8-10-2025

“GENEROSITY, NOT ANXIETY”

Text: Luke 12:22-40

Sunday August 10, 2025 – Pentecost 9

Trinity – Creston

       Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for this Ninth Sunday after Pentecost is the Gospel lesson form Luke 12 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, send your Holy Spirit to remind us to set our hearts on what is eternal and not be consumed with that which is temporary. Knowing how you gave yourself for us so we could go to heaven, you will certainly provide what we need in this life.  Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

       2.   We make ourselves spiritual orphans with anxiety over having enough stuff, but we have a Father who knows our needs and provides.

       1.   We make ourselves spiritual orphans with anxiety over our work, but we have a Father who knows our needs and provides.

Because Our Father Knows Our Needs and Pro­vides, We Can Live Not as Spiritual Orphans but Generously.

“All the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them” (v 30).

2.

We are not told whether the rich fool, whose story came in last week’s Gospel, just before our Gospel reading today, was a Jew or a Gentile. We do know he was worried about his possessions. His money, his harvest, and the things money and abundant harvests could do for him were at the top of his mind.

He knew he had great riches, and he wanted to hold on to what he had. So he built bigger barns. Once he had a place to store all his stuff, then, and only then, could he be content and eat, drink, and be merry.

With bigger barns, he thinks he can finally relax. But that is not how the story ends. Before he could build his barns, he died. He was still filled with worry and stress about his stuff.

At the beginning of the parable, he was a rich fool. At the end of the parable, he was a rich, dead fool. He laid up treasure for himself but was not rich toward God. He was a spiritual orphan, cut off from the heavenly Father.

However, most of us don’t have the problem of the rich fool. Most of us can more easily relate to the situation of the disciples who have gathered to hear Jesus.

Again, we are not told the ethnic backgrounds of those gathered around Jesus as he teaches on the way to Jerusalem; many were probably Jews, but perhaps some were Gentiles.

Unlike the rich fool, they were not blessed with stockpiles of money and didn’t need to worry about building bigger storehouses. Their focus was instead on preserving what little they had.

Jesus’ first disciples were not, generally speaking, rich folks. They lived from day to day and sometimes from meal to meal. But this also creates anxiety.

Will there be enough? Will God really provide? How will God provide? Whether we are rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle, anxiety is our lot when we focus on our stuff. That anxiety makes us spiritual orphans, cutting us off from the heavenly Father.

As Jesus journeys to Jerusalem, he is teaching his followers to be disciples, not orphans. He teaches about the love and care of our Father in heaven, reminding us that our Father knows what we need and leads us to live by faith and not by sight.

The nations of the world have their so-called gods. But the disciples of Jesus have a Father. Our Father knows our needs and provides all that is necessary.

1.To teach us about that Father’s care, Jesus sets before us the ravens and the lilies. Most of the time we at best cast a quick glance in their direction, but he begs us to look deeply at these things that seem so ordinary and take to heart the care they receive from the heavenly Father.

The rich fool needed bigger barns and was anxious until they could be constructed. Ravens do not sow and do not reap. They have no barns and apparently do not suffer from anxiety. God provides for them. He feeds them. And he cares for them.

Likewise, the lilies. They don’t toil or spin, yet they are clothed with better raiment than King Solomon. If God so clothes what’s here today and thrown in the fire tomorrow, how much more will he clothe his children who are infinitely more precious to him? It all sounds straightforward. Focus on the ravens, on the lilies and don’t stress about details of life.

The problem is that, unlike the ravens, we sow and we reap; unlike the lilies, we toil and we spin. We were created to work, but by our sinful nature we focus much of our attention on our labour and what it provides.

Often we think we’ll find our value in our labor and the rewards it gives. A sense of importance comes from the work one contributes to the world. Our sense of worth comes from financial security. Self-esteem comes from the things we acquire.

Because these things are so important, we overwork, become absorbed by our work, and in the end set our hearts on the things of this world. And where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also.

When our value comes from our work and what it provides, we live as spiritual orphans. We look to our money, our possessions, and our work to give us the things that only a parent can give.

Jesus reminds us, “The nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them” (v 30). We have a Father who knows our needs, cares for us, and provides for all our wants of body and soul.

Our Father created us and is watching over this world, always caring for it. Today’s Psalm reminds us, “The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds” (Ps 33:13–15). He sees us, he knows us, and he cares for us.

But that care does not just happen from a distance. We are God’s flock, and our Lord Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd. Though we orphan ourselves from the Father, he loves us and sent his Son to be our Shepherd and gather us together and return us to himself.

Because of the Good Shepherd laying down his life for the sheep and rising again, our Father has been pleased to give us the kingdom. The words Jesus uses describe a past action that happened without any merit or worthiness on our part.

Long before we could even begin to seek the kingdom of God, the Good Shepherd sought us and gave us the kingdom. In our baptism it became ours, and in his Word and at his table he provides us with all we need to remain dear children of our dear Father.

Then,

Because Our Father Knows Our Needs and Pro­vides,
We Can Live Not as Spiritual Orphans but Generously.

In our Father’s care, our lives reflect not the anxiety coming from being spiritual orphans but the generosity coming from being beloved children.

The things that are so important in our times of anxiety become the means whereby we care for others. Our value does not come from what we have but from what he has done for us.

The things we have, our money and our possessions, can be freely shared with those who are needy. Our treasure, our real treasure, is secure.

And with our treasure secure, our hearts are freed from anxiety. We sow, we reap, we toil, and we spin, not to earn our place or attain our value but to live faithfully as the dear children of a dear Father in heaven. Amen.

 Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Amen.