0:00:00 - 0:00:21 If you were to lose everything you had, uh you, you'd be in a much different place. The question is, what would you regret not doing when you had those things when I say things, I mean, this in the most general sense, including uh all of your human relationships, experiences that you're able to have 0:00:21 - 0:00:49 right now. Everything from uh running water to easily accessible food, to climate control, to electronics, to um internal combustion engines, whatever the case may be. There's a, an interesting passage in uh Luke chapter 12 that talks about this. Jesus says, take heed and beware of covetousness for a 0:00:49 - 0:01:13 man's life consiste not in the abundance of the things which he possesse. And in plain terms, what he's saying is your wealth isn't what you have. And so the question is what is it? And uh you could talk a lot about this, this, this could be a long answer, but to make it short and to the point, your 0:01:13 - 0:01:45 wealth consists in what you've done and who you are. So um we're gonna talk a little bit about uh treasures in heaven here. But the point is if something were to happen to you individually or if something were to happen societally, so uh individually, if you're in an accident or people in your life suddenly 0:01:44 - 0:02:10 treated you differently or did things to you or something happened. Um Societally, some law changes, um we've been through one pandemic, others are going to happen or if something else changed dramatically, like the situation with um being able to just go to the grocery store and buy food, any of these 0:02:09 - 0:02:36 things, if, if something suddenly happened and all of a sudden uh what you had in terms of temporal accounting, whether that's, that's financial wealth or access to goods and services or the proportion of your day that you have to spend uh getting water or um any number of things. If, if that changed 0:02:36 - 0:03:00 dramatically, what would you regret not having done when you had it? So, um he says, um the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully and he thought within himself saying, what shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said this will I do, I will pull down my barns 0:02:59 - 0:03:19 and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. In other words, this guy got a lot of stuff and he keeps getting more stuff, he doesn't have anywhere to put it. And so he says, well, I'll just make bigger areas to store my stuff. Uh And I will say to my soul soul. Thou has much 0:03:19 - 0:03:36 goods laid up for many years, take thy knees, eat, drink and be merry. So in other words, he's oriented towards retirement. Basically, he's saying if I work really hard and I store up all my stuff and I make wise investments, there will come a time where I can just relax and I don't have to worry about 0:03:36 - 0:03:56 anything but God said unto him, thou full this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall these things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God? And he said unto his disciples. Therefore, I say unto you take no thought for your 0:03:56 - 0:04:20 life. What ye shall eat either for the body, what you shall put on the life is more than meat and the body is more than raiment. So um like most sophisticated teachings, this can be oversimplified to think, to say that uh or interpreted, to say that we should not be concerned about the future in terms 0:04:20 - 0:04:45 of uh how hard we work today or what we choose to do, the choices we make today. And that's certainly not what this means. Instead, Jesus is talking about where your focus is or what your intent is, what your motives are for this guy. In the parable. His motive is to do nothing. What he wants is to have 0:04:45 - 0:05:06 all the benefits of hard work in a state where he's not actually working hard. And, um that is also the motive of a lot of people today. But interestingly in our society, we also have this counterculture of doing nothing from the start. So at least this guy was willing to work hard for a while. Right 0:05:06 - 0:05:29 . And he's, he's really pushing it out to try to, uh, hoard up some stuff for the, the later years. Uh, most young people today don't want to do anything and they want to have bigger barns and have someone else fill them or more accurately. They want someone to steal those things from someone who has 0:05:28 - 0:05:52 hoarded them and uh give them to people who have never worked at all. So, uh regardless that should offend some people um regardless moving on. Um He says, for all these things, do the nations of the world seek after and your father knoweth that you have need of these things, but rather seek ye the kingdom 0:05:51 - 0:06:15 of God and all these things shall be added unto you. There's some important subtleties here uh that hopefully I can do an OK job trying to extract the first. Um The first is so he says the life is more than meat and the body is more than Raymond. Um What exactly is he saying? Well, I already told you 0:06:14 - 0:06:40 you don't have anything except what you've already spent. Everything else can suddenly be taken away from you. What you value in terms of the future depends on your expectation of what that holds. If that changes because the structure of things changes or because uh, what you were relying on to fund 0:06:39 - 0:07:01 that is suddenly gone or suddenly worthless, then your hope is taken from you, it's stolen from you and, um, you don't have it anymore. But what you've already experienced as long as you're interpreting it correctly. And what I mean by that is a lot of times we have experiences that seem positive or 0:07:01 - 0:07:19 negative and we later gain understanding that shifts the meaning of that retroactively. But as long as we're, we're perceiving things correctly or to the extent that we're perceiving them correctly, um, there are, and they can't be taken away because they already happened. You can't go back in the past 0:07:19 - 0:07:43 and change the past. So, um those are yours to keep. And so this is, uh this is the, the more transcendent principle upon which, um really good points like, uh don't give your kids things, give them experiences. That's where this sort of, um, this is the principle that, that provides the value for those 0:07:43 - 0:08:05 sorts of sayings and it's a true principle. Um So the, the relationships that you have, um, that can't be taken away that portion of relationships that you have that can't be taken away. What is that? Well, that's how you've served others. That's how you've chosen to suffer for the benefit of others 0:08:04 - 0:00:00 that's already happened and it can't be changed. It can't be taken away. It's yours forever. Um Likewise, uh how you spend your money and time is all part of that, right? So, um those are riches in heaven. Um So how does this connect to being able to pay your bills and survive from day to day? Well, 0:00:00 - 0:08:48 all of those things are a part of the gospel. They're not, it's not like, hey, on Sundays we do this church thing and then the rest of the week you do whatever you want, it's all tied together, it's united under one head and that head is benefit towards others, benefit for the world. And that's the way 0:08:48 - 0:09:07 that God works. That's the way that we are meant to work. And when that is your motive and that is your focus, you may well do the same sorts of things that these barn building folks do, but you're not going to be doing it for the same reasons. And in some cases, you'll act very differently than they 0:09:07 - 0:09:38 will and those um deviations might come suddenly and seem drastic to someone who's not uh who's not paying attention to the underlying causes of everything. So, um uh there's a lot there. I, I'm gonna try to keep it shallow here. Uh OK, so seek ye the kingdom of God. That's what it means. Seek the benefit 0:09:38 - 0:10:03 of the world, seek to know and serve God in all things all the time. And uh this obviously includes in temporal things. And you do that by seeking to serve your fellow men at all times in all things. And when you do that, you will um have a totally different motive than others and all these things shall 0:10:03 - 0:10:24 be added unto you. Um But it's gonna look and feel different. He says fear, not little flock for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that you have and give alms provide yourselves bags which lack not old a treasure in the heavens that faile not where no thief approaches neither 0:10:24 - 0:10:46 . Moth corrupt for where your treasure is there, your heart will be also heart is desire. So he's saying, um your whole life ought to be oriented in a um coherent way like a laser, everything's pointed in the same direction. Everything's focused on the same thing and that thing is the benefit of the 0:10:46 - 0:11:07 world. It's the benefit of all people. And that's how we serve God. And when that is your focus, everything lines up and goes where it's supposed to be and everything that's meant to happen will happen. But um that, that's a big sacrifice on our part compared to normal life because uh it's something 0:11:06 - 0:11:30 that places tremendous personal responsibility on your shoulders. You never have free time. There's no such thing, there's no such thing as a vacation from uh from exercising your conscience. Um You don't get, uh there's no incognito mode for your character. There's there's no, there's no breaks. Um 0:11:30 - 0:11:55 , but, um, this does not mean that we are meant to opt out of life. Um, life is not meant to be, uh, to sort of give away everything and go live in a cave. Now, you could do that and frankly you'd be better off than most people's lives. You would have, uh, more personal progression than most people because 0:11:55 - 0:12:13 most people couldn't even do that. It, it's too much to let go of life. But um that is a huge cop out compared to what we're supposed to do, which is being an active agent with all the resources that God puts into our hands. This is actually um these, these ideas. This is the subject of the first book 0:12:13 - 0:12:38 I wrote, which is called Holiness to the Lord. It's about consecration. Um But um yeah, it's a big, it's a big idea. Um But the point I wanted to make with all of this wasn't necessarily to lay out what all of the, the information that's encoded in Luke 12 is uh these are some really big ideas that you 0:12:38 - 0:12:58 could talk for a really long time about and I'm not really working from notes or anything here. I just, I have the text in front of me. But the point I wanted to make more than anything else is that today is different than yesterday. The lives that we have as people here and now are massively different 0:12:57 - 0:13:18 than the people that came before us, our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents and their parents, they all had vastly different situations than we do today. We live in unprecedented wealth, even the poorest in the first world are much more wealthy than almost anyone who's ever lived. And 0:13:17 - 0:13:45 we are wasting it just wasting it. These are limited resources and in our lifetime, in this generation, they will dissipate and that will happen rapidly and it will happen unexpectedly. It will be very, very dramatic. And I think that we are less prepared for that than any previous generation. So um 0:13:44 - 0:14:12 there will be a time when you find yourself without the resources that you have now. And in that day, you are likely to have massive regrets about how you spent your time now. So I want to encourage you to orient your life towards the benefit of other people. That's a very individual equation. And you 0:14:12 - 0:14:34 have to think about what that means for you. But as you do that, you will lay up treasures in heaven and you'll be prepared for the day when you lose everything because that's going to happen, it's going to happen. You are going to lose everything when the system falls and it will. And if you're alive 0:14:33 - 0:14:54 today, it's very likely that you'll be alive. Then um when it falls, it is going to hurt you, it's going to change your life. It's going to take things of value from you and that won't just be limited to material things. You will see loved ones die and you will see them die in horrific ways that probably 0:14:54 - 0:15:22 exceed anything you've ever imagined. And when that happens, you need to have tools so that you can maintain your trust in God and uh encounter the value that He intends you to extract from all of that because everything He does is for a benefit. And these things that are coming are no different. And 0:15:22 - 0:15:46 um the time to prepare for that is right now because these aren't things that you can just do in the moment. They take a lot of effort and they take time. So uh I encourage you to think about that in your life and to make changes where they need to be made so that you can orient yourself more completely 0:15:45 - 0:16:05 towards God's will. And as you do that, he'll teach you more about his will and you'll have a, a never ending flow of improvement in your life. And what you'll find is you'll start to separate your happiness, will start to separate from your surroundings. What I mean by that is what he said in the first 0:16:05 - 0:16:26 verse that I read the man's life consiste not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. You'll find that your joy is no longer as denominated in your temporal situation. It's not as dependent on the people around you and what they're doing or not doing. It's not as dependent on whether you have 0:16:26 - 0:16:52 running water or uh lots of fancy food for low cost. It's, it's more about who you are, what's inside of you and specifically how much of God's character is in you. And that's a very stable place to be. It is possible to reach the point where no matter what happens to you or around you, your internal 0:16:52 - 0:17:13 peace, your internal happiness does not fluctuate. That's, that's completely possible. And that's actually the point. That's why we're here is to try to get to that point, to move closer to that point, I should say. Um, but it is possible to reach that point in this life. So I encourage you to, to, um 0:17:12 - 0:17:32 , think about how you can better orient yourself towards God's will in all things in your life and then work on that. And there's no limit to, uh, how you can do that in terms of, uh, domain or topic or situation. These are things that apply just as much when you're washing the dishes as they do when 0:17:32 - 0:17:36 you're in a pew on Sunday. So think about that.