Luke 12:1-21

Discussion Questions

•  “Hypocrisy is pointless because all you have hidden will be found out.” Have you ever known someone who was a hypocrite (said one thing and behaved differently), or have you ever felt convicted of being a hypocrite? Today, we learned that hiding our sins is a waste of time, energy, and resources because, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God already sees and knows us. How does that statement make you feel? Relieved or fearful?
• Have you ever been bothered by the warning in Luke 12:10? What is meant when Jesus states, “…but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him.”?
• In 12:4, Jesus warns not to fear those who kill the body but to fear God. What does the term “Fear of the Lord” mean to you? Why do we tend to mistake the danger of our physical bodies with that of our eternal spiritual souls?
• “Heavenly perspective gives strength to endure Earthly trials.” How can fearing God paradoxically bring comfort against all of life’s difficulties?
• Ryan said the Fear of the Lord can free us from:
  – Hiding our sin
  – Fear of man
  – Foolish living
  How does each of these affect your current life?
• Implicit in the parable of the “rich fool” is our tendency to place our value or trust in material things rather than God. What would it look like to be “rich toward God” in our daily lives?
• How does Jesus say the Holy Spirit will comfort us in this passage?

Transcript

Good morning church family. My name is Ryan Motta. I’m an associate pastor here at The Village Chapel, and I have the privilege of leading us with our time in the Word this morning. If you’re new here, I want to extend a special welcome to you, and we also want to welcome those who are joining us online. Last week we had folks join us from Indonesia, from India, from Canada, from many different places throughout the country and the world. So, no matter where you are this morning, we are really glad you’re joining us today. We study through books of the Bible here at TVC, and this Sunday is no different. If you would like a copy of a Bible, feel free to raise your hand and someone will come around to hand out one to you. And also, if you don’t own a copy of a Bible, please feel free to take one of our hand-out Bibles home with you as a gift from us this morning.

Today we’ll be continuing our study in the gospel of Luke, and we’ll be in Luke, Chapter 12, verses 1 to 21. The title of my message is called “Full Barns and Empty Hearts.” Now, as many of you know, I have had the privilege of serving high school and middle school students here at The Village Chapel for the last six years, and I mean it when I say that it has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Getting to serve students who are eager to learn from God’s Word, who invite their non-believing friends to join them, I’m just going to be honest with you, it will never get boring to me. But as with every good thing in life, it also comes with some challenges.

One of the hardest things we face in our ministry is how to get students connected to one another when they only spend roughly two to three hours together every week. Like in our small groups, we have anywhere from five to 15 students in them, and it’s rare when a few of them go to the same school together. So, one of the things we try to do is create space where students can be together outside of our normal programming. So, a few years ago I, along with the high school guys and small group leaders, were looking for a plan to hang out with the boys that they would enjoy. So, we thought through some options, but after it was all said and done, we had decided to take them to a haunted house because it was right around the time of Halloween. So, I went online, bought tickets, and then immediately got hit with this wave of fear, anxiety and regret because I realized I absolutely hate all things horror.

I find no enjoyment in that at all. The idea was the boys would bond over looking like fools together, but then I realized they’re just going to bond over how dumb I look in front of them as I’m using them as human shields in front of me. When the night came for us to go, we all met at the church and rode over together. And I remember walking up to the entrance thinking, “Ryan, you are such an idiot. You are the leader. You get to decide these things and somehow this is where you’re walking into tonight.” But thankfully, I wasn’t the only adult there with the boys. I had Jeremy who leads our college ministry and Pastor Matt and Sam joined us as well. So here we are, we’re walking into this haunted park setup, and before you can even enter into the facility, you are met by a ton of terrifying clowns and guys wearing masks with chainsaws who are running at you and screaming at you.

Thankfully, we were able to avoid them for a little bit, but then I see this clown and he’s walking towards us. He’s a good distance away, and I remember thinking, “It’s judgment day, it’s time.” He has his eyes set on our group and I do what any sane person would do in that moment. I start to slowly work my way towards the back of the group. So, there’s me and then 10 guys in front of me and then the clown, and he gets closer and closer and then he finally approaches us. But then the most shocking thing happened that I could have never guessed was going to come out of his mouth. The clown stopped right in front of us, and he said, “Jeremy? Ryan, is that you?” And I just stood there, and I thought, this is the scariest moment of my life.

The clown knows my name. This is next-level stuff here. And the clown actually went on to tell us that he was a guy who comes to our church. He is a TVC-er, and we introduced him to all of the high school guys who came with us. And here we are in the middle of this haunted park talking about which service we all attend. Like, “I’m a 9 a.m., are you an 11 a.m.?” with this terrifying clown. And then we all took this photo together and I was going to put it up today, but then I thought, this guy looks terrifying, so I’m not going to do that. But what was awesome about meeting this brother that night was it changed the whole tone of my time at the haunted house. Without knowing it, this fellow TVC-er gave me something. My fear had made me forget perspective. In my head, though I knew the things I was going to see that night were not real, they felt real.

In meeting this guy, it reminded me that everyone I’m going to see tonight that I’m so afraid of is actually just a regular person who happens to enjoy scaring people in their off time. Rather than living in anxious fear for the rest of the night, and don’t get me wrong, I was still very afraid, Matt can attest to that, I actually got to enjoy that time with the boys and with my friends and look like fools together. Nothing about the environment around me had changed, but the way that I perceived it was different. And sometimes it can be true that the thing we need most when it comes to fear is a little perspective in life. I bring this up because I think in a similar way, this is what Jesus is going to do for His disciples today. He’s going to address specific fears they have and offer them some kingdom perspective that will shape the way they, and we, will view everything in life that we are so afraid of.

So, before we dive into the text, allow me to pray: Jesus, thank You so much for another opportunity to gather as Your people. God, I know many of us in this room are tired today, tired from the storms, long nights up. God, I pray that You would help us this morning, give us energy, give us focus, and God, most of all, we pray that the Spirit would be with us. Because Jesus, what I most desperately want from this sermon is something that only You can do. God, I so desperately want dead hearts who do not know You to come alive today. And God, I really want weary hearts that are so afraid of things in this world, God, to gain courage today. God, only You can do that. So, we come before You needy today asking for Your help, Jesus, please do that for us. In Your name I pray, amen.

We’re going to be in Luke, Chapter 12. I’m going to read verses 1-12 for us. “Meanwhile, a crowd of many thousands came together, so that they were trampling on one another. He began to say to his disciples first, ‘Be on your guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. There is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered, nothing hidden that won’t be made known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an ear in private rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. I say to you, my friends, don’t fear those who kill the body and after that can do nothing more. But I will show you the one to fear: Fear him who has authority to throw people into hell after death. Yes, I say to you, this is the one to fear.

“’Aren’t five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. Indeed, the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. And I say to you, anyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. Whenever they bring you before the synagogues and rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how you should defend yourselves or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what must be said.’”

We’re going to pause right there. So, Luke begins this chapter by telling us that as Jesus was publicly confronting the Pharisees in chapter 11, a large crowd began to form around Jesus and His disciples. And this isn’t just a small crowd of 50 to 100. It says that there were thousands who were crowding around Him and that some were actually beginning to trample on one another. I mean, this is a full-blown mosh pit. And it’s in the midst of this chaotic scene that Jesus turns His attention from the foolish ways of the Pharisees to warn those who are His disciples. He tells them to be on their guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. And then in order to help His disciples understand the nature of hypocritical living, He gives them the picture of how leaven affects bread. Now, if you are someone who has dabbled in the baking world, you will know that you don’t need to add much yeast in order to affect the dough. But once you add the yeast to the dough, it

Because of what you have added, the whole loaf will be different than it would’ve been had you not added that. And in the same way, Jesus is saying, a little hypocrisy in our hearts can go a long way. It’s not that hypocrisy affects only a small part of our heart; it actually changes the whole composition of what our hearts are. To be hypocritical is to live in a way that tricks people into believing that you have certain qualities and virtues that you do not actually possess. Another way to put being hypocritical is to live a life of incongruence. So, Jesus tells us we must be on watch against this kind of life because if we’re not careful, well, hypocritical living can seep into every aspect of our life without us even realizing it. Because like yeast or leaven, hypocrisy often works slowly. It works secretly and it works silently. It is subtle in nature, but it causes big changes.

And this makes sense because nobody wakes up one day and decides, “Hey, I want to be a hypocrite today.” As a little kid, nobody dreams on career day, I would love to grow up and be really deceptive and dishonest in my life, right? So, nobody wants that. Yet, how does it happen that we become hypocrites? If nobody desires that kind of lifestyle, how do we still fall into it? Well, it happens through a series of tiny compromises one makes in the course of their normal everyday life. It happens when you are having a pleasant and kind conversation with someone and the second they leave the room, you drop a subtle word of gossip or a sarcastic jab about what they said. It happens when you condemn another person in public over an error they have made when you know full well that you struggle with that same sin just in private.

It happens when you act one way at work and then shift personalities when you get home to your family. What I need you to see is that if we are not intentionally on guard against it, we will gradually fall into the same hypocritical living that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees of in chapter 11. And if you heard Matt’s sermon last week, you do not want to be on the receiving end of what Jesus said. Hypocrisy may seem small, but it affects the whole loaf of our existence. It’s what it does. C. S. Lewis summed it up like this, “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all of your innumerable choices, all your life long, you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature. Either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God and with its fellow creatures, and with itself.”

But not only is hypocrisy subtle and quiet, Jesus also tells us it’s pointless. He tells them that to live in a way that projects perfection while concealing all of our wicked ways is pointless. Because no matter how well you hide, no matter how quietly you whisper, one day, all that you have hidden will be found out. You will be found out. And Jesus doesn’t say this so that you would be paralyzed in fear. He says it so that you would be free from the need to keep on hiding, because we not only see this here, but we actually see this all the way back in Genesis 3. After Adam and Eve had committed their rebellion, the first thing they felt the need to do was to hide their nakedness from one another and escape the presence of God. From the very beginning, we have been a people who have been trying to cover up our sin rather than reveal how broken and in need of a savior we really are.

Many people live their entire lives investing everything they have to convince people that they are better than they really are. They buy things they can’t afford. They lie about their family dynamics, and they post photos of the life they wish they were living – all for the sake of people seeing them and hoping to convince them that you are living the good life when you know full well you aren’t. And each time we fall into this line of thinking, it’s like we are back in the garden, grabbing whatever leaf is in sight, hoping it will be big enough to cover up the nakedness that we are so ashamed of. But when God comes into the garden, He extends a question to Adam and Eve. He asks them, “Where are you?” Not because He doesn’t know, but because He’s already inviting them into the goodness of confession of sin.

So, here’s what I want you to see, because we have a God who knows all that we’ve done, we don’t have to waste all of our time, energy, and resources trying to pretend to be something we know we aren’t. Charles Spurgeon says it like this, “You cannot hide your heart from God; He knows it altogether. Come to Him as you are, for He already sees you as you are.” In order to be truly on guard against the leaven of the Pharisees, it requires us to have a ruthless honesty before God and before others. But the good news of the Gospel is that for those who are in Christ, we don’t have to fear condemnation because Christ has already paid the penalty for my sins. So, then the question becomes, why would we hide if we know that God will receive us with forgiveness every time we come to Him in confession?

What is it that we’re so afraid of? Well, maybe it’s not that we’re afraid of what God will make of our sin. The fear actually lies in what other people will think and do to us if they find out. Maybe for you it’s less of a fear of God and more of a fear of man. And I think this is what Jesus addresses in verses 4-12 of this chapter. For the disciples, one of the main scenarios they would’ve been tempted to be hypocritical in was when they were experiencing persecution at the hands of the religious leaders. It would’ve been easy to profess Christ when they were safe and alone, but would their profession still be the same when facing the sentence of death? And it’s important to keep in mind that this is not a hypothetical scenario for the followers of Jesus in the first century.

We are told at the end of chapter 11 that the Pharisees are so upset with Jesus that they begin to do everything they can to trap Him in His words so they could put Him to death. And not only would they have threatened Jesus, but surely, they would’ve threatened His followers too. So, to combat the fear of the disciples, Jesus gives, in my opinion, one of the weirdest pep talks you could receive. He tells them not to fear those who can kill the body. Now imagine that you are one of the disciples of Jesus and you in a moment of honesty and vulnerability, confess to Him that, “Hey Jesus, I’m experiencing a lot of anxiety over the threats of the religious leaders. They seem pretty serious.” And at that moment He looks at you and He says, “There’s no need to be afraid of them. The worst they can do is murder you.”

You would probably say, “Jesus, that’s the exact thing I was afraid of. That’s the very thing that was making me anxious.” It would be like if you saw a spider and screamed out of fear and someone came to see what was happening and said, “Oh, don’t worry about that spider. The worst he can do is eat you.” Or if you were afraid of the dark and someone said, “Don’t worry about the dark, the worst that could happen is a monster comes out of the shadows and grabs you.” What is Jesus’s doing here? Isn’t He making their fear worse? But what I love about Jesus is He doesn’t just stop there because Jesus knows it’s not only physical harm they fear, He also knows about their fear of social pressure too. He tells them in verse 8 that anyone who acknowledges Him before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before others.

But for anyone who denies Him in front of others, He will deny them before the angels. To acknowledge Jesus before men is to be open and honest about our total life commitment to Him as our Savior and Lord. It is to show that we are Christians where we work, where we play and where we live and what we do and what we say. It is to make a verbal confession of our faith both inside and outside the church. But because we are afraid of what others may think of us, we may be tempted to believe the lie that our faith can be something that we do when we are alone, but when we are before others, well then, we just try to avoid it at all costs. We have a good devo in the morning by ourselves and then do our best not to rock the boat for the rest of the day. I keep my time with Jesus over here and I don’t want to be seen as the weird, over-the-top Christian.

So, I keep my faith out of this certain area of my life. That may seem harmless, but in reality, it’s the very hypocrisy that Jesus warned us about at the beginning of the chapter. As Jesus said in chapter 11, “Nobody lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket.” To profess Christ in private and then do our best to ignore or deny Him in public is the definition of an incongruent lifestyle. It is true that saying yes to Christ may cost you something, that’s real. But what we have to see is that there is an even greater cost when we deny Christ, or we say no to Him. It is true that saying yes to Jesus may cause you to suffer in this world. It certainly is not a ticket to power, wealth and popularity. It’s not. But denying Jesus has a far greater cost, because to deny Him is to deny the very thing that can make your dead heart alive. To deny Jesus is to saw off the branch of the tree that you are sitting on. To deny Him is to reject your only means of salvation from your sin.

And then this leads us to the verse that I know everyone has been fixated on since the moment I read it. What does Jesus mean when He says that the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven? For many of us, the first question that hits us when we read this verse is, “Oh, no, have I blasphemed? Am I already out? Is this all for nothing?” Is there really a sin that once you do it, eliminates you from grace altogether? That seems pretty extreme. But what we must understand is, so important, that blasphemy has as much to do with the condition of our hearts than it does the outward action of rejection. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to outright reject the work of the Spirit. And in John, Chapter 16, we are told that one of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to bring about conviction in our hearts that leads to repentance.

So, follow this with me. If you are someone who denies any notion of your guilt over sin, you’ll be someone who doesn’t believe they need the forgiveness of Christ in their life. Jesus is not saying that there is one single sin that is so bad that it could cancel out His work on the cross. That’s not what He’s saying. And we know this to be true because we see Peter deny Christ three times, and yet He’s still forgiven. What makes this sin unforgivable is that the one who continues on in blasphemous living will never come to God in need of grace. So, to make it very clear, the only way you would not receive forgiveness from God is because you never came to God for it in the first place. It’s the only thing. So, if you have come to God in repentance, you don’t need to fear this verse.

If you come to God in need of grace, He will meet you with forgiveness and redemption every time you come to Him. However, though we may not be guilty of blasphemy, I do believe that the main thrust of this passage requires serious self-examination in each of our hearts. Have we been living in a way that openly shows our commitment to Christ? Or have we let the fear of man call the shots in our lives? Have we been living a life of courage or have we been living a life of hiding? This is all easier said than done. It’s one thing to say you will be bold for Christ. It’s another thing to do it altogether. So, then the question becomes, well, how do we overcome the fear of man? Well, what Jesus tells His disciples is much different than we may have thought He would say.

He doesn’t tell them that they shouldn’t be afraid. He just tells them that they’re actually afraid of the wrong thing. Rather than fearing man who can kill the body, they should fear God, who can cast souls into hell. Jesus doesn’t comfort his disciples with a catchy one-liner or a promise that they will be protected from all harm in this life. Instead, He invites them to think about their fears with an eternal mindset. He helps them to see the bigger picture of reality. He gives them a heavenly perspective that gives them the strength to endure worldly trials, no matter how scary they may seem on the surface. It is true that man can cause a lot of physical damage to our bodies, but that’s all they can do. It is true that people can hate you and reject you for your belief in God, but that’s all they can do.

God is not trying to minimize your fears; He’s trying to maximize your view of Him. It’s not that the things you are afraid of aren’t real, it’s that you have let those little fears blind you of what you know to be true about God. Here’s a way to help you think about this. It’s like comparing the size of a quarter to the size of the sun. A quarter is so small, I can hold it in my hand and the sun is so large, I actually can’t mentally comprehend it because I’ve never seen anything so big in my life. Yet, if I hold the quarter close enough to my eye, it can actually block out my entire view of the sun. And in the same way, there is a way to live life that is so focused on your small fears that it blocks out your entire view of how big your God is.

But once we see God for who He truly is, we will see who it is that is truly worthy of our fears because He will become big and then our problems will start to seem smaller. But then the question becomes, what does it truly mean to fear God in the right way? Does this tell us that we should fear God in a way that makes us afraid to approach Him? What happened to the God of grace who invites us into His presence? What happened to the image of gentle Jesus holding a baby lamb who is so meek and mild? But in order to fully understand how to interpret this verse, it’s important that we hear all of what Jesus said about God in this passage. It is true that God is in control of our eternal destiny, which at first can sound like a terrifying prospect because in order to believe that salvation is the Lord’s, well, it ultimately means I have less control than I thought I had.

And I don’t know about you, but I like control. I get scared when I have to give up the driver’s seat. But thankfully, the God who is in control of all things is also good. It reminds me of the Chronicles of Narnia when Lucy finds out that Aslan is a lion and asks Mr. Beaver if he is safe. And Mr. Beaver responds by saying, “Safe?” Said Mr. Beaver, “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.” Jesus tells us that this God, the one who we should fear more than any man, is not only more strong than we could ever imagine, but He’s also more kind, intimate and personal than we ever thought He could be.

That is why right after telling us that it is God who we should fear, in verse 5, Jesus tells us in verse 7, “Do not be afraid.” The God who spoke creation into existence, the God who led the Israelites as a pillar of fire out of Egypt, the God who can swallow kingdoms in a moment’s notice, the God who can heal a disease, a lifelong disease, by simply touching it. The God whose holiness could kill you if you walked into His presence, also knows how many hairs are on your head. The average human has close to 100 to 120,000 hairs on their head, unless you’re Tom Yarborough and then you’re on the 40 to 50 range… He just made it easier for God. Good for Tom, right? But do you hear what Jesus is telling us in this passage? Because it’s amazing. This God, the true God, in all of His power and might and glory and splendor and majesty and authority, knows you in a real and personal way.

Rather than using all of His glory and might to crush those who He brought into being and who rebelled against Him, He uses it to invite them into an intimate relationship with Himself. And once we enter into this relationship by faith through grace, all of our other fears in this life begin to diminish because we know our heavenly Father is bigger and stronger than anyone or anything. Put another way, when you put your faith in Christ, this God that makes all fears we may have in this life, look small and weak is for you. He’s for you. And if this is true, if we believe this in our heart of hearts, why would we have any reason to fear anything else in this life? If this is true, then to have a proper fear of the Lord can actually be the cure to all of the other fears in this life.

But sometimes, it isn’t fear that causes us to miss out on God; it is distraction. So, let’s keep on reading to see what happens next in the story. I’m going to read verses 13 to 21 for us. “Someone from the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ ‘Friend,’ he said to him, ‘who appointed me a judge or arbiter over you?’ He then told them, ‘Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.’ He then told them a parable: ‘A rich man’s land was very productive. He thought to himself, “What should I do since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops? I will do this,” he said. “I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there. Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.’” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night, your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared – whose will they be?” That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’”

After talking to His disciples, we are told that someone from the crowd shouts at Jesus asking Him to settle a family dispute. Actually, it’s less of a question, and it’s more of a demand. This man wants Jesus to tell his brother to split his inheritance with him. Now, this situation is a familiar one that I’m sure many of you in this room have experienced. Someone in the family has died and the remaining members of the family are in conflict over who gets what. So, this man did what many people tried to do. He tried to get a leader to take his side. He wasn’t interested in asking Jesus for wisdom. He was just interested in getting Jesus to do what he wanted. Yet, Jesus tells this man, He has no interest in getting involved with this dispute.

And in some ways, Jesus is displaying the kind of life someone lives when they’re confident of what they came to this Earth to do. Jesus did not come to settle small financial disputes. There was a court system set for that. He came for something much bigger. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Jesus did not want to be the next Judge Judy of Israel. Instead, He wanted to challenge people on what their ultimate priorities were and point them to the kingdom. And we see this when Jesus uses this moment to teach the crowd; He gives them another warning, which is the second warning we see Him issue in this chapter. He tells them to be on guard against all greed, or your translation might say “covetousness,” because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions. So, to help us understand this warning, Jesus tells us a parable about a man who had a lot of wealth.

We are told in verse 16 that a man had accumulated his wealth in a fair way. He hasn’t cheated anyone, he hasn’t lied, he hasn’t taken advantage of the poor. He has earned his money in an honest way. And so far, I don’t think there’s actually any problem with his life. So, what should someone do who has come into a large sum of money? Well, it seems wise to store it up in case next season’s harvest isn’t quite as much. But in order to store more food, he actually is going to need to tear down his barns and build bigger barns. So, he rips down the barns he has and builds bigger ones to store his increased wealth. And I would still argue, up to this point, there is nothing wrong with the way that this man is living his life. In fact, I would argue that the Proverbs would celebrate a man like this.

He is someone who is labored well and is receiving the fruits of his hard work. He isn’t squandering his money on reckless living. He’s being prudent and saving it. It would seem that this man is living, if we’re honest, the lifestyle that many of us dream of living. It’s all working out for him, so what’s the big deal? Well, I believe in verse 19, if you want to look at that, is where we see the good gifts God has given him get turned into idols that rob him of life. Because after he has stored up all of his wealth, we are told about an internal dialogue he has with himself. The man says, “Then I’ll say to myself, you have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.” The problem is that this man started to build his life upon what he had rather than the Lord who blessed him with the things he had.

Rather than trusting the promises of God for his future, he decided to put his hope in his large bank account. Rather than continuing on in the good work the Lord had in store for him, he decides to kick back, relax and take it easy. He’s going to coast to the finish line. Rather than enjoying eating and drinking as good gifts given to us by God, he decides to make these the central object of his life. And in a sad twist of self-destruction, this man took what he was blessed with and decided to place his hope, trust and confidence in the abundance of his possessions. What he thought would give him a long-lasting life ended up being the very thing that robbed him of it. Because little did this man know that the promises he thought his possessions were able to give him, they were false ones. Because that night, the Lord appeared to him and told him that his life on earth was over, and that all the things he had lived for would be left behind.

Because of his nearsighted living, God calls him a fool because he traded in an eternal hope for a cheap temporary copy of it. And then Jesus ends His story with a startling statement: “That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” And this is where our text finishes today, and it’s appropriate we ask, what can we learn from this? Well, I think the central point of this passage is that when we have a true and right fear of the Lord, it liberates us in so many different ways that we can squander our lives. What I want to do is show you three different things that the fear of the Lord frees us from in this life.

First, the fear of the Lord frees us from hiding. Like I mentioned earlier, Jesus has given us a warning to avoid hypocritical living. And the way we stand on guard against it is not by becoming perfect; it’s by becoming honest. Because we know that God is already aware of our sins, it is foolish to live a life trying to hide. I’m not saying honesty is easy, but I am saying that if you want to begin to live the life Christ has made possible for you, it almost always starts with walking in the light. In 1 John it says this, “But if we walk in the light,” meaning the believer, “…as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins,” listen to this promise. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

A heart that truly understands who God is, is a heart that when sin and temptation comes its way, sprints to the throne room of Heaven in confession and repentance. Richard Sibbes says it like this in his book, A Broken Reed, “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us. A heart that rightly fears God dares not hide sin but runs to Him as a child runs to his father.” To be truly on guard against sin is to make confession a regular practice in your life. And I don’t mean the vague surface level confession that we often settle for. I mean the kind of confession that requires true risk and vulnerability, the kind of confession in which you are openly exposed before others. But this kind of confession isn’t just between us and God.

We should also exercise this discipline in Christian community too. When Jesus tells the disciples to be on guard, He’s talking to them as a group, not as individuals. So, the call isn’t merely that I would be on guard against hypocrisy in my own life, but that I would also make sure it stays out of the hearts of my brothers and sisters around me. And in the same way, I need brothers and sisters to hold me accountable for lingering sin that I can’t see. Every one of you in this room has a blind spot that if left to yourself, it will get the better of you. So, I think a really practical and proper application of a text like this is that you would join a group here at our church, whether it’s a men’s group, a woman’s group, a home group, the college group, youth group, or you just want to get some friends together to read the Bible, confess sins, and pray together.

Friendship and community are not optional add-ons in the Christian life. They are essential to killing sin and experiencing the abundant life Jesus has on offer. But in our friendships, we must have a willingness to be honest about what is going on in our hearts and in our lives. Listen, what if one of the things TVC was known for in the city of Nashville was that it was an honest church? That we were a people who had such great faith in the goodness and mercy of God that we knew we didn’t need to hide our sins from Him, and we don’t need to hide our sins from our brothers and sisters. What if when people came into our building, one of the things they experienced amongst all of the other good things we have going on was a sense of true authenticity that can only come through truly fearing the Lord? Lord, let it be so of The Village Chapel in Nashville, Tennessee.

The second thing that the fear of the Lord frees us from is the fear of man. When we have a right fear of the Lord, it reduces our fear of what others think of us and can do to us. This text doesn’t say that there’s nothing to fear in this world. Rather, it shows us there’s something else to fear that is much greater than this world. It’s not that we never have any fear of man, it’s that in spite of that fear, we move forward in confidence that is given to us by Christ through the Spirit. This is what is known as the Christian virtue of courage. It’s a lost art, courage. Simply put, courage is treasuring Jesus as our greatest good even in the face of danger or threats. It’s a refusal to give in to the demands of this world because you have already said you are fully in on Christ.

It’s a heavenly perspective that focuses not only on our time in this life but invests in our life to come. A. W. Tozer says, “The true follower of Christ will not ask, ‘If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?’ Rather he will say, ‘This is truth. God, help me to walk in it, let come what may.’” The gift of courage is what led the disciples to look at the religious counsel who were telling them to stop spreading the Gospel in Acts, Chapter 4, in which the disciples, these common uneducated men replied with this, “Whether it is right in the sight of God for us to listen to you rather than to God, you decide, for we are unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” It’s what led Martin Luther to stand up amongst a room full of angry men telling him to recant his statement and faith in which he said, “Unless I’m convinced by the testimony of the scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound by the scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen.”

John Knox was one of the leaders of the Scottish Reformation who was known for preaching God’s truth with boldness. And when he died, it was written on his tombstone, “Here lies one who feared God so much that he never feared the face of man.” Around 155 AD there was a man named Polycarp, which I think is such a cool name, who was in his mid-80s and a famous teacher of the Christian faith. He was arrested by Rome and sentenced to be killed. But before he was tried, the governor tried to persuade him to deny his faith, saying, “Swear by the genius of Caesar, revile Christ and I will release you.” In which Polycarp, this 80-year-old man replied, “For 80-and-six years, I have served Him and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”

The governor continued to pressure him, warning that he would be thrown to wild beasts. When Polycarp remained steadfast, the proconsul threatened to burn him alive. And Polycarp responded by saying, “You threaten me with fire that burns for a short time, but you do not know of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly. Why do you delay? Do what you will.” Polycarp knew that his profession of Christ may lead him to fire in this life, but he also knew that by that same profession he would be saved from it in the next life. The virtue of Christian courage is something we are going to desperately need because I don’t think it’s going to get any easier for us to be Jesus followers in our day and age. For some believers in this world… This is so important. They are experiencing real and physical persecution. Matt prayed for them today.

And for those experiencing physical persecution, we need to intercede for our brothers and sisters and pray for many things. But amongst those things, we should pray for courage. For some though, it will be a social pressure that may cost friendships, relationships, or even a job. But there is a beautiful opportunity that arises when the church experiences opposition. Because throughout church history, when Christianity was at its least popular moment, the church woke up, became bold, and the Gospel spread. What if the pressure we face as Christians didn’t cause us to shrink back, but instead it caused us to rise up and spread the Gospel with even more urgency than ever before? And I’m not talking about engaging in foolish debates online. I’m talking about a Gospel boldness among people you rub shoulders with in your day-to-day life.

A courage that is willing to share the Gospel when you get the chance and to stand on the truth of God in the Scriptures when others tell you to move away from it. To be clear, this is not a courage that we can muster up in our own strength. We can no better draw up this kind of courage in ourselves than a drowning man who tries to save himself by yanking up on his own neck collar. To live this kind of life, we are in desperate need of the gift of the Holy Spirit that is promised to believers when they put their faith in Christ. It is only through Christ in us that our hearts can begin to conquer the fears that once controlled us so that we can live with a gospel courage. The man who lives by his own strength, he will soon fall. But the man in whom Christ dwells will find to his own surprise that he is braver than he ever dreamed.

Not because he becomes great, but because he has finally learned that he is small, and God is great. That’s where true Christian courage begins. And the last thing the fear of the Lord frees us from is foolish living. The rich man in the parable and his abundance of blessings given to him by God turned good things into ultimate things, which made them really bad things. Instead of seeking wisdom from the Giver of good gifts, he chose to seek his security in the gifts themselves. In his pride, he chose to live in a way that seemed wise to him rather than seeking God. And this is the specific temptation that comes along with having an abundance of possessions. It can lead you to a life of inward living that will ultimately lead to death. But this isn’t just true among those who have wealth. It’s the temptation of every human heart to become their own God, to live by their own rules, to assume that they have cracked the code of life apart from God. But the scriptures call this kind of lifestyle the way of the fool. Because if wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, then foolishness begins when we turn from him and look for answers anywhere else.

Thomas Watson said, “The fear of God is the antidote to the poison of folly. It makes a man consider his ways, walk circumspectly and choose the path of wisdom rather than the mirage of worldly pleasures.” But what if you are here and you feel like you are already too far down the road of foolishness? You know in your heart of hearts that there is hypocrisy and idolatry that runs deep. You’ve wanted to change, you’ve tried to change, but every attempt you have made, you have come up short and you are discouraged. In moments where courage was required, you shrunk back, and you deferred, and you denied. What’s the answer? How do we get out of the trap of foolish living? How do we become men and women who are courageous in confession and in professing our faith to the world?

Well, thankfully there is another story in the Scriptures about a rich man who didn’t use his wealth foolishly, but he willingly gave it up for the sake of those who were poor. And His name is Jesus. Rather than using His position to live a life of comfort and ease, He used it to serve those who could not save themselves by living a perfect life in their place and then dying on a cross to pay the penalty for all of their sins, past, present and future, and resurrecting three days later to prove that He had defeated death. And then He ascended into heaven. He sits at the right hand of the Father and invites all of those who put their faith in Him to receive new hearts that places God of the center, rather than their own foolish desires or worldly fears. This is the good news of the Gospel. And it’s the good news that you – yes, you – have been invited to receive this morning.

If you are here and you have never put your faith in Jesus, I pray that this morning would be a defining moment in your life. If you have questions about faith or you want to investigate who Christ is, please email me or one of the pastors. There is nothing more we would rather do than have that conversation with you. And if you are here and you have put your faith in Christ, I pray that before you come to the table this morning that you would seriously take God up on the good gift of confession and then come and taste the grace on offer for you. I pray that out of your love for Christ, you would live a life of boldness for the Gospel that would ripple throughout all eternity. To end, I wanted to quote Frederick Buechner says, “One life on this earth is all we get, whether it is enough or not enough.” And the obvious conclusion would seem that to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.

Church let’s pray: Jesus, God, I pray that through the work of the Spirit, God, You would bring about gospel conviction in our hearts, Jesus. That we would take this moment before we come to the table, God, to confess our sins, knowing that You are faithful and just to give us our sins every time. God, I pray that You would be with those who do not know You at this moment, whether they’re here in this room or they’re listening to us online, Jesus, when they come to You in repentance and receive grace for the first time. Jesus, I thank You that You are a God who is both holy and mighty, and yet loving and personal. Jesus, be with us. In Your name I pray. Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs

“All My Boast Is in Jesus“ by Bryan Fowler, Matt Papa, Matthew Boswell, Keith Getty
“I Stand Amazed (How Marvelous)“ by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel
“Speak O Lord“ by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
“My Worth Is Not In What I Own“ by Graham Kendrick, Keith Getty, and Kristyn Getty
“O Praise The Name (Anástasis)“ by Benjamin Hastings, Dean Ussher, and Marty Sampson
 “Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois

All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #2003690

Call To Worship: At The Cross

Most merciful God, thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus. We remember this day His redeeming death, that we might stand forgiven at the cross. Thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus, to whom we belong, in life and in death. He bore our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Most holy God, thank You for sending to us Your Son, Jesus, who became sin for us and suffered the punishment due to us, that we might stand forgiven at the cross. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.

Confession:

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against You this day, in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole hearts; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of Your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us, that we may delight in Your will, and walk in Your ways, to the glory of Your Name. Grant to Your people pardon and peace, that in Your great mercy, we may be forgiven all our sins, and serve You with a quiet and contrite heart. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Classic Prayer: John Baillie, 1829–1891

O Thou Creator of all things that are, I lift up my heart in gratitude to Thee for this day’s happiness; for the mere joy of living; for all the sights and sounds around me: for the sweet peace of the country and the pleasant bustle of the town; for all things bright and beautiful and gay; for friendship and good company; for work to perform and the skill and strength to perform it; for a time to play when the day’s work was done, and for health and a glad heart to enjoy it. And above all I thank Thee for the sure hope and promise of an endless life which Thou hast given me in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.

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