To whom much has been given, much will be required. To whom much has been given, much will be required. That is what Jesus says later on in this chapter. Now, America is the nation we live in. And we love our country and we pray for our country. And God has blessed us, has he not? With so much. I looked online because I've often heard and I've basically accepted What seems to be true that probably all of you would agree with, that America is the wealthiest nation, not only in existence today, but probably in the existence of the world. And we are Americans. We live here. We are the richest people, basically, who have ever lived on the face of the earth. That is a staggering fact, isn't it? It's a staggering fact to come to grips with, especially in light of Jesus' teachings. Too much has been given, much will be required. Not only have we been given unbelievable wealth that most people in other countries just hardly can fathom, but we've been given multitudes of helps to understanding God's word. Along with the wealth comes just all sorts of other prosperity, doesn't it? I mean, today, we don't have to go look in this huge concordance to try to find something. We can just, bam, type it on the internet, and there we have it. We are so blessed. I mean, if I'm thinking of a phrase of Scripture, I'm like, man, where is that Scripture found? I can just type it in Google. Bam, it comes right up. There it is. Think about it. Hundreds of years ago, before they had concordances in every house or before they had the internet, how people just had to look in the Bible for weeks and weeks just to find that Scripture they were looking for. Think about how much blessing we've been given. Think about how we're able to use not only our wealth, but our position of privilege in America to send missionaries to do all sorts of things. to further the gospel, further the kingdom. Think about how we're able to understand the Word better ourselves because of the tools, because each of us have a Bible, maybe several Bibles in different languages. Maybe you do have different languages, but different translations. I mean, we have umpteen translations that we can consult, even if we don't want to take the intense difficulty that it would take to learn the Greek language so we can read what it was actually written in, we can actually study all these different translations written by scholars who did know Greek so that we can pretty easily find out what the possible translations might be and so on and so forth. We are able to understand the word. We have so much accessibility to the word in a way that our forefathers just couldn't. It is amazing how much we have been given. So I want us to be thinking tonight as we look at this text in light of what we've been given, our wealth, our prosperity, all the blessings we have, what then are we required to do? Because too much has been given, much will be required. It's a sobering thought. It's a serious thought. It's an important thought for us to be thinking. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the Gospel of Luke is just filled with teachings on money. You see, I don't know, maybe some of you are thinking, Dino, why are you speaking on money? That's not a popular topic to speak on. That's not what we want to hear. You know, if you want to tell us something pleasing, you wouldn't talk about money, would you? I don't know if you're thinking that. I hope not. But there's truth to that in the sense that people, that's a touchy subject, isn't it? I mean, people don't want to talk about their pocketbooks, talk about their bank accounts, talk about something that touches them, you know, in a place they don't want to be touched. This is not a very popular topic to speak on. It's not a very popular topic to think about. It's not pleasant because it challenges us. It calls, it speaks to our, practical life, the way we live. It speaks to what everybody can see about us, right? How we spend our money. It's a difficult subject. But the reason I felt compelled to speak is as I was reading through Luke, it just came up over and over again. And I was trying to find what I'll basically do when I get ready to preach, is I'll read through and say, Lord, show me a text. And I'll read through. And sometimes I read through chapter after chapter after chapter, just looking for a text to preach on, looking for something that stirs my soul that I feel the Lord is just burdening me to preach on. And it seemed like almost every passage that I was feeling, ah, this is so amazing, that almost all of them were talking about money. Because half the passages in Luke seemed to be talking about money. I went through the first 21 chapters of Luke. And out of those 21 chapters, only three didn't seem to be saying anything about money. Isn't that amazing? Look how much Jesus talked about this. And yet I think we maybe shy away from this sometimes. Shy away from speaking. I think preachers shy away from it for obvious reasons. It's a very important subject, and it can be a liberating subject. There's a song quote that goes through my mind a lot of times. It's hard to imagine the freedom you'd find from things you leave behind. And that goes for all sorts of things. Pride, selfishness, greed. And it's hard to imagine the freedom you'd find from money you leave behind, isn't it? And I know you've experienced that in your lives, that when you give, sacrificially, you give. Maybe you don't feel like you have the money, but you give it anyway. There's joy. It just makes you happy. when you get to give like that, and you know you're giving to someone who needs it more than you. It just makes you, it just fills you with joy. Whereas at first, you didn't want to give and it just filled you with, I don't know what the right word is, but frustration or bitterness because you were holding it back or clinging to it. Once you let it go, it's just like joy filled your heart. And so it's a very important subject. And I think a lot of times as Americans, Jesus said some tough words, didn't he? He said that it's hard for a rich man under the kingdom of heaven. It's hard. for rich men enter the kingdom of heaven." Well, that goes for all of us, doesn't it? Who in here is not rich? We're all rich. Every one of us. I mean, even the poor in America are rich compared to the poor in other countries. We're so rich, and it's hard for us to enter the kingdom because of that, because our riches constantly pull at us and say, come to me, come to me. Too much has been given, much will be required. Now, I wanted to look through and take you kind of on a zoom through the gospel of Luke, like a rollercoaster ride. And you don't have to turn, but I want to read to you several scriptures and just give you more of a taste, more of a flavor of Jesus teaching about money all through the gospel of Luke. Listen to this. Luke 1.53, Mary says this in response to Elizabeth's blessing. She says, God has filled the hungry with good things and sent away the rich empty-handed. Luke 4.18, Jesus says in his hometown synagogue, where a prophet is not without honor, Did I get there? A prophet is without honor in his own hometown. He said in his own hometown synagogue, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed. See, the gospel's for the poor. It's for the rich too, but it has a special place with the poor. Luke 6, 20 and 21, and turning his gaze toward his disciples, Jesus began to say, blessed are you who are poor, For yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you shall be hungry. You see, we take these words a lot of times and we immediately want to blunt them. See, the word of God is a sword meant to divide, to cut us open and expose our thoughts. But we take these harsh words of scripture They offend us, and we want to immediately dull them down, dull the blade down so it doesn't hurt as bad. And we shouldn't do that. We need to take these for what they are. We need to read these and say, yes, there is a spiritual meaning here. That he's not just talking about those who are earthly poor and those who are earthly rich. He's talking about those who are spiritually poor and spiritually rich. And we see that in Matthew 5. But he's also talking about those who are earthly poor. That is a theme running all throughout the Gospel of Luke. And that's why it's different here in Luke, isn't it? He doesn't say poor in spirit. He says, blessed are you who are poor. There is a blessing upon those who are poor. Of course, we don't at all take that to mean that every poor person is going to go to heaven and every rich person is not going to go to heaven. Of course not. We know there's a deeper spiritual meaning here, but we have to realize there's an earthly meaning here too. That there is a special blessing on the poor that, as it says in James, God has chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith. It says, is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Blaspheme the name, fair name by which you have been called. Luke 14. 13 and 14, Jesus said, but when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Why? Since they don't have the means to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. And then back to Luke 6, 30, Jesus said, give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, don't demand it back. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. but love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men." That is a high standard. Luke 18, 22 through 25, Jesus said to the rich young ruler, one thing you still lack, sell all that you possess, and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, how hard is it for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God? For it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Once again, we don't need to dull that down. We need to realize that's talking about us. Not that we're actually the rich young ruler, but we are rich. And it's hard for us because of our riches to enter into the kingdom. That means we have to be all the more diligent to beware of greed in our lives, to cut it off as soon as it starts encroaching, to detect it in our thoughts, in our attitudes, before it becomes an action and deny it. And then Luke 18, 28 through 30, Peter said to Jesus, behold, we've left our own homes and followed you, Jesus. And Jesus said to them, truly, I say to you, There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come eternal life. Luke 19, eight through nine, Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham. Luke 19, 46, to those selling in the temple, Jesus said, it is written in my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a robber's den. And then finally Luke 21, one through four. And Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw a poor widow putting in two small copper coins. And he said, truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all of them, for they all out of their surplus put into the offering, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on. And so we see that this issue of money, stewardship, of how to use our money in the presence of God is a huge issue that Jesus talked about over and over again. It's a huge theme in the gospel of Luke. Like I said, it's in almost every chapter in the book. These, I don't know how many verses that was, but that was just a small portion, maybe half, I don't know. But it was not at all the fullness of Jesus' teachings here on money. But it's really just a small portion. It comes up over and over again, so it's so important. But I want to call your attention back to this passage here. Okay, someone in the crowd yells out, Jesus, tell my brother to do what's right, to be fair, and to divide the inheritance with me. And Jesus' response is, who made me a judge over you? And then he turns to the crowd. And this is really what Jesus wants to teach us. He says, beware of every form of greed. Let's think about that statement. Because as I said earlier, we as rich people, as those who have all sorts of luxuries that set us apart from other parts of the world today and in all throughout history, we are so wealthy. We have to be aware of this. We have to beware that greed is like sin crouching at our door. as those who live here in America and have such riches. Greed is crouching at our door, and it wants to have us. Just like the parable of the sower and the four soils, one of the four was thorny soil. Remember what it said. What do the thorns represent? They represent deceitfulness of riches. Riches want to deceive you. It's not going to come up all of a sudden and just expose itself and take you captive. It's going to slowly, little by little, eat away at you. Before you know it, you're a greedy person, and you don't even know how you got there. So we have to be on guard. We have to beware against, as it says here, every form of greed. Because greed will take many forms. It will try to sneak in through a back door into your life, and deceive you, and try to kill you. So you have to beware of that. You have to guard against it. You have to think. You have to be a thoughtful person. Sit down and think, how is greed right now trying to seep its way into my life? How is the enemy trying to attack me? How is my flesh trying to deceive me? Are there things that I'm allowing in my life, luxuries that I don't need, that I should be selling and giving to the poor, but I'm allowing them to creep in and steal my heart? It could be anything. Something that you find your heart is running after more than God. You find you're not as excited to read the Word because you want to go use this thing that you've bought, or you want to use this possession you have, or you want to go do this or that, or you want to go online and look about other things you might buy. We want to go to the store and buy things rather than read the Word of God. You see, even though it's not wrong to do any of those things, it's not wrong to use the things you buy, it's not wrong to buy things. It's not wrong to have things. And there are legitimate times, of course, to buy even expensive things. But the thing is, it's your heart going after those things. And in the case of this man here, what was his problem? Well, I mean, greed is deceiving him in a very elusive way, isn't it? Because he comes and says, Jesus, I just want justice. My brother is trying to defraud me of my inheritance. Tell him to do justice. That seems like a reasonable thing to say, doesn't it? And this man was probably right. His brother probably was just trying to rip him off and take his money. But does that make his heart right? Does that mean it's right for him to yell out, Jesus, I want justice? No, his heart's greedy. In the end, Jesus, as we read other places in scripture, he'd be better off really just to be wronged. than to argue about it and try to fight about it. Right? This shows that there's greed in his heart. That his heart's longing for this inheritance, this wealth. Chances are, he's probably not starving as it is. He's probably not in dire need of this wealth. But his heart's longing after it. See, greed is very deceptive. It comes in the form of justice, of righteousness. It will try to trick you into thinking you're just wanting what's right. You just want justice. But in reality, you want stuff for yourself. You want more. You want more. Be on guard against every form. He says, because even when you have an abundance, your life doesn't consist in that abundance. What he's saying is, even if you became the richest man in Dixon, Tennessee, you had oodles of wealth, just wealth upon wealth, the largest house, the nicest stuff, you still wouldn't have true life any more than you have it today. Because life doesn't consist in that. You see, Jesus didn't come to set up an earthly kingdom for us so we could store up treasures now on earth. Jesus came up to set up a heavenly kingdom so that we could store up treasures for ourselves in heaven. See, life does not consist in this stuff. And if you'll find this to be true, the more you selfishly spend money on yourself, the less happy you'll be. The more you selflessly spend money for the poor, for those who are more needy than you, the more joyful you'll be. The more you'll find true life, the more you give your money to God's causes. to furthering missions, to furthering evangelism, to furthering His kingdom, the more joy you'll find, the more freedom you'll find from the money you left behind. Life doesn't consist in possessions. I want you to understand that. I want me to understand that. I want us all to understand that, that life does not consist in possessions. True life is found in Jesus Christ alone and in living for Him, pursuing Him, studying His Word, reaching after Him, seeking Him, trying to find life in Him. I just, I plead with you, don't try to find life in this world, in possessions, in wealth, in people, in places. Find life in Christ and Him alone. So this rich man, his land was very productive. Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? God does bless with productive land and with wealth. God may bless you with a raise tomorrow. That is God's blessing. It's not wrong that this man's being blessed, but what is his response to the blessing? His response is how to build bigger barns. He basically finds himself in this position. God's blessing me with all this money, all this wealth, all this possessions, all this food. What am I going to do with it? I know, I'll build bigger barns, because I don't even have room to store all of my stuff now. I'm going to build bigger ones. What would that mean in our context? It would probably mean something like this. Man, I've got so much money I don't even know what to do with. What am I going to do? I'll store it up in my retirement fund. Or, man, I have all this stuff. I can't even have room in my house for it. What am I going to do? I'll pay a monthly fee for a storage center so I can store all this stuff over there. And then what if I need it one day? What if my current one breaks and I need a second one? Do we not do this? Do we not fall into this trap? We can mock this man here and say, you fool, like God said to him, but are we not the same way a lot of times? We have two of something. We know that we could sell one of them and give that money to the poor, but what do we do? I say, well, what if mine breaks? I might need that other one one day. So we store it away somewhere. Before we know it, we don't have room in our house for all the stuff we have. I'm not trying to cast condemnation on you because I found myself in this situation. I mean, we live in our apartment. We have all this stuff. We don't have room for it. What do we do with all this stuff? Well, we need to give it away or sell it or something. And that's a common problem for us, isn't it? We don't have room for all this stuff. That just shows you how wealthy we are. It shows how on guard we need to be against greed. So what is this man's response? As he says here, he stores up treasure for himself. That is the key. It's not always wrong to save money. That's not the point of this passage. There are legitimate times to save money, although I think a lot of times we save money for ourselves and we justify it by saying we're saving it for something else or some good cause. But it's not always wrong to save up money. That's not really this man's problem. This man's problem is his selfishness. He's storing it up for himself. That is wrong. That is selfish. He's storing up all this stuff for himself, because guess who he cares about more than anyone else? Himself. You see, the way we use our money tells ourselves and those around us all about us. If we give sacrificially, and when God blesses us, instead of using it all for ourselves, we give it to those who are more needy than us. That shows our heart is one full of love, full of selflessness. And yet, if God blesses us with money, and we turn around and spend all that money selfishly on ourselves, store it up for ourselves, that shows our heart is bent on ourselves. So let us use it for his kingdom. Let us use it for those who need it more than us, for the poor. Well, here in the story, this man, his soul was acquired of him that night. And this is something for us to think about. We need to think about the temporary nature of possessions. That wealth and possessions, they won't last. And what if you died tonight? What about all that stuff you're storing up? What about all those possessions? What about all the money? What good will that do you? What good will it do your soul? Absolutely nothing. But if you take that money, those possessions, and you give it to the poor, and then you die tonight, what good will that do for your soul? A lot. Because Jesus says, what you're doing is you're storing up treasures for yourselves in heaven. So when you get to heaven, there'll be treasure there waiting for you. I don't know what that'll look like. I don't know what treasure in heaven's really like, but that's an exciting thing, that we're storing up for eternity. So do yourself a favor, brother or sister, Do yourself a favor and don't live for this world. Don't spend it on yourself, but learn the joy, the excitement of storing up treasure in heaven and give it to the poor. Give it to God's kingdom. Well, here we see that was sort of the negative, what not to do. Well, here we see in verse 22 and following, we see the positive, what to do. More and more about what to do. And he still says some negatives here. He says, don't worry about your life is what you'll eat or drink, what you'll put on. So the opposite of that would be what? It'd be just trust the Lord. As the King James says, take no thought. You don't need to worry about, you know, what to eat or drink or that God will take care of you. He will take care of you. And he exhorts us to consider the birds. Consider the lilies. Just look at the birds. I mean, they don't store up in barns. They don't, you know, they just, God just feeds them every day. They don't starve. If God takes care of the birds like that, As the scripture says, not a single bird falls to the ground apart from Him. Then how much more will He take care of us? We have nothing to worry about, brothers and sisters. You know, if we just trust the Lord, use our money for His glory, we have nothing to worry about. Be like the widow, even give so much that we think, if I give this much, I don't know if I'll be able to eat tomorrow. I mean, that's the situation the widow was in. We don't need to worry because God will take care of us. He loves His children. As it says, He's going to give us the kingdom of God. Easier is it for Him to give us food and clothing. So we should consider the lilies in the same way. Look how beautiful they are. The grass of the field, the plants around us. Walk outside and admire the trees. God clothes these and they don't toil and spin. They don't work to look like this. How much more will God take care of us? Now look around at you folks here. You're beautiful people, clothed in beautiful clothing. God is taking care of His people. It's exciting to read this. It's convicting, isn't it? Because we worry so much. We doubt. And he's talking to his disciples here. He's talking to us. And he says to them, don't worry. You have little faith. I feel that way so many times. Just where's my faith? I'm so worried about just basic things that I should just be able to trust that God will take care. He's done it for 24 years and he'll continue to do it. He says, don't seek what you will eat, what you will drink. Don't seek clothing. Don't seek these things. We shouldn't be seeking them. We don't go to work because we're worried about that, right? We shouldn't be seeking that stuff. Our minds should be bent on the kingdom. Our minds should be focused and concerned about the kingdom. That's what we should be concerned and worried about, anxious about, entering into the kingdom. And if we do that, then He'll give us the other things. He says, seek the kingdom first, all these other things will be added to you. So we don't have to worry. And I love this statement. He says, don't be afraid, little flock. Don't be afraid, for your father's chosen to give you gladly, gladly give you the kingdom. It's just a beautiful statement. We don't have to fear. We don't have to fear starving, going hungry, being without. If he's given us, it says it another way, if he's given us Christ, his own son, if he did not spare his own son, how will he not freely give us all things? Not only things in this life, but things to come. So we don't need to worry. We don't need to be afraid. And then finally, he closes with this statement. A command. And I want us to feel the force of this command. Sell your possessions and give to charity or give to the poor. It's not a suggestion. That's not a command given only to an individual. Like the rich young ruler, you know, there's a command there saying sell everything you have and come follow me. That's an individual command, a specific command of the rich young ruler that it would be wrong for us to then go and apply to any other, you know, just for me to just apply to this congregation. If you don't sell everything you have, Well, obviously we wouldn't do that. But here we see a command that's not qualified. There's no individual he's talking to. He's talking to the disciples, as we read back in verse 22, it says, and he said to the disciples that that's what this command is. It's a command to us, his disciples, sell your possessions and give to the poor. And I want to challenge every one of you today, myself included. I was being challenged as I was reading this text today in my room. I was sitting there looking at my possessions. It's like, I have a guitar that I paid about $500 for. I wonder how much I could sell that for. And we should be, I want to challenge each one of us today to go home and look around at our possessions. Walk around your house, because this is a command that I want to ask you, are you keeping it? Are you selling your possessions and giving to the poor? I want you to look around your house tonight. I want you to find See if you have some possessions that you think you could sell for some money, that you know you're not really even using, you don't need, or maybe you do need. You feel like you need it, but you think, yes, I can give this up. I'm excited to give this up for the kingdom of God. I can give this up. I don't need this. It's just a want. Find something, or maybe several things. Sell that stuff. And then go find someone who's poor, whether it's someone here in Dixon, Or, it's easy to find organizations that take your money and give it to people who really are poor, who don't even maybe have money for food the next day in other countries, and give to those organizations. Give to the poor. I want to challenge you. Obey this commandment. It's a commandment for us. Sell your possessions and give to charity. And here's the exciting part, okay? Make yourselves money belts that don't wear out. An unfailing treasure in heaven. That's what, as you start to do this, as you start to, and I know many of you already are doing this, okay? So I'm not at all saying that you're not doing this, but maybe you're not doing this. Maybe you'll be awakened tonight. Wow, this is a command from the Lord. This is exciting that I get to obey this command. And you'll think, this is exciting because I'm storing up an unfailing treasure for myself in heaven when I do this. As we sell stuff that we don't need, and then take that money and give it to the poor. Or the same principle can be carried out if you say, you know, I have this money in the bank. I don't need this money. I'm gonna take it, I'm gonna give it to the poor. It's exciting because what you're doing is you're storing up treasure and unfailing treasure in heaven because in heaven, there are no thieves and there's no moth. Stuff doesn't get old and break. In heaven, it just stays there. The treasure, it's just worth, it's valuable and it never fades. So, you know, God loves a cheerful giver. So let us think about this. Let's think about the excitement of obeying Christ's command here and let's go do it. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And that is really a summarizing statement, isn't it? Because I don't know anything about your bank accounts. I don't want to know, really. But if someone were to look at your bank account, okay, they were to look at your treasure, where's your money going, basically? They'd see where your heart is. If your money's going to God, to the poor, to God's people, to further in the kingdom, that shows that's where your heart is. If your money's going to self, That shows where your heart is. And, you could say, I guess what really is more faithful to this text here, what he's saying, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be. So, maybe theoretically you say, well, maybe right now my heart's with God, but my treasure's with me. Okay. Maybe. I grant that maybe that's true. I'm not really sure. But even if that's true today, it won't be true tomorrow. Because where your treasure is today, tomorrow that's where your heart will be. See? You can't, you can't serve God in money. If you're going to spend your money for yourself, then your heart will be for yourself. But if you catch this, this truth, this vision here in scripture, that we can store up treasure for ourselves in heaven, that we can provide a money belt that doesn't wear out. An unfading treasure. And we know that treasure ultimately is Christ. It's not, I don't know how it all works out, but the treasure ultimately is Christ. He's the treasure. He's what we're looking forward to. But as we see this, that we can pursue Christ and we can store up treasure for Him in heaven with Him, then all the earthly stuff just falls away. And we start to... But even as we're doing this, Church, even as we're doing this, we will be tempted to be greedy still. Even as we give, as we give, we'll be tempted to then cling to our stuff again. And it'll just be a temptation continually coming back to us. We have to fight. We have to be on guard. And as those to whom much has been given, remember, much will be required. I want us to close with that statement. Just think about that as we leave. To those to whom much has been given, much will be required. Let's pray. Father, we come to You. And I come to You. This is a tough text. It's a difficult searching text. Because we are wealthy. Because we have lived in wealth. Luxury father we have air conditioning