Have you laid up treasure for yourself, without being rich towards God?
In this passage, being ‘rich towards God’ means: taking into account other people's needs first. Where have we written a cheque, to make one more investment, so that our soul can be at ease; where that cheque could have easily gone to feed the orphans?
Is God against investments? No. Is God against wealth? Absolutely not. God wants us all to be wealthy stewards, but the key there, is the word 'stewards'. He wants us to be wealthy stewards; not people who sit around and think to ourself: I don't need to meet the needs of the hungry; I'll keep building bigger barns for myself, so that my soul can be at ease, at the expense of somebody else.
This man had starving people right outside his front door, and he was building bigger barns, so that his soul could be at ease. Do we find any of ourselves in that story? Has anybody, besides me (we've all done it I think), ever seen a legitimate need… Legitimate - I'm not talking about laziness. The Bible clearly says: don't help a lazy person, lest you enable that laziness okay! I'm talking about HIV aids orphans. I'm talking about Sudanese refugees, who can do nothing to help themselves.
Has anybody, besides me, seen an opportunity to help those people; and we turned the channel, or we turn our head from it - just so we can keep that one little bit of $50 extra in our bank accounts, so our soul can be ease, when we've got plenty of money to meet that need?
Are we demonstrating, and then announcing - or are we standing at the roof tops announcing, with no demonstration? Being rich towards God, is about meeting the needs of others first (in this passage); and in doing that, it actually saves our soul as well.
It looks like poor people need our help, but in actuality, we need their help. The poor people need us to feed their belly; but we need the poor people to keep our hearts humble - remembering that the Lord our God brought us out of Egypt, without us deserving it - and that is why He commands to meet their needs first. We are called to be a group of people who make it our problem
Luke 10. This is another story Jesus tells, which is kind of disturbing.
Before we start this I need to teach you something Hebraically; that in Hebrew culture, when they read parables, they do not read parables for content. We read parables for content; but they read parables for identification. They're always asking themselves: who am I in a story?
That's why, when I read a story, I'd say: are you finding yourself in there anywhere? They read the parables for identification, so normally a parable starts out with a question. Somebody is asking a question, so person A is asking rabbi B a question.
Rabbi B answers person A by saying: let me tell you a parable to answer your question; and the answer to the person's question comes in: who does the person identify with in the story. So with that in mind, let's look at the parable of what we call the Good Samaritan..
Luke 10:25, it says: “and behold, a certain expert in the law stood up and tempted Jesus”. It doesn't really necessarily mean a bad thing, it just meant he was asking Him a question.
He was testing Him, saying: “Rabbi, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” This was a very common question in those days, about the rabbis.
The words 'Eternal Life' doesn't mean: I get to go to heaven one day. It was the word Olam Habah, which meant: Eternal Peace with God; or Harmony with God.