Introduction:
Good day to you ladies and gentlemen. Tonight is the ninth of the ten questions that we are studying at Church. I have been taking notes and I am going to try and portray what I heard at Church onto here. The ninth question of the ten questions is this: What's all this got to do with me? First and foremost I understand that this has come very late. I never heard the sermon because I was helping with a Kid's Program while it was being preached on Good Friday. With the question itself, it is a very honest question is that it is all about me. That is what this is all about. Let's see what this has got to do with "me."
Luke 12:13-21 NIV
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Now when we look at the question: "What's all this got to do with me?" We really need to focus on one word in particular, that being "Me".
We need to tackle the attitude of the me part. Life is all about me. That may be fine for you but it is not for me as I'm not the religious type.
When we look at Society it is all about the me part. For example, there are many songs out there that are all about me. Stand by me, Don't cry for me, Call me maybe, Love me dude, What about me? Just to name a few.
So Society is all about the me attitude.
So when we ask that question: What's all this got to do with me?" Jesus will say that it has everything to do with you. He won't just answer that question, he will also redefine the question and turn it upside down. What is the opposite of me?
Let's go back to the 1st Century where that Society was also a "Me" centred Society. In Athens those people had a god for everything they valued. This would be the life of a "me" person.
Work- Athena
Harvest-Demeter
Family-Hera
Children-Artemis
Social-Dionysus
Music-Apollo
Travel-Poseidon
Zeus-God over gods (If one of the lesser gods weren't providing for you then you could call upon Zeus and he would sort them out)
In Acts 17 of the Bible, Paul was in Athens. He was distressed to see the city was full of idols and false gods. As a matter of fact they even had a statue of "An unknown God" that was incase they had left out any gods.
Now why did we go back to that little history? We today don't have god's ruling certain aspect of our lives anymore like they did back then. Instead it has changed to insurance companies. We now have insurance to cover what we value.
health, life, pet, car, travel and funeral insurance etc. The problem of idols never truly goes away, it changes into different forms.
You can claim to not be the religious type of person but everyone is religious in some way. It may not look like a religion but it is still worship. We all have things around us we couldn't imagine living without so we need a god or insurance policy to cover it.
The thing is though, we don't worship the god or insurance, we value the possessions that they cover, hence a "me" life.
Now Jesus steps in and gives us a warning. Luke 12:15 NIV
15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. The definition of your life is your soul, given to you by God. Who are you when all this stuff is gone? We all surround ourselves with these possessions with "me" in the middle.
Now take all that stuff away and leave only me, as in you. Who are you then? I'll highlight the attitude of the rich man. Let's see if you can spot the key words.
Luke 12 16-19 NIV
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
Do you see the key words that highlight the attitude of the man? He was selfish and kept all his possessions to himself. He lived the life of possessions, he was rich in this life but not rich towards God. He forgot God Almighty.
Now God does step into that life. Let's see what happens.
Luke 12:20 NIV
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
What happens? Death happens. The man was not prepared for death. What about you? What about when that moment comes and it is just you and God? This life is a very fragile life. It is like putting all of your eggs (Insurance policies) in one, fragile basket.
We insured everything except for our soul. We forgot to insure our soul. However, Jesus didn't forget about our souls, he came down to "buyback", "cover", "insure" our souls back to God.
Now it wouldn't be quite right to finish there and add an eternal life insurance to all of our other insurance policies would it? The reason is, it isn't going far enough. Jesus turns around the "I" attitude around.
Luke 12:21 NIV
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
We've been focused on being rich in this life but not rich towards God. The call of Jesus is not to add another god (Insurance policy) into our lives. He calls us back to the one who made us. Jesus came to bring a revolution to our lives. Instead of ourselves being at the middle, it is instead Jesus at the middle.
Now Jesus will be a part of every aspect of your life. It isn't a picture of 9 squares, 1 being you in the middle and the other 8 being the things you value. It will instead be a picture of Jesus in the middle of that square but he is larger than the middle and he covers a part of all the 8 other squares.
The transformation will be from a me attitude to a you attitude. Death to the old life, born again to the new life.
That is what Good Friday is all about. The radical change that came about the world through the death of Jesus.