SERMON TITLE: Jesus Taught About Possessions - Where Is Your Treasure?
SCRIPTURE: Luke 12:13-34 (ESV)
SPEAKER: Nick Kyro
DATE: 08/30/2026
Sermon Discussion Guide
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Good morning Gateway Church! Whether you’re at our County Road 9 Campus, at our North Main Campus, or online, I’m so thankful to be in God’s Word with you today. If we haven’t met yet, my name’s Nick Kyro and I’m a Pastoral Resident here at Gateway Church. I am super excited to be preaching for the first time here at Gateway!
Before we get started, a brief introduction of myself. I am originally from Michigan where I lived until I was 10. Then after that I moved to southern Indiana where I came to know Christ and lived until I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in my late 20s after I became faithful to the call to pursue ministry. I am married to my incredible wife Ashley, who I have been married to for a little over 3 years now. Before Findlay, we lived in Columbus for 3 years. So I have lived in a few places over the years and If you want to know more about me, come say hi, I’d love to meet all of you!
We’re continuing our series in the Gospel Project we are following along with the Kidway curriculum through the Gospels. Parents, if you haven’t used this opportunity to talk with your kids about what they’re learning in church, we’re teeing you up to hit a home run as we are learning about the same thing here as they are in Kidway. Today we’ll be talking about a topic Jesus talked about that can be difficult for some yet is both helpful and necessary for both believers and non-believers to understand, possessions. We are going to learn that this issue is not a stuff issue but actually a heart issue. We’ll be diving into this topic as we walk through Jesus’s discussion of possessions in Luke 12:13-34.
So if you didn't know Luke 11, which Josh preached on last week, and Luke 12 both happen on the same day. To quickly catch us up to Luke 12:13-34, Jesus has had an already jam packed day. After Jesus teaches the Disciples how to pray, He drives out a demon, he continues teaching to the crowd around him, he then goes to a Pharisee’s house for lunch where he heavily criticizes the religious leaders there, then he leaves lunch where he continues to teach a crowd of thousands, where in that crowd waiting for him where two brothers have an issue between them. This is where we end up in our passage for this morning.
Follow along if you have your Bible’s ready, we’re in Luke 12:13-34
“Someone in the crowd said to him, “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.” 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 my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags 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 will your heart be also.” Luke 12:13–34 ESV
Jesus, as the great opportunist he is, uses a quarrel between two brothers as an opportunity to get to the heart issue that’s at the center of this issue regarding possessions, covetousness, and greed.
First of all, what is covetousness? We can assume it’s simply this desire for stuff, or things, yet this goes deeper than just a desire. Covetousness is a heart posture that places the things that other people have, or any possession you greatly desire at the center of one’s heart where then greed is born out of.
That possession then becomes the center of your worship, an idol telling you that your life isn’t worth living unless you have that thing. Then if you have that possession you don’t want to let it go so then you become greedy. Where does this desire come out of? What makes us covet and so greedy? It comes out of what Paul describes in Galatians 5 as “works of the flesh” or in other words the things that come out of us naturally as sinners.
“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.” Galatians 5:19-21 NLT
In this we see idolatry and selfish ambition which is at the heart of the parable of the rich fool. Now that we know the heart behind the brother and Rich Fool’s behavior, let's read that parable again. Starting in verse 16.
“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 my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:16-21 ESV
As we can see in this parable, the rich fool became selfish with his possessions. His possessions became the source of his comfort, the thing that could finally give his soul rest. In his mind he’s convinced that through his own efforts, obtaining the crops gives him the rest and comfort that he desired. However in this example, we can’t forget who’s the one who gives us the crops. Going all the way back to Deuteronomy, we read:
“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.” Deuteronomy 11:13-15
Jesus is a smart man. Using crops, the main source of income at the time, as the example, the Rich Fool forgot that his possessions he collected and kept for himself weren’t from his own efforts alone but a gift from God. If this parable was taught today, Jesus could’ve used a salary, or a 401k as an example. He also wasn’t thinking of others when his harvest was too much for his storehouses to handle. That’s why he built larger storehouses and said to himself these words:
“And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” Luke 12:19
The Rich Fool had the mindset that he could finally relax because he found security and comfort in the crops that were given to him. So because he was given more in his harvest, he can take a few years off and just relax, he has many easy years to look forward to. A similar way of thinking that many of us have when we think about retirement perhaps. Yet the rich fool suddenly dies. Just when he thought he was good, boom, he’s dead.
This is why he’s called a fool by God. And so anyone who places their comfort in their possessions is also considered foolish. We’re all rich fools when we trust more in our possessions than God, the one who provides those possessions. You can’t take your possessions with you when you die, so why do we trust in them so much?
Something to take comfort in is that Jesus doesn’t just leave us as rich fools.
Let's read what he tells the disciples again starting in verse 22:
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! Luke 12:22-28 ESV
First off, pay attention to the “therefore.” Anytime Jesus says it, something important is about to be said. What he tells us here can be applied to all of our lives.
Jesus uses creation as the example to tell us how God cares for what’s precious to him. This is an example that we can see on a regular basis all around us today.
The ravens are cared for, and all of their needs are met yet they didn’t do any work for their care. Birds also aren’t as valuable as we are, because they aren’t made in the image of God like we are, yet all of their needs are taken care of.
For this message today, I want us to also consider the lilies. We see that they’re cared for by God better than Solomon ever cared for himself. Why does Jesus use this comparison?
Lilies are beautiful flowers, my personal favorite, yet they don’t last that long. On average, lilies last anywhere between 7 to 14 days. When my wife and I lived in Columbus, we’d regularly get flowers from Trader Joe’s because they have the best flowers. We’d trade off who gets to pick the flowers and for me I would regularly want to get lilies yet every time I would pick them they wouldn’t last that long, maybe a week at most. So lilies last for such an insignificant amount of time, yet God deeply cares for them.
Jesus compares their beauty to Solomon’s. Solomon, if you don’t know who that is, was the son of David and Bathsheba and was David’s successor as King of Israel. And he ruled for a long time, 40 years. He’s known as the wisest man in the Bible. He was also one of the richest. We can take a glimpse of how rich he was looking back in the Old Testament in 1 Kings.
“Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.” 1 Kings 4:21 ESV
And
“Each year Solomon received about 25 tons of gold. This did not include the additional revenue he received from merchants and traders, all the kings of Arabia, and the governors of the land. King Solomon made 200 large shields of hammered gold, each weighing more than fifteen pounds. He also made 300 smaller shields of hammered gold, each weighing nearly four pounds. The king placed these shields in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. Then the king made a huge throne, decorated with ivory and overlaid with fine gold. The throne had six steps and a rounded back. There were armrests on both sides of the seat, and the figure of a lion stood on each side of the throne. There were also twelve other lions, one standing on each end of the six steps. No other throne in all the world could be compared with it! All of King Solomon’s drinking cups were solid gold, as were all the utensils in the Palace of the Forest of Lebanon. They were not made of silver, for silver was considered worthless in Solomon’s day! The king had a fleet of trading ships of Tarshish that sailed with Hiram’s fleet. Once every three years the ships returned, loaded with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. So King Solomon became richer and wiser than any other king on earth. People from every nation came to consult him and to hear the wisdom God had given him. Year after year everyone who visited brought him gifts of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.” 1 Kings 10:14-25 NLT
All summed up, Solomon would be worth trillions, yes, trillions. He ruled for a long time, you can read how beautiful his palace was, huge gold throne, big house, gold everywhere, you name it, he’s got it, yet, the lilies are more beautiful because their needs are given to them perfectly by God. No one, not even the wisest nor the richest person in history can use their riches to care for themselves in a way that outshines the way that God does it, even if it’s for such a short and insignificant amount of time.
So why then do we worry about our possessions? Why do we think we can take care of ourselves better than God can? Even with the world at our fingertips we can never come close to taking care of ourselves the way that God cares for us. Our greatest efforts still have the stain of sin on them, while God’s provision is done out of his perfect nature.
So then what does it look like to live a life where you trust that God will provide for your needs instead of anxiously relying on our own efforts?
Let’s finish up this passage to find out. Starting in verse 29:
“And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags 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 will your heart be also.” Luke 12:29-34 ESV
So again, what are we to do as we leave today hearing this message? How should we live? What do I need to remember most from this message?
There are two things we can do, and Jesus gives us the answer right in the text. The first is what we ought not to do, and the second is what we are supposed to do. The first starts in verse 29
1. “Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.” Luke 12:29
Now reading this a question that I had for myself was “what does it mean to seek? Looking at another translation, the NRSV, we get a good idea of what this looks like. It says
“And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.” Luke 12:29 NRSV
So we can see here that in the NRSV, instead of “seeking,” we see “striving.” I think this gives us a great picture of what Jesus is getting at here. Striving after possessions, what we eat and what we drink, means that you are always making strenuous effort in order to obtain them. Your thoughts and actions are dedicated to reaching that goal. You can’t rest until you have what you desire. When it comes to food and drink, we eat every day, so there is this constant worry that we have to fight every day. There are probably people here in this room thinking about what you are going to have for lunch today. This is how we normally are.
“For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.” Luke 12:30
We can look to the world to see how beneficial it is to strive after possessions. Striving after possessions leads only to desiring more and coveting. Before coming here, I worked with Youth For Christ in their Juvenile Justice Ministry. As I would meet with my guys in the detention center, I would ask them what they wanted to do if and when they got out. Most of them answered that the first thing they wanted to do was get a job. It wasn't to finish school, go to church, play sports; it was to work a job. Even in lockup, these young men, typically 14 to 18 years old, were worried about possessions and their needs, putting all of that pressure to provide on themselves.
They aren’t alone. We are taught this mindset all the time everywhere to work hard, grind all day every day, don’t rest until you have _____. Then your life will be complete. You can put any possession in there. The world tells us it’s all on you to provide for yourself, and your life is meaningless unless you have it. And yet, even when you have that thing, there will always be something else that you will want. We are never truly satisfied.
We do not need to put the responsibility of taking care of our needs fully on ourselves. God knows what we need. Yet we can't neglect our responsibility in taking care of ourselves either. Paul reminds us of our own responsibility in his 2nd letter to the Thessalonians:
“For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” 2 Thessalonians 3:10
There is a balance here. We can’t obsess over possessions, yet we can’t ignore them either. Work hard to earn a living, do your job and do it well, then responsibly use what is given to you to take care of yourself.
When you understand this balance, the tendency to worry about taking care of your needs starts to go away. Jesus helps us to see that there is something better to seek after in his second point:
2. “Instead, seek his Kingdom” Luke 12:31 ESV
So instead of seeking after possessions, we are supposed to seek after his Kingdom. But what does it look like to seek his kingdom? Where do I start?
Seeking the Kingdom first starts with having a relationship with Jesus. It’s hard to know what someone wants you to do if you don’t know them. If this is your first time at church, or you’re unsure of if this whole Christianity thing is true, or if you’re a follower of Jesus, seeking the kingdom involves having a relationship with the ruler of that kingdom. Why do we need this? It’s because we’ve all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, perfection. We’re not perfect, we’ve all messed up. Because of sin we now owe a debt to God. Our wrongs need to be made right. Our sins, which separates us from God, have to be paid for somehow. It’s only in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus where we have our debts paid and be saved. Placing your faith in Jesus and giving your life to him is the first step in seeking the Kingdom.
If you’re unsure how to do so, here is the way you can do that, found in Paul’s letter to the Romans.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Romans 10:9-10 ESV
So you give up control over your life, your greatest possession, confess that Jesus is Lord, and hand it over to Jesus. He becomes your King. Then, God gives you the kingdom and a new heart, with new desires that reflect Jesus and his Kingdom, the very thing that God loves to do.
“For it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32
God desires to give us the Kingdom, and all that comes with it. God wants us to come to him. While God loves to provide for us, ultimately he wants us to give our lives to him. He wants us to place our faith in him to seek both the forgiveness of our sins and also the Kingdom. The one possession we take with us in death, our sin debt, God wants us to give that to him so in turn he gives us something more valuable that we can take in death, eternal life. You can’t get the Kingdom unless you give your life to Jesus. This is what Jesus wants us to ultimately know about possessions, nothing will ever compare to the eternal life he offers us when we give our life to him in faith. Jesus is telling us to turn our focus off of possessions and onto him. He is the focus of this whole passage.
Some of you may be asking yourself, “but what about my needs?”
“And these things will be added to you.” Luke 12:31b
Jesus is reminding us that our needs will still be met. These things - food, drink, clothing, shelter - added to us, just like the ravens and the lilies. God knows what those needs are. Jesus is helping us understand that our first and foremost need in this life is to have our sins forgiven. We are dead unless we give our lives to Jesus. Gathering possessions is useless because in the end we still die, not being able to take them with us, just like the rich fool. Seeking the kingdom should be our first and foremost need that needs to be met. The kingdom should be our greatest possession.
This then opens the door to respond to the temptation to covet possessions in the way that Jesus lays out here:
“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Luke 12:32-33 ESV
If you have possessions that are leading you away from God, then sell them. Why prioritize temporary things when we have eternal things offered to us? Personally, I love golf; it’s been a huge love of mine for a long time. I’d love to play with anyone here at Gateway. It has helped me get through some tough times, and has given me some of my best friends in life. However, if my love for golf leads me to desire a lower handicap more than Christ, I’m taking those clubs and putting them on Facebook Marketplace and selling them so I can give that money to those who need it and put my focus back on Jesus. My love for Jesus will always have to be more than my love for golf, or any possession that I have.
However, we can’t respond to covetousness in this way because we feel like we have to. We have to do this because we want to. Paul helps us understand this in 2 Corinthians.
“Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:6-7
Cheerfully giving away possessions shows yourself, and those who you’re generous to that what is valuable to you is not of this world but in the next. You are giving not out of a desire to earn favor with God, but out of the fact that you have already earned that favor in Christ. The outpouring of our generosity should flow out of the love of Christ within us and our desire for him more than our possessions. The line from Fanny Crosby’s famous hymn “Take the world, but give me Jesus” becomes more of a reality in your life.
This helps us to understand the last verse of this passage.
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Luke 12:34 ESV
This verse is the heart of the message Jesus is teaching here. This goes all the way back to the issue that led the brother to go to Jesus and convince his brother to give him part of the inheritance. It shows why the rich man was so foolish. The heart of this passage is the heart itself. Jesus wants us to change our heart from coveting possessions to desiring him instead.
But we cannot live this way unless our heart belongs to him. It is only through Jesus that we can live this way, and it is through the heart that we seek the kingdom. It is through the heart that we are responsible with our possessions in a Godly way. It is through the heart that we live generously with what God gives us. It is through the heart that we understand that Jesus is the greatest treasure that we can have.
So where is your heart? Where is your treasure?
A practice that we have talked about before at Gateway and that is helpful to answer these questions is praying through Scripture. There are even prayers in Scripture that we can pray ourselves for the things in our lives. Here is a prayer in Proverbs 30, written by a guy named Agur, which means “collector,” funny enough, that speaks directly to what we are talking about today:
“O God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die. First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.” Proverbs 30:7-9
This is a prayer you can use to seek the kingdom and follow Jesus’s teaching on possessions. A guy who is literally named “Collector” is helping us to ask God for the right mindset when it comes to our own collections. It’s asking us to be honest with both ourselves and with God. It’s praying against thinking you’re either too rich to care about Jesus or that you don’t care if you sin and dishonor him because you don’t have enough. This is a powerful prayer.
As we close today, I want us to look at one more verse:
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” 2 Corinthians 8:9
Jesus gave up everything for us. Jesus, the King of the Universe, creator and possessor of all things, gave it all up so that through his sacrifice and generosity, we may have a possession, a treasure, that never tarnishes, gets old, is always beautiful, and lasts forever. So not only does Jesus teach us about possessions, but he lives out those very words himself. My friends, trust in what he tells us.
As you look back on these verses, talk to your kids about what they learned about possessions, pray that prayer in Proverbs, and hopefully feel your heart change regarding your possessions, remember who Jesus is and what he gave up in order that we may be freed from sin, and treat our possessions the way that Jesus treats his possessions.
Let us pray.
Father, thank you for the reminder of what truly is most important in this world. It can be so easy to worry about our needs, yet you remind us that our first and foremost need is to be in relationship with you. Thank you for giving us Jesus, and Jesus for laying down your life for ours. Holy Spirit, open the hearts of those who don’t know Jesus and draw them near to him. Open their hearts to you so they can give their whole selves to you in faith, so they can receive the kingdom. Lead all of us to seek the kingdom first. Jesus, you teach us to give our hearts to you so that our treasure is not what is here on earth but what is eternal in and with you. Help us to not tell a lie, give us just what we need, help us not to covet temporary things, and change our hearts so that we live in the way that reflects you. As we sing in worship, turn our hearts to you so that we can honor you as the hero of our stories.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.
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