In Luke 12:1, Jesus is speaking to His disciples in the midst of thousands of people. After having recently called out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, He was speaking in a hostile environment. For Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees gave but they did not give from their heart. It is in this context that Jesus begins His discourse to His disciples. 

We are going to be jumping into this text at Luke 12:13-14 where “someone in the crowd says to Him, “Teacher tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Now, here at Luke 12:15, we will begin our examination of the text.

Greed: Abundance and Possessions  

Luke 12:15 “Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.”

The greed, simply put, is wanting more and more and more of the same thing. You want to possess it in abundance. But here is the caution: though you may have an abundance of whatever it is that can be possessed, your life does not consist, nor is sustained or held up by your possessions. 

 Luke 12:16-20 “And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. “And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’“Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ‘And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” ’“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’”

The land was very productive. Land can produce many things, like fruit and vegetables. Jesus gives the parable to help us to see that with this man he is focused on storing what the land had produced. So much so, that when he doesn’t have enough space for what he has, he wants to build bigger barns to store more.  He is so satisfied that he believes his soul, can be satisfied, and satiated with his possessions.

             Jesus says beware of every form of greed (Luke 12:15). So, imagine yourself working at a company, you are focused on making more money and items being well stocked because your job is very productive. Then you begin thinking to yourself “Because I have so much money I will expand my structure of investment or my bank account and put my money into something bigger that can store all of my money.  

As a result you hold on to that money so that you can have wealth for years and years to come. Now you say “I can have peace because I have wealth now. I can eat, drink and be happy because I can afford anything I want.” Then God may say, “You fool this very night your soul is required of you and who will now own all the money that you have gathered for yourself?” 

We in America call this storage of a massive amount money to live in ease –  retirement. There is much obsession, compulsiveness, enslavement, dedication and greed that leads us to want to have a good retirement. Ask yourself what you are really working toward because it is not life because it does not consist in the abundance of your possessions.

Luke 12:21 “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

  Jesus is teaching us if you only store up treasure for yourself and your abundance is not given to the cause of the mighty, one true God then you are a fool, an idiot, and stupid if you live in that way. 

            Next, please understand the vanity of working for treasure only for yourself. Please realize that this is an attitude of the heart, a way of thinking that produces bad fruit, greed, and foolishness. 

Consider Solomon who was ruling over the Kingdom of Israel and he was given wisdom, riches, and honor (1 King 5:5-15). In Ecclesiastes, our Father helps us and those at the time, understand the vanity of various pursuits in life. Solomon begins a discourse on the futility or vanity, which is emptiness, of possessing much abundance in life. The hope is to understand the mentality of greediness and that striving in this mindset is not acceptable to the one true God.

Ecc. 5:10 “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.”

Next, consider an example of Solomon, the wisest king of his time and a man of God, who has experienced going through the process of acquiring an abundance of possessions and money. We can learn from his experience and listen and heed the warning. 

Ecc. 2:4-6 “I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees.”

He already had works that he enlarged. He had the mentality of wanting more. He had built houses for himself. A modern comparison may be a general contractor wanting perhaps to build another house and another house, Solomon dealt with houses too. He planted vineyards for himself. Like farmers wanting to have a plethora of fruit trees and produce, he did that too. People that want to dig ponds and build irrigation systems to work for your vineyards and orchards, he did that too.

Ecc. 2:7 “I bought male and female slaves and I had homeborn slaves. Also, I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem.”

Again, for the farmers out there, Solomon had many animals, such that he had more than anyone who had preceded him in Jerusalem. For you ranchers out there out there, had a ranch too.

Ecc. 2:8. “Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces.”

For those of you who like to dabble with silver, gold, money, the stock market, 401K, valuable art work, valuable cars, valuable figurines and artifacts amassing great wealth, he did those types of things too.

Ecc. 2:8b “I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men—many concubines.”

For those who like entertainment, singing, shows, plays, movies, large flat screen T.Vs  and speakers systems that have the high quality sound, Solomon liked entertainment too. 

Ecc. 2:9-11 “Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me. All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.”

The wealthiest man of his time, a man of God, one guided by wisdom, who never held back from getting desires of his heart said, from experience and by the inspiration of the one true God, all was vanity and striving after the wind. Moreover, greed is striving after the wind and vanity. So then what must the disciple do to deal with the mentality of greed? The answer is be rich toward God. That is let your abundance be foremost in the name of God.

Luke 12:21 “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Luke 12:33-34 “Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

To emphasize this idea consider the command in. Col. 3:2-3. But first know the context, here the context is concerning death in Christ. Through baptism we have been buried with Christ, and having been raised up, our life is in Christ. Moreover, we saints have a body of flesh, yet in Christ we have circumcised the body of flesh. Due to those things we should put away the earthly body that is dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed which amounts to idolatry (Col. 3:5).

Col. 3:2-3 “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”’

Luke 12:15 says “Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist in his possessions.” 

Truly our life does not consist in our possessions but rather our life is in Christ.  In Christ alone, so let us all die in our flesh to greed as disciples of Christ. Willing to sell our possessions and to understand how vain and empty it is to gather possessions for ourselves, storing them and not being rich toward God. Disciples, as you go about your day striving to accumulate possessions whether it be money, clothing, food, or the next new thing, consider what the scriptures say so that you do not find yourself having the mentality of greed.