Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
Hey, Jeff. Here we go. Chris, welcome to the new studio. Thank you. Actually, it’s just a temporary studio just sitting.

Jeff
On the stage at Heritage.

Chris
Church. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Well, hey, we have a really good podcast lined up for our listeners.

Chris
Oh, I hope so.

Jeff
I know it’s about a rich, young fool.

Chris
You better be good. I know I will be.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, I’m going to do the best I can just to keep up if I can. If you can carry me through the through the episode, that’d be great.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can just like, you know, you’re in my wake. Yeah. So, so listen, we have a segment today, and it’s just like taboo.

Jeff
Don’t don’t let me hold me. Hold you back, though. Yeah. No. If I start, if I start being like an anchor to you, just cut me loose. Yeah. Just you just just run with it.

Chris
Clipping clip. Yeah. Like taboo. We’re going to give Jeff, uh, word clues so that you can guess the word and, and so we’re calling this segment guess the word. Okay. And it’s really harder on me because I can’t say certain words way harder on you. So if you’re watching at home and not listening, we’re actually going to put the words that I cannot say on the screen, okay, okay, okay. And see if you can get this right and see if you can beat Jeff. Yeah.

Jeff
So we did a few of these last time. I think we got them all right.

Chris
Yes yes yes. Are you ready.

Jeff
Yeah okay.

Chris
Okay. Here we go. The title for Obi-Wan Kenobi is a master.

Jeff
Uh, a master blank knight. Oh, it’s not Sith Knight. Sith Knight was the bad guys. No. So it was the other ones. The.

Chris
You’re embarrassing yourself right now.

Jeff
I know, I know, movies. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Luke Skywalker was one of them. Yeah. Right, right.

Chris
Return of the.

Jeff
Jedi. Yeah. There you go. Yeah.

Chris
There you go. There it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, well, Jedi knight. I’m pretty sure everybody beat.

Jeff
Everybody beat me on that one. But I got the answer right.

Chris
All right, how about this one? You ready? Yeah, yeah. Okay. One of my least favorite, uh, uh, costume crusader is Batman. Batman? That’s correct.

Jeff
Which I love. Batman.

Chris
Which, by the way, I just got to say, on Jedi, I could not say lightsaber force, Skywalker, Star Wars or Yoda. Okay, but I said Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then on Batman, I couldn’t say Robin. Gotham City superhero, caped or Joker. Oh, okay.

Jeff
But you didn’t say superhero. You said.

Chris
Costume crusader.

Jeff
Costume crusader.

Chris
Which is.

Jeff
Which is. That’s great.

Chris
That’s what they called.

Jeff
Them, especially.

Chris
In the 60s, remember? Okay, here we go. Ready? Yes. Um, you can go to Smokey Bones for great barbecue. Yes. There you go. Okay, so I couldn’t say grill outdoors. Charcoal cook or garden. Yeah, but Smokey Bones, by the way, is a local place right across the street.

Jeff
Bad. Brad’s better.

Chris
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Or mission barbecue.

Jeff
Mission is great. I was there yesterday for dinner.

Chris
Um. All right, here we go. You ready? Huh. So Superman’s alter ego is actually Clark Kent? Yes. So you could make an argument and say that is his blank.

Jeff
Persona.

Chris
Yeah. When you try to. When you try to. Good goodness gracious.

Jeff
Alter ego.

Chris
When you. When you try to make yourself. Not stand out sometimes. Yes. There you go. Exactly.

Jeff
There you go. Okay.

Chris
Wow I can’t, so I couldn’t say mask, hide change look or appearance.

Jeff
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris
So okay, okay. And then how about this one. Ready? Yes. What is the title of everybody’s favorite segment on this podcast?

Jeff
What made Chris mad this week?

Chris
Mad is the word. So I was not allowed to say insane crazy angry mood or the word Chris Chris. So I just said segment, right? What’s the title of the segment?

Jeff
There you go.

Chris
That’s funny.

Jeff
That’s so funny. So say the five words you weren’t allowed to say anymore.

Chris
Insane, crazy, angry mood or Chris, are all.

Jeff
Those connected?

Chris
No, they’re just descriptors of the word mad.

Jeff
No, they’re all connected in some way.

Chris
No, they’re not connected.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah, for sure they are. No they’re not. That’s good. Well hey we went five for five. That was we did, we did. But we took like nine minutes just to find Jedi. Yeah. I don’t know why I couldn’t.

Chris
Find that word you said. We. Yeah.

Jeff
Yeah.

Chris
You. Hey, we’re in this together. I should have said return of the. Yeah, yeah, like that is so easy.

Jeff
I don’t know why, man. My brain just froze. I knew, I knew the word I said.

Chris
He’s a master blank knight.

Jeff
I know, I know, and.

Chris
You’re like Sith. No, I didn’t say.

Jeff
Sith I said not Sith, not Sith. Those were the bad guys.

Chris
Sith Lord.

Jeff
That’s right. Okay.

Chris
By the way, name. Name a Sith. Go dark Maul. What is his name?

Jeff
Dark Maul.

Chris
It’s Darth Darth.

Jeff
What did I say?

Chris
Dark maul. That’s racist. Jeff.

Jeff
Yeah, I don’t know. No, he was red. I have nothing against red.

Chris
Against red and black face painted people. Hey, by the way. Darth Vader, Darth Maul. Yeah, yeah, it’s always Darth Darth, Darth Sidious.

Jeff
Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah.

Chris
Right. Yeah yeah, yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah. How about that?

Jeff
So are we going to do like, the Star Wars guys next? Yeah. There you go. That’s right. So hey talking about movies we have we have a mutual friend who listens to the podcast. Oh yeah. He’s a movie producer.

Chris
Yeah. Yeah, right.

Jeff
You know what I’m talking about. Mark. Mark is our friend. Yeah.

Chris
He still doesn’t call me, by the way.

Jeff
So. So I ran into him. Mark. Call him. Call me.

Chris
About that script you had me reading.

Jeff
But I was with him this week. Oh, cool. And he’s like, dude, I love the Bible buddies.

Chris
He said, the Bible buddies.

Jeff
And he just died laughing. So it was a joke, right? Yeah. Okay. He was making a joke. You guys, a little podcast, the Bible Buddies or whatever it was. I love it, man.

Chris
Yeah, he’s trying to say your cute little podcast. Yeah. I love that cute little thing you guys do. Yeah. That’s so funny.

Jeff
That’s so funny. So the Bible buddies. There we go. Okay, so that’s great. So we just snort.

Chris
Yeah. You did.

Jeff
Okay. So we are in Luke chapter 1213 to 21.

Chris
We’re talking about the rich young fool. That’s right. Right. So so by the way we know he’s a fool because rich and young usually don’t go together.

Jeff
And the Bible says he’s a fool.

Chris
Well, obviously that’s the reason why we know. But I’m making a joke, Jeff.

Jeff
Joke? Come on, keep up. I’m rich and young. Yes. So here we go. In verse 13 it says. Then someone called from the crowd. Teacher, please tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me. And Jesus replied, friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that? And 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 had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. And he said to himself, what should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops. And then he said, I know I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and 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. But God said to him, you fool! You will die this very night. And 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. Whoa!

Chris
Yeah. There you go, man. So great. Yeah. And, you know, it’s just a simple story, but there’s probably a lot that we could learn from in here. Well, first of all, um, you know, this man comes to Jesus, and he asks him such a weird request. Yeah, yeah. You know, tell my brother to divide our father’s estate with me. And and by the way, I think there’s, like, another completely non-related mini sermon in here. It feels like to me that this guy’s motivation was wrong. Because, after all, Jesus doesn’t respond with, hey, let me let me ask you about your brother and your estate. Right? He goes straight to his heart and he goes, hey, life is not determined by how much you own. In other words, Jesus is pointing at the fact that this man obviously needs to hear that something about this man’s request leads me to believe that that that he’s asking he’s trying to leverage Jesus for his own uses. Yeah, right. In other words, what he’s saying is like, I know what I’ll do. I’ll get he may not listen to mom and he may not listen to my cousin Billy, but but but I’ll get Jesus and he’ll listen to him. Yeah, right. And I think that sometimes we can learn from that, because what we do is we try to leverage, we try to leverage. Um, have you ever had people call you and and and say like, tell my wife this. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. Like, tell her. Tell her you’re.

Jeff
Afraid to tell her. I’m afraid to tell her to.

Chris
Right? You know, like like, hey, man, she won’t listen to me, but she respects you.

Jeff
But yeah, they want to use you as proof for something.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Because it wasn’t uncommon in Jesus day that that people would come to rabbis because rabbis were sophisticated, they were well educated. They were very typically very wise, you know. So if you think of a of a Jewish rabbi, like, because the rabbis would sit around and they would talk big talks and have big thoughts and share big ideas, right? And they would they would challenge each other. And if you think of it like the Greeks would have in their little courtrooms, or the Romans would have in the forum where there would be this amazing exchange of ideas. Well, people would come to Plato and Aristotle too, and ask him to sort stuff out for them sometimes. And it was just because of their incredible mental capacity city, their understanding of law and logic. And so the Jews often would treat their rabbis very similar to the way people would treat Plato or Aristotle or Socrates. Right? So they’re coming to Jesus going, hey, listen, could you sort this out for us? Right. Maybe I can’t afford an attorney, maybe I can’t. I’m afraid to go to court. But he’s certainly saying, I feel like life isn’t fair, right? It’s not fair because the system typically was the oldest son would either get all of it or get twice as much as everybody else, right? Right. So it depended on how the family went. Sometimes the oldest son, if they didn’t have a lot, the father would give everything to the oldest one, hoping he can get one of the family members to do well with an expectation that maybe he’d take care of the rest.

Chris
Yeah, and we definitely know it was customary for the oldest son to at least get a double portion. Yeah. Right.

Jeff
Yeah. And so with this, then it’s like this young man is a is appealing to Jesus saying it’s not fair because he says divide.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. Divide it between the two of us. Yeah.

Jeff
And I think it’s interesting. Here’s another secondary message that’s not part of this necessarily. Jesus. Never. Talks about fairness. Jesus never implies that life is fair. No, and he doesn’t try to resolve a fair solution here either.

Chris
God doesn’t even pretend to be fair. No, no.

Jeff
I know he doesn’t. Right? But fairness is at the core of our culture and society today, a demand for fairness. And it’s just not right. Things aren’t fair.

Chris
And by the way, God is incredibly unfair in our favor.

Jeff
Yes, yes, unfair to himself, right. For our benefit? Yes. And so in that, then you should never feel guilty about the blessings of God. You know, I had a friend, we were in Africa, and we were among a village that 70% of their babies typically died before they turned five years old because of bad water, seven out of ten babies. And it just broke our hearts. There’s a well there now, which is good. I mean, us in another church in the area partnered together to get a well, so that was good. But. We come back and I’m with a couple of fairly wealthy men, and one of the guys said, how do I live with this now? I said, what do you mean? And he goes, they’re barely making it. And I have I spend in a day what they don’t make in a whole year. And I said, well, let me ask you this. Where do you live in your life? He said, I live in a state of Michigan. I said I wasn’t interesting, so the state of Michigan, if you don’t know, is surrounded by what, four of the five Great Lakes? Yeah. And that’s 20% of all of the world’s fresh water surrounds where we live. And I said, how dare you? And he goes, what do you mean? I said, how dare you hoard 20% of all the world’s fresh water? And here’s this village that doesn’t have enough water. He said, I didn’t do it. I said exactly, you just won the cosmic lottery, dude. You didn’t choose when you were going to be born. You didn’t choose what parents you were going to be born to. You didn’t choose where you’d be born. You were just born here. Jeff
And there’s fresh water everywhere. I said, God has blessed you in an extravagant way. He goes. He said, I know, and I’m embarrassed. I said, you’re embarrassed. You’re going to tell God. God, I’m embarrassed that you bless me. I said, how about this instead, say, God, I’m thankful that you bless me and help me to be a blessing to others. Yeah. So if we would see our blessings as an opportunity to be a blessing to others rather than just hoarding. So the whole story Jesus tells here is that the idea of putting the focus wrong. So this kid is asking Jesus to answer his prayers or answer his concerns. Make make life fair for me, right? And Jesus goes, let’s skip the fairness thing and let’s get down to the bigger issue. Your heart is a little greedy. Yeah, right. That’s really it. And so then let’s talk about this because here’s a guy. Then he tells a story which is what he always does. Right.

Chris
Yeah. And it’s the benefit of this man’s heart. Yeah. It’s for.

Jeff
The benefit. Tells the story that this guy just put all of his trust in what he was able to accumulate and died the next day, right?

Chris
Yeah. And it’s and it’s the next, you know, it’s the mentality that he’s attacking. Right. Because because the guy says, oh, I know what I’m going to do. And he has this mentality. In other words, instead of instead of having the mentality of saying, like, hey, I have so much, let me go ahead and help others, right? He says, man, I have way more than I need and I’m stuffing all my barns. So what am I going to do? I know I’ll grow my own kingdom, right? I’ll build bigger barns. Me me, me, me, me. And God’s like. God’s like. Here, here’s what you don’t know that today is the day you’re appointed to die, right? Right. And then. And so you’re acting like a fool. Why? Because who then is going to get everything you have? So your mentality is I’m going to collect. It’s more of me. And yet what you don’t know is 100% of everything you have is going to be not you. Right. And so I remember one of my, one of my, my former pastor in Atlanta, he I remember him saying this. He said, so here’s the question. God says to him, you fool, you will die this very night. And then he says, then who will get everything else you work for? He goes, do you want to know the answer to that? Someone else?

Jeff
Yeah. Someone else, not you.

Chris
He said. Someone else? Yeah. Not you. And so. So the mentality then, of course, is, you know, just to live like the fact that God has just blessed us, we’re hanging on to this. If we have too much we should give to others. Let’s not be so me centered, so greedy. Because that’s the purpose of the parable to this rich young fool.

Jeff
And it seems like a weird answer to the guy’s question, doesn’t it? But so Jesus can see his heart, Jesus can. Jesus goes right to the issue, which, by the way, this happens when we pray. We ask God to answer our prayers, and then we’re surprised by the way he answers. Yeah, because God is answering with what we need.

Chris
It would make more sense had Jesus said, you know what your problem is? You’re greedy. Yeah, yeah. Now how do you said that? Then the entire thing would have made sense. Right?

Jeff
But but that’s what he’s doing is this young man seems to think if I just had a little bit more wealth, all my wildest dreams will come true. If I just had a little bit more wealth, my life would be better. I would enjoy my life more. In Jesus says, listen man, life is more than just stuff, right?

Chris
And even stronger than that. It’s not defined. It’s not measured by what you own. Right? Like like like like you got it all wrong, buddy.

Jeff
Right? And so this idea of generosity, you know, we do this with the Timothy Initiative around the world. We encourage every church that we help start to take care of an orphan or a widow in the community. And for a little while, you know, there’s kind of a culture dependency in some places where missionaries have trained everybody in the in the region to say, wait for us, we’ll bring you rice, wait for us, we’ll bring you more water, wait for us. Right. And so we’ve begun to say, no, no, no. If you have rice, share your rice. If you have a roof, share your roof. Because if you’re not generous with a little bit you have, then you won’t be generous with more. And that’s precisely what this what Jesus is, is challenging this guy. This guy thinks my life would be so much better if I had more. And Jesus said, no, it won’t. And then. And so he could have been saying, oh yeah, because his next me oh, if I had more, I could do more. And Jesus said, is knowing, dude, you’re not doing anything with what you do have. So you’re not going to do more, do better with what you don’t have. This whole thing is the focus on more will make life better. And Jesus said, life is not just better only because you have more. There’s more to life than that. Your life isn’t measured by that. And so he says, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God. I’ve heard people say, Jesus said, A person is a fool to store up earthly wealth. Is that true?

Chris
No, no, that’s not what he said.

Jeff
The word but is a really big but in this sentence.

Chris
It’s a big but.

Jeff
He says but not have a relationship with God. So it’s both. And the book of Proverbs, Solomon says we’re fools if we don’t prepare for our old age. Solomon says we’re fools if we don’t invest, if we don’t get a return on our investment, that will set us up for our old age and prepare, we’re ungodly. It says a righteous man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children. So that’s in the Bible too. So building wealth isn’t the sin? No, building wealth is not wrong. Enjoying your wealth is not wrong. It’s not balancing it off on the other side with having a rich relationship with God.

Chris
Ecclesiastes actually tells us to enjoy our wealth. Yeah. Yeah, right. So there’s nothing wrong with that.

Jeff
It’s the it’s the lack of a focus on a rich relationship with God. So if you think you’re rich because of your stuff. Yeah, you’re poor. He says you’re a fool, but you need to be rich in your relationship with God. If you’re real satisfaction and joy in life is in your relationship with God, you’ll look at your wealth as a tool, right? You look at it as a tool to provide for you in your old age, to provide for your children, give them a leg up and to provide for those that don’t have right and to make a to provide for the kingdom. I was just in a meeting recently where about 200 wealthy Christians gave millions of dollars of their own money in one meeting for the sake of starting new churches all around the world right now. Nobody gave all of their money, right? Everybody I talked to gave small fractions of their money. They’re already generous. Most of them tithe. They give generously. But then they gave small fractions. But collectively, these wealthy people said, it’s not just about us. We’re going to pivot in the neighborhood we were in, there were 100 houses for sale, over $5 million. Wow. Just in the neighborhood, there was one house for sale for $18 million. At the end of the canal, there was a house beyond that, $88 million for sale. This is where these people live.

Chris
That is crazy.

Jeff
This is where they live. And God wasn’t like, shame on you for living in a nice house or driving a nice car or eating a nice meal at dinnertime instead. God was like, I love it when my people don’t just hoard my stuff, right? They have open hands and they’re willing to fund the kingdom, right? So God’s not mad at wealthy people. And so he’s not saying you’re a fool for storing up earthly wealth. You’re a fool for not having a rich relationship with God. Yeah.

Chris
I. This is serendipitous that I actually mentioned this on Sunday. So last Sunday, which was just two days ago, I shared this story and I think it’s appropriate for this context. So I’d like to read this. There are two contrasting stories in the book titled Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, and he actually publishes two true stories, and he says the first story is that of two women, one who is 81 years old, the other in their mid 70s. One was a doctor and the other a missionary. Both Americans who were serving God in West Africa, helping those in need, and had been doing so for years and out on a drive. One day their brakes of their car failed, sending it over a cliff, killing them both instantly. And the other story is a Reader’s Digest published story of a couple who took an early retirement at 59 and 51 years old and had spent the last five years living in Florida, sailing around on their 30 foot yacht, collecting seashells from remote islands and playing pickleball all afternoon. And the author asks one simple question which one is the tragedy? And then he says, can you imagine the moment the four of them stand in front of God at different times? One pair saying, we did everything you asked us to the moment we took our last breath, and the other saying, hey God, look at these seashells we’ve collected. And God would say, yes, I’ve seen them, right? Yeah. And so then and so then I went on to say is, most of us have been sold a lie from the pits of hell that our lives are for ourselves. Right. And then the truth is that if you get to the end of your life, which, by the way, we all have to live lives for ourselves, right? Chris
Right, right. Within reason. Yeah, right. We have to live for our wives and our spouses and our husbands and our.

Jeff
Responsibilities.

Chris
And so, so, so I’m not talking about that.

Jeff
Paul says that a person that doesn’t provide for his family is like a pagan.

Chris
Yes. Right. So I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting to the end of your life like this rich young fool never thinking about other people.

Jeff
Only collecting the seashells and never making a.

Chris
Difference. Right, right. And so, so so what I wrote down, I said on Sunday was this. The truth is, if you get to the end of your life and your life is all about comfort and safety and it’s all about you, it is a wasted life. Yes, you don’t even get to experience true life until you give it away.

Jeff
So enjoy your blessings. My wife and I were on the beach in Florida this last week, and she went around picking up seashells. Yeah, and it’s fine. Nothing wrong with that. But we have.

Chris
So many seashells in my.

Jeff
House. But there’s more to it than that, right? So much more. And so that’s what he’s trying to say here to this young man is there’s so much more. Your life is not defined by what you have. And then if you do have, use it right. So delight in it. Enjoy the blessings God’s given you, but make sure that you’re also a blessing. You’ve been blessed to be a blessing.

Chris
That’s great. Well, that’s a great place to end and we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.