Sunday, June 9, 2013

Live Richly Toward God

June 2, 2013 Sermon Summary

Like 12:13-21

The event in these verses took place when Jesus was teaching the crowd like usual. Among the crowd, there was a man who was troubled over family inheritance so he asked Jesus to solve the problem for him.◆A quarrel similar to that appears in every generation. Sometimes, a quarrel can even lead to murders. I think possessions and wealth are such scary things because they can distort humans’ hearts. ◆Of course, I’m not saying that wealth and possessions are “evil” things. What’s important is how we utilize them. We must not sell our souls to wealth and possessions; we must not be controlled by them.◆That is a sound argument. Everyone here probably agrees to it, too. Still, wealth and possessions have the power of an evil desire, “greed”, which can suddenly enter our hearts and control us against our logic, without us even realizing it.◆This is not a problem of one man who is worried over family inheritance. This is a trap into which all humans can fall easily; this is our weakness. ◆“Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions”.――The point that Jesus focuses on in this parable is “death”. The problem does not lie in wealth. It is in “death” which inevitably comes to visit everyone, regardless of their wealth.◆When death comes, there are meaningless things that we must let go of. Or, to put it differently, there are things that cannot separate us from death even if we cling onto them.◆This parable is not meant to say that “No matter how hard you work to amass your fortune, you’re only human and you’re destined to die”. This parable is an invitation, asking us “How should you live so that you are rich in the presence of God?”