Spend Less

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Lord, we want this Christmas, this time, to be a time where we focus on you, that we can worship you fully. And Lord, that nothing but you are the priority in all of these things. That you teach us today what true wealth is, what true abundance is, and that is in our relationship with you. And that you teach us that deeply and fully. Lord God, we pray that you'd be with all the Christians around this area, all the churches throughout this whole region, Lord. For we are one church together with them in many different expressions. We're praying, Lord, that your gospels proclaim fully that this Christmas, that you bring about a renewal in the lives and hearts of many people. That they see how you are the gift, Lord. You are the greatest gift of all and everything else that we have. Well, Lord, anything good that comes from you, but everything compared to you is nothing. So bless this time as we study your word today and consider what it means to truly be a part of the way that you intend Christmas to be. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, today we're going to be talking about spending less. And the question might be, well, what do you mean by less? How much less? Less than what? It's kind of like when you go to... I just always am amazed at advertisers. You save money by spending money. Have you ever noticed that? Yeah, it's less than it was, but I'm still spending money to get something. I'm not saving money by spending it. Well, you might be asking, what do you mean by spending less? And I'm not going to actually define that today. I don't think that's what this really is about. It's really about understanding priorities. So we're going to be reading from the Gospel of Luke today, chapter 12. And we're going to be looking at a parable that Jesus tells in response to a request from him. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother. Don't you love those kind of... tell my brother. Mom, tell my... you know, you get it already, right? Okay, so teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And he said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And he told them a parable saying 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 all my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. And God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So the one who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God. Now you might be asking right now, wait a minute, you said it's about spending less today. But what has this parable to do with spending at all? There's no spending other than maybe building bigger barns, tearing down the ones and spending some money to get bigger ones. And you're right. It's more about storing up the surplus that this man had. But I have a feeling that the same attitude he had in how he handled his surplus is the way that we handle spending more in our lives often. And it really comes up to these two different proverbs or wise sayings that Jesus has one right before and one right after the parable. It's kind of like a proverb sandwich. The parable's in the middle. And Jesus says at the beginning, this wise saying, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. That's a wisdom saying. And then afterwards he says, so is the one who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God. And in between those is this parable that he tells us. And it's really divided into five different stanzas. Very simple, very straightforward. But I just want to go through it. Goods given. So all of a sudden he gets a bumper crop. And then the problem, what am I going to do with all of this stuff? And then the third is, hey, this is what I'm going to do. Build bigger barns. The problem is solved. Fourth, anticipated outcome. And then I will enjoy it for years. But then the conclusion, the goods are left behind. That's it. From this parable, I think we're going to learn two things. And if I don't offend you all today, I probably have missed what Jesus is talking about. You know, Jesus says some harsh, hard things for all of us to hear. And yeah, I don't, I didn't write the New Testament. I would have probably found something a little more soft. But we're going to learn two things. How poorly money defines your life is the first one. And the second is how to be rich toward God. And I think in the...