RETIREMENT PLANNING

“Someone from the crowd said to Him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’

‘Friend,’ He said to him, ‘who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?’  He then told them, ‘Watch out and be on guard against all greed because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.’

Then He told them a parable: ‘A rich man’s land was very productive.  He thought to himself, “What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops?  I will do this,” he said.  “I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there.  Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.”’

‘But God said to him, “You fool!  This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared — whose will they be?”’

‘That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’”  (Luke 12:13-21 HCSB)

I am not as young as I used to be.  It’s a good reason for leaving the light off when I first get up in the morning!  One day, I looked into the mirror and saw my father looking back at me!  How did he get in there?  Then I rubbed my eyes, and looked again—it wasn’t him, but it sure looked like him.  How did this happen?

Age is no respecter of persons. Now, if you have enough money, you may be able to artificially and cosmetically alter your appearance.  It is sort of like going to the embalmer before the funeral and letting them work on you.  When a funeral director gets through with you, you may look better, but it doesn’t change the reality.  Neither does plastic surgery, Botox, wrinkle cream, and so forth.

Knowing that the years will roll by no matter what means that retirement planning is important.  We need to be ready for the “golden years”.  There is nothing wrong with storing away some gold for those years.  I have a retirement portfolio, and the church I serve is good enough to make regular contributions to it.  I guess they have noticed me aging also—and want to help me get ready for it.

But, how does this square with what Jesus says here?  Isn’t it sinful to store up money?  Wouldn’t it bring down God’s wrath on someone who buys a condo, moves to Florida and plays golf three times a week?

Maybe…and maybe not.

The issue is whether we are merely planning for this life and hoarding up what we have, with the attitude, “This is what I am going to do,” while leaving God’s will out of the equation, or are we planning for the life to come and investing what we have, with the desire, “I want the will of God more than anything else!”?

In Scripture, the issue is never how much money we hold, but how much hold does money have on us.  It isn’t a matter of what we have in the bank, but what we have in our heart.  It’s not the amount but the attitude that is pivotal.

Let’s dig a little deeper, and see if there aren’t some glittering gems of truth waiting to be mined for our spiritual enrichment.

Jesus is warning us about A SELFISH APPROACH TO LIFE.

Did you notice the excessive use of personal pronouns by this fellow?

“What should I do, since I don’t have anywhere to store my crops?  I will do this,” he said.  “I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones and store all my grain and my goods there.  Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.”

This guy had “I” trouble!  It was a bad case of spiritual myopia—the nearsightedness that caused him to only see the temporal and have the eternal beyond his field of vision.

It is easy to do.  Selfishness is our default setting.  Inherently, we are that way—and it is no chore to live for what pleases us rather than what pleases God.

Look at the context that gave rise to this parable.

Here is a man coming to Jesus as a selfish child asking him to referee the dispute.  How many parents can identify with that!  It is a spirit of entitlement.  “I’m not getting what’s coming to me!”  It’s amazing the family squabbles that often happen following a funeral.  Sometimes it reminds me of vultures circling a corpse ready to fight over the remains.

Jesus refuses to get into that fight.  There is a far more important problem.  It wasn’t the emptiness of the man’s bank account that was the real issue, but the bankruptcy of his soul which truly mattered.  His attitude toward money was a barometer of his spiritual state.

The Lord sounds a warning.  He gets to the bottom line quickly.  The man is guilty of greed.  This is covetousness and Scripture brands that as idolatry.  Emblazoned on our money is the motto, “In God We Trust,” but more often we seem to think it reads, “In This God We Trust” and we lean on our loot.

It is a mistake to equate life with possessions.  We can never find security and significance there—but, we sure try!  This is what Jesus will explain in the parable.

The story is a portrait of A SENSUAL APPROACH TO LIFE. 

“Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.”’(v.19)

God blesses the man with a bumper crop.  But, there is no acknowledgment of God—no expression of gratitude rendered.  This fellow seems consumed with the material to the exclusion of the eternal.

His question is, “What am I going to do with all this stuff?”

How about stopping to give thanks to God the Provider?  What about considering the needs of others?  Might he have prayed and sought the will of God?  Not this man—the sensual and not the spiritual drove him.

Again, let’s underscore that money itself is not the root of all kinds of evil—and that isn’t what Scripture warns us about.  It is the love of money!  A poor man might love it enough to want what he doesn’t have more than anything in life and a rich man might love it enough to want to keep all he does have more than anything else.  Fundamentally, it is the same soul disease afflicting each.  The money isn’t the reason for the greed—it is a revealer of it.

The man in the story arrogantly states what he will do.  It is as though he is shaking his fist in the face of God.  This same spirit swept an angel out of heaven and turned him into the Devil of hell.  That never works out well. It didn’t for Lucifer and it won’t for this guy.  His will, and not God’s will, was uppermost in his plans—bad mistake!

Hear his boast of “many goods…many years…” and the truth is he left it all behind, soon!  Neither assertion was true in the end.

There is nothing wrong with retirement, per se, but we better not retire from God’s work to do our will.  Investments in eternity need to be made all the way to the end.  God’s retirement plan is “out of this world!” 

Don’t imagine there is anything wrong with eating, drinking and being happy, but if the approach is only a self-centered and sensual one, then we are in trouble. 

This man had a conversation with himself.  The problem therein was he was talking to a fool!  If we spent more time talking to God and less time talking to ourselves, we’d be much better off!  When I seek counsel from God, I get wisdom, and when I seek the counsel of my own heart, I get foolishness.  Many will say, “Follow your heart.”  That will lead to destruction because of its desperately depraved condition.

                                                                

That leads us to a final consideration.  Ultimately, this was A SENSELESS APPROACH TO LIFE.

“‘But God said to him, “You fool!  This very night your life is demanded of you. And the things you have prepared — whose will they be?”’

‘That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’”  (v.20-21)

This man is labeled as a fool by God.  What made him so? 

In the Bible, a fool doesn’t necessarily suffer from a lack of intelligence.  This man seems pretty sharp—a successful businessman. What he decides to do is reasonable—from the world’s perspective.  A fool isn’t someone mentally defective, but morally deficient. 

Here’s something to chew on: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?  Someone dies and the question comes, “How much did they leave behind?”  The answer, of course, is: “All of it!”

We should make sure we are investing in the eternal—that’s the wise decision.  Jesus would later bear down on this point: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.  Make money-bags for yourselves that won’t grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (v.33-34) 

It isn’t that saving and investing money is wrong—indeed it’s good stewardship.  The Proverbs extols the industry of the ant.  It isn’t possessing earthly wealth that is decried.  The problem is when our possessions possess us.  It is the failure to be rich toward God that is the sin.

How is your retirement planning coming along?  Invest wisely!