1 00:00:09,720 --> 00:00:12,720 Friends, our teaching scripture this morning comes from Luke's 2 00:00:12,720 --> 00:00:16,520 Gospel, the 12th chapter, verses 13 to 21. 3 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:22,200 It says someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my 4 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:24,800 brother to divide the family inheritance with me. 5 00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:29,600 But he said to him, Friend, who set me to be a judge or 6 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:33,040 arbitrator over you? And he said to them, take care, 7 00:00:33,120 --> 00:00:37,080 be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one's life 8 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:40,120 does not consist in the abundance of possessions. 9 00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:44,680 Then he told them a parable, the land of a rich man produced 10 00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:47,600 abundantly. And he thought to himself, what 11 00:00:47,600 --> 00:00:50,400 should I do, for I have no place to store my crops. 12 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,600 Then he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and 13 00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:58,480 build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my 14 00:00:58,480 --> 00:01:03,200 goods, and I will say to my soul, soul, You have ample goods 15 00:01:03,200 --> 00:01:07,560 laid up for many years. Relax, eat and drink, be merry. 16 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,000 But God said to him, You fool, this very night your life is 17 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,840 being demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, whose 18 00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:18,840 will they be? So it is with those who store up 19 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:22,680 treasures for themselves, but are not rich toward God. 20 00:01:22,880 --> 00:01:28,520 This is the word of the Lord. Are you guys doing this morning? 21 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:32,200 It's good to be with you. How about that extra hour? 22 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:36,920 Did you guys soak that up so good? 23 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:41,720 Woke up this morning, asked my wife what time it was and I 24 00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:44,560 thought to myself, wait, is that the real time or is that the 25 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:46,200 fake time? Like you know that moment? 26 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:49,320 It's good to be with you this morning. 27 00:01:49,600 --> 00:01:51,800 If you are new or newish, my name is Jared. 28 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:55,600 I'm one of the pastors here and we've been in this series over 29 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,880 the past number of weeks on the passions, which I will tell you 30 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:05,320 more about in just a minute. A few years ago, I was talking 31 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:09,199 to a volunteer who was serving on the West side of our city at 32 00:02:09,199 --> 00:02:13,320 a drop in center. Some of you know and are already 33 00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:15,200 involved in the work of Sanctuary Night. 34 00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,360 Sanctuary Night was founded by Hannah Esterbrook and Heather 35 00:02:18,360 --> 00:02:20,800 Mormon, both of which are part of this community. 36 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:24,880 I know that many of you have given to Sanctuary Night, you 37 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:26,680 have volunteered with Sanctuary Night. 38 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:31,560 And we consider Sanctuary Night to be some of the work that we 39 00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:34,400 partner with in the city and we hope to continue to partner 40 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:37,680 with. And it's a drop in center that 41 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:41,880 offers a place of sanctuary to women who are on the West side 42 00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:45,920 who are caught up in a cycle of poverty or human trafficking. 43 00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:48,040 Did I get that right? Does that does that sound good? 44 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:52,040 You can talk to these two right here if you are interested in 45 00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:56,360 hearing a little bit more. But I heard this story from 46 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:02,840 someone that had been serving on a Monday night and she overheard 47 00:03:02,840 --> 00:03:07,320 a conversation between two women as the drop in center was 48 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:10,160 closing for the evening. So that's like setting the scene 49 00:03:10,160 --> 00:03:13,160 a little bit there for you. These two women from the 50 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:16,040 streets, they walked in the front doors and one of these 51 00:03:16,520 --> 00:03:20,360 women was extremely hungry and one of them did not have 52 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:25,400 adequate clothing. So the the food from the meal 53 00:03:25,400 --> 00:03:27,040 that was served at Sanctuary Night. 54 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:29,120 So one of the things that Sanctuary Night has done is 55 00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:33,560 serve meals as they are available, but the food from 56 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,840 that evening's meal was completely gone. 57 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:39,640 And so the first woman became distraught even more so because 58 00:03:39,640 --> 00:03:43,040 she walked in thinking that she was going to get a meal and it 59 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,720 was gone. She's super hungry. 60 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:50,360 Meanwhile, the second woman was helped by some of the volunteers 61 00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:52,720 to grab a pair of boots. You know, the winter was on its 62 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:55,440 way. And so as it came time to lock 63 00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,680 up the doors, the first woman is still trying to figure out where 64 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:00,120 she's going to get her next meal. 65 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:03,480 And the second woman says to her, why didn't you tell me that 66 00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:07,080 you were hungry? When have you ever asked me for 67 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:09,040 food? And I have not been able to find 68 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:13,400 you food. Everything I have at home is 69 00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:16,480 yours. Let's go get something to eat. 70 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:23,920 Everything I have is yours. But when was the last time that 71 00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:29,200 anyone ever said that to you? Or when was the last time you 72 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,840 ever said that to someone else? We're going to come back to 73 00:04:32,840 --> 00:04:35,920 that. So within a few weeks of hearing 74 00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:41,160 that particular story, I was at the grocery store where you 75 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:44,000 could find people on the front side of a snowstorm stocking up 76 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:47,280 with household goods, filling up grocery carts with toilet paper. 77 00:04:48,280 --> 00:04:51,960 You may remember a few weeks or not a few weeks, though. 78 00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:53,280 It feels like that. Do you guys remember the 79 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:56,920 pandemic? The COVID times, you might 80 00:04:56,920 --> 00:05:00,880 remember during the early days of 2020, you might remember 81 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:04,080 reading several stories about people across the country who 82 00:05:04,480 --> 00:05:07,760 bought up hand sanitizer. There's a guy in Tennessee that 83 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:12,240 bought 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer all that he could 84 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:18,280 find, only to attempt to resell it at a marked up price of $70 a 85 00:05:18,280 --> 00:05:19,640 bottle. Do you guys remember reading 86 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:22,160 stories about this? I know, kind of gross. 87 00:05:22,520 --> 00:05:24,400 It's OK. Wash, let it wash over you. 88 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:31,120 It's all right, or maybe you have been witness to just after 89 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:35,640 the midnight opening of a store on Black Friday, which is coming 90 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:41,160 by the way, and you know, people are literally stampeding over 91 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:44,640 others to try to get to that 40% markdown on a new flat screen 92 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:48,120 TV. Listen, by the way, I'm not 93 00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:51,440 necessarily throwing shade at Black Friday. 94 00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:55,560 I got my eye on a dishwasher. I'm not going to lie, because 95 00:05:56,120 --> 00:06:00,680 our dishwasher is leaking, it works about half the time. 96 00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:03,440 So listen, if you can find a good deal, that's wonderful. 97 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,240 Please just do not push somebody out of the way in order to get 98 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:10,960 there. Everything I have is yours, she 99 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:14,320 said. And listen, you don't have to be 100 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,480 religious or trying to follow Jesus to understand that there 101 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:20,400 is at a deep level. There's something really right 102 00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:24,680 and resonant about that kind of posture and invitation to 103 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:28,440 another human being. And something doesn't quite feel 104 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:31,600 right about the hoarding of toilet paper out of fear, or 105 00:06:31,600 --> 00:06:34,840 trying to make a quick buck in a moment of crisis, or upgrading 106 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:38,920 your TV to what is new and bigger every other year. 107 00:06:40,840 --> 00:06:44,920 How do we become the kind of person that would so 108 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:48,000 instinctively posture ourselves towards others? 109 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,560 Like the first woman in the story, Everything I have is 110 00:06:52,560 --> 00:06:55,720 yours. And how do we be on the lookout 111 00:06:55,720 --> 00:07:00,640 for ways that some version of those other stories might be at 112 00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:02,800 work in our daily lives? That's the question. 113 00:07:02,800 --> 00:07:05,840 Those are the two questions that I'm trying to wrestle with us 114 00:07:05,840 --> 00:07:08,920 this morning. This first story about the 115 00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,040 hungry woman feeling some anxiety about where her next 116 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:16,880 meal is coming from is met with what the biblical authors call 117 00:07:17,240 --> 00:07:21,280 mercy. And all of those other stories 118 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:24,320 are different versions of what the early church fathers and 119 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:28,880 what the biblical narrative calls avarice or greed. 120 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:33,600 Avarice or greed? So we've been in this teaching 121 00:07:33,600 --> 00:07:36,960 series over the past number of weeks called The Passions. 122 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:40,320 And if you were with us a number of weeks ago, one of the ways 123 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:43,520 that we described with the Passions are is to say that the 124 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:48,240 passions are desires and attitudes and the sometimes 125 00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:53,000 obsessive emotions and thoughts that are at work inside of us. 126 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:58,160 Can anybody sort of pinpoint the reality that there are those 127 00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:00,080 kinds of things that work inside of your eye? 128 00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,000 Had coffee with somebody this week and they said, you know, 129 00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:05,680 you know, Jared, you keep saying that, you know, could you 130 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:07,680 identify with one or two of these? 131 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:09,880 And, and they said to me, well, how about all of them? 132 00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:15,480 And the reality is, is that there is there is something of 133 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:20,600 all of these passions at work inside of all of us that much of 134 00:08:20,600 --> 00:08:25,520 the time there are these sort of unspoken desires and thoughts 135 00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,160 that work their way out in the everyday actions and the habits 136 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,640 of our lives. And the men and women in the 137 00:08:30,640 --> 00:08:33,679 first few centuries of the church on their journey of 138 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:37,559 formation after the death of Jesus, they begin to develop 139 00:08:37,559 --> 00:08:41,880 some preliminary psychological categories and a tradition that 140 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:45,280 began to recognize that there were all sorts of things that 141 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:50,320 seem to be getting into the in, in the way of my adoration of 142 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:55,160 God and my desire to follow after Jesus, to live a life of 143 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:59,440 prayer and self sacrifice and to stay present to the reality of 144 00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:01,200 our lives. There's all kinds of things that 145 00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:03,160 are kind of in the way of that project, aren't there? 146 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:07,080 And so they begin to see all of these things that work within 147 00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:10,720 them and and they begin to recognize that of the things 148 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:15,480 that are in my life that are taking away my freedom to love, 149 00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:20,400 we can basically enumerate those things like a little bit of a 150 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,440 list. And they came up with these 151 00:09:23,560 --> 00:09:27,560 eight different kinds of what they called afflictions. 152 00:09:28,640 --> 00:09:32,400 And these are afflictions that often originate in our thoughts. 153 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:39,600 For example, we might find desire some things in an outside 154 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:46,360 way related to our sexuality. The early church fathers and the 155 00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:51,160 biblical authors call that lust. Or we might discover that, you 156 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:53,760 know, we tend to gravitate towards sort of distracting 157 00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:56,680 ourselves or numbing ourselves with food or drink. 158 00:09:56,960 --> 00:09:59,800 And the early church fathers and the biblical authors call that 159 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,200 gluttony. So here's the list if you're 160 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:05,480 wondering sort of where we've been and what we've been up to. 161 00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:11,120 Gluttony, lust, avarice and greed, sadness or despondency, 162 00:10:11,120 --> 00:10:14,960 anger, acedia, Vainglory, and pride. 163 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:19,680 I promise you there's really good news coming. 164 00:10:19,680 --> 00:10:21,800 By the way, I know that's a heavy list. 165 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,640 We're not just making our way through this list of the 166 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:30,000 passions as information, by the way, like we're not just trying 167 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:32,080 to learn all that we can about this. 168 00:10:32,080 --> 00:10:35,080 What we're trying to do is we're trying to see together as a 169 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,520 community is that we all have these various ways and in which 170 00:10:38,520 --> 00:10:44,320 are habitual and mental and, and like, like spiritual condition 171 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:49,760 is 1 in which we just don't quite see the world clearly. 172 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,400 And these are the kinds of things that are standing in the 173 00:10:53,400 --> 00:10:56,200 way. They cause us to see one another 174 00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:00,320 in skewed ways and they blind us to the needs of others. 175 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:05,120 They take away our capacity to see the way that God is wanting 176 00:11:05,120 --> 00:11:09,360 to work in US. And they form us in this way 177 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:12,600 where they kind of like terrorize us on the inside. 178 00:11:13,200 --> 00:11:15,720 Do you have anything that you're aware of that you're kind of 179 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:22,760 being terrorized by in this like little microwave and up for 180 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:28,160 today is this passion of avarice or sometimes referred to as 181 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:30,440 greed? Avarice is not like the 182 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:34,120 household name, but it is the list that shows up in the early 183 00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:35,440 church. And so I just felt like we 184 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:38,160 should keep it. But greed, think about greed. 185 00:11:39,800 --> 00:11:43,200 John Cashin, one of the early Church fathers, he says that 186 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:47,680 avarice is not only the desire for money, but the fear of 187 00:11:47,680 --> 00:11:53,880 losing what one has. And his buddy Evagrius says that 188 00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:58,280 avarice is the desire to possess more than one needs. 189 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:05,160 So for Evagrius, excuse me, who helped articulate this tradition 190 00:12:05,520 --> 00:12:09,200 of the passions in the 5th century, he talks about a 191 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:15,920 vaguerous or avarice is not just about actual wealth, but it's 192 00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:21,760 about this interior attachment that we have to security that we 193 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:26,520 maintain by gathering possessions or seeking after 194 00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:29,240 wealth and possessions. It's really about what's 195 00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:33,600 happening on the inside. There's all kinds of people who 196 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:38,240 who I know who have actually quite a bit of money, but their 197 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,600 disposition to that money is not to grab onto it. 198 00:12:41,600 --> 00:12:44,360 It's actually to relinquish it and to give it away. 199 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:50,760 And so it's really what is happening on the inside interior 200 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:54,240 attachment to security through possession. 201 00:12:55,880 --> 00:13:00,960 So avarice is present when we place trust in our material 202 00:13:00,960 --> 00:13:05,440 means rather than in God's care or in the care that we might 203 00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:10,480 receive from somebody else. It's that it's that feeling that 204 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:17,840 you might have when you, you or I are paying too much attention 205 00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:20,360 to the stock market or to your investment accounts. 206 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:23,040 Some of you, like, I have no idea what those are. 207 00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:25,640 Some people have those, by the way. 208 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,000 It's also that feeling that might arise for you when there's 209 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,680 money in your pocket and you're walking maybe downtown or you're 210 00:13:32,680 --> 00:13:35,920 walking in a public place and you know that there's somebody 211 00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,680 around you that probably needs that money more than you do. 212 00:13:40,480 --> 00:13:43,880 But it's just sitting there and there's this little bit of 213 00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:47,320 anxiety that comes up with the thought of reaching into your 214 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:49,600 pocket and handing over that 20 to the person. 215 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:51,840 And I'm not talking about the kind of anxiety that is 216 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,320 thoughtful, like, hey, is this going to be the best use of this 217 00:13:55,320 --> 00:13:57,040 money for this particular person? 218 00:13:57,280 --> 00:13:59,960 I'm not talking about that kind of pause inside. 219 00:14:00,160 --> 00:14:03,200 I'm talking about the kind of pause about just actually 220 00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:06,720 allowing the money to release from your hands. 221 00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:12,680 Avarice is that feeling or that fear or anxiety that comes up 222 00:14:12,680 --> 00:14:16,960 when the 20 or the 50 leads your hand or if you decide to sort of 223 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:20,760 make a donation to our shared economy fund, you drop $100 in 224 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:23,360 there and and it doesn't feel joyful. 225 00:14:23,360 --> 00:14:25,280 It feels like, oh, that's going to hurt. 226 00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:31,880 That's avarice. It's the inability to simply say 227 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:38,560 everything I have is yours. Everything I have is yours. 228 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:42,560 That's where we're headed in our life of following Jesus. 229 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:46,640 That's where my hope is, is that we can head together over time 230 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:49,360 as a community. But I want you to hold on to 231 00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:50,880 that because we're going to come back to it. 232 00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:58,880 In Luke chapter 12, Jesus is giving us a clear remedy of how 233 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:03,520 to spot avarice or greed and how to respond to it when it shows 234 00:15:03,520 --> 00:15:06,080 up in our life. Let's look back at the text. 235 00:15:06,080 --> 00:15:08,640 He says this beginning in verse 13. 236 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:13,600 Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to 237 00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:16,920 divide the fair, the the family inheritance with me. 238 00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:22,240 So Luke just sort of throws us into the middle of a scene, by 239 00:15:22,240 --> 00:15:24,640 the way. And there's this guy who wants 240 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:27,640 Jesus to settle a little family dispute. 241 00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:31,560 And in the ancient Near East, here's how the inheritance 242 00:15:31,560 --> 00:15:36,520 concept would work. The eldest brother would receive 243 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:40,360 twice the inheritance of the younger brothers. 244 00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:43,160 This was called a double portion. 245 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,840 It is just the way it worked. It goes all the way back to the 246 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:49,000 Jewish roots. And so if there was an 247 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:56,000 inheritance say of like 10,000, whatever dollars or whatever it 248 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,000 is that they use 10,000 bars of gold, I doubt it was that. 249 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:03,320 But if if there are three brothers, they would divide the 250 00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:08,200 10,000 by 4 and each of the brothers would get a single 251 00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,280 portion and then the oldest brother would get a double 252 00:16:11,280 --> 00:16:16,200 portion. And so clearly this guy who's 253 00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:20,040 trying to use Jesus authority as a teacher is a younger brother. 254 00:16:20,440 --> 00:16:23,280 But it's not that the older brother is withholding what is 255 00:16:23,280 --> 00:16:25,480 rightfully the younger brother's portion. 256 00:16:25,760 --> 00:16:27,960 It's not really an issue of justice. 257 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:31,240 It's that the younger brother is stuck in a story. 258 00:16:31,920 --> 00:16:35,840 He's stuck in a narrative. He's fixated on getting more 259 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,800 than he actually has, and he's feeling slighted in some way 260 00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:43,600 because someone, namely his older brother, has more than he 261 00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:49,360 has the the free money or the cattle or the sheep or the land 262 00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:52,560 that was given to him out of the abundance of the family estate. 263 00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:58,920 It simply wasn't enough. And it's kind of under his skin 264 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:03,120 a little bit. And so he is carrying around 265 00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,599 this outside desire to have more than he actually needs such that 266 00:17:07,599 --> 00:17:11,440 he can't see the abundance of what has already been provided 267 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:15,119 to him. I mean, this guy is listening to 268 00:17:15,160 --> 00:17:17,520 Jesus teach. So there's this giant crowd 269 00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:21,359 around and Luke tells us there's probably like 1000 people 270 00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:24,400 around. And Jesus is getting into some 271 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:27,240 really good stuff about what it means to acknowledge him in 272 00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,880 public. And Jesus basically says to to 273 00:17:29,880 --> 00:17:33,880 the people is like, if you claim that you know me in front of 274 00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:38,000 other people, I will declare that I know you in front of the 275 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,120 Father and all of the angels. And so there's this great 276 00:17:41,360 --> 00:17:45,160 teaching that swells up and then this guy says, hey, could you 277 00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:46,840 tell my brother to give me some money? 278 00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:51,440 Do you, do you ever have this moment? 279 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:53,600 You know, you're just kind of going about your day. 280 00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:57,880 You have this sort of outsized desire that just sort of springs 281 00:17:57,880 --> 00:18:02,200 out of you. Is that just me, like you just 282 00:18:02,360 --> 00:18:06,040 sort of blurting out things in conversations with people that 283 00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:08,520 don't really belong? Great. 284 00:18:08,520 --> 00:18:11,400 Thank you so much, man. I was like, OK, man, maybe it is 285 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:13,040 just me. No one is responding right now. 286 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:15,960 You sort of date. You're daydreaming about the 287 00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:19,560 anxiety about the thing, the conversation, the finances, 288 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:23,520 whatever it is. OK, So out of the middle of 289 00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:27,240 nowhere, this guy pulls Jesus into his own pattern of thinking 290 00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:30,880 and into his own anxiety about money and the inheritance and 291 00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:33,880 some perceived slight that he is fixated on. 292 00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:38,400 And Jesus's response to him is this. 293 00:18:38,400 --> 00:18:46,400 He says be careful, be on your guard against all kinds of 294 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:50,360 greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of 295 00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:53,920 possessions. Isn't that interesting? 296 00:18:53,920 --> 00:18:58,240 Because so much of our life actually is consisting of the 297 00:18:58,240 --> 00:19:01,640 abundance of possessions, what we do with our time and our 298 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:06,560 energy and our focus of our attention in this modern 21st 299 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:09,960 century world. So side trail that will leave. 300 00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:13,160 But then he told them a parable. He says this. 301 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:18,000 He says the land of a rich man produced abundantly. 302 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:22,240 So this guy has a bumper crop and he thought to himself, what 303 00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:25,840 should I do? For I have no place to store my 304 00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:29,080 crops. And then he said, he said, I 305 00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:31,960 will do this. I will pull down my barns and 306 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:36,240 build larger ones, and there I will store all of my grain in my 307 00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:38,640 goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, 308 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:41,880 you have ample goods laid up for many years. 309 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:49,880 Relax, eat, drink and be merry. But you kind of notice what he 310 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:53,160 doesn't say here, right? He doesn't think about his 311 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,520 neighbor. He doesn't consider that maybe 312 00:19:56,600 --> 00:19:59,000 this abundance is not just for himself. 313 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,360 He's making plans for increasing his own comforts. 314 00:20:02,360 --> 00:20:04,760 He's thinking to himself, You know, I'm going to be able to 315 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:07,200 retire early, man. I'm going to make a plan for 316 00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:09,360 this. I can buy better wine. 317 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:13,560 I can eat at better restaurants. I can spend the extra I have on 318 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:17,480 more enjoyment and the security of knowing that everything is 319 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:19,000 going to be taken care of for me. 320 00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:26,200 And in a sermon on this particular passage, again, one 321 00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:29,560 of the early church fathers, St. Basil the Great, he's one of the 322 00:20:29,560 --> 00:20:33,560 church leaders in the 6th century, he talks about how this 323 00:20:33,560 --> 00:20:37,120 kind of abundance, this kind of abundance that has us thinking 324 00:20:37,120 --> 00:20:40,120 of creative ways of storing all of that extra. 325 00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:47,600 He says that it's a form of stealing from the poor because 326 00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:51,200 in his mind, in the minds of those following Jesus in those 327 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:54,800 first few centuries, was that storing up treasures on earth 328 00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:59,240 just for yourself eventually corrodes one's own view of what 329 00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:00,360 your life is. For. 330 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:04,520 He says this. The bread in your cupboard 331 00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:10,400 belongs to the hungry. The coat hanging unused in your 332 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:13,000 closet, it belongs to the one who needs it. 333 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:19,040 And if we do not have the disposition, he says, to think 334 00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:23,200 about our neighbors and to think about the people in need, it is 335 00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:27,360 just the same as though we stole the thing that is now in our 336 00:21:27,360 --> 00:21:29,680 closet. You know, the stuff in the back, 337 00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:34,320 the very back, back of your closet, he says. 338 00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:39,240 It belongs to the poor. So the person who tears down a 339 00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:43,200 perfectly good barn or a perfectly good ballroom to build 340 00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,440 a bigger one, to to, to to store more than what they need 341 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:51,920 externally might have what appears to be abundance, but 342 00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:56,240 internally, this is the kind of person who's living within a 343 00:21:56,240 --> 00:22:01,560 scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset is when a 344 00:22:01,560 --> 00:22:05,040 person believes that the resources that they care about 345 00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:09,560 is in short supply. You know, whether that be money 346 00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:13,880 or time or emotional support or security. 347 00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,440 They believe that, you know, all of that stuff is in short supply 348 00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:20,560 and that the lack of it or even the perception that there isn't 349 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:22,880 going to be enough begins to shape their thinking and their 350 00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:27,360 behavior. So social scientists and 351 00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:33,320 psychologists actually have done some research on a scarcity 352 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:38,960 mentality and what it actually does to our brain and what it 353 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:41,120 does to our mindset. They they tell us that if we 354 00:22:41,120 --> 00:22:45,120 believe that a resource is scarce or will be scarce in the 355 00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:48,960 future, it can shrink our vision for what we're paying attention 356 00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:54,400 to. It can close us off to the 357 00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:57,280 capacity for seeing the world for what it really is. 358 00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,720 It can cause us to filter our life in ways that align our 359 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,920 priorities to taking care of the thing that we think is scarce 360 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,960 off into the detriment of other things that maybe we could be 361 00:23:08,960 --> 00:23:12,720 paying attention to. Now, that was all a very fancy 362 00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:17,800 way of saying that if we're afraid that something we need is 363 00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:21,920 not going to be there for us, it will cause our attention to 364 00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:24,160 focus on the thing that we think that we need. 365 00:23:24,360 --> 00:23:28,680 That is running dry. You ever been in a season where 366 00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:31,920 you just feel like your relational network is kind of 367 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:35,760 shrinking? Your friendships are kind of we 368 00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:37,400 have an name in from the sister down here. 369 00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:41,600 OK, what do you become fixated on then? 370 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:48,320 Finding new friends. If your if your grocery budget 371 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:54,080 is expanding and your bank account is shrinking, what are 372 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,240 you going to be focused on? You're going to be focused on 373 00:23:57,200 --> 00:23:59,200 where can I find the cheapest groceries? 374 00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,120 How can I keep enough money in in the bank? 375 00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:06,040 It's just human behavior. It's human psychology. 376 00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:10,120 So modern psychology and behavioral science are telling 377 00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:14,800 us exactly the same thing that John Cashin and Evagrius, living 378 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:17,560 in monastic communities in the 4th century, writing about. 379 00:24:17,840 --> 00:24:21,760 When we become too focused on the accumulation of resources, 380 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,640 it's usually because we're looking for control and 381 00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:29,320 security, and we think that whatever we need is not going to 382 00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,520 be there in the future. And so we build bigger barns to 383 00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,000 help us feel safe and more in control. 384 00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:39,880 Man, what a terrible way to live, isn't it? 385 00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:47,520 But what it actually does is it changes the way that we see the 386 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,920 world. It changes the way we Orient our 387 00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:55,480 lives, and our vision gets blurred and narrowed. 388 00:24:56,440 --> 00:25:00,600 And building on the tradition of those early desert fathers and 389 00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,240 long before psychologists discovered the ways that 390 00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:07,360 scarcity can narrow our vision and reduce empathy and 391 00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:11,120 imagination that our life might be for others. 392 00:25:11,120 --> 00:25:16,320 Basil the Great Again says this. He says you are poorer than all 393 00:25:16,360 --> 00:25:22,360 your insatiable desires. So a scarcity mindset tells us 394 00:25:22,360 --> 00:25:26,120 that we're never going to have enough and avarice and greed 395 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,960 acts on that mindset and builds bigger barns. 396 00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,840 But the story that Jesus invites us into confronts both of those 397 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,000 things. He says this, you fool. 398 00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,600 He says to the man, this very night your life is being 399 00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,360 demanded of you and the things that you have prepared, where 400 00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:48,400 were they go? All of that stuff that you store 401 00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:53,080 in barns. This is how it is, he says, with 402 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:56,480 those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich 403 00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:01,240 towards God. So the story that Jesus tells in 404 00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:04,320 order to confront the man who's caught up in scarcity about his 405 00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:10,200 inheritance is a story about scarcity and a scarcity 406 00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,680 mentality. But the scarcity isn't real for 407 00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:18,120 this guy, is it? Like he has an inheritance and 408 00:26:18,120 --> 00:26:20,000 he just want, he just wants more? 409 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,640 What about when scarcity is real? 410 00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,680 What about when the resources are actually shrinking? 411 00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:29,760 How do we, how do we manage that? 412 00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:34,560 Any anybody see what's happening in our world right now? 413 00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,440 Doesn't it feel like the resources are shrinking for lots 414 00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:42,680 and lots of people? If it's not shrinking for you, 415 00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,680 you're in like the top 5% of the world. 416 00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:54,600 You know, in the ancient world, 90% of the people lived at a 417 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:59,400 subsistence level. There is no storage of wealth. 418 00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:05,320 90% of the people were just getting by in various degrees. 419 00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:08,800 So what about when scarcity is real? 420 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,520 When we feel like we actually don't have enough, when we're 421 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,160 not, When we're we're not trying to figure out what to do with 422 00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,480 the bumper crop or the bonus check. 423 00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:18,360 We're just trying to make ends meet. 424 00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:20,960 We're just trying to balance that grocery budget. 425 00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,920 Last year, I was having dinner. It was actually a pretty nice 426 00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:32,560 dinner with a friend down in Atlanta as a new friend. 427 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,480 And we're we're still sort of getting to know each other. 428 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,320 And he's a businessman, he's a follower of Jesus. 429 00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,960 He loves the Lord. And we're talking about kind of 430 00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,840 what it feels like to to be a startup person, to be starting 431 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:52,200 something. He has started 8 businesses over 432 00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:56,040 the past 12 years. And some of you know that my 433 00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,360 work outside of the church is to to lead a nonprofit 434 00:27:59,360 --> 00:28:03,120 organization. And so for better or worse, and 435 00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:05,880 in a way that I hadn't planned on it, I, I'm like an 436 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:07,880 entrepreneur. I'm a start up guy and I'm not a 437 00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:12,360 typical one. And so I was sitting with this 438 00:28:12,360 --> 00:28:16,440 guy over dinner and I was asking him how it has felt for him to 439 00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:18,880 be a founder of all of these businesses. 440 00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:20,960 And I'm listening, we're getting to know each other. 441 00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:22,680 And he says, well, how's it felt for you? 442 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:25,760 And we were talking just about the pressures. 443 00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,880 Some of you who lead nonprofits or part of nonprofits, you might 444 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,200 know there's some pressure involved in leading a nonprofit 445 00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,400 organization. And I had one of those moments 446 00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:41,800 where I, I realized that we were talking a little bit about fear. 447 00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:47,720 And I asked him whether he struggles at all with fear and 448 00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:49,280 which is the thing that I have struggled with. 449 00:28:50,320 --> 00:28:53,600 And so we're talking about all this and he just sets down his 450 00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,480 fork and he looks at me. He's like, what is it that 451 00:28:56,480 --> 00:29:00,640 you're afraid of? And I knew that we were in one 452 00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,800 of those moments of like a new relationship where like, I had a 453 00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:07,720 choice to make about whether or not I was going to demonstrate a 454 00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,840 little bit of vulnerability and just to kind of lean in a little 455 00:29:11,840 --> 00:29:14,120 bit. And I'm like thinking to myself, 456 00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:16,560 man, we're eating great chicken wings right now and drinking 457 00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:19,600 some beer and what I'm about to say. 458 00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:23,000 So I just paused a bit and I said, honestly, I think the 459 00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:25,640 thing I'm afraid of and starting a new venture is that I'm going 460 00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,560 to run out of money, plain and simple. 461 00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:31,760 I've got people on payroll, I've got families that I support. 462 00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:33,720 I've got my family that I support. 463 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,800 I've got kids in college. You know, the whole thing. 464 00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,760 I just started saying to him. And then he says to me, he says, 465 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:41,480 well, have you ever run out of money? 466 00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:45,400 And I thought that was a great question and never really 467 00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:49,400 thought about that before. And then my answer back to him 468 00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:53,840 was yes. And he was like, really? 469 00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:57,600 I said yes. There was a season in my life in 470 00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:59,560 the late 90s as a college student. 471 00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,280 You know, I had bumped up against some really challenging 472 00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,480 years. I was working my way through 473 00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,240 college. My parents had done the best 474 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:12,280 they can to support me. I had a season where I was 475 00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,240 really struggling and I was doing the whole thing, the cans 476 00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:21,960 of tuna and the ramen noodles. I got free sandwiches three days 477 00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:26,840 a week at Brennan's Cafe where I worked, free coffee, half price 478 00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,840 bagels. And I still ran out of money. 479 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,000 Like $20 in my bank account. Run out of money. 480 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:38,440 I know some of you have been there. 481 00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:44,880 And as I relayed this story to my friend, I began to realize in 482 00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,840 that moment that my own struggle with the fear of running out of 483 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:52,080 money was rooted in an actual event in my life. 484 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:57,640 It wasn't make believe. It was real and I, I share that 485 00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:01,200 to say to you friends that this whole series on the passions all 486 00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:03,600 leave that list of things that we're talking about. 487 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,960 We're not trying to pull the curtain back to expose us to our 488 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:12,600 faults in some great like aha moment where where we're 489 00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:15,840 overwhelmed with shame or we're trying to hustle our way out of 490 00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:19,120 that thing. We're not trying to do that so 491 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:23,520 that we can wag our finger at our self in some ridiculous way 492 00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,320 or bootstrap ourselves and set us out on a course of self 493 00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,800 improvement just to do better. This whole series and the whole 494 00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,680 tradition that we're drawing on recognizes that these complex 495 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:38,160 sets of emotions and thought patterns and behaviors, these 496 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:42,280 automated responses and coping mechanisms are almost always 497 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:47,800 rooted in stories in our life. There's wounding and there's 498 00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,920 trauma. There's, there's feeling 499 00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:55,880 overwhelmed in some way. And so all of these things that 500 00:31:55,880 --> 00:32:00,000 we've been looking at over the past few weeks, the lust and the 501 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:04,400 anger and the acedia and the gluttony and the avarice, we're 502 00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:08,440 seeking to pull back the curtain and see if we can get a good 503 00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:12,240 look at the way these things are at work in our lives so that we 504 00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:17,640 can cry out for the mercy of God and to say to God, God, I know 505 00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,120 that there are things in my story that are causing these 506 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:25,280 thought patterns and this sort of miniature terrorizing things 507 00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:28,400 going on inside of me. And I know that the only way out 508 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:32,760 is mercy. The only way out is for you to 509 00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,760 heal me. That's the reason that we're 510 00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:41,840 doing this work, friends. The passions are not necessarily 511 00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:44,400 evil. And if you spend any amount of 512 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,560 time sitting before God in prayer asking God to reveal 513 00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:51,280 where these things might be at work in your life, what you'll 514 00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,160 notice is that most of these things are showing up not as 515 00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:58,480 conscious acts of rebellion, but as deeply rooted patterns that 516 00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,160 have formed us in reaction to some of the really hard things 517 00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:06,200 that have happened to us. And so, friends, listen. 518 00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:12,440 I know that you are sitting here and you are a human being, and 519 00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,920 you will hear me say over and over again, I think being a 520 00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:17,280 human being is incredibly difficult. 521 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,400 I think there's struggle that is built into the whole thing. 522 00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,640 And the reason that we're trying to build a community that can 523 00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:30,640 actually do the real conversations is because at the 524 00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,720 end of the day, God has us on a journey to healing. 525 00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:40,160 And we need each other. We attach ourselves to things 526 00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:44,360 because we find them useful at some point in dealing with these 527 00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,240 sort of outsized emotions. And then those things that we 528 00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,520 attach to, they curve back in on us and they end up controlling 529 00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,600 us. And God is inviting us on a 530 00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:59,040 healing journey. So one of those journeys for me 531 00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:06,960 has been in this this journey of avarice, of greed, and it hasn't 532 00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,600 really shown up and tearing down barns and building a bigger one. 533 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:15,120 Let me tell you, it's mostly shown up for me in an anxiety 534 00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:17,800 that I'm going to run out of money. 535 00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:22,480 In my young adulthood, I had very little resources. 536 00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,600 And what that season did to my brain was it made me hyper 537 00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:30,480 fixated on scarcity and I developed this outsized fear. 538 00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:38,280 And then in that same season, my parents went bankrupt and they 539 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:42,159 lost their home. They lost everything they had. 540 00:34:42,159 --> 00:34:44,120 And So what do you think that did to my brain? 541 00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:50,239 It impacted it. And so I have never really had 542 00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,679 to think about what it would look like to tear down a barn 543 00:34:52,679 --> 00:34:56,000 and to build a bigger one. But I have been in seasons when 544 00:34:56,000 --> 00:35:01,040 I could feel myself hoarding more than I needed in a way that 545 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:05,720 had me fixated on security. And do you know what that does 546 00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:08,400 to us? It narrows our vision. 547 00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:12,440 It causes us to forget the needs of others. 548 00:35:12,720 --> 00:35:20,360 And it causes us to forget God. So this guy in the middle of a 549 00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,160 teaching blurts out in front of Jesus. 550 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,840 Teacher tell my brother to divide the family inheritance 551 00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:32,080 with me. And Jesus reveals how narrow 552 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:36,160 this guy's focus is by telling a story about a rich man who has a 553 00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,840 good year and he decides to build a bigger barn to store up 554 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:42,560 the extra. He says, you fool, this very 555 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,560 night your life is being demanded of you and the things 556 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,760 that you have prepared and set aside. 557 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,120 Where all of those things going to go? 558 00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:55,560 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are 559 00:35:55,560 --> 00:36:00,080 not rich towards God, which is another way of saying 560 00:36:00,240 --> 00:36:04,240 accumulating a bunch of stuff and fixating on the control and 561 00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:08,680 the security of possessions and investments is a really narrow 562 00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:11,360 and short sighted way of living in the world. 563 00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:18,400 And then he says there's a there's a better story for you 564 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,800 to live in. If we keep reading the passage 565 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:26,760 which I have up here, He says this, Jesus says to his 566 00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:31,680 disciples. Therefore, because of this story 567 00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:38,840 I have just told you, do not worry about your life, what you 568 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,440 will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. 569 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,360 For life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 570 00:36:45,720 --> 00:36:48,400 Consider the Ravens. They neither sow nor reap. 571 00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:54,480 They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them of. 572 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,920 How much more value are you than the birds? 573 00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:03,000 And can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to the span of 574 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,720 life? If then you are not able to do 575 00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:09,320 so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest of it? 576 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:12,480 Consider the lilies, how they grow. 577 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:17,200 They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you that Solomon in 578 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,240 all of his glory was not clothed like one of those flowers. 579 00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,800 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive 580 00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,600 today, and tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more will he 581 00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:32,960 clothe you, you of little faith. And do not keep seeking what you 582 00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:34,480 are to eat and what you are to drink. 583 00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:38,640 And do not keep worrying, for it is the nations of the world that 584 00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,200 seek all of these things, and your Father knows that you need 585 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:46,520 them. Instead, seek His Kingdom, and 586 00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,160 these things will be given to you as well. 587 00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:55,840 Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good 588 00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:57,560 pleasure to give you the Kingdom. 589 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:02,160 Feel free to sell your possessions and give to the 590 00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,640 poor. Make purses for yourself that do 591 00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,960 not wear out an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no 592 00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,840 thief comes near and no moth destroys. 593 00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:13,520 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be. 594 00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:19,960 Also. Remember, avarice is the desire 595 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:25,160 to possess more than you need. But it's also about loop, the 596 00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:30,160 fear of losing what you already have and the healing path. 597 00:38:30,720 --> 00:38:34,960 And the invitation of God is to live in a story that believes 598 00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:39,880 that God's posture towards us is everything I have is yours. 599 00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,160 That's what God's posture is towards us. 600 00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:50,920 Everything that we have, we have been given by God and we think 601 00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:54,440 that our desire for the next thing, or you know, what we 602 00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,200 think we need is going to satisfy us. 603 00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:01,920 And listen, friends, if you struggle with avarice as I have, 604 00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,000 if you're trying to break free from a scarcity mentality and be 605 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,320 healed of the passion of avarice. 606 00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,720 The temptation that we're fighting is this belief that if 607 00:39:11,720 --> 00:39:14,640 we get a little bit more, if we store up a little bit more that 608 00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,120 that anxiety that we have or that need for control that just 609 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:21,040 sits below the surface, it will somehow go away if we just get 610 00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,640 the thing right. If I could just get my savings 611 00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:30,680 account above that particular marker, but you know that this 612 00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,400 is not how desire actually works, right? 613 00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:37,680 Desire. All of your desires that you 614 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,400 could possibly name. Stay with me here. 615 00:39:41,240 --> 00:39:48,440 They're unquenchable. There's no satisfaction in the 616 00:39:48,440 --> 00:39:54,880 things that you desire. And the moment I know that I'm 617 00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:58,480 saying this, I know that there are some of you who are agreeing 618 00:39:58,480 --> 00:40:03,160 with me in a very deep way that you just know that you have 619 00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:11,120 insatiable desire for something. Intimacy, security, being well 620 00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:15,440 thought of, getting to the top of the food chain, getting that 621 00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,040 promotion, having enough in the bank. 622 00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,720 Those desires are insatiable desire itself. 623 00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,720 Is not the problem. And we try to fight all of this 624 00:40:25,720 --> 00:40:28,760 stuff by somehow minimizing our desire. 625 00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,640 The problem is that we think that there is anything in this 626 00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:40,360 world that can quench those desires, but the capacity of our 627 00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,440 desire is actually infinite. Why? 628 00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,760 Why is the capacity of our desire infinite? 629 00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:52,000 Because God is infinite. Gold Star for this one. 630 00:40:54,920 --> 00:41:01,000 And the only thing, the only reason that God has made your 631 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,680 desires infinite is so that he can be the only thing that fills 632 00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,840 it. And if you think about your 633 00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:12,880 desire that way, it's like, oh, thank you. 634 00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:19,120 Thank you for giving me this little wonder inside of me. 635 00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,400 It's just the natural consequence of our life that we 636 00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,880 have this fire that is burning inside of us and we're 637 00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,400 constantly trying to to quench that desire. 638 00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:35,240 And God's like, you could try whatever it is that you want, go 639 00:41:35,240 --> 00:41:40,640 for it because it's a drop in the bucket to the degree of the 640 00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,040 desire that God has given us. And the reason that God has 641 00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:49,360 given us that great desire is to lead us to Him and to one 642 00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:54,560 another. So our soul is shaped such that 643 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:58,920 our desire is stretched out towards what it longs for, and 644 00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:03,960 it longs for God. And God gives us what we need, 645 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,840 and His hope for us is that we could just keep wanting. 646 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,960 He actually wants us to want, but He wants us to know that He 647 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,080 is the fulfiller of those desires. 648 00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,680 Desire is not a defect, friends. It's a signal. 649 00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,840 It's in a it's a, it's an alarm bell in our soul that says there 650 00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,440 is something infinite that I have put in front of you. 651 00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:29,880 It's why the birds aren't anxious. 652 00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,160 They take the food that they receive for that day with the 653 00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:36,240 expectation that there's going to be more food for tomorrow. 654 00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:42,240 Because God is a God who says everything I have is yours. 655 00:42:42,240 --> 00:42:44,080 Everything I have belongs to you. 656 00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,720 I'm getting signals from the room that perhaps my time is up, 657 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,120 which is great because I'm at the end of my notes. 658 00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:52,360 But here's what we're going to do. 659 00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:59,560 Everything I have is yours. That's God's posture towards us. 660 00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:07,880 God also desires us to become like him in this particular way 661 00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,440 so that we get to the point where we say to one another, 662 00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:16,920 everything I have is yours. So I'm going to invite the 663 00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:23,000 worship team to come back up. We're going to get really 664 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,200 practical for our time of ministry. 665 00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:30,760 Welcome kids. It's OK. 666 00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:32,640 We're going to start the music any minute now. 667 00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:40,440 Can those who are on our prayer team, can you guys begin to make 668 00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:45,040 your way around? Here's a couple ways that I want 669 00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:53,040 to invite you to maybe respond. If, if you can notice that fear 670 00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:57,520 inside of you that you're going to run out, if you can notice 671 00:43:57,520 --> 00:44:01,760 that that's actually true, I would love for you to get some 672 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:05,960 prayer today. Friends, we cannot combat what 673 00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:12,600 needs to be healed by ourselves. And the second thing that I 674 00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:17,920 would just invite you really practically to do is to make use 675 00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:25,280 of that shared economy fund, both asking of it, but even more 676 00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:29,120 important is if you notice some anxiety around money in your 677 00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,680 life, around having enough. I would invite you to give to 678 00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:39,600 the shared economy fund as a way of discipling your heart towards 679 00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:43,080 recognizing that God is going to supply everything that you need. 680 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,040 And some of that will come through the community. 681 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:50,120 What I would much rather have happen is for you to give a 682 00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:54,360 bunch of money to the shared economy fund and then six months 683 00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,560 from now realize I think I need some of that money back. 684 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:00,520 And then you make a request. Does that make sense? 685 00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,680 That creates A mutuality that we're trying to build. 686 00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:06,960 So think about what's in your savings account. 687 00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,680 And what we're trying to do with the shared economy fund is 688 00:45:09,680 --> 00:45:14,560 imagine a shared savings account so that maybe in this season 689 00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,080 you're giving into that account with the trust that when you 690 00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,560 have need some time down the road that you can actually just 691 00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:25,480 ask for some of that money. OK, so we can do this together. 692 00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,120 I want to invite you to stand and worship Parker. 693 00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:29,520 Do you have anything that you want to add? 694 00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,040 No Parker's like you got it. OK, Come forward for prayer. 695 00:45:33,040 --> 00:45:34,040 Let's worship together.