Hey, welcome back here to the Seminary Seminary.
This is your old buddy, Pastor Jim. And I want
to get right to the point right off the bat.
What if the most dangerous lie you're believing
isn't about God, but about time? We spend our
lives building, storing, planning, trying to
get ahead, trying to feel safe. But what happens
when the night comes before you're ready? When
the barns are full? The soul is starving. Jesus
told the parable about a man who had it all together
on paper. Wealth, strategy, security. But heaven
had a different plan. Tonight, your soul is required
of you. This isn't just a story about a rich
man. It's a story about every one of us who's
ever tried to find peace and possessions. Safety
in our control. Tonight, we're not just looking
at a parable. We're staring into a mirror. So,
take a breath. Open your hands. And let's ask
the only question that really matters. Are you
rich towards God? I'll see you on the other side.
You know what? You preach long enough, and in
some random crowd, sooner or later, it happens.
You've been preaching grace, truth, the nearness
of heaven, and somebody in the back finally raises
a hand, not to repent this time, to settle a
score. You can see him before you hear him. His
daddy's hat rides low. The brim sweat molded
to fit his head. His hands are calloused from
fence lines and years. He's been waiting, not
for mercy, but for justice. And justice in his
mind looks like getting what's his due. The air
is thick with dust and tension. Jesus has just
finished warning about hypocrisy and fear. Talking
about sparrows and hair follicles. And a father
who never misses, I mean, not a single thing.
And then a voice cuts through from the back.
Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance
with me. That one line slices through the sermon
like thunder across a still sky. The man isn't
looking for salvation. He's looking for a settlement.
And in that request, Jesus hears something older,
darker. The hum of a heart convinced that life
can be measured in ownership. You can almost
see the dust dancing the ground as Jesus turns.
There's that... Stillness he carries, the kind
that precedes either a miracle or a rebuke. He
isn't angry. He's grieved. Because, once again,
someone's trying to drag heaven into a family
feud. Once again, someone's begging the Lord
of Life to serve as a probate judge. And the
carpenter of Galilee won't pick up our gavel.
No, he's too busy building a kingdom. And he
raises his voice, not loud, but weighty, and
tells a story that still rattles every barn door
in town. Friends, the reading of Scripture from
the Gospel account according to Luke. Someone
in the crowd said to a teacher, Tell my brother
to divide the inheritance with me. But he said
to him, Man, who made me a judge or arbiter over
you? And he said to them, Take care to be on
your guard against all covetousness. For one's
life does not consist in the abundance of his
possessions. And then he told them a parable,
saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully.
And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For
I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said,
I will do this. I will tear down my barns, and
I will build larger ones. And there I will store
all my grain and my goods. And I will say to
my soul, Soul, You have ample goods laid up for
many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But
God said to him, Fool, this night your soul is
required of you, and the things you have prepared,
whose will they be? So is the one who lays up
treasure for himself? and is not rich towards
God. The story ends in silence, and somewhere
between the words you can almost hear timber
groaning, the sound of a barn being torn down
board by board to make room for more. He never
hears the warning coming. He's too busy measuring
rafters while heaven's counting heartbeats. The
man in Jesus' story dies in his sleep, surrounded
by surplus, but wakes up broke in eternity. So,
friends, the question lingers in the night air.
What does it mean to be rich toward God? You
know this man. Shaked his hand at the feed store,
shared coffee after service. He's practical,
steady, respectable. Keeps a tidy notebook. Expenses,
yields, maybe even a few prayers scribbled in
the margins. But somewhere along the way, the
notebook started keeping him. He stopped counting
blessings. Started balancing accounts. Maybe
you felt that drift too. That quiet turn where
faith starts sounding like financial planning.
Jesus looks at that man and says, life does not
consist in the abundance of possessions. It's
as if he's saying the math is fine, but you're
using the wrong equation. Because if the size
of your barn is the measure of your soul. then
every harvest becomes a hazard. Gratitude turns
into entitlement. The prayer that began as, thank
you, Lord, shifts to, look what I did. That's
how grace gets converted into a grind. The miracle
becomes metrics. And you don't even notice the
shift until the ledger whispers louder than the
Lord. Jesus refuses to be pulled into the man's
feud because he knows the real fight isn't between
two brothers. It's between the heart and its
hunger. Greed rarely calls itself greed. It calls
itself wisdom. It hides behind faithful stewardship
and just being careful. You don't need me to
tell you how easy it is to baptize our barns,
to call them blessings while we nail those doors
shut. That is why Jesus says be on guard, not
as a financial warning. but a spiritual one.
The man who shouts at Jesus doesn't think he's
greedy. He thinks he's right. Greed rarely knows
its own name. It sounds like fairness, like planning,
like prudence. But Jesus hears something different
in that voice. He hears the thud. of a soul trying
to secure itself by storage. Covetousness doesn't
begin with wanting what isn't yours. It begins
with fear that you won't have enough. And when
that fear grows, it builds bigger bonds. The
man isn't evil. He's anxious. He sees abundance
and interprets it as threat. What shall I do?
I have nowhere to store my crops. And that's
the first symptom of spiritual blindness. When
grace fills your hands and your very first thought
is storage instead of sharing, you've already
begun to worship your own safety. He doesn't
say, the Lord has blessed me. He says, the land
has produced, and the miracle becomes math. And
maybe you've noticed this too. The more a person
tries to manage the future, the less they notice
the miracles right in front of them. The man
doesn't pray, he doesn't ask. His world is only
self. I will tear down. I will build. I will
store. I will say to my soul. When self -talk
replaces prayer, pride isn't far behind. And
Jesus calls him fool. Not as an insult. But it's
tragedy. A fool is someone who forgets God in
his calculations. The man believed his barns
proved his wisdom, but all they proved was how
small his world had become. The problem wasn't
the harvest. It was the heart. Wealth wasn't
the sin. Withholding was. A blessing that refuses
to move becomes a burden. A gift that stops flowing
into other gifts to ourselves and others turns
into a grave. And you've seen it. People who
work their whole lives chasing peace that never
comes. Another zero, another raise, another project,
just one more, right? And then I'll take a break,
then I'll rest. That is the sound of the soul
forgetting the Sabbath. The rich man finishes
his monologue and then comes the interruption.
But God said to him, and every self -made speech
ends right there. One call, one accident, one
diagnosis, suddenly all of your planning dissolves
into silence. Fool, God says, because this very
night, Your soul is required of you. In Greek,
required means to return, to collect back. Life
itself is alone, and we are all paying interest
with our days. God didn't steal the man's life.
He called it home. The man who had prepared for
everything discovered, he's actually prepared
for nothing. And we've been looking at parables
for a while, if you have been following us in
this parable series. And this parable burns a
little bit differently. Because in this parable,
there's no hero. There's no redemption. There's
no repentance. Just a full barn and a hollow
man. Jesus doesn't even call him wicked. Just
forgetful. Forgetful that the field belongs to
God. Grace did the growing. He confused management
with meaning. He measured life by yield and storage
capacity. You can't manage grace. You can only
participate in it. When the man says, I will
say to my soul, it's heartbreaking. Because...
He's talking to himself like God isn't even there.
He offers his soul comfort. But comfort isn't
peace. Not without communion. And you've said
it too. If I can just get through this season.
But peace isn't on the far side of completion.
It's only found in communion with the one. who
owns your very next breath. The fool says, eat,
drink, be merry. It's a hollow echo of Ecclesiastes.
The original preacher ends with reverence. Fear
God. The fool skips the reverence and keeps the
recipe. You've walked into quiet houses that
used to hold laughter, seen bank accounts grow
while friendships shrink. You've stood at funerals
and wondered what all the building was for. It's
what Jesus is trying to spare us. The heartbreak
of realizing too late that our barns have become
the walls of our very own exile. The things you
have prepared, whose will they be? That's the
piercing, closing question of Jesus. Everything
he stored will belong to someone else by sunrise.
And Jesus ends with no flourish. So it is the
one who lays up treasure for himself and is not
rich towards God. No moral, just a mirror. To
be rich towards God isn't about your net worth.
It is about your soul's direction. It means understanding
in your living that everything is borrowed. It
means holding what you have loosely enough that
God can move it. Possessions make poor saviors.
They can comfort, but they cannot resurrect.
And Jesus doesn't want less for you. He wants
freedom. The warning in this parable isn't shame.
It's release. Rich towards God means grace becomes
the new reflex. It's not fear that drives you,
but trust that frees you. The man wanted more
time, and he lost all of it. But the one who
trusts God with today discovers eternity sneaking
into every single moment. And you've seen it,
the lightness of a person who's stopped grasping.
The one who gives without keeping score, that's
wealth that can't be measured. And that's what
it means to be rich towards God. Jesus told this
story not to scold success, but to redeem it.
Prosperity becomes blessing when it moves through
love. And that looks like gratitude that overflows,
hands that stay open, faith that asks, who else
needs to eat? Friends, Grace only works in one
direction, outward. The moment it stagnates,
it stops being grace. The fool built barns. Jesus
built tables. And maybe rich towards God looks
less like a vault and more like a table. The
fool says, my soul, take your ease. The disciple
says, my soul, bless the Lord. The fool says,
eat, drink, be merry. The disciple says, taste
and see the Lord is good. The fool built barns
for himself. The disciple becomes a blessing
for others. And when the night comes, and it
always comes, he won't fear the reckoning because
his treasure has already been transferred to
heaven. Lord Jesus, teach us how to count again,
not by what we keep, but what we give. Loosen
our grip, lighten our hearts, and turn our barns
into tables. Make us rich towards you, rich in
mercy, rich in gratitude, rich in love. Let what
we hold never hold us. And when the night comes,
let there be nothing left to pry from our hands.
Church, let us be rich towards God. Amen. The
man in Jesus' parable didn't die because he was
rich. He died because he believed his bonds could
hold his soul. That's the warning and the invitation.
Because the truth is, you already know how fragile
this life is. You've already seen how quickly
everything could change. How one phone call,
one moment, one heartbeat can pull the rug right
out from under your plans. But Jesus doesn't
tell a story to scare us. He tells it to free
us. To free us from the illusion that control
somehow creates peace. Free us from the lie that
more will finally be enough. To remind us that
eternity isn't something we prepare for later.
It's something we live in now. So, take inventory,
not of your possessions, but of your heart. Where
is your trust resting? Maybe, what are you holding
on to too tightly? And, what would it look like
to let your barns become tables? Friend, you
don't need to be afraid. God isn't calling you
to poverty. He's beckoning you towards peace.
The kind that can't be bought, sold, or stored.
The kind that flows freely through a heart that's
surrendered. Tonight, your soul may not be required
of you. But one day, it will be. And when that
moment comes, may your hands be empty because
you gave it all away in love. If this message
stirred something in you, don't keep it to yourself.
Would you like, share, subscribe so others could
hear the same truth? Not for numbers, not for
hype, but because someone you know might be building
barns when Jesus is offering a table. Hey! thanks
for being here grace and peace i'll see you next
time