Martin Luther, the great German reformer, once said that everybody needs two conversions, one of the heart and one of the pocketbook. I think that this body of believers here, this church, coming to Presbyterian Church, is a church that is indeed experienced both of those kinds of conversions. God through Jesus Christ has changed your hearts and there is evidence of that among us. We see that both in the lives of those who have been on this journey for a long time and we see that in the lives of those who have made professions of faith and baptized among us and we have been very blessed to see professions of faiths and baptisms here in our midst over the last couple of years. The year before we saw something like 16 professions of faith and several adult believers baptisms last year, we had several more people make professions of faith and baptisms. God has blessed us in this and you have experienced that change of heart, that conversion of your hearts where God takes us and changes us, brings us from darkness into light and from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of His dear Son. When that happens, when that is your experience, when you have had that happen to you and you have experienced that kind of change, it isn't interesting that that's the big word these days if you follow the political scene at all, everything's about change, isn't it? But change really only comes from Jesus Christ, that's where change comes from. If you want to change lives, if you want to change the culture, if you want to change our nation, if you want to change the world, that kind of change only comes from Jesus Christ. And when you've experienced that kind of change, it changes every area and every aspect of your life, doesn't just change your heart, but it changes your hands and it changes your head, it changes the way you think and it changes the way you live. Every aspect, nothing is out of bounds from the work of God in you and the work of the gospel in you and through you. And one of the areas where we experience that change is what Martin Luther was also talking about, not only a conversion of the heart, but a conversion of the pocketbook, that means that it changes the way we live and it changes the way we give. And one thing I can say about this church, covenant, present, present, church is you are a giving church, you are generous people. I would be hard pressed to find a body of believers made up of so few with so little who give so much to so many. This is a generous body of believers. This past year we were getting down towards the last quarter of the year and we were looking at our income and our expenses and we were scratching our heads and we were trying to think, are we going to make it? Are we going to be able to end the year in the black or are we going to end the year in the red? And by God's grace and through the generosity of his people, through the giving of you all, to the work of God, we ended in the black. Not by a lot, but nevertheless, we ended in the black. We finished in the black. And that's a great testimony folks. That shows that you know about both of these kinds of conversions. You know about the conversion of your heart and the conversion of your pocket books. And I have seen God's generosity over and over again through not only you all but also through the officers of this church. I have been in meetings where people have come on hard times when they've been destitute, when they've been out of work, where they can't pay their bills. And I have seen these men reach into their pockets and take money out and give it without even blinking an eye. Generous people, giving people. And that's a great testimony. And it shows that God is working in our hearts. God is working in our pocket books. I remember two years ago I was getting ready to go out on a mission trip and I was raising support to do so and I thought I had a certain amount of money raised. And the day before I was leaving I did the math and I realized that I had miscalculated by about $1,700. And I was in the process of typing a letter to an email to my elders to let them know of the mistake of the error. And my wife was on the phone with my mother-in-law and she gave me the phone to talk to my mother-in-law. And at the same time my cell phone was ringing. And so I looked and it was someone from our church. And so I let that go to voicemail. I finished up the conversation with my mother-in-law. I called the individual back who had called me and they said, Jim, I was just calling you to see how you're doing on raising support for your mission trip. And I said, well, you're not going to believe this but I was just composing a letter to let the elders know that I was about between $15 and $1700 short for this trip. He said, tell your elders it's covered. Last year we took two mission trips, one the Croatia, one the Kenya. And I came back from both of those trips and again significantly short on the fund raising and someone from this church covered that. My wife was in the back of the church not long ago, a couple of Sundays ago. She's been raising money for the gypsies over in Croatia that we ministered to. And somebody walked up, gave her a check for $500 for the gypsies. Just this past week we learned that the people in Kenya that we ministered to on an annual basis in partnership with equipping pastors in a national, with Carol Arnold and others. We found out that, you know, with the nearly 500 dead and near 300,000 people displaced from their homes because of the political turmoil. And that country that there was a great need, one of our, the moderator from the denomination where it works said that they were in need of about $5,000 just to help people with food and clothing and shelter and medical attention and so forth. And before we could even get that news out, someone had already given $2,000 and between covenant-presentering church and some other churches in partnership with equipping pastors in a national, we raised the $5,000 before the end of business that week and it was on its way over to Kenya. I say all that to say that God's people are a giving people. God's people are a generous people. Now last week we started a series of sermons on the seven deadly sins and we started with a sin of pride. This morning I'm going to talk about greed, but just like when we talked about pride, we also talked about not only the vice of pride, we talked about the virtue of humility and today as we talk about the vice of greed, I wanted to give it, you know, with the background of the virtue of generosity because I wanted you to know that when I look out at this people, I see that virtue of generosity here but that doesn't mean we can let our guard down. That doesn't mean we can just coast the rest of the time throughout our Christian walk in our life. Jesus tells us in Luke chapter 12 to be on our guard against every kind of greed and so if you look at chapter 12, I want to talk this morning about greed, I want to talk about what Martin Luther was talking about and that second kind of conversion, not only the conversion of the heart but the conversion of the pocketbook and it's interesting that in chapter 12 of the gospel of Luke Jesus is speaking to a huge crowd, there's a huge crowd, it looks as many thousands of people are gathered together here and so here's this huge crowd, there's a symbol to hear Jesus talk, to hear Jesus speak, to hear Jesus preach, to hear Jesus give and share his wisdom with all of these thousands of people that had gathered. It was such a big crowd that Luke bothers to tell us that they were literally trampling on one another to come and hear Jesus speak and Jesus says in this passage in chapter 12 some particularly hard things, Jesus is giving them some tough sayings, I remember when I first became a Christian not long afterwards somebody bought me a book saying you know all the hard sayings in the Bible, there are a lot of hard sayings in the Bible, empower that book dealt with just the hard things that Jesus says, there are some hard things that Jesus says and several of those things are right here in Luke chapter 12, he begins by telling them in chapter 12 you know to beware of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and then he tells them don't fear those who can kill the body but fear him who has power over both the body and can you know send you to hell for the rest of your eternal lives and then he says that anyone who acknowledges me for men, I will acknowledge before my father but whoever denies me before man or denies before man, I would denounce before the angels of heaven and then he says when you're brought before the synagogues or the rulers or the authorities, don't worry about what you need to say to defend yourselves but the Holy Spirit will teach you what to say at that time and so you see that Jesus is saying some hard things here you know and as I read that list of hard sayings, I looked at that list of you know sort of tough maxims you know a thousand questions came to my mind there are a thousand things I wanted to ask every time and indeed as I mentioned before literally books have been written about each one of those hard sayings and yet Luke goes on to tell us that there's somebody in this crowd that is thinking about something totally different and in verse 13 he says someone in the crowd said them, teach your tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me see here's Jesus talking about the hypocrisy of Pharisees don't fear those who can only hurt your body or kill your body but fear the him who has power over both your body and soul and can commit you to hell for all eternity
to deny me before man you'll be denied before God that you will be brought before the synagogues and the councils and the authorities don't fear about what you'll say the Holy Spirit will give you words and yet what's going through this man misses it all he misses everything that Jesus is saying be why because he is so caught up with what is going on in his own life that he fails to hear what Jesus is saying and fails to see Jesus for who he is here is a man says someone in the crowd said them, teach your tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me now there were laws in the old testament that dealt with how inheritances were to be distributed in cases where there was dispute about this this it was common for people the Jewish people to go to their rabbi to try to have those disputes settled but Jesus has a different reply Jesus replied and said man and that's interesting language there because it's stark it's cold it's a little bit harsh it's like Jesus is letting them know that he is talking to a stranger he says man who appointed me judge or an arbitrary between you many said watch out be on your guard against all kinds of greed a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his professions the first thing I want you to see beloved is that what greed does is it blinds us from seeing Jesus for who he really is this man is in the midst in the presence of Jesus the Lord of lords the king of kings the redeemer the savior and he doesn't see him for who he is and Jesus says man who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you he had totally misunderstood who Jesus was he had totally misunderstood the mission of Jesus greed had blinded him from who Jesus is from the reality of who Christ is and what his mission was
beloved we are assaulted every day by not only merchants and people who want to sell us things but even our government today is telling us to go out and buy things we are we are told that we are facing a recession right and the way to fix that recession were to believe it's for the government to give us more money so that we can go out and spend it buying stuff that we don't need if we turn on our television sets we are constantly being trying you know the attempt is being made to sell us something if we open up a magazine if we read if we look at the billboards there is tremendous pressure all around us for for us to approach life from the standpoint of nothing else other than being a consumer and so we need to take Jesus's words to heart we need to be on our guard we need to watch the Jesus said man who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you then he said watch out be on your guard against all kinds of greed a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions to the first thing greed does is it blinds us to who Jesus is the second thing greed does is it blinds us to what life is really all about man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions when you get right down to it beloved there are only two choices as Mike mentioned this morning it's greed or it's God those are your two choices greed or God it's God or man and Jesus says as clearly as he says anything else you can't serve two masters you either love the one and hate the other you hate the one and love the other
Paul calls greed or covetousness idolatry idolatry is one of those Greek words that everybody knows
the root of the word is Latria it means worship see greed is actually basically and fundamentally a worship disorder greed is idolatry it's a worship disorder it means we're worshiping the wrong thing
and the real danger of the fact that this is a worship disorder is that what it does you see there's a principle in worship that is often neglected and is this principle namely that we become like what we worship if you worship the one true high and holy God who sent his son Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for our sins if you worship him and him alone you see then you become like him if you worship things if you worship possessions if you worship the accumulation of goods then you become like that and so we need to be very careful we need to be on our guard because life is more than just about the accumulation of things life is more than just about possessions life really does boil down to greed or to God and we can only worship one or the other and so we need to be on our guard and then Jesus tells a parable here and he told them this parable the ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop he thought to himself what shall I do I have no place to store my crops then he said this is what I'll do I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and there I will store all of 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 now what I want to call this is the illusion of possession I want to call this the illusion of possession because if you if you look at the personal pronouns in this text you'll see that the word my appears four times at least in the Greek and eight the word I appears eight times in the Greek the numbers are a little bit different here in anguish this man was under the illusion that all of this belonged to him now you see the thing about it is is that most Christians will acknowledge that everything they have has come from God that that which we have God has given us he's given us our lives he's given us our our health if you will he's given us life and breath he's given us our food our clothing our shelter he's given us everything that we have what Paul says is true what do you have that you did not receive answer nothing everything that you have you have received from God it is his gift every gift James says every perfect and good gift descends from the father of lights it is from him and most Christians are good with that we understand that we proclaim that that's our testimony that what we have has come from God but beloved that isn't all the truth that's only half the truth half with the truth is that everything you have has come from God the other half of the truth that we don't quite understand I think and that we're not so much aware of in Christian circles is that it everything you have not only has come from God but it still belongs to God it is his stuff these are God's possessions not mine it apparently never dawned on this man in this parable not only were these things from God but they belonged to God it never dawned on him that he was simply the steward or the manager the financial planner if you will of God's stuff that's what we are our bank accounts are not ours houses are not ours our cars are not ours our property is not ours it belongs to God all of it is from him and all of it belongs to him and that's why I call this the illusion of possession it's the illusion that you and I actually own anything or possess something as ours as mine it all belongs to him we simply are called by him to be stewards of that which he has given us to manage that which he has given us for the furtherance of the gospel for the building of the kingdom for the fulfillment of the great commission and beloved that's really my concern when we talk about greed my concern about greed is not in the abstract or in the general my concern about greed is that it doesn't inhibit the work of the church that it doesn't inhibit the that God's mission for his people that it doesn't get in the way of the furtherance of the gospel the building of the kingdom and the fulfillment of the great commission and even though as I've already stated I know that this congregation is a generous people we still need to take Jesus's word to heart we need to be on our guard we need to watch out and then finally what I want us to see here is the way that Jesus talks about the sin of greed you know the sin of greed or the sin rather in the Bible is talked about in a lot of ways it's talked about as a transgression sort of getting off the wrong path of the right road it's talked about as missing the mark all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God it's talked about as a debt a debt that we cannot pay a debt that we owe God but it's a debt that we cannot pay so there's a variety of ways in which the Bible talks about sin transgressing against the law of God variety of ways but here what we see in this particular text is we see sin as folly 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 here is sin as folly you know there's a long history especially in the wisdom literature of a contrast between the wise and the foolish and most of the time when you and I hear the word fool we're tempted to think of it in terms of our cognitive processes we're tempted to think of it in terms of something to do with the mind when we think of foolishness or foolish decisions or somebody acting foolishly we tend to think of it in terms of something mental but in the Bible the fool and foolishness is not merely something mental it's something moral it's a sign of an ethical problem and so when Jesus says thou fool what he's saying here is that this man has a spiritual and moral condition greed beloved like all the other six deadly sins is a moral and spiritual problem it says something about our hearts it says something about us and our character and so Jesus says you fool this night your life will be demanded from you then who will get what you have prepared for yourself it's cliche but it's true you can't take it with you the question is what are you going to do with it now and beloved I believe that we are called to use all of our possessions for the glory of God for the furtherance of the gospel for the building of the kingdom for the fulfillment of the great commission everything we are and everything we have is to be for that purpose and to that end this is how it will be Jesus says with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich
C.S. Lewis is famous for saying in his book The Weight of Glory that the problem with covetousness the problem with greed is not that our desires are too strong but rather that they're too weak we are like children who are building sandcastles in the slum when we could be having a vacation if you will or a holiday on the seaside it's not that our desires are too strong it's that they're too weak that's the root of covetousness that's the root of green
when Luke is teaching us but Jesus is teaching us what God through the Holy Spirit is teaching us is that there is infinite joy there are treasures in heaven being rich toward God being satisfied in him having his glory in mind and his end in mind the pleasures of God more than the pleasures of thanks this is real joy this is real delight this is real happiness this is what life is really about
and beloved so let us think on these things pray on these things we are a generous people I've seen it here but let us examine ourselves and our things our stuff our possessions to see what further use that we can be and they can be for the furtherance of the gospel for the building of the kingdom for the fulfillment of the great commission that is what it means to be rich towards God heavily Father we thank you for your word we thank you Lord for your son Jesus Christ who became poor so that we might become rich who left it all and gave it all
and Father we pray that as we worship you and as we worship your son and the Holy Spirit that you would make us like yourself that we would become more and more like you changed more and more into the image and likeness of our God the one whom we worship Father that you would help us to watch out to be on guard against covetousness and greediness against the idea that is so prevalent in our culture and in our society to make us follow hard after things rather than following hard after our God we ask the Lord that you would help us to watch and help us to be on our guard garrison our hearts and our minds we ask of some Jesus name