Dear friends in Christ.
Throughout the centuries, people have pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. But to fully understand where joy can be found, perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found: It isn’t found in unbelief— Voltaire was an infidel, an unbeliever, of the most pronounced type, and he wrote: "I wish I had never been born." It isn’t found in Pleasure -- Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure if anyone did. He wrote: "The worm, the canker, and grief are mine alone." It isn’t found in Money -- Jay Gould, the American millionaire, had plenty of that. When dying, he said: "I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth." It isn’t found in Position and Fame -- Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his share of both. He wrote: "Youth is a mistake; manhood a struggle; old age a regret." It isn’t found in Military Glory -- Alexander the Great conquered the known world in his day. Having done so, he wept in his tent, before he said, "There are no more worlds to conquer." So where then is real joy found? Well, you already know the answer to that question, because real joy is found in Christ alone! (Adapted from SermonIllustrations.com ) This is exactly what our Savior is teaching us in our lesson this morning! He is teaching to find our joy in the Lord our God. In fact, he is teaching us to rejoice because God our Father has already given us his heavenly kingdom!
Now, if you haven’t already done so, I invite you to open your Bibles to our gospel lesson; to Luke 12:32, which is found on page 1031. There, in Luke 12:32, some of the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are words calling on us to rejoice because our heavenly Father has given us his heavenly kingdom. Luke 12:32 tells us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32, NIV)
Such beautiful words! Such comforting words! Though they could easily stand all by themselves as words of comfort and joy, in order to fully understand what Jesus is telling us here, we have to take a look back to Luke 12:13, where we find our text from last week; the Rich Fool. Though it was last week we heard Jesus teaching us to find our true wealth in the Lord our God and warning us against all kinds of greed and building our lives on the abundance of our possessions, what Jesus is telling us today is part of his discourse that began back in Luke 12:1. As we heard last week, as Jesus was speaking to his disciples a crowd of thousands had gathered to hear him, and there, already in verse 6, Jesus began teaching them the very reason why we can rejoice in the Lord our God and his gift of the kingdom. Take a look at Luke 12:6-7 with me: Jesus says, 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6–7, NIV)
Skip over the parable of the Rich Fool that we studied last week and take a look at Luke 12:22-24, 27-28: “Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!” Jump to verse 27: “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! (Luke 12:22-24, 27–28, NIV)
Starting from the very beginning of this chapter, through the parable of the Rich Fool, all the way to our lesson today, Jesus is telling us that we don’t need to worry about food and drink. We don’t need to worry about our house or our home. We don’t need to be concerned about our property, our wealth, our life or even our clothes, because we know that the Lord our God will provide all that we need and even more than that. Because we know that God will provide all that we need for our lives and even more than that, we don’t need to worry, as Jesus tells us in verse 32! Instead, we can rejoice! We can rejoice because we know that the Lord our God has given us the kingdom. We can rejoice because in giving us his kingdom, God our heavenly Father is assuring us that he has called us to faith in him through the working of the Holy Spirit. He is assuring us that because we have been called to faith by the working of the Holy Spirit, we have received the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us on the cross. Because we have received the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won or us on the cross, we know that our Savior has prepared a place for us in his heavenly kingdom. We know that one day, when Jesus calls us out of this life, he will take us to live by his side forever in those mansions in heaven, the very mansions whose keys God the Father has already turned over to us by calling us to faith in Jesus Christ our Savior through the work of the Holy Spirit through God’s powerful Word.
This is why even now in some of the most frustrating economic times our country has seen for many years, each and every one of us can rejoice! Each and every one of us can rejoice because we know that our God has already given us the gift of his heavenly kingdom. We can rejoice, because if God has given us his heavenly kingdom we know that he will provide for all our needs here on earth. No longer do we need to be obsessed with storing up four ourselves. Instead, knowing that we are members of God’s kingdom through faith in Jesus, our thoughts begin to turn to storing up treasures for ourselves in our heavenly kingdom. Jump back with me to Luke 12:32-34: Jesus tells us: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:32–34, NIV)
Did you notice what Jesus did? In such a simple way he referred back to the Parable of the Rich Fool that we studied just last week. For as Jesus spoke in verse 33 and 34, he is calling on us not to be like the fool who only thought of storing up treasures for himself in this world, but to live in the joyful knowledge that the Kingdom of heaven already belongs to us. He is calling on us to recognize that everything we have is a gift of God, given to us for us to manage. He is calling on us to hang on to the possessions we have with open hands. Rather than clutching our fingers and our hands and our arms and our whole bodies around our possessions and holding on to them as tightly as we can, Jesus is calling on us to hold on to them with open hands, so that when he comes to us and asks for us to return one or more of our blessings, those blessings easily slide right out of our hands. In other words, as we rejoice in the fact that the Kingdom of heaven already belongs to us, we learn to recognize our possessions and wealth for what they truly are! Though we used to see them as something that we sought to possess and hold onto for as long as possible, Jesus is teaching us to see them as blessings from him that he gives us to manage for a time. He is teaching to understand that God is the owner of everything and we are but his servants who use those gifts, blessings, possessions, and wealth as our servants in service to the Lord. When we begin to understand that our greatest possession is not something that we have on this earth, but the keys to the kingdom of heaven that our God has given through his Son, we begin to live our lives in thanks and praise of the Lord our God. When we daily rejoice over the fact that our Savior will one day take us from this life to our home in heaven, we begin to understand that our true treasure lies in heaven, and the only thing we can take to heaven with us is other people.
When we begin to understand that, it becomes all the easier for us to set aside a portion of our income for the Lord before we do anything else with it. It becomes all the easier for us to part with money and possessions to help others who are in need. It becomes that much easier for us to make use of our money in the Lord’s service through extra gifts for our congregation, our synod, missionaries, and even other programs that we are able to support from time to time like Faith Comes by Hearing. When we find ourselves rejoicing in the fact that our God has already blessed us with the kingdom of heaven, then it becomes all the easier for us to live for the Lord, to follow his Words, and to prepare ourselves for our Savior’s return, which is what Jesus talks about in Luke 12:35-40 of our lesson today: 35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Luke 12:35–40, NIV)
Talking about our Savior’s return, a wise man once said, “When you expect him least, that is when you need to expect him most.” This is the picture that Jesus paints in the last verses of our lesson today. Like the servants needed to be prepared for their master to return at any moment, so also we must be ready for our Savior’s return at any time. And we are ready! For through faith in Jesus, we are looking forward to the day when he will return to take us home. Through faith in Jesus our hearts have been washed clean and we have been given the wedding garments of his righteousness which we wear even now as we wait the day when he will bring us to his heavenly kingdom. Through faith in Jesus, we seek to live our lives according to his will, serving him with all that we are and all that we have, because we know that heaven is our home. We know that no matter when our Savior returns, we are ready. We are ready because we are God’s children through faith in Jesus, and we are eagerly awaiting the kingdom to which we already hold the key.
Though there are many people who are seeking joy through many and varied means, as Christians we have found the source of true joy! Our joy is found in Jesus Christ our Savior who called us to faith and bestowed upon us the kingdom of our God.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church -Le Sueur, MN
