Rich Toward God: What the Parable of the Rich Fool Teaches About True Wealth

In This Sermon

• The Inheritance Dispute: The sermon opens in Luke 12 with a man who interrupts Jesus mid-teaching to ask him to settle a family inheritance dispute. Jesus declines to arbitrate, but the request draws from him a warning that frames the entire parable: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

• Vanity of Vanities: Moving to Ecclesiastes 1:2, the Teacher’s ancient verdict on accumulation — “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” A person labors with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then must leave everything to someone who never worked for it. The sermon places the Preacher and Jesus in conversation: both expose the futility of making earthly accumulation the point of a human life.

• The Parable of the Rich Fool: Luke 12:16-21 — a bumper crop leads the rich man not to gratitude or generosity but to expansion and self-congratulation: “I’ll say to myself, take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” God’s response is devastating in its simplicity: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.” The question lands like a hammer: “Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

• Greed as Idolatry: Colossians 3:5 identifies greed explicitly as idolatry — the substitution of material security for trust in God. The sermon explores what makes the Rich Fool foolish: not that he built barns, but that he talked only to himself, planned for decades without reference to God, and staked his soul on the size of his surplus. The barn became his god.

• Rich Toward God: Luke 12:21 — “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Pastor Steve unpacks what it means to be “rich toward God”: to hold possessions as a steward rather than an owner, to find security not in the size of the barn but in the faithfulness of the Provider, to be generous precisely because we have been given everything in grace.

• Contentment Hidden in Christ: The sermon closes with Colossians 3:1-4 — “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Contentment is not the reward of having enough; it is the fruit of knowing that in Christ you already possess what cannot be taken away — not by a bad harvest, not by a market crash, not even by death.

Theological Citations:

1. Luke 12:13-21: The primary text — the Parable of the Rich Fool, in which Jesus warns against greed and identifies the soul’s deepest poverty as being “rich toward self” rather than “rich toward God.”

2. Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” — The Old Testament reading that frames the sermon’s central question: what does a person’s labor ultimately gain them, if they cannot take it beyond death?

3. Colossians 3:1-11: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things… put to death greed, which is idolatry.” — The epistle reading that names the Rich Fool’s sin precisely: greed is not merely a financial problem but a worship problem.

4. Psalm 49:6-12: “Those who trust in their wealth and boast of their great riches… no one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them.” — The Psalm reading that undercuts the assumption behind the Rich Fool’s plan: wealth cannot buy more time or purchase escape from death.

5. Luke 12:21: “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” — The sermon’s key verse; the contrast between self-directed accumulation and God-directed stewardship that drives the entire message.

6. 1 Timothy 6:6-10: “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” — Paul’s pastoral counterpoint to the Rich Fool, defining contentment as a fruit of godliness rather than sufficiency of possessions.

7. The Augsburg Confession, Article IV — On Justification: “Men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith.” — The confessional foundation that reframes stewardship: we give and hold lightly because grace has already given us everything, not to earn God’s approval.

8. Luther’s Small Catechism — The First Article of the Creed: “God has given me and still preserves my body and soul… all this out of pure fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me.” — Luther’s catechetical grounding for the sermon’s conclusion: contentment flows from knowing God as the Provider, not from the size of one’s barn.