As most of you know, Monica and I came very close to purchasing a home in December. We didn’t really want a house. We certainly didn’t want the distractions of a mortgage, lawn mowing, yard work, snow shoveling, a longer drive to work, or a million other fine benefits of home ownership. But we’re both 48 years old now and we haven’t done that much to begin preparing for retirement. And if we’re going to have beaches and sunshine in our golden years, we need to get serious about retirement planning now, right? Isn’t that what we’re all told?
Of course there’s sound, mature and completely biblical wisdom in that thinking, but our Scripture text today causes me to wonder. Which retirement should we spend our best energy preparing for? Which retirement should we spend more time thinking about – our retirement from some earthly job or our retirement from earthly life? As we close our conversation about truly living like we are dying this morning, I beg us all to consider how much we truly embrace our completely inevitable eternity. What sort of eternity are we preparing our selves to enjoy?
What answers are we giving to these eternal questions? In Luke 12, someone tried to involve Jesus in a family money squabble. Jesus happened to be teaching about hypocrisy, when a man interrupted him, perhaps thinking of someone he considered a hypocrite. But Jesus recognized the deeper greed issues behind the squabble and shared a very sobering story. He refused to take sides, but instead discussed the motivations driving the argument. Beginning in verse 13, reading from the New Living Translation, we read:
Then someone called from the crowd, “Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me.” [Take my side and get me my money!] Jesus replied, “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?” Then he said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” Then he told them a story: “A rich man [he was already rich] had a fertile farm [the word used here implies a large territory] that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!” ’ [Me, my, mine – very self-obsessed!] But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. [Your debt is due!] Then who will get everything you worked for?’ Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”
This parable punches our culture in the teeth! While most of our culture would praise this fellow as a good businessman, Jesus calls him a fool. Jesus paints him as a selfish idiot.
Why? What exactly does the rich fool do wrong? There is a lot of foolishness to discuss in this story, but let’s limit ourselves to just three of his most glaringly foolish behaviors.
He Lived Like This Life Was All There Is
The first one is the most obvious. This foolish man lived like this life was all there is. He acted as though all that mattered was the pleasure he could provide for himself in this life. He forgot we are not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying – we are in the land of the dying going to the land of the living. As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.” This life is not all there is. The sooner we understand that, the better we off we will be.
Do you remember the old bedtime prayers people used to pray with their children? Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Grim! Did you know there used to be another even more gruesome verse included in that prayer? Our days begin with trouble here, our life is but a span, and cruel death is always near, so frail a thing is man. Good night, honey! Pleasant dreams!
When John Ortberg commented on this old prayer in his most recent book, he said, “There was a day, much different than ours, when children said this prayer by the millions. Somebody wanted children to know: earth is fallen and broken and not our home. Life is not permanent. Death is both twisted and inevitable, and human life hangs by a slender thread. We have an [eternal] soul and not just a body. God is the kind of person who can be trusted with our eternal destiny. To be clear about who keeps our souls is infinitely important.”
This life is not all there is. This life is not about some foolish accumulation of stuff. This life is not about guaranteeing a good spot on the beach when you’re seventy! It is about fully enjoying your spot in eternity! We all know these things if we’re honest with ourselves…
Fortune magazine once quoted comments made by billionaire H. Ross Perot: "Guys, just remember, if you get real lucky, if you make a lot of money, if you go out and buy a lot of stuff-- it's gonna break. You got your biggest, fanciest mansion in the world. It has air conditioning. It's got a pool. Just think of all the pumps that are going to go out. Or go to a yacht basin any place in the world. Nobody is smiling, and I'll tell you why. Something broke that morning. The generator's out; the microwave oven doesn't work. ... Things just don't mean happiness."
This life is not all there is. Any fool should know this.
He Lived Like There Would Always Be More Time
The second foolish thing our wealthy, biblical retirement planner does is also obvious. He forgot that the clock is always, always, always ticking. He lived like there would always be more time. This fool could control his business beautifully, but he forgot he couldn’t control the ticking clock. James 4:14 echoes this theme very bluntly. “How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” While it is wise, mature stewardship to plan for the future, we must never forget we are not guaranteed an earthly future. We are not guaranteed more time. There will not always be more time.
Speaker and author Carol Kent knows something about time. She was on the fast track to becoming an absentee parent--until her young son, Jason, made a simple observation. She recalls: "We were eating breakfast together, and I had on an old pair of slacks and a fuzzy old sweater. He flashed his baby blues at me over his cereal bowl and said, 'Mommy, you look so pretty today.' I didn't even have makeup on! So I said, 'Honey, why would you say I look pretty today? Normally I'm dressed in a suit and high heels.' And he said, 'When you look like that, I know you're going some place; but when you look like this, I know you're mine.'”
There is not always going to be more time to share breakfast cereal with our kids. We don’t know how much time we’re going to get. Time is an arrogant human joke…this life is not interested in what your watch says. Almighty God is not following your silly schedule.
Erma Landis told a great story years ago of how, for decades, anyone living within five or six miles of “the hat factory in Denver, Pennsylvania, set their clocks and watches by the sirens the hat factory set off five days a week. At 5:30 a.m., the wake-up siren would begin the day followed by the starting, lunchtime, and quitting sirens at the designated times. When the siren system was eventually disbanded, a friend of mine was reminiscing with the timekeeper about his job. "What did you use to determine the exact time?" With a twinkle in his eye, the man reached in his pocket and pulled out an ancient Mickey Mouse watch.”
Folks; time is a Mickey Mouse deal without any guarantees at all. We don’t know when our cheap watches will stop ticking. We must live every moment of our lives aware of that fact.
He Prepared For The Wrong Retirement
This life is not all there is. We are not promised all the time we want. And if we don’t understand those two facts, we will make the same foolish third mistake the rich fool in this Bible parable did. We will prepare ourselves for the wrong retirement. We will run the serious risk of losing everything; we will lose not only all the silly barns full of wealth we’ve worked so hard to build and hoard for ourselves but, exponentially worse, we will risk losing the eternity of bliss and wonder God has planned for us. We’ll not only lose the condo, we’ll risk the castle!
Please don’t underestimate the severity of this parable. We risk losing everything if we embrace the foolish, money-grubbing, rich guy perspectives of this world. Do you remember exactly what Jesus taught us all in Luke 9:25, just a few chapters before this story? “How do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose or forfeit your own soul in the process?” We must not waste our lives preparing for the wrong retirement!
Next Sunday morning, we’re going to spend a few moments exploring some of what the Bible has to say about heaven and our eternity with God. We’re going to cover a lot of ground, so I’ll only share one verse on this subject here today. I would simply ask each of us consider what we think the Apostle Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 2:9, when he said, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.” Jesus shared this harsh story about the rich fool because the worst tragedy of all would be to waste our temporal lives on some perverted, foolish rich guy rush for the wrong retirement and then, risk losing the opportunity to experience the ultimate retirement after this life is over! Can any of us even imagine the glorious eternity our Heavenly Father has planned? Do any of us honestly want to risk losing that? Not me.
This foolish rich man prepared for the wrong retirement. Don’t follow in his footsteps!
As I close this morning, I find myself almost haunted by the final question God asks the rich fool in our Bible passage. Who is going to get everything you’ve been working for?
J. Vernon McGee, in his commentary on this passage, shared a humorous cowboy grave stone epitaph which read: “Here lies John Racket in his wooden jacket. He kept neither horses nor mules. He lived like a hog. He died like a dog. And he left all his money to fools.”
Is that how any of us want to be remembered? Who is going to benefit from how we’re living our lives? Who is going to get everything we’re working for? Are we planning for our eternal retirement? Or are we just leaving a bunch of money for other greedy fools to devour?
The story is told of an accountant speaking with a lawyer about the final will and testament of a multimillionaire who had just died. The accountant asked, “So, how much money did the old guy leave behind?” And the lawyer responded, “All of it.”
Do we get that? Do we really? We’re going to leave all this behind.
Which retirement are you preparing for?
Jesus made a way for us in the wilderness. Jesus taught us how to joyously live each day as if it will be our last. Don’t waste another moment of your life foolishly working for or obsessing over things that will not last. Accept the free offer of life and salvation Jesus gives you. Surrender your heart and open your life to the wonderful power and leadership of the Holy Spirit. Come close to your Heavenly Father and He will surely come close to you!
May you embrace eternity today! May you live this day as though you were dying!
Amen.
