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13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” ~ Luke 12:13-15
In v.1 of this same chapter we read, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.” Then in v.15 we read, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed." The pervasive bookends which must be avoided if we desire a personal relationship with God are hypocrisy and greed. Both have as their common denominator, self. The opposite of eternal life is self life.
Now you might look at hypocrisy and greed, and say, “Well, those are two randomly selected sins out of a long catalog of sins that perhaps Jesus is only using as illustrative of the greater, all-encompassing list that He might have given. But that’s not the case.
These are not randomly selected sample sins among many. These represent the two essential realms which exist, the material realm and the spiritual realm. Hypocrisy relates to the spiritual realm, and greed relates to the material world. Both threaten to trip up our souls' pursuit of God.
The Lord Jesus had been teaching on the danger of hypocrisy which is saying we know God when we don’t. He has also been warning not to worry about what men say when the worst they can do is kill our body.
According to v.13, a man in the crowd asked the Lord Jesus to solve a family problem. The people expected the Rabbi to help settle legal matters, but the Lord Jesus refused to get involved in this one in that way. He knew that no answer He gave would solve the real problem, which was greed in the hearts of the two brothers.
The “you” in v.14 is plural, and as long as both men were covetous, no settlement would be satisfactory. Their greatest need was to be made right with God. Like too many people today, they only wanted Jesus to serve them but not to save them.
In v.13 the man says, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” This was his greed talking, and he wants the Lord Jesus to tell his brother with some kind of authority, because it was obvious Jesus had great power and authority to give him his money.
In v.14 the Lord Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Wading through this man's temporal issues, the Lord Jesus speaks to his real need, his spiritual need.
So, in v.15 we read, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Here the Lord Jesus exposes the real issue. The sin is not in having more, the sin is being discontent. The sin is not in having wealth, the sin is in what we do with it. It’s not about what we have, it’s about not having a heart for people and being greedy.
To define life as an acquisition of material possessions is to commit the deadly sin of serving the creature rather than the Creator. “Life does not consist in an abundance of our possessions.” The word “abundance” means “more than enough,” “more than sufficient.” The word “life” in the Greek can be one of two words: bios, which is biological life or as in the case here, zōē, is the type of life that has the touch of eternity on it. Zōē encompasses all that makes life worth living, all that is real life: satisfaction, fulfillment, enjoyment, meaning, purpose.
The life the Lord Jesus is referring to here is eternal life, because that’s the only kind of life that is fulfilling, satisfying, meaningful, purposeful, producing peace and joy and hope. We will never get zōē from the material world even if we have more than enough.
Those not experiencing Christ's life will never have their thirst quenched, because the life that is needed, the life that satisfies, the life that fulfills, the life that is eternal and lasts forever is the life of God come to mankind's soul, and it’s not going to come through acquiring possessions. Greed is the issue here.
Covetousness is an unquenchable thirst for getting more and more of something we think we need in order to be truly satisfied. It may be a thirst for money or the things that money can buy, or even a thirst for position and power. The Lord Jesus made it clear that true life does not depend on an abundance of possessions.
The Lord Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I have come that you might real life, and have it more abundantly.” At the core of who we are there is this longing within us that only God can address. The common denominator to our sin is self.
Now, when the Lord Jesus gives us His life, we are freed from self. We begin seeing and thinking in a transcendent way. His life is a life that brings us to the end of self and frees us from the low thinking of self. Be patient, this is a gradual thing. Of course, our sins have been forgiven and we are on our way to heaven, but God wants to so impact our lives right now that others get in on this eternal life. It took you as long as your age is right now to get to where you are right now. Give Him time and He will train you to think and to zōē like Him.
