8-3-2025

“ETERNALLY RICH!”

Text: Luke 12:13-21

Sunday August 3, 2025 – Pentecost 8

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for this Eighth Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel lesson form Luke 12 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us to set our hearts on what is eternal and not be consumed with that which is temporary.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

Jesus said, “So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (v 21).

Strong words of warning from Jesus today. How it goes for the worldly rich man in the parable, who is spiritually poor, is the exact opposite of how it goes for the spiritually rich. Being worldly rich doesn’t help. In fact, what Jesus says is true: “How difficult it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven!” (cf Mt 19:23).

In Jesus’ parable, “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 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” ’ ” (vv 16–19).

The rich man is his own preacher. He has many things to say about what’s going on in his life, why he has so many things, and what he’s going to do with them. “My crops,” “my barns,” “my grain,” “my goods,” all, because, as he’d put it, “My land produced plentifully!” “What am I going to do with my things?”

“Why do I need this or that? I deserve it. I’ve earned it. I’ve planted. I’ve harvested. I’ve put in the hours. I’ve got the expertise. I’m better than others. I’m just so fortunate. I’m just so blessed. Life couldn’t really have gone any better.” Sounds eerily familiar!

No matter how much he said it, it wasn’t true. None of it would be his! It was all for nothing! Many were the plans of his heart, but God directed his steps—to his grave! Not decades or years or months later. The very night he’d supposedly got it all squared away, God said, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (v 20). Whose indeed?

What a farm sale his heirs would’ve had! Auctioned off, maybe at bargain prices, to the highest bidder. The leftovers carted off to the scrapyard, the burn pile, the dump, or simply bulldozed under.

“In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there” (Ps 37:10). “It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest” (Ps 127:2). “Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!” (Ps 39:6). “Who knows whether he will be wise or a fool?” (Eccl 2:19).

Life in our context looks eerily similar to that rich man. Our lives. Our homes, barns, garages, and outbuildings. Our cabinets, closets, attics, and basements. They’re often filled with things. Things that make us feel good or comfortable. Things that we like. Things that make us proud. How we also tell ourselves all sorts of things!

So the Father sends a Preacher, a Messenger. He sends his Son to proclaim: “Be on your guard against all covetousness” (v 15). He says this because “covetousness . . . is idolatry” (Col 3:5).

The gifts become gods in our hearts. There is great danger. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 Jn 2:15–16). “Be on your guard!” Watch out!

This the rich man had missed. He was worldly rich but eternally poor—poor in words. Worldly rich, lacking in the Lord.

For us, today, we must truly be thankful, not only for all things that we have in our daily lives. All of it is the daily bread we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. “Daily bread includes everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as” all the things listed the Small Catechism (Fourth Petition). For “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

But our flesh exchanges this truth for a lie and worships and serves the gift rather than the Giver (cf Rom 1:25). It’s why we get so worried about all the things we have or could have or want to have. We tell ourselves all sorts of things, and it sounds a lot like the guy from the parable.

Christ, of course, is Judge of the living and the dead, but he’s come to show that he is not some vending machine, nor is he some probate judge or arbiter, arbitrator, or executor for us, like the men in Luke 12 wanted, to mete out instructions and give directions.

He comes to say, “Your family, your farm, your freedom, or whatever else you list after ‘faith in,’ are not your god. That I am not first on your list shows where your heart has placed me. I am your God. ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (Ex 20:3), and ‘there is no god besides me’ (Deut 32:39). ‘My glory I give to no other’ (Is 42:8), nothing else in your life.” We need those words to be truly rich.

And these: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5–6). “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, . . . becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7–8).

There he was cursed for us, for “cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Gal 3:13). He who knew no sin became your sin, so that you would be the righteousness of God in him (cf 2 Cor 5:21).

There, he was fool and foolishness for you: Christ crucified is a stumbling block to Jew and foolishness to Gentile, but to us who are being saved, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is stronger than men (cf 1 Cor 1:18, 23–25).

Christ delivers all the bounties of salvation to you. Always at the proper time. For what was hidden before the ages, he has manifested to you here and now. He comes to silence all our self-preaching by giving us his own: “I baptize you.” “I forgive you.” “This is my body and blood for you for the forgiveness of your sins.” From this comes forgiveness, true faith, and endless thanksgiving! See, where the rich man was poor, God makes us rich. God makes us rich—in words.

That’s how we are toward the Father, for we are rich in Jesus, in his forgiveness, in his mercy—his forgiving and mercy-bestowing words! And the one who was given over at the proper time, “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), knows well how to “give them their food in due season” (Ps 145:15)—even you and me.

For “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving” (Small Catechism, Fourth Petition).

Those who desire worldly things have not the Father’s love in them. They are eternally, inexpressibly (cf 2 Cor 9:15), incalculably poor. No words of life. Jesus doesn’t leave much to the imagination as to what happens next after the rich man who trusted the creation met his Creator.

But for those who are on the receiving and believing end of Jesus’ promises and gifts, who say, “His blood is more precious than gold and silver” (cf 1 Pet 1:18–19), who say, “His Word is more precious than gold, even much fine gold” (cf Ps 19:10; 119:127), who say, “The washing of rebirth makes me an heir of eternal life” (cf Titus 3:5–7), who say, “The bread we break and the cup we drink are Communion of his body and blood” (cf 1 Cor 10:16), we are eternally, inexpressibly, and incalculably rich!

In Christ, You’re Rich in Words of Life!

“If riches increase, set not your heart on them” (Ps 62:10). Because “he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper’ ” (Heb 13:5–6).

Not farm or money or any other thing. For Christ Jesus is your mediator and redeemer. He is your God and Savior. He is your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

And when you die, being actually that rich in words of life toward God in Christ, well, “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared,” what he has treasured up, “for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).

 Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.