“You Can Only Spend it Once”
1/11/26
Luke 12: 16-21 “Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 18 So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ 21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
I want to talk to you today about your life–
where it’s going,
what you’re doing with it,
how you’re spending it.
We see in this parable of Jesus a man who was blessed with a very successful business.
He was a farmer and his fertile land had produced a huge, abundant harvest.
But the focus isn’t so much on the greatness of his harvest, but on what he did with it.
He took God’s great blessing and spent it all on himself!
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If you count the number of ‘me’s’ and ‘I’s’, we come up with 6 ‘I’s’ and 5 ‘my’s.
It’s all about him–I, my, myself.
Now, on the last day of his life God says something to him we should all take note of–you were successful at business but you failed at life.
You made good money but missed the main mark!
You should have served the Lord,
sown some of his blessing by helping others,
asked him what to do with the abundant harvest,
sought his counsel,
thanked him,
told others of his goodness,
given him some of your time, your talent, your energy back to him, and so on.
You should have been rich toward God!
But God was in none of his thoughts.
Not once did this abundantly blessed man ever look up to thank God, or pursue a relationship with the God that had been so good to him.
So in the end, he didn’t SPEND his life wisely.
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ILLUS: dollar bill
I can give you this dollar and 3 things are true:
*It’s a gift to you
*You can spend it any way you want
*You can only spend it once
Life is the same way!
It’s not just lived out, it is SPENT like you spend a dollar.
Just like the man in the parable, YOU decide how it will be lived out,
what it will be spent on,
what you will do with it.
Because what is true of the dollar is true of your life:
It’s a gift from God,
you can spend it how you want,
you can only spend it once.
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So let’s talk about it–FIRST:
I. Life is a gift from God
Gen 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
In the beginning, God created life,
he created our bodily form
and then breathed into us “the breath of life.”
We didn’t bring ourselves to life.
Nor did some cold, uncaring, random evolutionary process create you or give you life.
No, God gave us life–it was a direct gift from Him!
–This morning when you woke up, today was a gift from God.
God gave you another day!
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Job 12:10 “For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.”
Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
Acts 17:25 “He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;”
Daniel describes the Lord as “the God who holds your (next) breath in His hand and owns all your ways…”–Dan 5:23
• So life–each and every moment of it–is a gift from God, and swings on the hinge of His grace and mercy.
So let me ask you, have you considered your life a gift from God?
Have you viewed it as a gift for you to SPEND wisely?
The rich man in our parable did not, and that is where he missed the most important mark of all!
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Then secondly,
II. You can spend it however you want
God has given us an awesome thing called free will.
We are not pre-programmed robots that can only do what some master programmer programmed us for.
No, we have a will,
the ability to make choices,
to decide what we will do with the life God gave us.
All the way back in the ancient Garden of Eden,
God gave Adam and Eve the choice to obey or disobey,
to eat of the forbidden tree or not.
Think of that dollar bill…
You can take it to the nearest 7-Eleven and throw it away on candy, gum, a donut, or some other useless thing.
Or you can take that dollar bill and invest it in something lasting.
Though it’s just a dollar you could give all or some of it into missions,
or you could save it and wait for an opportune moment to spend it on something worthwhile.
Let me tell you a true story:
ILLUS: A woman named Martha Berry (1866 to 1942) was a great Christian who founded the Berry School for needy children in Mount Berry, GA.
She once boldly asked car mogul Henry Ford for one million dollars to assist her school.
He coolly gave her a dime instead.
Rather than walk away offended, she took that dime and began to use it.
She bought some peanuts with that dime and had her schoolboys plant a small crop.
She sold the crop and, with the proceeds, bought more peanuts to plant a larger field.
Over time, she accumulated enough money from those peanuts to buy a piano for the school.
Martha Berry wrote a letter of gratitude to Henry Ford, telling him what they were able to accomplish with his dime.
Ford was so impressed with Martha’s faithfulness, resourcefulness and work ethic that he invited her to come to Detroit.
When she arrived, he presented her with a check for $1,000,000.
Hallelujah! She was faithful with a few things…and he could trust her with many things!
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And it’s the same thing with your life!
You may feel like that dime,
that you don’t have much to offer,
that you’re not very gifted, or smart, or pretty, or handsome.
You may feel your life is no count, useless, maybe even hopeless.
But that’s not what God sees!
God loves DIME people!
Listen to this powerful verse:
1 Cor. 1:27-29 “Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. 29 As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.”
Your life may look like a dime to you, but to God it looks like a million dollars!
No matter what you have or don’t have–you can always be rich toward God and spend your life wisely!
So don’t spend your life on the cheap candy this world offers.
Spend it on the riches of the Kingdom of God–be rich toward God!
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And finally,
III. You can only spend it once
Listen to this verse:
Heb 9:27 “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”
Contrary to the belief in reincarnation–which is the rebirth of a soul into a new body–the Bible says it’s not so.
We have one life to live,
one chance to spend it wisely,
and then we will face God to give an account.
Rom 14:12 “Yes, each of us will give an account of himself to God.”
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