August 6, 1995	Where Is Your Treasure?	Hosea 11:1-11

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

Our Gospel lesson for this morning starts out with someone asking Jesus, "Teaher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Evidently, the man and his brother were having a fight on how to split up their deceased parents' household. Now, you might expect that Jesus would have wanted to help these two brothers get along with each other. Jesus might have taken this time to lecture the brothers on how good it is for brothers to dwell in unity, quoting from Psalm 133. But Jesus didn't do that. Instead, he stopped and asked the person, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" And then Jesus said what really needed to be said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Sometimes, as a pastor, I'm called upon by people to be a judge between two members of the church. I remember how that happened once to me when I was the pastor of a church out in Strawberry Point, Iowa. A young man and his wife, members of my church, had been living in the farm house and working on the farm owned by an older woman in my church. For reasons that I won't go into at this time, I the couple and the woman weren't getting along very well. The young man and his wife were complaining that the woman was a poor farm manager while the woman was complaining that the younger couple weren't very good workers and weren't taking care of her house. So, the younger couple decided to quit working on the farm and move to town.

A few days went by and the woman came to my office and sat down, asking if I could help her. She complained that the younger couple had left her house in a mess when they moved out and were unwilling to pay to clean it up. She asked me to go talk to the younger couple to get them to cooperate.

The next day I went to visit the younger couple. Walking up to the porch of their new home in town I was greeted at the door by the young husband. As he approached, I was surprised to notice that he sported a nice big black eye above his left cheek. So, I asked him what had happened to his eye. I was amazed at what he said.

He said, "This morning the woman whose house we were living in before we moved here paid us a visit. She demanded that we pay money to clean up her house. I told her," he went on, "that we had already cleaned up the house and that my own mother and father had helped. But, no sooner had I said that than the old battle axe," he called her, "hauled off and punched me in the eye and then walked off the porch, got into her car and drove away." And then he asked me, "Would you go talk to her and tell her that she shouldn't have done something as mean as that?"

I decided then and there that the best way for me to deal with the dispute these two were having was to stay out of it. And I was reminded of our gospel lesson for today where Jesus was asked to be the judge. Rather than coming down with a judgment Jesus simply said, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

In fact, many of the arguments people and family members get into with each other are really about greed. We forget that our life is much more than the things we own, for those things will pass away. The things that we think are so wonderful, our treasures, our house, our barn, our computer, our car, our boat, or whatever, do not make us what we are in the eyes of God.

Our lesson from the book of Hosea, this morning, tells us that if anything, who we are is based upon our relationship with God. If someone were to ask you, "Who are you?" How would you answer them? Who are you? I remember having to answer that question once when I was in a discussion group. We were all handed a blank sheet of paper and a pencil and the leader of the group told us to number the paper from one to ten and then spend the next few minutes listing ten things that answered the question, "Who are you?" And I remember writing things like my name, and my nationality, and my occupation, and my relationship to my parents, and things like that. The first five or so weren't too hard, but that last ones were more difficult. Who am I? Who are you? That's a tough question to answer.

It's funny, though, after we finished that exercise, the leader of the group asked us, "How many of you wrote down that they were a Christian? or a child of God? or a brother of Christ?" And we all looked at each other sort of foolishly, knowing that we had been had; knowing that we should have written that down; ashamed of ourselves that we hadn't. For if you think about it, it doesn't matter what your name is. It really doesn't matter what your profession is, or what your station in life is, or how much money you have tucked away, or what kind of a house you live in, or who you know, or what kind of influence you have on people. For with God and as far as your eternity is concerned, these things don't make any difference, at all. For the only thing that gives you identity, the only thing that makes you what you are is your relationship with Jesus Christ. For, as Jesus said, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

And this is the message that Hosea had for Israel, as well. All the way through our Old Testament scripture lesson for this morning we see how God is telling Israel over and over again that Israel gets its identity from its relationship with God. And God can't figure out why, in spite of all the things he has done for the people of Israel they keep turning their backs on him, worshipping strange gods, going after all sorts of material things.

Certainly, at times, God must ask this question of us, as well. Billy Graham tells how when he was conducting a service a woman who was anxious about her soul's salvation came to him. She had long said that she could not understand the plan of salvation. The evangelist asked: "Mrs. Franklin, how long have you been Mrs. Franklin?" "Why ever since I was married," she replied. "And how did you become Mrs. Franklin?" he asked. And she replied,"When the minister said, 'Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?' I just said, 'Yes.'" "Didn't you say, 'I hope so,' or 'I'll try to'?" asked the evangelist. "No," she replied, "I said, 'I will.'" Then, pointing her to the Bible, he said, "God is asking you if you will receive his son as your personal Savior. What will you say to that?" Her face lit up and she said, "Why, how simple that is! Isn't it queer that I didn't say, 'Yes' long ago?" That s the simple faith the Bible calls for. God's part is to make us God children.

Our whole life is spent in the pursuit of material things, of enough money to make ends meet, of things that catch our eye. And yet God makes it all so simple for us. We need only say "yes" to God and everything falls into place. Just say "yes" to God are you are His.

The great thing is that faith will carry you through every day. There is the story of a business man who worked on Wall Street during the stock market crash of 1929. He writes, "I went to bed one night two years ago worth a million and a half. I felt that I was ready to retire, for I was over sixty years of age, and had plenty to carry me through. Then I had quite a little sum coming from stocks, which I could use in the Lord's work." He was a generous man and like to give to the Lord. That man went to bed worth a million and a half, and woke up the next morning worth nothing. He found everything swept away, everything he had been piling up. He writes, "If I had not known the Lord, I would have gone up to the top floor of the office building, all the way to the 40th floor, and I would jumped out the window. Four other brokers did that very thing the day things collapsed here." He had trusted the Lord when he had plenty of money, and without it he could trust God, still.

Our Epistle lesson tells us this very plainly. Paul says, "Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." Or, Jesus says it even better when he tells the parable of the rich man who decided to build more barns to store his bumper crop in so that he could take life easy; eat, drink and be merry. Jesus said of such a man, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you." And then Jesus sums it all up, saying, "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

There is the story of how many years ago there was a tribe in Africa that elected a new chief every seven years after killing the old king. For seven years the member of the tribe would enjoy the high honor of being provided with every luxury known to savage life. During these years his authority was absolute, even to the power of life and death. For seven years he ruled, was honored and given many possessions, but at the end he was killed. Every member of the tribe was aware of this, for it was a custom of long standing; but there was never lacking an applicant for the post. For seven years of luxury and power men were willing to sacrifice the remainder of life's expectation.

Of course, they were only ignorant pagans, yet in the proudest civilization of our day men and women of intelligence and leadership are now making the same choice between things now and bankruptcy hereafter. Scores and hundreds and thousands are willing to be bankrupt through eternity if they may only win their millions here.

And "this is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

Amen.