When you get some stuff, what is your first thought about it? Do you start planning how you can use it? Save it? Give it? Where does your mind go? How we think about our stuff says a lot about us and where we are in our relationship with Jesus. It can also have a big impact on the size of the world we live in. During His ministry, Jesus was confronted with one particular man’s attitude during a teaching episode and chose to address it directly. Let’s see what Jesus had to say to Him and what it might have to do with us.

The Assumption of Consumption

Kids crack me up. If I think about it, though, kids make me a little sad too. Let me explain. Kids, and especially little kids, offer us the clearest picture we have of what people look like in our rawest form. If you have ever wondered what people are really like, spend some time watching kids. Now, this doesn’t hold universally true because some kids get messed up by their circumstances really early on, but for kids in even relatively healthy situations, they offer a window into the human soul. The reason for this is that kids really don’t have a filter. Whatever they are currently feeling is what comes out. And social conventions don’t mean a thing to them. 

A few weeks ago, at our VBS Family Night, Ashlea was leading the show from the stage and Miles had walked up to right in front of the stage and was looking up at her. Not wanting for him to decide he needed her attention more than she needed to be doing what she was doing, I ran up and scooped him up and we hung out over on the side of the room. Well, earlier that evening, he and I were playing a game where he ran up to me and I threw him into the air a few times, and he ran away only to repeat the whole exercise. When I picked him up during the show, he fully expected that it was to toss him in the air again. And when I didn’t do that right away, he started to help remind me. He started counting to three and saying, “Gooo!” for me so I knew what to do. But it wasn’t just a quiet, “One…two…three…go!” It was a full volume count. “ONE…TWO…THREE…GOOOO!” And he didn’t just do it once either. I think we got about ten counts in before I managed to distract him a bit with something else. Was it an appropriate time to give me a count so that I could toss him into the air? Not even remotely so. Did he care? Not even remotely so. He wanted what he wanted, and that was all that mattered. Now, if this were an adult we were talking about, we would have a problem. With Miles it was just cute. Ever felt that way? Sure, you might hide it a bit more effectively, but that desire lies in all of our hearts. 

Or perhaps you’ve experienced with your kids the soul-window that opens a bit when toys are involved. Kids occasionally demonstrate remarkable kindness and generosity with one another. But more often, when one has a toy, that is their toy. And the way you can tell if a little one has identified a toy as his is that it is in his hand. Or it was in his hand. Within the last week. Or it will be in his hand sometime in the next week. Or he thought about picking it up one time. Last year. Really, if you just assume he is the supreme ruler of heaven and earth, that probably covers it pretty well. Now, again, as adults, we hide that kind of selfishness fairly well, but it’s still there. It comes out occasionally, but mostly we keep it fairly well under wraps. 

Now, on the one hand, all of this makes for some funny parenting stories we can all share and laugh about together because we’ve all been there before. Some of you are there right now, and it doesn’t feel so funny, but rest assured, that day is coming. On the other hand, all of this is rather depressing because this kind of selfishness isn’t a learned behavior. Parents don’t usually teach their kids early on to want what other people have or to throw a fit when what they feel is or even merely should be theirs gets threatened in some way. At least, we don’t do it on purpose. No, when kids are young and do these kinds of things, what we are getting is a glimpse of what comes naturally to people. This is a particular facet of the impact of sin that is easy to observe and all but impossible to rationally deny. 

Here’s the catch with all of this: As we grow, absent a lot of training to undo what comes naturally, these attitudes and accompanying behaviors don’t go away. Instead, we develop filters to keep the worst of the ugliness from coming out. This is why good, godly parenting is so important, and why it is so important for us as a church to equip and support parents in their journey. Socially speaking, it’s considered rather uncouth for adults to be on the floor throwing a tantrum when we don’t get something we feel like we should have. As a result, we find other, more socially acceptable, ways to let the me-monster express himself. But we can rest assured that he’s still there. He may have a suit on, but he’ll still eat you up if he gets the chance. And, if he eats up enough of the world around us, eventually, he’s going to get too big to manage. 

Well, this week finds us in the fourth part of our series, How Big Is Your World. What we have been exploring in this series is that while we like the idea of having a huge world to explore and enjoy, lots and lots of people live in tiny, little worlds that barely stretch beyond the end of their fingertips. Now, they may have sufficient resources as to be able to treat themselves to a host of different experiences all over the place, thus giving the illusion of a big world, but the truth is that they are simply moving their tiny world to a lot of different locations rather than exploring the fullness of the one actually available to them in Christ. This is because there is no fullness to it. It’s tiny. What we need, then, is a surefire way to make certain we are living in as big a world as possible. 

To this end, in the first part of the series we discovered that living in a big world requires generosity. The reason for this is that God is the real owner of everything we see and don’t. This is His world. Our world consists of pretty much just ourselves, and not really even that. What this means is that our world is tiny. God’s world, on the other hand, is big. If we want to live in God’s big world, we have to play by His rules; we have to use the stuff He’s loaned us in a manner consistent with how He would use it Himself. Because He is exceedingly generous with His stuff, if we want to enjoy it to the fullest degree possible, we must be generous too. Incidentally, there is a practice we can take up to help us in this goal. It is a practice which has the potential to both expand our world, and break us out of the ruts of life we sometimes fall into when our world has gotten small through spiritual neglect. This is the practice, discipline really, of sacrificial generosity. 

If that is an attitude and practice that enables us to live in a big world, this morning, I want to look with you at an attitude that will derail our efforts to live in a big world every single time. It is a guaranteed kryptonite to our drive for big living. It is actually an attitude Jesus encountered in His ministry. Somebody who clearly didn’t recognize Jesus as anything more than a famous rabbi—which, in the culture of the day, made him the perfect candidate to take a problem such as he was dealing with to Jesus for insight and resolution—brought this attitude to Jesus, set it down firmly in front of him, and started hollering, “Look at me! Look at me!” Luke actually records this interesting little story for us in his Gospel. If you have a copy of the Scriptures handy this morning, find your way with me to Luke 12, and let’s take a look at this. 

At the beginning of Luke 12, we find Jesus out in the country teaching. On this particular day, a huge crowd had gathered to hear what He had to say. Luke writes starting in v. 1: “Meanwhile, a crowd of many thousands came together, so that they were trampling on one another.” Well, He wanted to do some teaching with His disciples, and in fact began to do so, but eventually some knucklehead in the middle decided his particular issue was more important than whatever Jesus was talking about. 

Jump down with me to v. 13: “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’” Now, in the inheritance laws of the day, when a father died, his estate was split between or among his sons. They would divide the total estate into one more parts than the total number of sons. The eldest would get two shares, and everybody else got one. Everybody knew about this system, and held to it pretty tightly. Apparently, this guy’s father had died, the estate had been divided, but his brother—probably his older brother—was refusing to give the man the portion to which he was legally and culturally entitled. Culturally speaking, this was a big deal. And again, a rabbi like Jesus was looked to as a voice of authority on matters like these. 

Jesus, however, doesn’t take the bait. Verse 14: “‘Friend,’ he said to him, ‘who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you?’” In other words, “I’m not wading into that mess.” Now, if that’s all Jesus had said, the story probably would have been left on the cutting room floor. Once Jesus makes clear that He’s not going to get involved in the property dispute, though, He goes a step further to challenge the man’s attitude and make the episode a teaching moment for His disciples and the rest of the crowd. 

Verse 15 now: “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.’” You see, what was going on here was that even though this man was justifiably upset that his brother was cheating him out of a possibly large sum of money, his heart and mind were focused on the stuff he didn’t have, but wanted, for one reason or another. 

Now, if you’ve spent much time marinating in a church environment, some of you may be able to guess the punchline of the story here. Our first thought as modern observers seeing this story through the lens of the Christian worldview is that this guy was obviously a selfish jerk who got the scolding from Jesus He probably deserved. But culturally speaking, all the people around him would have been shaking their heads up and down in agreement with his request. Again, inheritance issues and the land rights that came with them were a big deal for these folks. Most notably, there weren’t banks and retirement accounts in this day. The only guarantee of future income then was to own land. Also, land was not readily available for sale. Most people couldn’t afford to buy land. It was simply handed down from parents to their children. In the eyes of his culture, then, this guy was making an entirely reasonable request of Jesus, who again, was understood by the crowd gathered there to have the proper authority to speak to these kinds of matters. 

For Jesus then to respond like this, essentially accusing the man of being guilty of covetousness, would have shocked the crowd. This wasn’t covetousness to them. It was common sense. It was good policy. It was legally appropriate. He wanted what his brother had because what his brother had should have been his…oh wait…that’s kind of the definition of covetousness. Jesus, then, being…well…Jesus, took this moment as a teaching opportunity. Listen to what comes next. 

“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.’” 

So, what’s going on here? Well, a rich man unexpectedly got a lot richer. Think of it like this: Imagine there was no such thing as electronic banking. Imagine further that all the money in the world existed as coins that owners had to store themselves. In this world, Elon Musk, who is still as rich as he is in our world, hits it big in the stock market and makes an unexpected $100 billion. But, his Scrooge McDuck-like vaults to store his coins are only designed to store the money he already has. He would be faced with a terrible dilemma: what to do with all this extra money? His solution? He’ll just build an even larger vault that is easily capable of holding all the extra wealth. Then he’ll sit back and take it easy, enjoying the wealth he has accumulated.

This is pretty much what the man in Jesus’ parable does. He all of a sudden becomes flush with assets and has to figure out what to do with them. His solution is to build bigger facilities to handle the increase. Makes sense, right? You would do the same thing. If you won the lottery, you would go to the bank and create a new account or three to safely and securely store all the money. That’s smart finances 101. So, why does God jump down the guy’s throat at the end of the story? How was this guy not rich toward God?

Let’s look at this for a minute. The key to understanding what is going on here is found in v. 19. What did the man say there in his little self-talk? Remember? He said, “You have many goods stored up for many years. Take it easy; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself.” Do you see it? This guy figured that he had enough for him to sit back, relax, and take life easy. He took the attitude that all of this extra wealth was simply for him to enjoy, he had more than enough to enjoy it for the rest of his life without having to worry about anything else, and so he was going to do just that. 

Okay, but why does Jesus make up this story about a guy with this kind of attitude? Because it’s the same attitude the original questioner had. Wait…no. All that guy wanted was for Jesus to use the authority everybody assumed He had to help him receive what everybody would have considered to be rightly his. And Jesus didn’t disagree. Before warning him to watch his attitude, all Jesus said was that He didn’t want to get in the middle of this family dispute. He probably agreed the older brother was out of line and needed to do what was right by his younger brother. He simply wasn’t going to be the one to force the issue. But still, the man’s attitude was problematic. 

The problem wasn’t that he wanted that to which he was legally entitled. The problem was that he considered it his to be used however he pleased. Now, maybe he wanted to get his portion of the estate so he could set up a charitable foundation to help underprivileged kids, but more than likely he wanted it so he could go back home and enjoy it…just like you or I would have done. No, no, no, the problem here was that he assumed it was his to consume. The man in the parable assumed his influx of wealth was simply for him to consume. These guys made an assumption of consumption, and it was threatening the size of their world.

You see, when we assume that things are simply ours to consume, we limit ourselves to their consumption. When they are gone, they’re gone. We may get a little high from them, but once that’s gone, we’re back to square one. When we make the assumption of consumption, we treat stuff like food. When you eat food, it’s gone. You get some energy from it, store some of it as fat to be burned as energy later…or not…and dump the rest as waste. That’s it. Lisa and I will occasionally go out to a little fancier a dinner place than we normally patronize where the food is really good. When we do, I usually eat until I’m about to explode and leave blissfully fat and happy. But the next morning, I’m hungry again. It’s a pointless cycle. Yes, eating does keep us alive. It has that much going for it. But it’s really a futile exercise. In the same way, when we reduce the stuff God has given us to manage to this futile cycle of assume, consume, repeat, we are shrinking our world down to almost nothing. We get stuff, we use it, and it’s gone. What’s the point? The assumption of consumption leads to small living. 

When we assume that the stuff we have is simply there for us to use how we see fit—even if we happen to see fit to give a regular portion of it away—we are taking up the same attitude as Jesus’ questioner and the rich man in the parable. It’s an attitude that is not rich toward God, but rather rich toward ourselves. And again, even folks who give consistently can do so from the position of this assumption of consumption. They give almost as if they are doing God a favor. It pleases me to use my wealth to advance kingdom causes, and so I give generously. But as long as this assumption of consumption is in place, it’s not doing us any long-term good. We get it, we use it, and it’s gone. In the end, we are left with nothing but ourselves and the tiny, little world we inhabit. The assumption of consumption leads to small living. 

Incidentally, God the Father was confronting this attitude through the prophets a long time before God the Son had to deal with it in person. After the people of Israel returned from their exile, they were all gung-ho about getting things rebuilt for a while. Eventually, though, their ardor cooled a bit. They had gotten the walls repaired and the foundations for the new temple laid during the big push, but once they got that far, they settled in and focused on themselves. They made the assumption of consumption and set spiritual matters to the side. God let things run like this for a while, but He knew they were on a path that was leading them nowhere fast, and so He sent the prophet Haggi to call them back to action. 

Right at the beginning of Haggai’s short message, he draws their attention to the problems with the assumption of consumption. Listen to this from Haggai 1:5: “Now, the Lord of Armies says this: ‘Think carefully about your ways: You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough to be satisfied. You drink but never have enough to be happy. You put on clothes but never have enough to get warm. The wage earner puts his wages into a bag with a hole in it.’” 

Do you see what was going on here? The people were going through all the normal motions of life just like you and I do, but because they were doing them with this assumption of consumption firmly in place, they weren’t getting anywhere. They were living in a tiny, little world that kept them going around in tiny, little circles, always consuming, but never staying full for long. And they somehow convinced themselves this was good enough. The assumption of consumption leads to small living. 

So then, what do we do with this? How do we avoid the small living that comes with the assumption of consumption? Well, here are four attitudes we need to avoid, one we need to adopt, and the promise of a fuller answer next week. The first two go together. They are twin but opposite errors we often make when we get stuff. The first twin is Spend. For many folks, their first thought upon getting some stuff is how they can use it on themselves right now. This will lead to the stuff’s vanishing remarkably quickly. 

The second twin may surprise you: Save. Of course we shouldn’t think to spend every dime we get, but neither would we save all of them. Both of these attitudes can stem from the assumption of consumption. The man who asked Jesus to intervene in his dispute with his brother  represents the first twin, and the man in the parable represents the second. Many folks who rail against the profligate spending habits of the country easily fall prey to this second twin. Now, don’t get me wrong: There’s nothing wrong with saving for a rainy day. But God was also pretty clear in Genesis 9 that He’s not going to flood the earth again. Saving is a fine thing in and of itself, but saving predicated on the idea that it is ours to spend later is a problem. It’s a form of this assumption of consumption, and the assumption of consumption leads to small living. 

The second two attitudes to avoid go together as well: Envy and Covetousness. envy is getting upset that someone has gotten something you haven’t. This is painfully easy to see in young kids. As we grow, though, the tendency toward envy doesn’t go away. We just learn to express it in more socially acceptable ways. But if envy is getting upset that someone has gotten something you haven’t, covetousness is the logical next step. Covetousness is wanting it. And this is not simply thinking, “Oh, that would be nice to have,” but rather a fixated desire that causes us to look at the things we already have as insufficient to make us happy anymore. Both of these ideas spawn from this assumption of consumption in that they work on the premise that once we get the object of our longing, it is ours for the enjoying. This is not the case. The assumption of consumption leads to small living. 

So then, what’s the alternative? We must constantly and aggressively remind ourselves that nothing we have is really ours. It isn’t intended simply for us to use and enjoy, although God does expect that we will use and enjoy it. He gives us good things because He is good, and He delights in our taking delight in them. We should use and enjoy to our heart’s content what God has given. But those things must come through the lens of something bigger. The assumption of consumption leads to small living. Okay, but how do we manage to avoid that? Come back next week as we wrap up this series, and we will see the frame of reference that allows us to get this right; that allows us to live in a big, big world. Don’t miss that.