Luke 12:13-34 / The Parable of the Rich Fool
Church, it is so good to be with you. My name is Dominic. I was born and raised in San Diego. My wife, Tara—we are celebrating eight years and two weeks of marriage—is right over there. She is the hottie in the hat, so guys, no looking; she is mine! We have two wonderful kids: our boy, Asher, who is four, almost five, and our little girl, Amalia, who turns three next week.
Tonight, I come before you feeling deeply humbled and even a little nervous. The word that I believe God has laid on my heart to share is something I wrestle with every single day. I do not stand up here pretending I have this all figured out. If anything, I am opening up my own closet tonight and saying, “Here is my junk too. Come walk through this with me.”
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Luke chapter 12. I have been loving this parable series. We have such great communicators in our church. Last week, Jeff did an incredible job teaching about the cost of forgiveness—seeing the woman come to the feet of Jesus with that costly worship, pouring out everything she had before Him. Tonight, we pick up in Luke 12, verse 13, a few years into Jesus’ earthly ministry, looking at the Parable of the Rich Fool.
The Battle of Two Gospels
I want to start by sharing a daily battle I face. Every day, I feel combated by two completely different gospels.
The first gospel is the gospel of this world, and it tells me: It is all about you. You know exactly what I am talking about. When our son Asher was a baby, he had this cute little bib from Target that said, “It’s all about me.” When a baby wears that, it is adorable. You look at him and think, Totally, buddy, it’s all about you. But then I put that same bib on as a thirty-year-old man, look at my wife, and say, “See? It’s all about me!” She just looks at me and says, “You are ridiculous. Go away.”
Yet the world constantly reinforces that message. In Old Town Clovis, there is an actual boutique called It’s All About Me. The culture around me is constantly whispering, Dominic, it’s about you. It’s about what you need. It’s about what you want. It’s all about building a kingdom for yourself. Consume, buy, build up, and store up treasures for yourself right here.
Then I open the Word of God, and I gather with you on Sunday, and we sing songs about the kingdom of God—songs declaring, Everything I am for Your kingdom’s cause. And those two messages are completely contrary. Scripture gives us a gospel that says it is all about Him, living entirely for Him.
I struggle with that contrast because this one hour we spend together on Sunday feels so vastly different from the rest of the week. Out there, the world spends roughly $430 billion a year on advertising alone just to convince you that your life is discontent unless you drive this car, wear these clothes, buy that house, or get your kids into a specific school district in a certain zip code. These two kingdoms are constantly colliding within my heart.
I wrestle with it because a part of me wants those things. I want the nice car. I want the nice house. I want the great clothes. We moved from San Diego to Fresno, and we have had to wrestle through leaving behind coastal beauty because God said, “Go over here now.” Over recent months, I have noticed that consumer mindset creeping into my heart. April 15 comes around, and I realize I am getting a tax refund. My immediate first thought is rarely, How can I bless someone with this? How can I give this away to someone in need? My immediate instinct is, Awesome, now I can buy that thing I’ve been wanting. Now I can do this for myself and store up a little more comfort right here.
The church has bought into that secular philosophy. The lie says, “This is your best life now.” But it is not your best life now. Your best life is yet to come.
Do you remember a while back when the world was supposedly going to end on May 21? People actually believed it. The news stories the following week broke my heart. People had emptied their bank accounts, maxed out credit cards, and taken out massive loans they thought they would never have to repay because Jesus was returning. They went on lavish vacations, bought luxury cars, and grabbed every gadget they could find. Then May 22 rolled around, and everyone said, “Uh-oh.”
Is that really what we want Christ to find us doing when He returns? Do you want Jesus to return and say, “Well done, good and faithful servant—you racked up debt and bought a mountain of junk for yourself”? Does building a temporary kingdom for yourself reflect a heart that is truly satisfied in Christ?
I know that struggle firsthand because I feel that pull toward the car, the vacation, the house, and the gadgets. But as we look at Luke 12, we see Jesus directly confront this mindset. He calls us to a countercultural way of living that flips the world’s message upside down.
The Interruption in the Crowd
Let’s look at Luke chapter 12, beginning in verse 13.
Luke 12:13-14 (NASB)
Someone in the crowd said 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?’
To set the scene: Jesus has been dealing with religious leaders who were constantly trying to trap Him. He had just cast out demons, and the Pharisees accused Him of working by the power of Satan. Jesus boldly confronted them, pronouncing woes upon their hypocrisy. Meanwhile, thousands of people have gathered—so many that verse 1 tells us they were literally stepping on one another just to get close to Him.
Jesus is in the middle of teaching this massive crowd on eternal life, the fear of God, salvation, hell, and the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. He is unveiling weighty, eternal realities. And right in the middle of this profound teaching, a man in the crowd interrupts and says, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Can you imagine? Jesus is speaking about eternal souls and the judgment of God, and this guy is just tapping his foot, waiting for a break in the sermon to say, “Excuse me, Rabbi, can You make my brother give me my cash?”
According to Jewish custom, the oldest son received a double portion of the family inheritance and often acted as the administrator of the estate after the father’s death. This man was likely a younger brother who felt slighted, believing his older brother was withholding money. He sees a popular Rabbi with massive influence and tries to recruit Jesus as his personal financial arbitrator.
Notice how Jesus responds in verse 14: “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Jesus refuses to get entangled in the surface-level dispute because He knows the real problem lies much deeper.
The Anatomy of Covetousness
Jesus turns from the man to address the entire crowd.
Luke 12:15 (NASB)
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.’
Imagine being that brother. You ask for financial mediation, and Jesus turns around and uses you as an object lesson for thousands of people: “Beware of what this man is doing!”
Jesus uses a military term for “take care” and “be on guard”—meaning to watch over with protective diligence, to garrison a post against an enemy. The enemy He warns against is covetousness. Covetousness is greed; it is the insatiable lust for more possessions, a craving so intense that you are willing to enslave your life to acquire what you do not have.
Every Jewish listener in that crowd would have immediately recognized the Tenth Commandment: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, his wife, his servants, his livestock, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. The root issue with the man demanding his inheritance was not injustice; it was a lack of contentment.
King Solomon, the wealthiest man in biblical history, wrote in Ecclesiastes that whoever loves money never has enough, and whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. Did you walk in here tonight with a heart fully satisfied in Christ, or did you come in thinking your greatest need is more?
We covet constantly without realizing it. We think, I have the black iPhone, but now they released it in white. I need the white one. Or, The iPhone 5 is coming out; I can’t wait. We say, I like our house, but at 2,000 square feet, we are just stepping all over each other. It’s not enough. We need an upgrade.
The Apostle Paul reveals the true spiritual gravity of this mindset in his letters to the Colossians and Ephesians.
Colossians 3:5 (NASB)
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
Ephesians 5:5 (NASB)
For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Paul explicitly equates greed and covetousness with idolatry. Idolatry happens when I ascribe more worth, power, and security to a created thing than to the Creator Himself. I bow down to an idol because I deceive myself into believing it will satisfy my soul more deeply than God can.
Like all false gods, the idol of materialism is completely unquenchable. The worshiper inevitably becomes enslaved to the idol. In America today, the average person carries thousands of dollars in credit card debt simply trying to feed an insatiable appetite for more stuff. We tell ourselves we just want security, comfort, or status.
When I was a single guy, I used to drive a total hooptie car. It was so beat up that the driver’s side door wouldn’t open; I had to climb out through the passenger door every single time. Tara still married me despite that car, which is how I know she truly loves me! But imagine taking a girl out on a date like that—climbing out the passenger side, living in your parents’ house with milk-crate furniture, ordering off the dollar menu, saying, “Order whatever you want, baby, super-size it on me!” We laugh, but our culture tells us that without the right car, the right clothes, and the right salary, we have no value.
We wrap our identity up in what we wear, what we drive, and the neighborhood we live in. We make $20,000 a year but live like we make $60,000 because we are desperate for the significance that possessions promise. Jesus cuts through all of that and says: Your identity, your comfort, and your ultimate security belong to Me alone. Guard your heart against covetousness.
The Parable of the Rich Fool
To drive this home, Jesus tells a story.
Luke 12:16-19 (NASB)
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.’’
In the original language, the phrase describing the man reasoning with himself implies an irrational mind debating with another irrational mind. You and I know what that internal dialogue feels like. You receive a paycheck and debate: Do I tithe faithfully and give generously, or do I buy that gadget I’ve been eyeing?
According to the Mosaic Law, when God increased a person’s agricultural harvest, that abundance was meant to overflow in generosity toward the poor, the widow, and the orphan. The crowd listening to Jesus would have expected the rich farmer to say, “Look at this incredible blessing from God! Let me distribute it to those in need.”
Instead, the rich man conducts an entirely self-absorbed monologue: What shall I do? I have nowhere to store my crops. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain. I will say to my soul, you have plenty laid up. Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.
Does that sound familiar? We live in a culture that has mastered the art of building bigger barns. Over the past few decades, the average family size in America has decreased by 25 percent, yet the average home size has increased by more than 50 percent. Today, there are five times more self-storage facilities in the United States than there are Starbucks locations. We keep buying and amassing so much stuff that our oversized homes and two-car garages cannot hold it all, so we pay monthly rent to store our excess in a metal box across town.
My wife and I recently had a garage sale. We moved nine months ago, and as I looked through boxes that had sat untouched in the garage that entire time, I watched people buy my possessions for pocket change. I spent $50 on an item, and someone gave me $2 for it. I spent $150 on something else, and someone negotiated me down to a quarter. As I stood on my lawn, I realized: At one point in my life, I genuinely believed I could not live without that item. I saved up for it, bought it, and now I am practically begging strangers to haul it away.
Tara and I sometimes watch that television show Hoarders. Every time I watch an episode, I want to clean my entire house and throw everything away. That extreme hoarding is a heartbreaking reflection of the human heart: believing that our security and peace depend on clinging tightly to stuff.
The rich farmer looked at his vast reserves and said, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” You could easily cross out those words in your Bible and write the word retirement. There is nothing wrong with wise planning, but this man believed his wealth could secure his soul. He celebrated his personal achievement with an attitude of self-satisfied triumph.
But God
Then comes the turning point of the story.
Luke 12:20-21 (NASB)
’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?’ ‘So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.’
“But God…”
God—Theos, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the One who gives breath to every living creature—steps into the man’s self-congratulatory moment. The farmer thought he was the master of his own destiny. But God looks at him and says, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you.”
In Scripture, a “fool” is not someone lacking intellect; it is someone who lacks spiritual wisdom and fails to live in light of eternal reality. This man was entirely consumed by the temporal present. He never looked up to thank God, and he never looked out to help his neighbor. His finite mind concluded that true life consists in the accumulation of stuff.
Make no mistake: we are the rich man in this parable.
It is easy to sit in our seats, hear this story, and think of someone else. We think, Yeah, Bill Gates really needs to hear this sermon! But in his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, Ronald Sider reminds us how skewed our perspective can be. If you woke up today with clean running water, a roof over your head, food to eat, clothes to wear, and transportation to get here, you are among the wealthiest people on the planet.
An average child born in America consumes exponentially more resources than a child born in the developing world. By global standards, virtually every person in this room sits among the wealthiest five percent of the world’s population. Yet many of us feel chronically stressed and broke because we have enslaved ourselves to lifestyle inflation, accumulating debt to worship a material idol that will never satisfy our souls.
Rich Toward God
Jesus calls us to break free from that spiritual bondage. Scripture tells us that a generous person will prosper, and whoever refreshes others will themselves be refreshed. God desires for us to live lives that are rich toward Him—lives defined by radical contentment and open-handed generosity.
Directly following this parable, Jesus turns to His disciples to show them the antidote to covetousness.
Luke 12:22-24 (NASB)
And He said to His disciples, ’For this reason I say to you, do not worry about [your] life, [as to] what you will eat; nor for your body, [as to] what you will put on. ’For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. ’Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and [yet] God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!
Luke 12:31-34 (NASB)
’But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. ’Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. ’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.
Jesus tells His followers: Do not be anxious about your life. Look at the ravens and the lilies. If your heavenly Father cares for them, how much more will He care for you? Seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided for you.
He calls them to sell their possessions and give to the needy, storing up treasures in heaven that will never fail. Why? Because this world is not our ultimate home. As believers, we have been guaranteed an eternal kingdom.
Ephesians 1:13-14 (NASB)
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation– having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of [God’s own] possession, to the praise of His glory.
Paul tells us that we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment guaranteeing our eternal inheritance. If we are co-heirs with Christ, possessing an unshakeable heavenly kingdom, why do we spend our lives scrambling to build fragile, temporary kingdoms on earth?
A close friend of mine whom I discipled back in San Diego went through this exact journey. He was twenty-six years old, working as an engineer with a great salary and a company car. He bought a beautiful home in an affluent neighborhood and invited all of us over for a housewarming party. The house looked like something straight out of an HGTV magazine spread. It was stunning.
A month later, he sent me a text that caught me completely off guard: “I’m selling everything.”
His family and coworkers thought he had lost his mind. But he told me, “Dominic, God convicted me that over the past few months, every ounce of my energy, time, and money has been spent building bigger barns for myself. The Lord is challenging me to simplify my life down to just one hundred total items.”
He gave himself six months to give away and sell his excess. He eventually got down to ninety-two possessions, rented out his condo, and moved into simple living quarters. When I checked in on him recently, he told me: “For the first time in my life, because I am no longer consumed with buying the next thing, my eyes are actually open to the needs of the people around me. I don’t need things to give me an identity; I am secure in Christ. Now, when I see a person in need, I have the time and resources to buy them lunch and share the gospel. When I hear of a family struggling in church, I can anonymously write a check to help them, because this isn’t my kingdom anyway.”
The Call to Contentment
Church, do we truly believe Jesus when He says that our lives do not consist in the abundance of our possessions? Or are we still secretly convinced that our joy, worth, and peace will come from that next purchase, that next promotion, or that next home?
As the church—the ekklesia, the called-out people of God—we are summoned to live distinctly from the surrounding culture. We are called to reject the gospel of “It’s all about me” and embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ with open hands and surrendered hearts.
As we respond in worship tonight, let us bring our covetousness, our consumerism, and our financial anxieties to the feet of Jesus. Let us ask God to break the power of idols in our lives so that we might find our deepest satisfaction in Him alone.
Let’s pray together.
Father, tonight we come before You with honest hearts. We confess how easily we are seduced by the messages of this world. We confess our tendencies to hoard, to covet, and to build bigger barns for ourselves while neglecting Your kingdom and the needs of those around us.
Lord, forgive us for seeking life and security in things that can never satisfy. By Your Holy Spirit, reshape our desires. Help us to find soul-level contentment in Jesus Christ alone. Break the chains of materialism in our hearts and teach us what it means to be truly rich toward God.
Grant us the courage to live generously, to hold our possessions loosely, and to invest our lives in the eternal kingdom to come. We give You our hearts, our resources, and our lives tonight. In the precious name of Jesus we pray. Amen.