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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. It’s pretty easy to tell from the Scripture readings kind of the theme for this morning. The theme about earthly goods and heavenly goods, rich toward God or poor toward God. It’s interesting because Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, I’m sure you heard it, apart from God, who can eat or find enjoyment?
Which brings up the question, of what then does life consist? Of what then does life consist? Luther gave us something interesting to look at, memorize, and be a part of our life in his morning and evening prayer. A very short phrase that’s in both the morning and the evening prayer, and it goes like this: for into thy hands I commend myself, my body, my soul, and all things, all things. It was Luther’s way of teaching us that today is all we have, and we don’t know if we’ll have tomorrow. And before going to bed, and the first thing in the morning, I wake up and I say, Lord, I’m yours. My life is yours. My soul is yours. Everything that I have is yours. My family, my spouse, my children, grandchildren, they’re all yours. I commend them to you, O Lord, which means I am saying they’re not mine.
Now, God has promised that he will supply all that we need for this body and life, but he never promised to supply all that we want. And you and I, we have different wants, don’t we? And in supplying our need, we always have more than we need, don’t we? There is not one of us sitting in this pew that doesn’t have more than we need. Hence, the parable. You see, the parable is very interesting because the parable isn’t about the amount of money. The parable is really about the attitude of the heart of the rich man.
Notice that the rich man has been given a plentiful harvest. Notice that. The rich man did not get his money in an illegal way. The rich man did not get his extra goods by sinfully stealing from someone else. This rich man was given this gift of a surplus bountiful harvest by God’s hand. And it’s the rich man’s attitude toward those goods that really is the problem. The rich man says, what shall I do with all of my goods today? And that’s the rich man’s viewpoint. For why did God give this rich man more than he needed? Why did God bless him with a bountiful harvest bigger than what he had already storage for?
Better yet, let me ask you, why does God give you more than what you need in this life? For what purpose? To share it, and especially share it with the church. Those are your brothers and sisters. That is the faith unto which you are confessing to be yours. Why? God gave us more than we need so that we would share it. You all are very aware by now because of the letter that you received that because of our budget we had to let go three different people on our staff. Something that was not in the letter that I think you should know as well is all of our staff has not had a raise in five years. This will be the fifth year.
Nobody in the stock market hasn’t seen an increase in their wealth over the last five years. I realize, depending on the day, but the overall, from the beginning five years ago to today, it’s all gone up. Most of you have all seen an increase in your salary over the last five years. Why does God give us more than we need? And for whose purpose are we to share it? Whose is it to share, ours or God’s? The rich man made it very clear in his view. He saw his goods as his and not God’s. He saw the dispensation of his goods, his wisdom of how to do it, not God’s.
He even saw his future as being underneath his control by his planning and acumen and not by God. So when God comes to him and says, fool, your soul is desired of you tonight, he’s shocked because it didn’t fit his plans. Pastor Newman and Pastor Lang can tell you stories far more than I can tell you of this, but this is a sad thing that happens to all. When parents die, children change in their views of the inheritance, the things that are left. It doesn’t just happen to those people outside the church. It happens to people inside the church, and they can tell you stories of broken hearts, of seeing brothers and sisters feud over things and money.
Why have we been given more than we need? For what purpose? There was a very wealthy man in the Bible, far more wealthy than this rich man in the parable. God had blessed him beyond this rich man. And this rich man had a very interesting viewpoint, an important viewpoint of the things that he had been given above and beyond what he needed. His statement of faith was, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That’s Job, of course.
This text is not saying, and Jesus is not saying, that you are the rich man because the rich man dies an unbeliever, doesn’t he? You are not an unbeliever. You are a child of God. Paul, when he said what he said in this morning’s epistle, was speaking to believers when he said, Seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated, not on the things of the earth.
Christ did not come to fix financial matters in this world. Christ did not come to fix the church’s finances or your finances or my finances. Christ came to free us from the possessions of this world possessing us. That’s what Christ came for, to free us from the possessions of this world possessing us. The rich man is an example of one who didn’t repent and was much more desirous of his acumen rather than God’s wisdom. Jesus came so that we could be rich toward God, which means poor in view of the world’s goods.
Does God require or desire all of our wealth? No. But is all of our wealth God’s? For into thy hands I commend myself, my body, my soul, and all things. Yes. Yes. He wants us to be rich toward him, which means to believe in and find comfort in his forgiveness, his hope, his peace, his freedom. The rich man was very rich toward himself because he believed and found comfort in his abilities. He believed and found comfort in his wisdom. He believed and found comfort in his plans for the future. But he did not believe and find comfort in the salvation of his soul.
And it didn’t just happen overnight. It happened slowly like a drip before he finally embraced it fully. To be poor toward God is exactly what the rich man was. Though God had even blessed him beyond, not because the rich man had anything that he had done that made God bless him, God just blessed him. Solomon talked about the struggle, because Solomon was the wisest man in the world, was he not? And the struggle that Solomon had is that he saw people being very wise with their finances, being very frugal and planning for the future and leaving it to children or grandchildren who… or to the government for that matter, who do not spend it well and aren’t wise.
And yet how much time do we spend in our marriage discussing finances? And how much time has caused discrimination and frustration between us as brothers and sisters in Christ over finances? We are coveters, old brothers and sisters. I and you are coveters. And God came to free us from that, bringing us forgiveness that we may be rich toward God, not poor toward God. Even our soul is not our own. It was bought by his holy precious blood and this is innocent suffering and death.
Do not think that this sermon is about fixing our budget. Do not think this sermon is about giving new wages to our workers because we live by grace. You may be dead tomorrow and so may I. We live by grace. Luther said, For into thy hands I commend myself, my body, my soul, and all things. And that’s a statement of faith saying, Lord, I don’t know how you’re going to take care of me, but you’re going to take care of me. And all of us have been cared for not just with what we need, but more than what we need.
We continue to be rich toward God. Paul said, You who are rich toward God, when Christ who is in you, in whom is your life appears, you will also appear with him in glory. Grant this, Lord, unto us all for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life eternal. Amen.