St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost – August 8, 2010
“Highest Priority!”
Text: Luke 12:32-34

With last Sunday’s sermon I began a series of messages for these
Sundays in August that are five Sundays to focus on the teachings of
Jesus. These teachings come as Jesus draws closer & closer to the
end of His ministry, closer to His suffering & crucifixion, His death
& burial, and His victorious resurrection from the dead.

So the teaching from Jesus last Sunday was about a huge miscalculation
people make concerning the abundance of possessions. The huge
miscalculation being that a lot of people think there’s so much to
have in this life and when they work hard to have what they have it’s
OK for them to have it and still want more, or it’s OK for a them to
live for weekends, or it’s OK if one’s ultimate aim in life is to
have it made & take life easy.
What foolishness this is, says Jesus. Though we are sinful human
beings and all of us have a selfish streak in us that comes as part
of our sinful human nature, we are none of us put here to have it
made. We are none of us put here to have the time of our lives, to
live for ourselves, or to have all that we can have & still want more.
That said, this Sunday’s teaching from Jesus is titled “Highest
Priority – A Foretaste of Heaven.”
For where your treasure is, Jesus teaches, there will your heart
be also.
What is it you treasure most in this life?
Here’s a true story. There is a businessman named Dan who is a
very important man and works as an upper level executive in a multi-
million dollar company. His annual salary is in the high six figure
range. Dan flies back & forth across the country and rents SUV’s to
get where he has to go at the company’s expense.
Dan is also married and has two children. He is a member of all
the right organizations and country clubs. He is considered to be a
successful & influential person who knows his company his company’s
business inside out. In short, when Dan speaks people listen.
To achieve this status Dan works long hours, 60-70 hours a week.
This does not allow him to spend a lot of time with his family. He
knows little about his kid’s hobbies. He doesn’t attend many of their
activities. The kids know what’s coming every time he pulls his suit-
case from under the bed.
One day at the office Dan has some time between appointments. As
he relaxes he starts to wonder. He asks himself what is life all
about. He goes over his accomplishments. He goes thru a list of
people he knows and the places he’s been. He thinks about his net
worth and that leads him to ask the question: is this all there is?

Is this all there is to life?
Then Dan thinks about his family. He realizes he’s not been close
to them for a while. When he’s home he speaks a few words to them
now & then. He takes them to the country club while he plays golf.
But he doesn’t really know who they are anymore.
So that day Dan goes home and has a quiet dinner with his family.
After dinner he sits down with his teenage son and has a long talk.
Father & son sit & chat about what’s happening in his son’s life.
As the hour grows late, Dan turns to his son and says, “I’m truly
sorry I haven’t taken the time to be with you. I’m going to make some
changes. I love you.”
His son starts to cry. Dan sits still, stunned & silent. “Dad,”
his son says, “I have been really down. Tonight, after we all went
to bed I had decided to leave & run away. Please be here for me and
help me. Please keep telling me you love me.”
It’s a true story. I don’t’ know who Dan is, but I know I had
a brother Russ, who five years ago died of cancer at age 59. As
a very successful high level executive for a large multi-million
dollar company when he was in good health went through something very
similar with his son, Adam. And I suspect there are a lot of other
sons & daughters, moms & dads, who may not be as successful as Dan
or as troubled as his son but they can identify with parts of this
story. Luckily, or probably more accurately, by the grace of God,
a tragedy was averted by a long-over due conversation & 3 words, “I
love you.”
Jesus says ten words; ten very important, highest-priority setting
words. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
The one most important element in Dan’s story is not the
conversation Dan has with his son, as important & timely as that
conversation is. The single, most important element in Dan’s story
is that moment of real-ization & true repentance Dan has in the quiet
of his office when something other than his work becomes a treasure
for him.
There is more to life than making it big or gathering up all of this
life’s treasure & material goods. There is this wonderful, reassuring
truth that it is our heavenly Father’s good pleasure to give us
the Kingdom so that hard-working moms & dads and love-starved sons
& daughters need not be seized with alarm and struck with fear.
That’s the good word, the good teaching, the Good News from Jesus
for this Sunday.
What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, Jesus teaches.
Don’t be so pre-occupied with getting so that you can respond to
God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way God works fuss
over these things, but you know God and how He works . . God will see
to it that all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be
afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends. The Father WANTS

to give you the very kingdom itself.
How and when does this happen? It happens by grace through faith.
It happens, says Jesus, when you start investing & banking in a
bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bank robbers,
a bank safe from embezzlers and greedy CEO’s, a bank you can truly
bank on like no other bank on this earth. Thieves may break in and
steal our goods; rust may eat away at metals and moths may eat holes
in precious cloth & clothing. But the person whose treasure is in
heaven will not be anxious about such things.
When you KNOW God is your heavenly Father who dearly loves you &
daily takes care of you;
When you graciously & humbly have your heart open to new life
in the Kingdom of God thru the saving merits of Jesus Christ who
suffered & died to redeem you from sin, from death & the power of
devil;
When you are ready for the Father’s Kingdom to come at any time
in all it’s power and glory, then it’s amazing how life’s highest
priorities shift from getting all you can get to giving all you can
give, and letting go of things turns out to be a whole lot better,
more meaningful, more helpful, even more a pleasure, than grabbing
for all you can get.
There was a village blacksmith who worked hard at his trade. The
day came for him to die. God sent his angel to the blacksmith, but
to the angel’s surprise, the blacksmith refused to go. He pleaded
with the angel that he was the only blacksmith in the village and it
was time for all his neighbors to begin their plowing & planting. He
would be sorely needed.
The blacksmith did not want to appear to be ungrateful and was
looking forward to having a place in God’s Kingdom, but could he put
it off for a while?
The angel went and made the blacksmith’s case before God, and God
agreed.
Sometime later, near the end of the harvest, the angel returned to
bring the blacksmith to heaven. But again the blacksmith requested
that his return to God be delayed. “A neighbor of mine is seriously
ill and it’s time for the harvest,” he said. “A number of us are
trying to save his crops so that his family won’t be destitute.
Please tell God I am grateful for his blessings to me. But could you
come for me later?”
And the angel returned to heaven.
Well, it got to be a pattern. Every time the angel would come to
bring the faithful blacksmith to heaven, the smith would shake his
head and explain to the angel that he was still needed by someone on
earth.
Finally, the blacksmith grew very old and weary and so he prayed
to God to send his angel to bring him to heaven. Immediately the

angel appeared. “If you still want to take me home,” the blacksmith
said humbly, “I’m ready to live forever in God’s kingdom.”
The angel laughed and looked at the blacksmith with delight and
surprise. “Where to you think you’ve been all these years?”
Can you imagine such a thing? A little bit of heaven on earth? An
earthly foretaste of heavenly glory; heaven before reaching heaven.
Giving & giving & giving. Surprising things happen when that is
our highest priority.
“As much as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,
you did it to me,” Jesus teaches.
And when that’s our highest priority, Jesus will not only say
to us, ‘Well done thou good & faithful servant,” He will also say,
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father, whose pleasure it is to give
you the Kingdom, come, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.”
May God grant that all our hearts are set on such a pleasure, such
a treasure, such a glorious kingdom that God has prepared for us too.
Amen