Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you: if you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org.
Well, why don't you turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 12? Luke chapter 12. And my message title is The Things. That own us. the things that own us.
And while you turn there, I'll share Recently, it was like a year or two ago, I was going through my mail and I feel like all my mail is 90% junk mail lately. Like it's just tons of junk mail, just trash, trash, you know, credit card incentive, whatever it might be. And as I'm going through all this stuff, one letter stuck out and it definitely brought a cold chill down my spine. I looked at it, great. No, it wasn't a jury duty summons.
It wasn't even a bill, it was a super bill. Collections notice. Oh man, collections, seriously?
So I opened this thing up. My wife's not here today, so I'll just say it. My wife opened up a credit card. It was a gap credit card. A gap credit card.
We don't even shop at the gap, but you open up a gap credit card. There was an incentive that basically offered like 15% off your first purchase. Like, okay, great. I think we saved $12, okay? And she paid for it.
And I think we bought like $150 worth of clothing like eight years earlier or something.
Well, She didn't pay that credit card bill off. And so it accumulated and accumulated and accumulated. And when it came to me, it was $1,200. $1,200, yeah. Yeah, and this didn't go straight, you know, zero to 60.
It went, you know, $100, $300, $600, $900, then finally, $1,200. And this is not something that you can just make like payments on, like, oh, I'm going to pay $40 a month because the APR was 30%, right? This is one of those things where it's like, okay, we just got to take two big chunks. And so it was crazy. If we had just paid the minimum, it was so funny because we're looking, it's like, oh, what's the minimum we could pay?
You could pay $30 a month. Oh, great. 28 of that is just going to the interest. Only $2 was actually going to go to the balance itself.
So at that rate, $1,400 divided by two, 700 months. I mean, you do the math. This would have taken us a lifetime to pay off. And we would have paid tens of thousands of dollars at that rate. Crazy.
Crazy, this was a bill, this was something that was really just being a draw on our finances, and we didn't even know it. We didn't even realize it at the time. It's crazy, but I feel like we've all been there. Maybe not a $1,400 or $1,200 collections notice, but maybe you had a subscription that you signed up for that you completely forgot about, right? And then you go and do like a little audit on your finances, and you're like, what is this thing for $39.99?
You're like, oh my gosh, I signed up for some stupid streaming service because I wanted to watch a British TV show one time.
So I signed up for a free week and I forgot. That was five years ago.
Now I've paid thousands of dollars. I haven't even watched it since then. Oh my gosh. I know I've been there. That's happened to me for sure, obviously, in more ways than once.
But it's painful when you realize. You have just been paying for something you haven't even been benefiting from, right? Not even been benefiting from it. It's a draw on your finances.
Well, I feel like in the same way, in our spiritual life, there are things that we are subscribing to, that we are making spiritual payments to, that are not benefiting us. That are not helping us, that actually are a draw on us and are taking away from the things we care about the most, right? Things that drain our energy and our attention from the things that we really care about, like our families, our productivity, our health, and most importantly, our relationship with God. From the time we wake up in the morning and open up our eyeballs, there are things that are jockeying for our attention, right? Your phone, the algorithm, social media, online shopping, the news, whatever it might be, it's trying to get us to pay attention to it because that's how they get ad revenue, right?
Clicks and whatever else. They get, you know, views, and so they get their ad revenue. The algorithms, whether it's shopping or social media or even the news, they are telling you, custom tailoring things for your needs, for your preferences, so it will extract the maximum amount of screen time from you.
So you will spend the most amount of time looking at it as possible. All kinds of things vying for our attention. And what we're going to see in our text today. Is Jesus address some of these things that are spiritual subscriptions that many of us are subscribing to and giving energy to, whether we realize it or not? And Jesus not only identifies them, but he also gives us the remedy for them.
And so we're going to be looking at Luke chapter 12. Starting in verse 1. In a little context, what we're going to see is that Jesus delivers a sermon to a huge group of people. Luke tells us in verse 1: it is an innumerable multitude. That means a whole lot of people.
Commentators speculate it was upwards of 10,000 people.
So, I mean, that's a mass of people, especially if you're not using projection or anything like that. No microphones back then. But the words that Jesus shares over 2,000 years ago in a certain place, it doesn't identify if it was Galilee or Judea or where it might be. The things that were preached in that certain place could just as easily be preached today at the Coachella Valley Music Festival to a bunch of 20-somethings that are going and gathering for a very different reason than to hear from Jesus. The things that Jesus says are just as relevant today as they were back then.
So let's look at verse 1. Again, my message title is The Things That Own Us. In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, So that they trampled one another, that's not good. He began to say to his disciples, first of all, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.
Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light. And what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. And I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more than they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him, who after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell.
Yes, I say to you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. Let's pause there.
That brings us to point number one. The first thing that draws our attention, that makes those withdrawals in our spiritual life, is fear. Fear. It's interesting how fear changes as you get older, isn't it? When you're a little kid, the things that you're afraid of are primarily external, right?
You're afraid of things that are external. You're scared of that dog that runs to the fence and barks at you when you ride your bike. You're afraid of that loud noise at night outside of your house. You're afraid of the monsters underneath the bed. You're afraid of the dark.
You're afraid of external things, things that maybe seek to cause you harm. And what do you do?
Well, when you're a little kid, when you have a bad dream, you go and you run into your parents' bed, right? And you snuggle up in between them and you give your dad a bad neckache that he's never gonna get past completely. You go and crawl into bed with your parents, or you cling to your dad, you cling to your mom as a source of safety as that scary dog goes by and barks at you. I still do this as an adult today, 40 years old. No, just kidding.
I'm not afraid of dogs. But it's interesting the kids they don't hide their fear They don't hide their fear. It's honest and it's unashamed. I'm afraid of that dog because that dog could bite me and hurt me. I'm afraid of the dark because I can't see what's there and my imagination plays tricks on me.
We can learn from kids, can't we? We can learn from them because what they do with their fear is what we should do with ours. They run to a source of safety.
Now, when we have fears as adults, as young people, as old people, and our fears are different as we age. We should run with our fears to a source of safety. And what is that source of safety? It's our Father in heaven who says, don't worry about anything, but. Pray.
about everything. Don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Isn't that good? God tells us, come to me with your fear.
You've got something that you're afraid and concerned about, don't wrestle in bed with it. Don't let it cause you to lose sleep. If it wakes you up in the middle of the night, bring it to me in prayer, and I will give you peace that surpasses understanding. This is what we are to do. We can learn a lot from our kids when they come and crawl in bed in between us, right?
They want to feel safe. They want to feel secure. We need to call out to our Father in heaven when we have those same feelings. As we get older, when we become teenagers, Those external fears kind of fade away, and we're not so concerned about the dog, you know, barking in the middle of the night. We're not afraid of the dark anymore, and we're definitely not afraid of our parents leaving for an amount of time.
Right? When you're little, you're scared your parents are going to leave you in the middle of the night. You're going to be all alone. As a teenager, you're praying for this moment. Please, mom and dad, go away for a week, go away for a month to a far-off place.
That would be just fine with me. You're praying for that. You also like the dark sometimes, too, which is not good. But those fears That are external often become internal as you get into your teenage years and as you get into your young adult phase. No longer are you afraid of those external, but you're afraid of embarrassment.
You're afraid of rejection. You're afraid of not fitting in. You're afraid of what people might think of you. Oh, he's stupid, he's ugly, he's poor, he's different, he's weird, right? You're afraid of not fitting in.
not belonging. Peer pressure is also a very real thing and I think it just relabels what it really is. Peer pressure is just fear of the crowd. Peer pressure is when you get pushed into doing something that you don't want to do just so that you'll fit in. Or be accepted, just so that you'll be left alone.
How many things have we all done in the name of peer pressure? Because somebody told us, we'll be cool if we do this, we'll be popular, we'll fit in, we'll be accepted. And how many times those things actually harm us? This is also the time of life when you begin to hide your fears rather than be open about them. And those become your insecurities.
Oh, I'm afraid of X, Y, Z. And so that becomes an insecurity. And then as you become an adult, It extends and really continues a lot of those elements of the teenage.
Sometimes it actually comes back and brings back some of the fears of when you were a little kid, the external things, because now you have kids. You're afraid the dog's gonna get your kids. You're afraid of what lies in the dark because you don't want your kids to get hurt. It's interesting how those kind of can come back. But as adults, it definitely includes those elements previously stated, but then again, it extends to the people you love: your wife, your kids, your family, your parents, your grandkids.
And then you also start to fear what kind of legacy? What kind of impact did you make in the world? Are you where you should be in life? As a whatever-year-old person, male, female, you know, should I be married? Should I have kids at this age?
Oh man, am I doing the right thing? Am I where I should be? That's a fear. You know, will you be forgotten? And then there's the fear of what happens after you die.
What happens when I die, when I close my eyes for the last time and breathe my last breath? What am I going to be facing? Fear can own us. It can own us. It can keep us awake at night.
We play the worst-case scenario game, and fear has a way of gripping us. And honestly, it feels like you're being strangled at times. Like it's taking the oxygen out of you. And all you can do is focus on your fear. And what does that do?
It creates more fear. And it's a vicious cycle. It's a terrible thing.
Some fears are greater than others, for sure. But fear is still gripping no matter what the source is. And Jesus addresses the fear head-on in our text. The first thing he does is he points to the Pharisees. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
He points to the Pharisees as a picture of fearful men, as a picture of hypocritical men, right? They're sophisticated, they're dressed up in religion, they're educated, but they're telling others what to do and calling out inconsequential flaws and being hyper-legalistic, setting these expectations that nobody can meet, that nobody can keep, including themselves.
Well, why did they do that? Because they wanted control. They wanted authority. They wanted to be revered and respected and to be viewed as important.
Sounds like a lot of politicians today, right? These were men who took something good, God's word, his commands, the Ten Commandments, and so forth found in the pages of the Bible. They took those things and then they extended it even further. They turned them into a shackle, they turned them into a set of handcuffs, a box to check. And they completely misrepresented God's character.
to God's people. Jesus says the worst thing about them is their hypocrisy. Is there hypocrisy? They're actors, they're fakes.
Now, Jesus said, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.
Now, we don't know what leaven is today. Leaven in Jesus' day was basically the sourdough starter. They didn't have yeast like we do today, in the same way that we have it, which is you can go to the grocery store and go buy a little package of yeast, and you tear open the tab, and it's got the little granules in there, and you mix it in the warm water, and boom, there you go. You have fermentation in a bag, which is amazing.
So what did they do in Jesus' day? They had a sourdough starter. Basically, sourdough is pretty popular these days. I feel like everybody's tried their hand at it at this point in 2026. But basically, you start with a starter, a piece of dough that's already been fermented, and then you add it to the new batch of dough, and that little bit affects the entire batch, and it causes it to raise and have air and bubbles in it, and it creates bread, which we all love today.
Jesus is saying, beware of the hypocrisy that the Pharisees demonstrate. One little area in your spiritual life of performance will affect every other area. If it becomes a box to check, oh, I'm gonna make sure I've got my Bible app reading streak on lock. And I just heard now that if you miss a day in your Bible app, you can have a mulligan.
So you can actually go back the day that you missed, and you can do it. Oh, it's all about keeping your streak up, right?
Okay, that's fine, but just make sure you're not missing the whole point of the reading of the Bible streak, right? There's boxes that we can all check. If it becomes a performance, if it becomes legalism, then we're missing the point. A little hypocrisy does a lot of damage. If you tolerate it in one area, if you bring it into one little piece of the bread, it raises the whole lump.
If we allow hypocrisy in our lives, it'll affect every area of our spiritual life.
So again, Jesus points to the Pharisees as a picture. Of hypocrisy. And it's important to know, again, the commands that they were giving weren't just found in scripture, but it was actually the oral law as well. You see, they had commentary, much like we have Bible commentaries today, kind of explaining what Jesus meant when he said this and historical context. They had oral law that was held on the same level as God's Word itself.
And the oral law is where they came up with all kinds of crazy stuff, all kinds of extra rules that really just became a shackle to the people. What God gave to the Israelites as a blessing, as a defining way to live, now became a bunch of rules and boxes that they had to check. And so these were men who were fearful. They were fearful men and they ruled through fear.
Now, how did they rule through fear? How did they employ fear?
Well, they used threats. If you didn't follow these rules, if you didn't adhere to the things they were saying, then they threatened you with being socially ostracized. They threatened you with being marked as a sinful person for the rest of your life that would be carried on through generation after generation after generation. Oh, your great-great-great-grandfather was so-and-so. Oh, yeah, we know all about you.
That's how they ruled through fear. They would mark people as being sinful. And then there was also the fear of being stoned. You could be literally executed if you broke one of these commands. You would be mocked, you would be ridiculed.
But what does Jesus do? He rebukes them. He rebukes them. All will be revealed. All will be revealed.
Nothing is covered that will not be revealed. Nothing hidden that will not be known. Whatever you spoke in the dark will be heard in the light. Whatever you shared in private will be shouted on the rooftops. Man, that's heavy.
That's heavy. You can believe the Pharisees, the religious leaders, when they heard that, it's like, oh man, is he talking about us? He knew what kind of things they were doing, what reasons they had for employing certain laws so they could manipulate it to benefit themselves, to influence people in the right way so that it made their lives more comfortable. But Jesus here. He doesn't just expose the wrong fear.
He also then offers the right fear. He says in verse 5, But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him who, after he is killed, has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear him. Jesus is saying, the person that we should fear, the thing that we should fear, is not those that.
Our Putting peer pressure out, telling us we need to fit in with the crowd, that we need to live a certain way. No, he's saying we need to fear the eternal. The one that can send us to hell. And who is that? Of course, it's God.
It's God. What does it mean to fear God?
Well, we just saw that whatever we fear most tends to own us and guide our decisions. The Pharisees feared the crowd, the crowd feared the Pharisees, but Jesus says we should fear him who can not only kill but cast into hell.
Now, I'll be honest, this is heavy, but it's true, and it's important. Jesus is saying, your fear of the eternal reality should far exceed your fear of the temporal reality, the life which we now live. And as we read those words, let's be honest, it makes us kind of uncomfortable, okay? It makes us kind of uncomfortable, if we're honest, to think that Jesus is telling us to fear God. And if you took that out of context, it would make it look like God is out to get us.
We need to be afraid of him. He's going to send us all to hell if we're not careful. But I think Jesus did that intentionally. And I think he even left it with a sort of pregnant pause, if you will, to get people to think about fearing God. But before they go too far into that thought, he flips the coin and he offers more commentary.
And he says in verse 6. Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore you are of more value than many sparrows.
I love that. The God of the universe has counted the hairs on your head, and He tells you not to fear. When you are owned by God, the fear of this world doesn't stand a chance. The peer pressure, the fear of death, what people think of you, Jesus says there's only one opinion that really matters, and that's God's. And He thinks you're worth more than you could possibly imagine.
And so the only question is: whose voice will you listen to? Are you going to listen to the popular kids? Are you going to listen to the unsaved world, or are you going to listen to God's, the one who loves you and sent his son to die for you so that you could be made right with him? When you get this right, those fears will have no hold. on you.
That brings us to verse 13 now. Let's continue on. Then one from the crowd said to him, Teacher, Will you tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me? But Jesus said to him, Man, Who made me a judge or arbitrator over you? And then he spoke to the crowd.
And he said, Take heed and beware of covetousness. Oh, now he's making an example of this guy. Have you ever been there? I know I've been there. You get made an example of.
Take heed and beware of covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. All of us in Orange County, in Riverside, on the island of Maui, we should underline that there. Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. Verse 16.
Then he spoke a parable to them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops? And so he said, I'll do this. I will pull down my barns, and I'll build greater barns. And there I will store all my crops and my goods.
And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. You can take it easy now. You can eat, you can drink, you can be merry. But God said to him, Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then whose will those things be which you have provided?
So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. That brings us to our second thing that can own us is Mammon. Is Mammon. I love this part. Again, Jesus addressing the huge crowd, upwards of 10,000 people, and he's talking about like reality-redefining topics, right?
Don't be afraid, don't have anxiety, and he's telling us how we can conquer those things. He's talking about social pressures, peer pressure, hypocrisy, God knowing the number of hairs on your heads. Incredible, right? This is amazing. And then a voice out of the crowd calls out when there's a brief break, Jesus, can you tell my brother to share his money with me, the inheritance?
This isn't fair. Can you talk to him? And Jesus is like, what? What the heck? Are you kidding?
Are you serious? That's his takeaway. That's what this guy got out of what Jesus was just talking about. He probably hadn't heard a single word that Jesus had said. He hadn't heard anything.
He was just so focused on his own question that he's missing out on real divine wisdom right before him.
Now, before we diss on this guy too much, I'll be honest, that's been me. That's been me for sure. I'm so focused on my one little thing, my one concern, that I'm missing the larger lesson that God is trying to teach me. How let's take unforgiveness, right? Oh man, that person they wronged me.
God, would you just work on their heart? Would you just work on their heart and convict them, Lord, so they will come and grovel at my feet and apologize for the wrong that they committed to me?
Meanwhile, I'm listening to a message on forgiveness, right? In the Bible, you know, the pastor is saying, and we need to forgive as we have been forgiven. Yeah, right. You know what? That guy needs to come to me and ask for forgiveness.
You're right, God. I'm missing the whole point, right? I know that you've been there too. It's easy to be that person. It's easy to miss the point, what the Lord is saying to you through a sermon or through your time of Bible study, maybe through your spouse.
Again, this would be like a guy listening to Abraham Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address. And he goes, hey. I like your hat. Where'd you get that hat? Where can I get one of those hats, right?
It's like, okay, are you serious? Way to miss the point here. But notice that Jesus doesn't rebuke this man. He doesn't call him an idiot. He doesn't roll his eyes.
Jesus instead performs a masterful diagnosis, right? Jesus was the great physician, and we see him perform heart surgery right before us on this man's deeper issue. And he says, One's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. OOF Straight to the heart, right? Jesus knew that money had this man's attention.
He knew that money had this man's attention, maybe for years. Remember, Jesus, he was fully God and fully man.
So he was able to discern what was in this man's heart, what things he was preoccupied by. And so he went straight for the jugular here. While life was happening around this man, while God was speaking to him, while relationships were being built or broken, this man's mind kept returning to what truly owned him. There's some further commentary on this topic that I think deserves some attention here. Jesus says in Matthew 6:24, very poignantly, let's put it up on the screen.
In fact, why don't we read this out loud together? This is a good reminder for all of us. These are Jesus' words. Let's read together. No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon. That's an interesting word, mammon. We don't come across it very often in our Bibles. We definitely don't hear it very often used in just day-to-day conversation. But it's a word that.
Basically translated, just means money or wealth. But in this context, Jesus is using almost as wealth personified. In fact, a Bible scholar named F.F. Bruce said, Mammon is wealth personified. It is an expression of materialism.
It's being caught up with the next thing, being in that dopamine cycle of always getting the next thing, always getting the next thing. A nicer car, a nicer house, a nicer wife, a nicer vacation. You're always hungry for more, right? You can get caught up with that. And it could be, you know, you could be on the lower end of the financial spectrum all the way up to the top.
You know, you're always looking for the next thing. If it could be expressed as a pagan god, we would call that pagan god Mammon. Jesus says You cannot serve me and the God of materialism at the same time. Because mammon has a way of reaching its tentacles into every area of our life. It has a way of reaching its tentacles into every season of life and every walk of life.
Paul the Apostle talked about how there were believers who pursued their lust for wealth. and they had pierced themselves with many sorrows, and ultimately walked away from the faith. The influence of getting more, the influence of having more money has compromised many men and many women who are willing to turn their back on their true convictions, their biblical convictions even in the pursuit of having more money. Mammon has a way of reaching its tentacles into everything. You can never have enough money.
You always want a little bit more. But it is really important that we know that Jesus here, He's not condemning wealth. He's actually not condemning wealth, he's not condemning those who have wealth either. Jesus is teaching us. That if you spend all your time pursuing the temporary comforts and statuses of this world, But not pursuing God in the eternal, then you're in trouble.
It's been said that if your possessions possess you, then you're in trouble. Jesus Christ is not a box you check. He's not an eternal life insurance policy, fire insurance, right? He is a master you serve. He is a Lord you submit to, and you cannot serve God and mammon.
But once again, I love this because Jesus offers more commentary and helps reorient our perspective on wealth and finances. Let's continue in verse 29. Jesus says, And do not seek what you should eat, or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind for all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear a little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Sell what you have and give alms. Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old. A treasure in the heavens that does not fail. Where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Let's pause there. I love verse 30, and I feel like the whole thing hinges on this. Your Father knows what things you need. Your Father knows what things you need. You know, in the room, we have a lot of parents here.
A lot of grandparents, maybe great-grandparents, aunts, uncles. And let's be honest: is there anything that we would withhold from our children and grandchildren, the kids in our lives that we love? That they need, and we have the opportunity to give to them. No, we would not. Anything my kids need, if I have the ability to give it to them, and it's a real need, not just a want, but a need, I I will get it for them.
If they're hungry, I'm going to get them food. If they need new clothes, I'm going to get them new clothes. If they need sports equipment for that sport that I signed them up for, I'm going to get them that sports equipment, right? I'm going to make sure they have what they need. In the same way, your father knows that you need these things.
He knows that you need these things. That also means That I'm not necessarily going to give to my kids everything that they want. I'm going to withhold certain things from them. Why? Because I love them, right?
I'm not going to give my son a dirt bike, you know, at 14 years old that he can ride around on the street, right? No, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to give my kids or my son unrestricted access to the internet where all kinds of things can appear on screens, you know, just not good. I want to protect my kids because I love him. I'm going to protect him and protect my family.
I'm going to put locks on my doors. I don't give them everything they ask for. And God doesn't give us everything we ask for. Why? Because he doesn't love us and wants to keep good things from us?
No, because he wants to keep us from bad things so we can pursue the best things. Where do you think you get that from? That desire to provide, that desire to protect. Listen, we show to our children just a shadow of God's character, His generosity, His ability to provide and protect and preserve. He is the ultimate father, He's the ultimate blesser, He is the ultimate provider.
The definition of generosity. And he wants to bless you with things that no amount of money could ever buy. God is not unaware of your gas bill. He's not confused about your needs. He knows the things that you need, and he says, Seek the kingdom of God first, and these things will be yours.
Jesus is saying, Stop seeking mammon and start seeking the kingdom of God first. And watch what happens to all those things you're white-knuckling-those fears, those things that bring you anxiety, those things that keep you up at night, the things that you are constantly chasing after so you can keep up with appearances and what's happening on social media, and those things you spend all your time thinking about. Why? Again, because he wants to keep something good from us? No, because he doesn't want you to sell your birthright blessing for a bowl of stew like Esau did, right?
That's the picture of it. And in a psychological sense, when we give to the Lord and we give him our finances, we break what you could psychologically refer to as the dopamine cycle, right? The cycle of dopamine hits. Like you want that constant dopamine hit of getting the new thing. And then when you get the new thing, you want the next new thing.
And so you're pursuing that. And then when you get to that thing, now there's another new thing. And you keep going and going. And if you're not careful, you will literally just get wrapped up in this. And that's all you can think about.
That's all you care about. Jesus says, Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you. God will give you the desires of your heart when you get that first thing right. But then Jesus doubles down on this in verse 32. And he says, Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
What a beautiful picture that is. It's been said that if you aim for heaven, you get earth included. But if you aim for earth, You get neither.
Now Jesus closes this section. with one of the best diagnostic tools maybe in the entire Bible. He says in verse 34, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Where your treasure is, There your heart will be also. This is why it's so important that we have treasure in heaven.
And I'll talk about financially giving and tithing in a moment, sending our treasure on ahead that way. But it's so important that we are seeking the kingdom of heaven to expand it. That means inviting people to Christ, bringing people to church with us, praying for people's souls, pleading with them to come to church with us, living our lives in reflection of what God has done for us and ministering to others. Listen, this is how we get treasure in heaven. We want to do that.
But it's also, again, this is why tithing is so important. Because every time you give to the Lord, you make a declaration. Every time you give your finances, you're saying to God, this does not own me. You do. Mammon does not have a grip on my life.
And every time you give, you loosen its grip one act of generosity at a time. You are putting your money where your faith is. The tithe isn't God's way of funding a building program. It's his way of keeping your heart free and uncompromised, ultimately, from something that could destroy you. Giving to the Lord is actually spiritually transformative.
So let me direct my comments to you here right now. If you missed offering today, or you missed offering for the last couple of weeks, or the last couple of decades, I want to encourage you right now to start making that right because this is a command in Scripture and it's an act of obedience to the Lord.
Now, I know that some of you are probably cringing right now. Really, oh, the pastor's talking about money again. Like, really, is this all you guys, all you pastors talk about? No, we don't. We don't talk about money.
I mean, rarely do we talk about it in the context of a sermon.
Now, we do take an offering every Sunday because it's biblical. The Bible says on the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money to give to the Lord.
So, that's biblical.
So, we provide that opportunity to you. But we're talking about this topic right now: about finances, about mammon. Because the text comes to it. Just like we're talking about fear a few moments ago, just like we're talking about hypocrisy, the text is talking about it.
So, this is a theme we see throughout the Bible. This matters to God. Does it matter to you? Jesus offers this diagnostic tool. Not as a guilt trip.
But as an x-ray. An insight into what holds our heart. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. You want to know what holds your heart? Look at your web browsing history.
Look at the stuff that you're giving your money to. Look at your bank account. What are you spending your money on? These are the things that hold your heart.
Now listen. Do you not think that for me A 40-year-old man living in Southern California with three kids, a mortgage, car payments, insurance, has to pay taxes, cost me $180 to fill my truck up with gas now. That's not an exaggeration. That I couldn't use that extra 10% of my income, and I get every paycheck. Oh, yeah, you better believe it.
Of course, I could. But I choose to submit in this area of my life for three reasons. The first reason is because God commands me to. God commands me to. He tells me to bring that tithe, and I submit to that.
So, number one, he commands me to. Number two, it aligned my heart with his. As I give to the Lord, I become more kingdom-minded. I care about the things that God cares about. And number three, I submit in this area of my life because God blesses me.
He has blessed me in a way that that amount of money never could. And you know what? He also gives me the desires of my heart. I'll tell you a story. When I first got married, shortly, well, it's a couple years after we got married, we were living in a really small apartment.
We were barely able to afford much. And now our parents obviously helped us and in-laws, and we have a great support system we're thankful for. But we had three kids and lots of food, and you know, trips to the grocery store, and you know, we want to be able to pay. Pay for vacations and whatever else, but we just didn't have a whole lot of money. And there was one month in particular that I really wanted to buy a new wetsuit.
Really wanted to buy a new wetsuit. I needed a new one. My old one had pretty much broken down. It was a thicker wetsuit of 4.3, so the water had gotten a little bit colder. And I really wanted it.
But I saw that the only money, the only wiggle room we had was our tithe, which at the time was like $150. I was like, okay, I can't afford to get a new wetsuit. And I was kind of wrestling with that. I was mad. I want to be able to buy this.
This is my money. This is something I want right here, and I have the ability to do it, and I'm going to deny myself. But I chose in that moment. to submit.
Okay, Lord. I'm going to give this to you. This belongs to you. I give this to you. I surrender it.
I submit it. I don't need this thing necessarily. It's a luxury. And so I gave our tithe that month. A couple days go by.
A guy comes up to me at church who I'd known just through meeting there at the church and just walk around seeing him through the halls. And he worked for a surf company. And he actually came up to me. A couple days after I had prayed this, and he said, Hey, I've got something for you in my car. Come over here.
We walk over to his car and he pulls out a brand new 4.3 wetsuit. And he says, What size are you? I said, I'm a medium. You could tell this was a while ago. And he said, He said, Yeah, I've got this extra wetsuit, 4-3.
I thought of you, and I thought I'd just bring this to you. I said, That's crazy. I was just praying to God and talking about this thing. And so I tell you this story, not to show you how obedient I was or how great I was, but to show you what little step of faith I took and what did God do? He rewarded me for that.
Do you not think that God will do the same thing for you? I know you all have needs. I know you all have desires, but listen, God will give you the desires of your heart. He'll far surpass the desires of your heart. And you know what?
That's a picture of aiming for heaven and getting earth thrown in as well. God will do that for you. What owns you? That's the question. What owns you?
Are you allowing money and materialism to dominate your life? Trust me, I haven't conquered that area. That is still something that is very real reality. But God is saying to you today, I have something much greater. I will give you the desires of your heart.
I will give you the kingdom of heaven. But first, you must seek me. Seek me first. Put me first in your life and see that I won't bless you. Let's continue now in verse 35 and bring this to a close.
Jesus now shifts His sermon and talks about the end of time. His second coming. And he says in verse 35, let your waist be girded. and your lamp's burning. And you yourselves be like men who wait for their master.
When he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks. They may open to him immediately. Blessed are the servants whom the Master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly I say to you that He will gird Himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. And if He should come in the second watch, or if He comes in the Third Watch, or if He comes in the year two thousand twenty six, And he finds them so doing.
Blessed are those servants. But know this. That if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. And that brings us to our third and final point.
What things own you? What things? Take out a spiritual withdrawal on yourself. Number three, tomorrow. Tomorrow.
This is the most subtle subscription we often pay for and do not realize. We don't even know that we're owned by it, but it's tomorrow, it's the presumption. Of tomorrow, the assumption that there is going to be a tomorrow, and if there is a tomorrow, therefore we can put it off. We can put it off, we can procrastinate these things that matter, these things, these social pressures that Jesus is talking about. Don't fear men, don't worry about what they say, worry about what I say.
Well, Jesus, that sounds like a nice idea, but like, I don't know. I care what the crowd thinks, and I'm gonna keep caring what the crowd thinks. Maybe when I'm old and like decomposing, I won't care what the crowd thinks anymore. Then I'll give my life to you, right? I'll give my life to you.
I'll give my finances to you when I'm financially stable, when it makes more sense for me. I'll do it then when I have disposable income. It's procrastination. It's putting the important decisions off to a later, more convenient time.
Now it doesn't feel dangerous, and it can even feel reasonable. It can even feel responsible. It'd be like if uh a young person Came and said, Well, listen, I'm really convicted by God to begin to walk with him and to put my faith in him. But, you know, I go to college and I'm living that dorm room life and my roommate, you know, he's a big drinker, he's a big partier, and, you know, sex and drugs, and we do all that stuff together, and we party, and, you know, we have a lot of fun. And, you know, if I put my faith in Christ today and I begin to live that way, Jonathan, I don't think I could survive.
I don't think I could do it. I think that I would fail and stumble and mess up. Therefore, I'll tell you what, I'm going to do this when I graduate from college. I'm going to put it off. I'm going to do it later.
I'm going to wait until a more convenient, no, a more prudent season of my life.
Now that can almost sound like a rational decision. but later is the most spiritually dangerous word in the English language. I'll get over that sin. I'll work through that sin later. I've got time.
I'll put my faith in Christ later. I'll submit with my finances later. I'll be obedient to the Lord later. I've got time. Jesus says, the master returns at an hour the servant did not expect.
Now that's not meant to produce anxiety. Oh my gosh, God's going to come back any minute and He's going to be taking and looking under the carpet and like making sure everything is clean. No, no. It's not meant to produce anxiety and a different source of fear. It's meant to produce clarity.
Live your life in a way that when the master returns, you will be found so doing and you will be honored. God, you're back. I've been waiting for you, Jesus. I've been waiting for you. I've been living my life in anticipation of this moment.
How proud will you feel? How amazing will it be for Jesus who will go and then serve you as a result? It's incredible. It's incredible. It's not meant to produce anxiety.
It's meant to produce clarity. To see and think properly about your current time you have today. You have this moment, and what you do right now, when nobody's checking, when there's no crisis forcing your hand, it reveals who you really are. It reveals who you really are, who really owns you, what really owns you.
So listen. Maybe you're here today and you walked in, and you've never actually made this diagnosis about who owns you. You've never taken that into consideration. You never made a decision about who you want to own your life. Everybody has a master.
Everybody has and is a slave to something. It's just a question of who owns you, who is your master. Maybe you've been in the church for years going through the motions, but if you're honest, You're that servant. You're comfortable. You're assuming there's more time.
Listen, there may be. You may live to a ripe old age, but you don't know that. And neither do I. What I do know is the same Jesus that looked at that man, that called out from the crowd, saw exactly what owned him, and Jesus knows exactly what owns you. This is what Jesus came for: to set the captives free, to free you from your addictions, to free you from your vices, and ultimately to free you from sin and from death.
This is why Jesus came. He's making the same offer to you that he made that day to change owners. He came to set you free from what dominates you. Fear the one who sets you free from everyone else's opinion. Seek the kingdom and watch what gets added to your life.
Stop living like the master isn't coming back because he is. And today is the day to settle that, not later. Will you pray with me? Father, I thank you for every person that's here today, every person that's heard these words, your commands, your teaching, your principles, Lord, we see in the pages of Scripture. They're so relevant, so poignant for us this day.
God, we thank you. We thank you that we have your spirit. We thank you that we have your word. Help us to submit in these areas and to pursue you. Lord, we thank you that you don't just tell us what not to do, you tell us what to do and how to overcome these things.
We thank you, Lord. While our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed, we're praying together. If there's anybody here that would like to change owners. They would like to know that when they die, they will go to heaven. They would like to have a life.
That is not just filled with the pursuit of aimlessness and repetitive, you know, cycle of sin. but would like to have life and life more abundantly, as Jesus promised. If you would like that, pray this prayer out loud after me. That's right. Wherever you are, here in Orange County, over on the island of Maui, at Harvest Riverside, maybe you're listening to this at a later time, watching it on your computer screen or listening in your car, whatever it might be, you pray this.
Pray this now. Pray this out loud. Dear God. I know that I'm a sinner. But I know that Jesus is the Savior.
who died on the cross for my sin. And I turned from that sin. from this moment forward. I make you the Lord of my life. Own me, Lord.
Change me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen.
Congratulations to those of you that just pray that. God bless you. Congratulations. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it.
Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on know God. Mm-hmm.
