The four posts in this series were part of a church-wide devotional I wrote about wealth and money. The devotional was given out to aid the congregation through our church’s recent building campaign. It consisted of ten entries, each centered around Jesus’s teachings on money in Luke 12. These four were the main entries, written in a blog-article style format, which is why I post them here.
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Luke 12:13–21
[13] Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” [14] But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” [15] And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” [16] And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, [17] and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ [18] And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. [19] And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ [20] But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ [21] So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
We begin by seeing that Jesus couldn’t have been clearer about his intentions in telling the Parable of the Rich Fool. Right away he instructs us to “take care” and “be on guard.” Why? Because:
“One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
Jesus’s warning here is as apt today for each of us as it was back then. Our society—obsessed with this life, security, our assets and net worth—tries to tell us the opposite of what Jesus says here. We breathe a cultural air that declares that life does consist in the abundance of our possessions. Nevertheless, Jesus’s statement still hold true: our life does not consist in the abundance of stuff and money.
The rich fool’s story proves Jesus’s point. The story begins with a man who gets a plenty and starts collecting his abundance. He has more than he ever expected, so he starts saving it up. And up to this point in the story (from verses 16 to 19), we might say that this man’s actions make a lot of sense: His crop produced more than expected, so he built barns to collect his plentiful yield. Again, it makes sense—and it seems Jesus tells the story like this on purpose…
But then verse 20 arrives. With the drastic addition of verse 20, now the man’s actions don’t make sense. What happens in verse 20 to change the whole story?
God enters the picture. The rich man tragically has forgotten about God.
In an atheistic world—a world where there is no God, where life is all about our own comfort and our own security through our success and accumulation—the story makes sense. But none of us lives in such a world. No one ever has. Instead, we live in a world where there is a God. A good God. A beautiful God. A powerful God. A God we were made to live for.
It’s he who shows up in verse 20 and changes everything. And he shows up because he is actually real—as real as the man’s crop and barns (as real as our wealth is, however much it may be), so is this God. The man’s wealth doesn’t exist in a God-less world.
Therefore, as the story continues, because he is real and he sees that this man has disregarded him, God speaks the honest truth to the man: “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). Now to be clear, God calling him a “fool” isn’t an expression of lashed-out anger. Rather, it’s a rational denouncement of the man and the situation. The man is foolish to act this way in a God-centered world. His actions don’t make sense. In storing up all he could, he acted as if his comfort, security, and abundance were the center of everything, of utmost importance, when in actuality he lived in a God-centered world, and in a world of God-image-bearers who desperately need to know this God.
This man disregarded this and instead foolishly laid up treasure for himself and wasn’t rich toward God.
How Do You and I Relate?
What about us? How do we relate to this “rich fool”?
No matter how much we have or make—no matter how many “barns” we think we could fill by the end of our lives—the story applies to us all. Jesus teaches us here that giving is not only a question of sacrifice and love (although it is), it’s also a question of living in light of reality. Do we, with whatever monetary wealth we have, act like we live in a God-less world or a God-centered world?
The reality is that we do not live in a God-less world; we live in a world where God exists and where we have the privilege of living for his glory (which is for our good). We don’t live in a world where we need to “lay up treasures for ourselves.” We rather get to use our God-given resources to be “rich toward God.”
Given this is all true, how will we respond? Will you ask yourself and pray to God about what being “rich toward God” with your wealth might look like for you?
Prayer: Jesus, as you taught in this passage, help me to know that my life does not consist in the abundance of my possessions. I feel the pull from the world all the time to live materialistically, as if my stuff and money supremely mattered. But they don’t. You do. Living for your glory is much more important and satisfying. So instead of seeking my own comfort and security apart from you, help me to use my resources to be, as you said, “rich toward God.” Whatever that might mean for me, I know it means avoiding being like the rich fool in your story. So help me not be like him. But as for specifics, may you guide me as you see fit, stirring my heart to be more generous and loving than I could ever be on my own. Thank you how good and loving you are toward me. It’s in your gracious name, I pray. Amen.
