though God was accusing them of wrongdoing.
By this method, people have been brought into slavery by a man-made subjection to the words of men, rather than the freedom the word of God brings!
In fact, it’s is not so much misunderstanding or misreading the Gospels; it is the deliberate reading of one’s own philosophy of life into the texts so that you get Jesus to say what you want Him to say for political purposes!
One such example is the ‘Jesus Seminar.’ We will not discuss that now.
What have riches and politics to do with Jesus and the gospel?
People like Jesus get in the way of our pet politics…politics which attempt to make wealthy people feel guilty.
In response to those who preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, people will often say things like:
“Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tell me and my children what to believe and do.”
And yet they are willing to let consecutive governments tell them exactly what to believe, what they can say and do, to control their income and their daily lives down to the details of what they feed their children; to bring in laws to control where and when they can breastfeed their babies, and to decide and enforce how they should discipline their own children!

What is Jesus Attitude Towards the Rich?
So what is Jesus’ attitude to this man who had worked so hard and had become successful and become rich by it?
I think it’s the perfect example about attitudes to wealth, since it hits on the exact issue facing us as a people today.
We can ask this: What is Jesus attitude towards the rich?
Are rich people the problem?
Rich people are seen by some people as bad, simply because they have wealth. Since there are others who do not have the nice warm houses or latest clothes and winter holidays that they have, the wealthy are labelled as “bad.”
How about looking into why some have and some do not!
There are plenty of rich people. Compared to many people in the world we are very rich. People get jealous of rich people. As a result they get covetous.
They begin to lust after what the rich have. Acts of violence are excused if the perpetrator is poor and the victim is rich.

When the rich are robbed some say: “Good, it’s what he deserves. Now he will know what others suffer.” Similar things were said about the horrific deaths of nearly 3000 people in the destruction of the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. (There were 2974 who died that day.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks#Fatalities)
“America has been a bad global citizen so deserves what’s happened,” some said.

Who’s to Blame?
In a twisted logic, the cause or the responsibility for any covetous attitude is laid at the feet of the rich person, the person who is better off.
A ‘redistribution of the wealth’ is the answer, according to some if not most people, if recent elections are anything to go by.
Jesus does not criticise anyone for having wealth, while some people have little or nothing.
It is not from the lips of Jesus that we get the ‘redistribution of wealth’ philosophy. In fact, Jesus declines to be the arbitrator between people!
See verse 14: “ ‘Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?’ ”
Jesus concern is with attitudes and spiritual matters and had not come to decide legal matters to do with inheritance. (See Note*)

The Parable
Jesus responds to a man who is not happy. He questions Jesus as to how an inheritance he is due to receive can be more fairly distributed between himself and his brother.
Jesus discerns that within his question and within his heart is covetousness.
Jesus here finds a man who is selfish and by his attitude the man displays that. So he tells the story of a person who is like this unhappy disputer. The attitude is revealed in verse 17.
Look at verse 17: “ ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. I will say to my soul…’ ” (Lk12:17-19)
In questioning himself this man says “I” five times.
“I have no room…”
“I will do this…”
“I will pull down my barns…”
“I will store all my crops and my goods…”
“I will say to my soul…” I, I, I, I, I.

He does not give thanks to God…“although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”(Rom 1:21)
Some of the saddest words in the Bible: “nor were thankful,” is a sure sign they are lost.
No respect for the God who made them.
Surely vanity reigns in that human heart.
The man in Jesus’ story is like that.
He does not ask God what to do. He makes his own plans without referring to the God who made him.
He reasons with himself that, “I will do this and that.”
I will call it ‘BBB Industries,’ BUILD BIGGER BARNS!
He is like the Pharisee Jesus spoke about in chapter 18 of Luke: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men.’ ” (LK 18:11)
In contrast to the Pharisee, the farmer in Jesus story, the man wanting to build bigger barns, makes no reference to God at all.

He does not pray.

On the other hand, whatever the Pharisee thought he was doing, was not prayer either!
Jesus says the Pharisee prayed with himself and that the prayer was not answered by God.
His prayer bounced off the walls and ceiling of the temple but got no further.
The farmer’s reasoning and exclusion of God condemns him.
The farmer is condemned by his own words.
Jesus says God will require the man to answer for his attitude and the actions that flow from that.
“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you…’ ” (20)
Now it should be known that the word “Fool” is not what we would use to describe someone if we were angry with them.
“Fool” in this context means someone who does not take God into account.
“The fool has said in his heart: There is no God.” (Psalm 14:1)
So it’s not a measure of intelligence but rather of inability respect or even acknowledge God.
Psalm 92:6 “A senseless man does not know, Nor does a fool understand this.”

It is foolish to live life without reference to God.

It is foolish to live without trusting Christ.

The person who lives like that will have misfortune come upon them without warning and their end will be the loss of their soul.
As Jesus says: “This night your soul will be required of you.”
The man was rich with goods but empty in his soul.
Things had taken the place of God in his heart.
Riches robbed his soul of true wealth.
Don’t let that happen to you.

Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church asked people the following two questions:
1. Do you know for sure that you are going to be with God in Heaven?
2. If God were to ask you, “Why should I let you into My Heaven?” what would you say?
If you were asked: “Why God should let you into His heaven?” How would you answer?
Those who are born again by God’s Spirit can answer that question confidently.
You should be able to say:
“Why should God let me into His heaven? Because Christ died for me on the cross and took the penalty for all my sin.”
To those who are born again Jesus says, in verses 22-25:
Don’t worry. Don’t worry about what you want. Take what you need from God.
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? (Lk 12:22-25)

Dependence on yourself leads to ultimate ruin, no matter how materially rich you become in life.
Dependence on God through faith in Jesus Christ brings deliverance from sin and death, peace with God and eternal life in heaven.
So it is not whether a person has faith. Everyone has faith of some kind.
The farmer with the many goods wishing to build barns had faith…faith in himself – I, I, I, I, I!
No, Christ wants people who have faith in Him!

I was doing some research and came across the Lutheran Augsburg Confession on one of their church websites.
In it I read the following and I said to myself:
So do I! I believe that too!
Here is part of their statement on justification or how to get right with God.
“1] Humans cannot be justified before God by their own power, merits, or deeds. Rather, they are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith.
2] By faith we mean this: that they believe that they are both received into God’s favour and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. For by his death, Christ has paid the debt for our sins.
3] Thus God views the person who has this faith to be righteous in his sight (Romans 3 and 4)”
(Augsburg Confession, Article 4: About Justification, The Unaltered Augsburg Confession, A.D. 1530) (See also Galatians 2:16)
(See: http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2601&collectionID=783)

So a person who is justified is declared by God to be not guilty.

Their merits – “things that are worthy of praise or reward” are not able to make them worthy before God.
They are put right with God “for Christ’s sake” – i.e. “Because of what Christ did” by His life, work, death, resurrection and ascension to heaven on their behalf.
This is very important and missed by most people. Even in churches many will say:
“Well, it’s not that clear cut. You have to do good to be right with God because faith is only a part of it.”
Their Christianity is all do, do, do!
Actually behind it is I, I, I, I, I, because they do not accept God’s word for it and want to achieve merit on their own.
It is the just who will live by their faith. (Hab 2:4 and Rom 1:17)
Not, “the faithful will live by justifying themselves!”
Yes, the man in Jesus parable made great plans to build bigger barns, but he forgot to thank God, to trust God and to live under God’s laws.
“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ ‘So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. ’ ” (12:20-21) AMEN.

[*Note: “Now this shows us what is the nature and constitution of Christ's kingdom. It is a spiritual kingdom, and not of this world.”
“Though he came not to be a divider of men's estates, he came to be a director of their consciences about them, and would have all take heed of harbouring that corrupt principle which they saw to be in others the root of so much evil.” (Mathew Henry Commentary on Luke 12:14 in E-sword Bible.)]