Beware of Covetousness: Understanding Luke 12:15 and Jesus’ Warning on Greed

my leaders hey everyone thank you all for joining me today for another episode right now you are in my humble abode and I'm speaking like this because two reasons my wife she got to sleep so I gotta use my inside voice two outside is way too cold for your boy we're kind of recording the a little late but nonetheless man I got a special message for you all that I didn't know I was going to speak about and it's in the book of Luke all right Luke I want yall to open up to chapter 12 I'm going to be reading out of the KJV version and Luke 12 I want

y'all to go down to verse 15 Jesus is speaking and tonight I'm speaking to you all about covetousness okay we're going to be speaking about coveting and this Parable here I'm going to break down for us it's not too long but it speaks about what Jesus has in mind when he's talking about covetousness and this could be broken down in so many different ways but I'm going to keep this very simple for us tonight um and then in the future video I'm going to go even deeper into what this actually means so before I begin let's pray dear Lord heavenly father in the mighty name of Jesus Christ am Lord

we just want to first and foremost thank you for you thank you for being our Lord thank you for being our savior we lift the name of Jesus Christ right now we magnify your name we bless your name God You Are Holy you are separate you are the way you are the truth and you are the life and father I thank you for guiding us here today to just spend some time in your word reading it n getting nourished from it getting fed from your word and so father I pray that as I'm speaking this word that this leader is nourished father I bless this leader right now and I

ask that as this leader watches this video anything that they came in with any heaviness any Spirit of distraction any type of heavy weight that's been on them Lord I ask that you release them from the weight Lord God you deliver them from the heavy heart Heavenly Lord and you continuously guide them you continuously be their strength you continuously be their light you continuously be their Shield Lord God father I'm praying that this message would do something good for their hearts today so Lord lead us blessing me more you we just want to say that we love you and it's in Jesus mighty name that we pray amen amen my

leaders I got to this word today in Luke because I was reading about the Book of Micah and as I've been reading the book of Micah God's been showing me to just slow down slow down mik is a tough read I'm having to do a lot of EX Jesus in that book because he uses a lot of poetic terms a lot of analogies that can kind of be a little bit confusing so as I'm in Chapter 2 of Micah I'm in a part where it talks about he's prophesying against the oppressive leaders okay and how the leaders are oppressing the poor they're taking advantage of the poor they're taking their

land and they're taking their houses and they're taking things that don't belong to them and they're taking it by force that's what's going on and as I IM meeting that this weekend I had the opportunity of going to life surge which is a it's a Christian Conference that helps individuals learn about real estate okay I was there from Friday to Sunday from 9:00 a.m. in the morning to 6:00 p.m.

and it was jam-packed jam-packed with phenomenal speakers a a bunch of entrepreneurs people who have been doing real estate successfully and a lot of us who are learned learning how to do real estate okay and so as I'm there and I came back today I asked the Lord okay God if I'm get into real estate eventually Lord I want to do this in a way that honors you I want to do this in a way that is not greedy I want to do this in a way that just gives you the glory and so ironically the Bible is is alive it's real it connects with every single thing you could

possibly be going through in life and I wouldn't expect that this Micah chapter 2 was going to connect with real estate but in all actuality it did and this is where I get today's message and so God had to warn me about covetousness about property about houses and so this word covet let's let's give a definition to this so we're going to read this verse first and foremost let's read read and one before we even get to this verse there's a individual that comes up to Jesus talking about the division of an inheritance and here's what this individual talks to Jesus about he wants his brother in verse 13 to

divide the inheritance and it looks like one of his brothers is pretty much greedy and does not want to do such a thing and here here's what the Lord has to say about this in verse 15 he says take heed and beware of covetousness for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possess we going to read all the way down to 21 but I'm going to stop this word Covetous beware of covetousness so first and foremost the definition of covetousness covetousness is the insatiable insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others so the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others now

check this out my laders when this word insatiable means impossible to satisfy so if you have an insatiable desire to have what's for others that means you have this this impossible craving that cannot be satisfied even though you continuously get more you get more of what your eyes are looking at that's not yours and you still cannot be satisfied this is what greed is about you're never content with what you have there's never enough of what God has blessed you with or what you went out to go get with your own hands outside of the will of God you just can't get enough and so you need more and you

need more and you need more and then when you get more of what you already have you don't even see the value of the very thing that you have because you can't be content so you start looking some more and I'll be honest it's kind of easy and day and age to get online get on social media to look at what everybody has and wish you had the life they had you wish you maybe had the supporters that they had you maybe wish you had some of the things that they're posting about and it's not just social media I would be wrong if I said oh it's just social media

no social media just gives a a massive glimpse of a variety of people we never get the opportunity to meet most most of our lives right but it happens in our immediate life maybe you go to work and you don't have the car that your boss has right or the income that the people that you love have or you don't have something precious that they have maybe it's children maybe it's a family maybe it's a wife maybe it's a husband or you don't have the relationship the girlfriend the boyfriend it's a host of different things that that we have the ability to covet and we forget that once again what

do this verse says a man's life does not in the abundance of things that he possess it that's not your life and let's keep reading Jesus is going to give us a parable all right and this Parable reads in verse 16 and he spake a parable to them saying the ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentiful okay so this dude has land and there's there's provision and this provision is the Bible says plentiful trust that it means plentiful there's an immense increase that happens in this man's life the ground of a certain rich man he's already rich mind you the Bible didn't call this man a poor man

this is a rich man that already has all this possession and he was given more it says 17 and he thought within himself saying what shall I do because I have no room where to bestow my fruits and he said this will I do I will pull down my Barns and build greater and there there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods verse 19 and I will say to my soul soul thou has much Goods laid upon for many years take thine ease eat drink and be married we're going to come back to this verse verse 20 but God said unto him thou fool this night thy Soul

shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou Hast provided so is he that layth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God so first principle here before I get to 19 and break this down is that true wealth is first and foremost found in a relationship with God one key indicators of this rich man being and selfish is in verse 19 we see that he builds a bigger Barn he wants to store up what he has and he wants to keep it for himself verse 19 says I will say to my soul so thou H has Goods laid up for many years so

this man rich man is relying on these Goods he's storing them up from himself with no thought to his mind to take this excess of what he's given and go bless others he doesn't want to bless others remind you this verse if we go back to verse 15 is about the principle of covetousness so this is some context this man is coveting the very thing that he has and does not want to give one of the principles about coveting is that you already have what you have and you're so ready to get more that you you're not even even willing or have a heart posture that wants to give at

all you don't want to give nothing and I know if I pause right there that there's many times in my life where God gives me stuff and I'm challenged to a I gave you this but I'm challenged to okay are you going to give a little bit of this away it's a it's a heart posture and so but here it is he says in verse 19 and I will say to my soul so oh thou has much Goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and marry some of your verses may say take life easy eat drink and be mared so now take life easy now and

the reason wants to take life easy is he's trusting in his wealth this wealth has brought this peace all of a sudden this wealth is where his trust is in okay and so to Humble him to to Humble him so that he realizes that you your wealth is not going to be able to protect you your wealth is not something that you should be leaning on and in the word it says trust not our riches for our riches can grow wings and fly away our money's here today gone tomorrow and the same one that gave you the provision can also take away that provision at any time and so he

says in verse 20 but God said unto him thou this night thy Soul shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be which thou H has provided this is a principle of now your life is going when somebody rich or us that have all these these possessions when we lose our life and when life has reached the end what are you going to do with these possessions you can't bring these possessions with you these possessions that you stored up you can't bring these possessions with you who are now these possessions for you can't take it and I'm learning a lot about that word fool that fool also means

a fool morally and a full spiritually okay you're fool morally because of the the physical acts of what this individual is doing with the goods storing it up for himself and not considering other and a fo spiritually because had you had this relationship with God you would understand the spiritual inclination or the spiritual responsibility we have in developing this relationship with God and had he had this relationship with God spiritually the holy spirit is always going to reveal what the father is saying and give you a heart posture of the father that is going to compel you to give your resources and to share your resources and to not bury

and when I'm thinking about this verse I'm thinking about the story we know of the individuals that been that were given the talents that were given the money three individual given a certain amount and we know the story one of them specifically buried the things that were given to him he didn't invest none of it and here's the extra resources that the individual has that can help the body of Christ and so the Lord ends this Parable by saying so is he that layth up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God one reason why this is so powerful is that we also have to go to another scripture

it's in Matthews Matthew 6 go to Matthew 6 and I want y'all to go to verse 20 all right Matthew 6 verse 20 reads it says this talks about treasure this is why the Lord spoke about being rich in God first and foremost this is the parable that you know about treasure but let's connect this now it Jesus is speaking again Matthew 6: 20 it says but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor Rush do corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal verse 21 for where your treasure is there will your heart be also where your treasure is there your heart will be

also God doesn't want us to lay up Treasures in this world and begin to worship these treasures and begin to covet these treasures and to begin to have this insatiable desire for these Treasures that can't be quenched but he wants us to have our Treasures laid up in heaven this is the Eternal perspective perspective this is why it's so important to know where your eternity is but if you don't have an eternal perspective and you can't see yourself or understand salvation and where you're going after this life you won't recognize how important it is to understand the scriptures and how important it is to understand that what you do here

on this Earth matters the Bible speaks about us having certain positions in heaven certain ranks according to what we've done here it's a very serious matter to understand that there's a role that you and I have here on this Earth and it doesn't have much to do with us storing up Treasures here mind you God wants to bless us here and he wants to gift us I'm not one of those preachers or those pastors speaking about don't do nothing here it doesn't matter wait and get everything in heaven so you might that's a depressing type of uh it's a depressing type of preaching I hear a lot of preaching like

that where it almost seems like I shouldn't even be alive no you were born for a reason you're here for a reason and God wants to gift you things and he wants you to enjoy things here and he's going to bless many of you all and he's going to continuously bless you but he doesn't want us to worship these things that's not what he wants us to do okay and so as I'm looking at you know this real estate going back to the real estate again what I started to realize is that I need to keep coming to God as I get into this game to provide provision for my

family to provide housing for those who are unfortunate who don't have the best background in the world who may not pass a credit check who may not be able to afford the outrageous prices that our society is continuously increasing I realize as I get blessed and God brings the provision I have to continuously check my heart and ask myself am I in a posture of being okay with God has given me and this is the question I challenge you my leader to ask are you okay right now what God has given you now that don't mean be content in your situation okay but there's a Godly contentment there's an understanding

that even if God didn't give me more I'm at peace with my portion right now and that portion is my relationship with him and I just want him to lead me I want my him to be my treasure you want your you want God to truly be your treasure and everything else is extra seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything else is going to be added but you want to seek the kingdom of God and everything else will be added and as we seek the kingdom God is going to give us the true perspective on how we should view the things that are coming our way many of

you are going to be given a lot you're going to be entrusted with so much the rulers in Micah chapter 2 they were entrusted with a lot they were given much as we know in the Bible God doesn't place any leader there for no reason even if those that seem corrupt a leader is only in position that is in because God has allowed that leader to be in that position and if you've been given much in this lifetime it's because God has allowed you to be given much but when it comes do not allow yourself to get into a place where you're worshiping these things thank God that you have

it okay thank God that you have have it thank God that he blessed you with the provision but get right back to worshiping him and ask him what do I do with all of this increase okay what do I do with all of this this power yeah what do I do