All The Pretty Things

Luke 12:34
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be too.

Treasure: what you value, what is the most important thing in your life

What my treasure is determines where my heart is. My heart is what I focus my life on. It is what I love the most.

So what you value determines how you:
Think
Feel
Act

In Luke 9:25 Jesus asks a question. He asks, “What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself or waste your life?”

If you gain what the culture teaches us are the most important things what will it really gain or benefit you? Are you willing to give up who you are and waste your life on things that don’t last?

Isaiah 55:2
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

In Luke 12:13-20 Jesus shares a story of a rich farmer. He describes this farmer’s life as one that is focused on
Wealth
Pleasure
Pleasing Himself
Taking Care of #1

We are told that the rich farmer dies and all the stuff he had spent his life acquiring goes to someone else.

Jesus’ message here is very clear.

True life does not come from an abundance of things.
True success does not come from an abundance of things.
True security does not come from an abundance of things.

Matthew 6:19-20
Stop storing up treasure for yourselves on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal. Instead, store up treasure for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust don’t destroy and thieves don’t break in and steal.

Store up godly wealth!

The farmer’s problem was coveting.

God commands us not to covet.

Exodus 20:17
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

We are not to covet. So what is coveting? We can understand what coveting is by looking at other meanings of the Hebrew word that we translate covet.

Genesis 3:6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Coveting means to see something as pleasant and desirable.

Proverbs 1:22
How long, O simple [open to evil], will you love being simple? And the scoffers delight in scoffing and [self-confident] fools hate knowledge?

Coveting means delighting in something.

Psalm 39:11
You discipline people for their sin, punishing them; like a moth, you ruin what they treasure. Yes, human life is just a puff of air.

Coveting means to treasure something.

Proverbs 6:25
Lust not after her beauty in your heart, neither let her capture you with her eyelids.

Coveting is lusting after something.

Isaiah 44:9
Those who make an image, all of them are useless, and their precious things shall not profit, they are their own witness; they neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed.

Covet means to hold on to something as your precious thing.

Coveting is when something or someone other than Jesus is so desirable to you that it becomes your delight and the treasure of your life. It is when you make something or someone other than Jesus the most precious thing in your life and the attraction become so strong that you lust after it continually.

The rich farmer wanted more than anything wealth and pleasure. The focus on his life was taking care of himself and making sure that everything was as he wanted it to be.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about being other focused.

Jesus tells us in Mark 12:30-31 that we are love God with all that we are and love others as much as we love ourselves.

The rich farmer saw life as being about him.

Jesus says life is about Him and others.

What do you find more pleasant, desirable and delightful than Jesus?

What do treasure and find more precious than Jesus?

GET RID OF IT OR THEM!

David found being in God’s presence the most desirable thing he could imagine.

Psalm 84:1-2,10-12
How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of Heaven’s of Armies. I long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the Lord. With my whole being, body, and soul, I will shout joyful to the living God.

A single day in Your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the home of the wicked. For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right. O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, what joy for those who trust in You.

Jesus ends the story of the rich farmer by remind us that our choices in life will affect our relationship with God.

Luke 12:21
This how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.

Rich toward God means knowing God and living based on the truth that He owns you.

Where our treasure is will determine where our hearts are and where our hearts are will determine how we live and how we live determines where eternally we will dwell.

I want my treasure to be Jesus.
I want my heart to be focused on Jesus.
I want my life to be about Jesus.

If I want that, I have to surrender all I am, all I will ever be, all I have, and all I will ever have to Jesus.

With Godly Wealth Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe