Biblical Text: Luke 12:22-34
Full Sermon Draft
In Luke 12:13-21, last week’s gospel lesson, we find Jesus addressing a parable to a man in the crowd. My rough meaning of the parable would be check your priority alignment. Are you directing permanent things, like your soul, toward impermanent things, like bigger barns? But then Jesus turns to his disciples, the stand-in for believers, and gives them a different lesson. Luke 12:22-34 is linked to the previous lesson because Jesus says “therefore or on account of this” referencing back to the parable he has just told. If the unbeliever is given the advice to check their priorities, the believer is given an invitation. Not only just to seek the kingdom but also to live into it. And Jesus spells out what that looks like.
First, it is a living trust in the Character of the Father. You can discern that character through natural revelation analogies. The Providence of the Father gloriously cares for the raven and Lilly. Is he going to stiff you? You can also see that character revealed in Jesus Christ. The revelation reduced to one fact is the resurrection. Even though this mortal flesh goes the way of the lilly, the Father will clothe you with something greater, the resurrection body. The Father has chosen to give you the kingdom, trust Him for it.
Second, what does one who trusts in the fullness of the kingdom do? They put the temporal things, the impermanent things, at the service of the permanent. The world does the opposite spending life in the quest for the material. Jesus says give away the material, give to the poor, to get treasure in heaven (i.e. from the Father). Both would call the other the bigger fool.
The case rests on the character of the Father. Is the Father a figment and we are alone? Or is the Father revealed to us in Jesus Christ? Where your treasure is, there is your heart. Is it in that new BMW, or is it in the body of Christ?
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