Materialism, Money, and Me Culture

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Jen Oshman
I grew up, probably like many of you in a single parent household. When I was eight, my mom and dad got divorced, and the judge asked me, Who do you want to live with? And of course, what I said was, well, I want to live with my mom and I want to live with my dad. And so I lived for a week with my mom and a week with my dad for 10 years, going back and forth like that. So what that meant then was I was part of two different single parent households, and what that meant is both of my homes were really tight on the budget, and so probably, like many women in this room, whenever I asked, Can I get that? Maybe it was new shoes for the school year, like the nice the nice, new name brand ones, or perhaps just the nice juice boxes for my sacked lunch the next day or summer camp, these kinds of things. What I frequently heard, far more than I wanted to was, No, we can’t afford that. And I grew to hate that phrase. I grew to just have disdain for, no, we can’t afford that. So I set out for college with one goal in mind. I wanted to get a degree that would allow me to get a career that would allow me to make enough money so I would never have to say to my children or to my future self, no, we can’t afford that. I wanted to have the freedom to just always say, Sure, get more. How about one in every color? Let’s get a backup. Let’s get a few backups. Let’s get one for the car. What else do you need? I wanted to be the parent who just said, No, we can get you whatever it is your little heart desires. It’s really, I think, probably the American way. Many of us are like this. Most of us are like this. We think that more is better, more of whatever. And I do think it comes by us honestly. I mean, truly. The thing is, you and I know that life is fragile. We know that we are finite. We know that there is very little that stands between us and calamity or sickness or the end of our life. We know that there is hardship and trials, and so we want to place between us and whatever that is, a buffer or a margin, we want to somehow isolate ourselves from sickness and suffering. We want to feel safe. We want to feel secure. So we try to get more. This is common for all of us. We want to get more. We want to have the buffer. So for a lot of us, that more than is finance, more money, more money can solve a lot of problems. And so we’re like, let me get more money, because it’s going to take care of these things. It’s going to provide that margin that I know that I need, because my life is fragile. But it’s not always money. Sometimes it’s a material item. It’s materialistic goods, like, like, well, I need a newer, safer house or a newer, safer neighborhood or community, or a bigger, better, more reliable vehicle or something I need, I need newer, more extra material items to make me feel safe and secure. And for some of you, I know that actually doesn’t resonate. You’re like, I really don’t have an issue with money or materialism, but you might be trying to accumulate more productivity. You feel better and safer and more secure when you can get more done. Or you might be trying to accumulate more relevance. You know, you want to make sure you are maybe in style or up with the current trends. Or you still matter. You’re still involved in whatever’s going on in the moment. Or you want to be known more, more followers, more social media influence, more influence more influence in your community, at your church, a bigger crowd, a bigger whatever, so that you can leverage more in that place. Sometimes we even try to get more of something really good, godly, good things that we think are going to insulate us and keep us safe, and so we’ll pursue things like more Christian activities, more ministry, more children, more children at the right school, more relationships that look the right way in one way or another. Most of us want to seek more of some. Thing to keep us safe, because it’s true, our lives are short, our lives are fragile, and we want some kind of buffer between us and whatever danger is out there. Well, not surprisingly, God’s Word speaks to this, and we’re going to go to a passage today that honestly leaves me feeling pretty unsettled, I would say, even as I have studied this passage so much over the last few months, it has left me feeling called out like personally called out. But what I know is true is that the Lord has it here for my good. He loves me, and he has this passage for me and for you, for our good, not to just leave us feeling called out, but to leave us better, to sanctify us and shape us according to His will. So we’re going to turn there in a minute, but before we do, I want to pray and ask him to help us understand what His Word says, God in heaven. Thank you for calling us and making us your own. Thank you for rescuing and redeeming each one of us, Lord, Lord, we belong to you and we belong to each other, and we are so thankful that we are family, sisters, Lord, who maybe don’t know each other yet, but we have an eternal bond, and for that we rejoice, Lord, as we turn to your word, would you not just inform us, God, but would you please transform us, Lord, I’m begging you to do a work for time and for eternity in the hearts in this room, my own included God. We need you in Jesus name, amen, okay, well, if you brought a Bible or a phone or wherever you get your word, at the moment, we’re going to be in Luke chapter 12. You maybe already guessed it. We’re going to the parable of the rich fool. I know you feel called out now too. I get it. Trust me, I get it. So we’re going to be in Luke chapter 12, the parable starts in verse 13. So we’re going to take this, take this apart. Couple verses at a time. Read with me, please. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man who made me a judge or arbitrator over you, and He said to them, Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Okay, there’s this man in this crowd. Verse one in chapter 12 says that the crowd was so big, it’s 1000s of people who were gathered together and trampling over each other. So I’m just picturing our main stage without the chairs and all the women trying to get into here this next session, and you’re just trampling over each other. That’s the scene that we need to set here. That’s what’s happening here. And so this man is part of this crowd, and he has trampled over whoever he had to so that he could get up close in front, right in front of the teacher, right in front of Jesus. And so you can just picture him after he’s kind of moved people out of the way, and he’s standing there and he’s like, teacher, listen, I have got this inheritance coming to me, and my brother is not giving it to me. What probably happened in this particular historical context is their father had passed away, and the older brother received the inheritance, and it was his job then to pass it out to the younger siblings who ever deserved to have some and so this obviously younger brother hasn’t received what’s coming To him, and it’s possible that he’s suffering. It’s possible that he needs that inheritance. Maybe he is going hungry because he doesn’t have it. We don’t know for sure, but there is this injustice taking place, and he wants or needs that money, and so he’s come to Jesus, and he said, Can you please tell my brother to give me what is mine? Well, we get a hint as to how Jesus maybe feels about this in his response. Now he responds, and he says, Man. Now I want to tell you I looked this up in the Greek and Man is Man, okay. In other words, Jesus is being very impersonal. He’s like, Hey, man, human.

Jen Oshman
It’s a in a culture that was formal and had some polite manners that would have been expected in that situation. In just some niceties that would have gone on with this conversation, Jesus is kind of rebuffing him. He is communicating some displeasure with this approach by saying man. And then he goes on, am I am I your teacher, or am I your judge? Am I supposed to be your arbitrator? Jesus is saying to this man, you’ve really missed me. You actually don’t really know who I am and what I’m here for. You’ve missed what this is all about. We know from the rest of Scripture and just the story of Christ’s life. He is not egotistical, right? Jesus is fully God and fully man, and yet He came to serve and not to be served. So we’re talking about the most humble man that ever walked the face of this earth. So he is not having some kind of attitude with this guy and saying, Hey, I’m due some reverence. I’m due some you know, I need a title here. That’s not what he’s doing. But he is communicating you have missed the point. You don’t actually know who I am or what I have come for. And he starts to show us, he warns the whole crowd. He kind of gives us an idea of what is coming. He’s like, there is danger ahead. Watch out. Get ready. Be on your guard. Jesus says Your life does not equal the abundance of your possessions. And so we’re like, Whoa, where is this going? The parable hasn’t even begun, and already I’m feeling a little bit tense. I’m like, what is happening here? This is uncomfortable. Jesus has just issued a warning, what? What is ahead? So Jesus, as he so often does, begins to tell them a story. Look at with verse 16 with me. And he told them a parable, saying, The Land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. And there I will store all my grain and all my goods, and I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink and be merry. So on first reading, we get this far in the parable. And I don’t know where you are, but I feel like if we just read that through plainly one time, where I’m sitting in this moment is what’s the problem? What is wrong? Isn’t this what we all do, don’t we all when we have extra, store it away. When we have extra, we put it in the account my basement tells me I do exactly what this man does. My attic tells me that my garage tells me that when we have extra we store it away and save it up. It seems like the right and wise thing to do. This is so much the cultural air that we breathe. This is so much the way that we behave. This is so much, how you and I are, that we don’t even question that. We don’t question each other when we do it, we don’t question ourselves. And so far, this man’s behavior seems wise. We’re like, what’s the problem? Well, there are a couple clues, even just through as far as we have gotten before we get any further, there are a couple clues hidden in plain sight which are difficult for us to see in our American context, where we prize individualism and independence and autonomy more than anything else, those are probably our highest goods here in the United States, it’s hard for us to see the clues that are in the text as to what is going on. He seems wise. He seems financially savvy, but there are some clues here that tell you and me what the problem is. There are specifically three ways we can see that he is especially self focused ways that aren’t obvious to us, but would have been very obvious to the first hearers. Let me tell you what they are. First of all, who is this man talking to himself? He’s got this issue. He thinks to himself, and then he talks to himself, and he himself makes it. Decision all by himself. We’re talking about a context that is highly communal, an agrarian society, where the community is communing together all the time. Where is this man’s wife? Where is this man’s children? Where are his heirs? Where are his workers? Where are his neighbors. Where are the other people that are working in the fields around him? Where is the community? So when Jesus starts telling this story to a crowd of communal people, and he says, The man is thinking to himself and talking to himself, they are all like, Oh, that is weird. There is something seriously wrong with this guy in the story, we’re all like, Well, yeah, you talk to yourself and make these decisions by yourself. You know, what’s the big deal? But for them in this context, this is a red flag right away, the second red flag, or the second clue that we see that this man is thinking in a purely self focused way. Look at the wording Jesus chooses in verse 16, Jesus is very intentional with each and every word. And he says this. He says, The Land of a rich man produced plentifully. He does not say anything about the man’s labor. He doesn’t say, Well, this man went out. He worked from before sunrise until after sunset. He put his blood, sweat and tears into that field. He labored hard. He hired extra workers. They were all out there doing as much as they possibly could, and lo and behold, they reaped a great harvest. No Jesus says nothing. He says the opposite. He says that land produced plentifully, just the land. So what this means is, this is a supernatural act. This is just a gift of God. It means the rain came down, the soil was good, and the Lord Himself produced that bumper crop for this man out of no effort of his own. So this was a shocking, surprising, sweet gift of grace that this man received out of nowhere. And he’s talking about my crops, where my input my stuff, and it’s the land that produced it. The third one is maybe more obvious. Maybe you picked up on this. So I know you guys are good Bible students. You’re here at TGC, and so you’ve probably have participated in a setting where maybe you’ve been told a thing or two about how to study difficult passages. And one of the things we always want to do, maybe the first thing you want to do is you want to start noticing repeated words, right? You get out your colored pencils and you start underlining and circling the words that you see over and over and over. Okay, well, this is an all play for a minute here. What words Let me hear it from you? Did you hear more than one time? Very good. I, my me. He is thinking purely about himself from start to finish, right? He’s alone. He is thinking to himself, talking to himself. He’s talking about the land and what it’s produced as if it’s totally his own. And then he’s making plans for all of it, just for himself. I mean, the wording is almost humorous, and I kind of tend to think that Jesus told it this way. You know, there might have been just kind of a tone in his voice as he’s repeating, you know what the rich man must have said to himself, I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods, and I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry. So we see these three clues in plain sight. What at first seemed like Wisdom, what at first appeared to be financial savvy, planning ahead, getting ahead of the game, we now know is actually a very self focused way of living. Well, let’s go on. Let’s seek to get further clarity as we go on. So let’s pick it up here in verse 20. But God said to him, fool, ah, does that just not strike terror in your heart that you would hear from the Lord your God, fool. I feel like this is a terrifying verse. The Lord says to him, fool, this night, your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be. Why does the Lord call him fool?

Jen Oshman
We’ve just said this looks wise. Now we’ve. Kind of dug in a little bit, and now we know it’s also selfish. But why does the Lord call him a fool? What is specifically foolish about this way of living? So again, as good Bible students, I am imagining many of you know that when we come to a passage that we don’t understand, one of the best ways to get at understanding it is to look at the rest of Scripture. Scripture helps us interpret Scripture. So when we have a hard passage, we go, okay, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know that the rest of the Bible says some stuff about this, so let’s bring it in. We know from the rest of Scripture that wealth specifically is not the problem. The Old Testament is full of men, King, leaders, women who are very wealthy, a man after God’s own heart, who’s wealthy, and his son who was even wealthier than him. So we have a whole line of people in the Old Testament that we can look at who had wealth. That’s not the problem. We see people in the New Testament who are very wealthy. In fact, even in the Gospel of Luke right where we are back in chapter eight, just a few chapters prior to where we are right now, there’s a list of women who were wealthy, who supported the ministry of Jesus out of their own financial means. They supported the ministry of Jesus. And you guys know the rest of the Old Testament. You know the wealthy people that supported the early church, who are very much a part of our story as the Christian church, being born and their wealth being used for that. So we can deduce from the rest of Scripture, okay, wealth is not quite the problem here. What could it be? And the Lord says to this man, he calls him full, and then he says this night, your soul is required of you, meaning you could die tonight. You might die tonight. So I’m left wondering here with some fear in my heart, is the Lord taking this man out because he’s wealthy? Is he going to literally kill him because he is wealthy, is his life ending tonight because he is somehow a wealthy fool. And what I want you to hear this is not related to the whole message of the parable, but it’s something that I want to say I know that that cannot be the case because our God is not punitive. What I mean by that is our God takes on our punishment himself. Do we suffer consequences when we sin Absolutely? Do we go through hard times when we make bad and ungodly choices, you better believe it. But our Lord came to this earth on a rescue mission for you and me, and he willingly placed Himself on the cross and surrendered, taking on the punishment that we deserve and trading with us his righteousness. It’s the greatest scandal in all of history. It’s the most unfair trade that has ever been made. And what it shows you, in me, is that we don’t serve a punitive God. We serve a God who takes our punishment on himself, a God who came and took it upon himself and said It is finished. So we know that the Lord isn’t somehow, mercilessly, vindictively punishing this man and saying your soul is going to be required of you tonight because you’re wealthy. That also is not what’s going on here. We do not serve a punitive God. So if wealth is not the problem. And if God is not saying, I’m going to get you because of this, then what is happening in this story that Jesus is telling this crowd, what is going on? Well, let me share with you a modern day story that I think helps illustrate this. Helps illustrate what’s going on here. So my husband and I have a friend who is a pastor in the US in a different state in the south. We live in Colorado, but this pastor shared this story with us recently. He had a man in his congregation who is very, very wealthy. And so, chatting with this man, our friend, his pastor, said to him, you know, when you die, on the day that you die, how much are you going to have, what? What will be your net worth? How much will you have on the day that you die? So this man. And sister for a few minutes, and he thinks about his own health and his own age and probably how much longer he’s going to live, and he starts to add up his investments, his stocks, his retirement, all the different savings accounts that he has. Starts to add in the different properties, the homes, the vehicles, the interests that might accrue on some things, maybe the interest that he might have to pay if he has purchased some things might, you know, swap some things out, make some deals few or more years to come. And after a minute, he finally comes up with his number, and he says to our friend, his pastor, on the day that I die, I’m going to have this many millions. And our friend looked at him and said, No, you won’t. On the day that you die, you will have nothing much like God is saying here in this story, on the night that your soul is required of you when you die, the things you have prepared, whose will they be? Because they won’t be yours. Who will they belong to when your body passes away and your soul meets your maker, what will you have then, not the abundance of your perfect possessions, that is for sure. Well, let’s close this paragraph out. Look with me at verse 21 so is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. We finally see what it is. We see what is foolish. It is foolish to store up treasure for yourself and to not be rich toward God. That’s the foolishness that is going on in this story. Treasure for yourself and not being rich toward God. Now, Jesus is not a killjoy. Jesus is not out to ruin our good time. You and I were born into the wealthy West, globally speaking, and historically speaking, we are wealthier than the majority of the globe and the majority of humans throughout history. He’s not out to get us. He’s not out to ruin all of this. But he’s saying WARNING This is dangerous. We live in a very dangerous moment because we are so wealthy, it is dangerous for our souls to have so much and so Jesus, in His kindness and in His mercy, is warning you and me. He’s saying, Look out, be on guard. This is dangerous. You see, we look at the brevity of life. We look at our fragility, our frailty, that sickness and calamity and the end of our life is just around the corner. We see that and our impulse, our reflex, is okay. Well, let me store up things so that I’m safe. Let me store up things so that my life is a little bit longer and I’m a little bit safer and I’m a little bit more secure and a little bit more comfortable for a few more days, few more years, few more decades. Let me gird all these things up so I’m okay. That’s our reflex in the face of a short lifetime, and the Lord says that is foolish, because those things don’t actually make you more safe. None of that is actually going to protect you. More money, more productivity, more relevancy, more career, more status, more vehicles, more homes, more Christian activity. None of that is actually going to protect you and me. Our impulse is to get more and the Lord says more of something does not make you more of someone. Your life does not consist of the abundance of your possessions.

Jen Oshman
Here is what I think this parable says here, if I had to boil down what is going on in this parable, what Jesus is trying to communicate to this crowd. If I had to give you sum it all up in just one statement, here is what I want Jesus, what I think Jesus wants you and me to take to heart he is acknowledging, yes, life is short, absolutely Life is short. Yeah, so then live for ever. And by forever, I don’t mean one word forever. I mean two words, live for ever. Let me unpack that for you a little bit. Our souls, all humans, have them, and we are going to live for eternity. And we, who are in Christ, are going to receive resurrection bodies, and we are going to enjoy life with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth forever and ever and ever. There is more to this life than this lifetime. And so instead of in the face of this brief life, saying, Okay, well, let me protect it. Let me get all I can. Let me make it as long as I can. Jesus is saying, No, life is short. Live for ever. Live forever and ever and ever. Live for eternity. That’s wisdom. That’s what I’m calling you to do life is short. Live for ever. The Lord is compassionate about the anxiety and the fear that you and I have when it comes to our short and fragile lifetimes. He is not on his throne in heaven with his arms crossed, going get it together, scaredy cats. Come on. No. He looks on our humble estate, and he has compassion. He knows we’re afraid. He knows we worry, and he’s merciful toward our fear. Look with me, if you just go down just one more verse below the parable that we’ve just been in. This is where Jesus says, in verse 22 he says to the crowd, don’t be anxious about your life. Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or drink. Don’t worry about what you’re going to wear. And then he goes on and he says, Look at the birds of the field. Look how beautiful the birds are. The Lord feeds them and takes care of them, and look at the flowers. Look how the Lord clothes them. If this is how the Lord cares about the birds and the flowers, how much more will he care about you? And Jesus tells them, My Father knows what you need before you ask him, don’t be afraid. My father knows my father will care for you. Look starting in verse 32 look at how Jesus talks to the crowd. I love this language. He says, Fear not little flock, are those not the most tender words? Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. His good pleasure, you guys, he’s not stingy, he’s not grumpy, he’s not like Ah, fine. Welcome to the kingdom. It’s His good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So he says, Then, sell your possessions. Give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail where no thief approaches and no moth destroys, For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also the note the Lord knows we are afraid. And so what does he say? He says the way to let go of your fear and your anxiety is to let go of what this lifetime has to offer and to grab hold of what the next one offers you and me. The cure to our fear of this brief life, the cure to our hoarding and our storing and our wanting to buffer ourselves against heartache and pain, is to let go of what this world has to offer and to seek treasure in heaven. This is wisdom. Jesus says it is wisdom to seek treasure in heaven rather than treasure on Earth. This is the wise way to live, because what we’re living for here and now is not going to deliver. It was not made to it was not meant to bear up under that kind of pressure and that kind of expectation from you and for me, I love how an early church father puts it. This is the words of Augustine. He lived in North Africa in the three hundreds and the four hundreds, and talking about this parable, this is what Augustine said. He said about the rich man. He did not realize that the bellies of the poor were safer store rooms than the barns. It’s safer for your soul and mine to store our extra when our land produces plenty. It’s safer for you and. Me to put that into the bellies of the poor than it is to store in barns for ourself. It’s safer for us. You see, here is the thing. None of us thinks we’re greedy. We just justify it. I certainly do. We justify it all day long. Well, it’s wisdom. Well, I need to well the financial plan, right? But this parable calls us out, and it leaves us with, really the question of, okay, okay, I hear you, but can I save? Can I invest? Can I be financially savvy, so to speak, and live wisely and be rich toward God. Is it possible? And I think that it is. I think that it is, but this is something that you and I must wrestle deeply with So imagine this with me. What if this parable ended very differently? What if, so we’re up here in verse 16. What if the land of the rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I know I will go to all of my neighbors, and I will invite them to my property, and we will have a feast. We will eat lavishly for an entire week, and we will celebrate what the Lord has done. We will worship the Lord. We will give him glory, and together as a community, we will feast. Or what if it went like this? The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And instead, he went to his whole community and took everybody loads of grain, all that extra, and he just started to pass it out to every single neighbor, every single person in the community, such that every household was well fed for years to come. What if the land of a rich man produced plentifully? And he thought to himself, What shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops? And he thought to himself, I know I will go look for every widow and orphan and Sojourner in my land, those whose lives are truly precarious, those who really don’t know if they’re going to eat tomorrow, and I will make sure they have More than enough for years to come. What If, on the day this man’s last day, the day before the night, that his soul would be required? What if he went out with just a lavish act of love for God and love for others, sharing deeply and sacrificially with his neighbor. Yes, he was wealthy, but what if he was rich toward the Lord and gave the extra away? What if this parable was about you? What if this was your story? How might you want it to end? What big act, what legacy, what faithfulness would you want to be known for? How might you personally be rich toward God rather than storing up for yourself?

Jen Oshman
Well, I don’t want to leave you with just conviction. I feel convicted, probably, maybe more than anybody in this room, because I’ve been sitting in this for months now. I don’t want to leave you with just conviction, and I don’t want to leave you with just motivation, but I do want to leave you with some practical application, some ideas, so that when you leave TGC, W, you can be rich toward God the minute your feet hit the ground back home. There are five things, five things that I think we learn from this parable that I want to share with you before we close, five ways we can apply this text. First of all, you and I have got to know that there is danger in being wealthy, we are living very dangerous lives. The irony is, we think we are safe and we think we are secure, but we are actually living in grave danger because of our wealth. Jesus says so. He says, Be careful, take guard. Secondly, know that your plenty is a gift from the Lord, just like that man’s land produced plentifully, your body that is able, your education, your home, your family, your vacation, your children, the resources that you have are not by your own hand. They are from God, and they are for God, he has asked you to. Steward them. So what will you do with your plenty? Ask the Lord. It is his. How will you spend it? What has he asked you to do with it? Thirdly, and this one is a tough one for us. This one is going to hurt. Do not make financial decisions in isolation. I am telling you, we are so averse to this in the church. In the church, we will talk about and confess anything, as long as it doesn’t have to do with money. We will sit in our little DNA groups and our small groups and our core groups, and we will confess gossip and slander. We even have computer programs that prevent pornography or require us to confess looking at pornography. I mean, we will talk about just about anything that’s taboo, except for money and it is not good for your soul or mine to make financial decisions in isolation. So show somebody, show a trusted, godly person, what you make, what you give, what you save, what you spend. Okay, the fourth takeaway I want to leave with you is this, the only antidote for selfish living is generous giving. The only way you and I can peel our little hands off of our stuff is by giving it away. There is no shortcut to this. It is giving generously, trusting the Lord with that, giving generously to your local church, giving generously to the spread of the gospel, giving generously to the alleviation of suffering and oppression. Give generously and then finally, what I want to leave you with the fifth application is make much of Jesus and His renown. Love God and love others deeply. Gather that plenty that he has given you and spend it on the goodness of others. Spend it on the fame of Christ, proclaim His goodness and give Him glory for what he has done and invite others to do it with you. If I had the chance to go back and talk to college age Jen, the girl who set off to make as much money as she could so that she never had to say, we can’t afford it. What I would ask her is this, will you trust the spirit of our age, which says more money, more materialism, more me focus, or will you trust Christ, who was and is and is to come? I would say this. I would say, Jen, life is short. Will you live for ever? Let’s ask the Lord to help us do that. God, we are unsettled by this. We are called out by this we live in a wealthy time and place. Lord, how easy it is to hold on tight to all of that. Would you help us? Would you help us to be rich toward you and rich toward others? Lord, stretch us and grow us and enable us to be women who are wealthy towards you. Jesus, we beg you, Lord, don’t let us waste this life on ourselves. Help us to pour ourselves out that you might be known, that others might know you. God, would you help us to live for ever in Jesus’ name? Amen.