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Advent Productions

The Parables

Benjamin Ng

The Four Grounds

The Wheat and the Tares

The Mustard Seed and Leaven

The Hidden Treasure, Pearl And Net

The Good Samaritan

Asking To Give

The Rich Man And His Barn

The Fig Tree

The Grand Banquet

The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin

The Unjust Steward

The Prodigal Son

The Rich Man and Lazarus

The Two Worshippers

The Unforgiving Servant

Labourers of the Vineyard

The Two Sons

The Unjust Judge

Without A Wedding Garment

The Faithful And Evil Servant

The Ten Virgins

The Talents

The Sheep And The Goats

Father in heaven, thank you so much for another wonderful week, for your watch care over us is never-ending.

Lord, thank you for the protection, thank you for the blessed Sabbath hours that we're in right now, and we just ask for your Holy Spirit to grace us with thy presence once more.

Lead us, O Father, we pray in Jesus' name.

Well, our study for this evening is entitled The Rich Man and His Barn.

We are going to be continuing our series, The Parables of Jesus.

And before we get into the parable itself, once again we're asking this question.

Once again There is a story that leads up and that gets Jesus to feel the need to tell this parable.

And let's start with our opening text here this evening in Luke chapter 12 verses 13 through 15.

Luke 12, 13, And 1 of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness.

For a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." So This man, he comes up to Jesus and he asks Jesus for help.

He asked Jesus to intervene into a family affair.

He's asking Jesus to tell his brother to divide his inheritance with him.

Obviously, the parents must have passed away and you know as is the case usually many families you know that they're close and they're loving each other until they have to talk about the division of money issues you know who's gonna get this house who's gonna get this and who's gonna get that and many families they begin to fight and squabble over these things.

And so he goes over to Jesus and he asks for help.

Jesus, please tell my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

They're arguing, they're squabbling, there's division and Jesus, he wants no part of it.

That is not the reason why he came to this earth to settle every single person's dispute.

He didn't come to deal with family issues in regards to inheritance.

However, Jesus, you know, even though he sidestepped and says, you know, God did not make me a judge over who is going to get what, right?

Even though he says, look, this has got nothing to do with me, yet he doesn't stop there.

He says that a man's life does not consist of what?

It's not all about what we possess, the abundance of the things we possess.

Because he's trying to tell him, look, stop fighting so hard about riches.

Stop focusing so hard about riches and sometimes you know we get so bent out of shape wanting to divide it so equally that that's all we care about and not about unity in the family, love between brother and sister.

As I said friends, sometimes these sorts of things, they divide brothers and sisters.

Everything was peaceful, everything was happy and good until it came down to family matters.

And I'm telling you, friends, even though I myself have not experienced this before, praise God, my mom and dad are still alive.

I'm not have to worry about, hey, who's gonna get what, what money, what property, or whatever it is from my parents.

You know, friends, we gotta make sure that we maintain peace and harmony and unity in all of this.

So based upon what Jesus says, we can expect that he's gonna teach us about what covetousness is.

But before we get into the parable itself, typically what do we understand about covetousness?

What is it that we usually understand about covetousness?

Because that 10th commandment is really such a difficult sin in a sense to detect and many of us misunderstand what covetousness really is all about.

Let me ask you a question about covetousness.

So take for example, if I see your phone and I like your phone and I go out and buy the same phone, Is that covetousness?

How about if I see your car and I like the car that you get and I get the same year, the same color, the same model, everything exactly the same.

I go buy exactly the same car as the car that you got.

So I see the house that you buy and I like that house.

I go and replicate that house to the exact same degree on the same street.

But then, what do we call that typically?

That's called keeping up with the Joneses.

But that's just, you get a certain lifestyle and I upgrade to that certain lifestyle to match you.

And whether you're my friend or your enemy, It doesn't matter, but I'm using my own money, I'm using my own time, I'm using my own effort.

That's not being covertious though, friends.

How can we know whether we are covetous or not?

Well, the clue is actually found in the 10 Commandments.

It's not in the Tenth Commandment, pardon me.

It's not you buy something and I buy the same thing because I like it.

The Bible says this, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

So there's quite a few things here that the Tenth Commandment highlights.

Don't covet the neighbor's house, wife, manservant, maidservant, his ox or his ass or anything, his property or anything of that sort.

And it doesn't seem to give us a clear understanding of what covetousness is except for 1 thing.

1 thing that kind of stands out and that is not coveting your neighbor's wife.

Okay, the key here is the 10th Kvament says do not covet your neighbor's wife.

Look, you can't see someone's wife and say, I like that woman, I'm gonna go out and find exactly the same woman.

That's not possible because there's no such thing as exactly the same woman, even if she has an identical twin sister.

You see friends, the only way to find a wife like that is to take that man's wife.

There's no such thing as being able to find exactly the same wife.

You see, covetousness is detected more clearly when we end up breaking 1 of the other 10 commandments.

I like his wife, I'm gonna kill him for his wife.

That's exactly what King David did with Bathsheba, right?

And so I commit a adultery against this man's wife, with this man's wife right?

So it's found in the breaking of 1 of the other 10 commandments you see.

So it is definitely a very difficult sin to detect and we have to be so careful because covetousness you see is when we see someone else's belongings and so now we come to the house.

I like his house, I'm going to kill him for his house.

I like his phone I'm going to steal his phone.

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Series

The Parables

The Rich Man And His Barn

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

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When Angels Sing

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ECYC 2011 Plenary Meetings

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How to Face 2022 With Hope

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It Was for Me

52m

This Generation- 1

1h 8m

Righteousness by Faith

Righteousness by Faith: Growing in Grace

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How to Thrive Spiritually During COVID-19 Isolation

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Plenary

A Life That Could Have Been pt 1: The Strength of the Strongest

42m

Without a Wedding Garment

59m

Plenary

Almost Engaged

49m

Sound Doctrine