Rich Toward God

Because you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1). Amen.

There were issues at home. Their dad died leaving his property to his sons in doubt. The younger of the two sons was among the thousands in the crowd listening to Jesus that day (Luke 12:1). When Jesus paused in his teaching, one son took the opportunity to call out, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13). According to Jewish law, the older son received two-thirds of the inheritance and the younger son the remaining one-third. Evidently, there was a problem in settling the amount of the inheritance between the two brothers.

But Jesus refused to judge the case. He had not come to judge in earthly matters, but to be the Judge of heaven and earth. Jesus was busy teaching about eternal inheritance. He wasn't interested in delving into earthly inheritance. He replied, "Man, who appointed me to be a judge or an arbitrator over you" (Luke 12:14).

Jesus then uses this as a teachable moment. He calls out to the crowd, "Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because a man's life is not measured by how many possessions he has" (Luke 12:15).

We can so easily become possessed by our possessions. Our lives can be driven by what we have and the selfish desire to keep it from the government and anyone else who wants to take it from us. Whether we have little or we have much, we are all prone to greed. Both the rich and poor can be fools about money. The rich can become slaves to the money and possessions they already have. The poor can become slaves to the money and possessions they want. People in all social and economic classes can see money and possessions as salvation from their problems.

In our Old Testament lesson and throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon carefully documents his own personal experiments with every lifestyle possible. He tried wine, women, and song. He tried hard work. He tried hard play. He tried travel. He tried false gods. In the end, he concluded that if this life is all there is, then everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless. Everything is vanity and a chasing after the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). Without God, there is no meaning to life.

It's not that wealth is bad. It's not wrong to enjoy life in the here and now. It's when that all gets out of perspective, when we lose sight of our life in relation to God – that is the problem. Your life does not consist in the abundance of your stuff. It's not about possessing possessions. The life of the Christian is about being possessed by Christ.

But how often don't we find ourselves as fools with misplaced priorities? We chase after money and make it the idol to which we bow down. We covet possessions so we place overtime ahead of time with God. We desire more things so we worship God less. We want to have it made – no worries, no problems, no bothers – forgetting that we already have it made in Jesus.

Someone once asked John D. Rockefeller, who at one point was one of the richest Americans of his time: "How much wealth does it take to satisfy a person?" He reportedly replied, "Just a little bit more." The Romans had a proverb: "Money is like sea water; the more you drink, the thirstier you become."

Jesus said, "Watch out and be on guard." With those strong and urgent words, Jesus is addressing a sin we are tempted to consider trivial and harmless. He's talking about greed. We may consider the sin of greed to be trivial, but God doesn't. That's why he has three commandments – 7th, 9th, and 10th, designated to show the mirror of his law against stealing and coveting that resides within our hearts.

Coveting doesn't get a lot of airtime when talking about the commandments – like murder or adultery – but it should. We covet admiration and we become indignant when we feel slighted by those who don't notice us. We covet possessions and then we are stingy when it comes to supporting God's ministry work with offerings. If you've paid attention this week, you've noticed people becoming upset about a young lady wearing blue jeans. We covet attention and then we get angry when others are getting the attention we think we deserve.

Jesus knows what a danger the sin of coveting is. That's why he tells the parable of the rich fool. A rich man harvested a bumper crop from his fields. The farmer appears respectable on the exterior, but on the interior lurks the heart of an idolater. He has a lot of wealth. But inwardly he is very poor. Though his physical body has much, his spiritual soul is starving to death.

The problem was not that the man was rich, but that the man was a rich fool. Wealth is not the problem. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, David, and Solomon were all extremely wealthy. Jesus had disciples who had made lots of money. The Magi who worshiped the toddler Jesus had the means to offer him gold, frankincense, and myrrh as gifts. Joseph of Arimathea was wealthy enough to lend his tomb to Jesus for three days. Lydia, the first convert in Europe and Mary, the mother of Mark the Gospel writer, were wealthy patrons of the church. Wealth is not the problem. The problem is letting wealth become a substitute for God. It's making wealth the source of our security and comfort. It's forgetting that wealth, like everything else, is a gift from God and not its own god. The sin is not money or having money or working hard for more money. The sin is in the attitude toward money.

The rich man had a sinful attitude toward his money. He wanted to "eat, drink and be merry." Take life easy. Live a life devoted to indulging all his physical appetites. Though the man thought himself to be rich and wise, God called him a fool – one who is ignorant of what the real situation is. He thought that his wealth would assure him a life of ease for years to come. However, that was not to be. "This very night," on which he had laid all his plans for the future, God declared his life would end. All the preparations he had made were useless. All his wealth and crops and barns were now meaningless. Even worse, now he would be standing before God as a beggar. He faced the final judgment with no spiritual resources. He was indeed a fool!

And so is everyone who sets their hearts upon earthly riches more than the treasures God grants through Jesus Christ. Our Lord knows how attracted we are to the circumstances of the rich man in this parable. He knows how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of greed. Listen to our Savior's warning. Our life is not in what we own … but in who owns us.

As a Christian, being rich is not something you have to pursue or even work towards. The riches of God are something you already have. You are wildly wealthy. For Jesus Christ "became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus has an economy all his own. Although he is the Creator and Owner of all things, he lived among us as a poor person. Although he has all authority in heaven and on earth, he lived under the authority of Roman and Jewish law. Although he has all power and glory, he made himself helpless and submitted to the punishment we deserved. Although forgiveness, life, and salvation are worth more than we could ever pay, Jesus offers them to us as a free gift. Although Jesus deserves our unending service, it is his desire that he serve us. It is Jesus who makes us rich toward God.

When Jesus did all this, he gave you the biggest treasure you could have – forgiveness from your greed, the breath of eternal life to replace chasing after the breath in this life, and the spiritual wealth contained in the waters of Baptism, the spoken, read, and sung Words of Scripture, and the body and blood of Christ in his Sacrament. Now the grave has no more power over you. Now you have what it takes to pass the test on that night when your soul is required of you. You may lose the barns of this world, but through Christ you have already gained the mansions of the world to come.

How do we become rich toward God? Through Christ. Christ alone. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Colossians: "Because you were raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:1-4).

Christ is your life, your true life, the only life that lasts. If you don't have Christ, you're dead already. You're sunk, you're lost, you have no hope and no future. Your sins will drag you down to the grave. What good will all your stuff do you? Your soul will be required of you. A life apart from God, a life apart from Christ, a life apart from the Spirit, will not last. It will be a "vapor, nothing but chasing wind" (Ecclesiastes 2:26).

This changes our perspective on things, doesn't it? It frees us up. No matter our crummy circumstances, we have a joy that cannot be taken from us. We know where our true life is found, and it isn't in our stuff. When we have things in the proper perspective, then we can go ahead and enjoy the blessings of this life. And that's what Ecclesiastes ultimately is telling us: "There is nothing better for a man than to eat and to drink and to find joy in his work. This too, I saw, is from God's hand. For who can eat or enjoy himself apart from him" (Ecclesiastes 2:24-25).

The picture on the sanctuary screen is a picture of my family farm on fire. Somehow this week, the huge hay barn caught on fire. The fire spread to the other outbuildings. Thankfully no one was living there anymore, so there were no people or animals injured. Also, we are grateful that my parents sold the farm last month. Those buildings were going to come down anyhow. They just came down much more quickly and violently than the new owner had planned.

I'm showing you this picture because it's a reminder of how quickly and violently what we've worked so hard for can be destroyed. It can be a fire, an accident, cancer, disease, a heart attack, a stroke, old age … really anything. Everything we worked so long for can be gone in an instant. A puff of smoke. Vapor. Then it can all seem meaningless.

That's why we find our meaning in Jesus Christ. The second son in the Gospel wanted his portion of the inheritance, but Jesus Christ has already given you an inheritance in heaven. Your inheritance is that he has made you royalty – sons and daughters of the King.

My royal brothers and sisters, use and enjoy the things of this world that you have been given. But don't put your trust in them or covet them. You don't have to eat, drink, and be merry now, for in Christ you will be eating, drinking, and joyful for eternity.

As Christians we remember that life does not consist in the material, but in the spiritual; not in the temporal, but in the eternal; not in worldly goods, but in heavenly blessings; not in what we can do for ourselves, but in what God gives us in Christ. In Christ Jesus, we are rich in this life and rich for the life to come. Only a fool thinks otherwise. Don't be a fool. Be a son or daughter of the King. In this way, you are rich toward God. Amen.

Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (Colossians 3:2-4). Amen.