The Fool's Full Barns and Empty Soul Text: Luke 12:13-21
Introduction: The Great Audit
We live in a culture that is obsessed with financial planning. Men will spend countless hours calculating their net worth, diversifying their portfolios, and planning for retirement. They want to make sure they have enough laid up for a rainy day, for their golden years, for the time when they can finally "take their ease." And in all this meticulous planning, this flurry of economic activity, they neglect the one thing that actually matters. They are like a man who spends his entire life polishing the brass on a sinking ship. They are preparing for a future that will never arrive in the way they imagine it, and they are utterly unprepared for the future that is rushing toward them like a freight train.
The issue is not that planning is wrong, or that wealth is inherently sinful. Abraham was fantastically wealthy, and he is the father of the faithful. The problem is one of definition. Our secular, materialistic age has a fundamentally flawed definition of life. It believes that life consists in the abundance of possessions. It is a worldview that can be measured in square footage, horsepower, and quarterly earnings reports. It is a life lived entirely on the horizontal plane, as though this fleeting existence were all there is.
Into this frantic pursuit of earthly security, Jesus speaks a word that is both a bucket of ice water and a lifeline. He is confronted with a common, everyday squabble over an inheritance, a dispute that smells of this world. And He uses this mundane moment to pivot to the ultimate reality. He tells a story about a man who was a resounding success by every worldly metric. He was productive, prosperous, and a shrewd planner. He had it all figured out. And God called him a fool. This is not just a moral tale about the dangers of greed. This is a worldview collision. It is a story that forces us to answer the most basic questions: What is a man? What is life for? And who gets to do the accounting in the end?
This parable is God's great audit of the human soul. It is a divine examination of the books, and it reveals that a man can have overflowing barns and a bankrupt soul. It teaches us that the most important calculations have nothing to do with what you have stored up for yourself, but rather with whether or not you are rich toward God.
The Text
And someone from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Then He said to them, “Watch out and be on your guard against every form of greed, for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: 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 many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you prepared?’ So is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
(Luke 12:13-21 LSB)
The Worldly Distraction (v. 13-15)
The scene opens with an interruption. Jesus is teaching profound spiritual truths, and a man in the crowd has his mind entirely elsewhere.
"And someone from the crowd said to Him, 'Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.' But He said to him, 'Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?'" (Luke 12:13-14)
This man sees Jesus not as the Messiah, the Son of God, but as a potential tool. He wants to leverage Jesus' authority as a respected rabbi to win a financial dispute. His heart is consumed with what he believes he is owed. He is thinking about his slice of the pie, his rights, his earthly inheritance. Jesus' response is a sharp rebuke. He refuses to be drawn into the role of a small-claims court judge. "Man, who appointed Me a judge or arbitrator over you?" This is not a dodge. Jesus is the ultimate Judge, but He has not come to settle petty property disputes according to the world's standards. He has come to deal with the root of the problem, which is not the distribution of assets, but the disposition of the heart.
Jesus immediately diagnoses the underlying disease. He pivots from the specific request to the universal principle.
"Then He said to them, 'Watch out and be on your guard against every form of greed, for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.'" (Luke 12:15)
Notice the urgency: "Watch out and be on your guard." Greed, or covetousness, is not a minor character flaw; it is a spiritual ambush. The word for greed here is pleonexia, which means a grasping desire for more, an insatiable appetite. It is idolatry, plain and simple (Col. 3:5). It is the worship of the creature rather than the Creator. Then Jesus lays down the foundational axiom that demolishes the entire materialistic worldview: "a man's life does not consist of his possessions." This is a direct assault on the operating system of our age. Your life is not your stuff. Your identity is not your portfolio. Your worth is not your net worth. You are a soul, an eternal being created in the image of God, and to define your existence by what you can accumulate in your garage is a profound category error. It is to be a spiritual being playing in a materialist's sandbox.
The Fool's Soliloquy (v. 16-19)
To illustrate this point, Jesus tells a story. It is a story about a man who appears to be anything but a fool.
"The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, 'What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?'" (Genesis 12:16-17)
The man's problem is a problem of abundance. God had blessed him. The ground yielded a bumper crop. This is not a condemnation of his success. The blessing itself was not the problem; the problem was his response to it. He "began reasoning to himself." This is the first clue to his folly. His entire thought process is an internal monologue. There is no prayer, no thanksgiving to God, no thought of his neighbor. It is a closed loop of self-reference. His world has shrunk to the size of his own skull.
His solution is a masterpiece of worldly wisdom.
"This is what I will do: 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 many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.'" (Luke 12:18-19)
Count the personal pronouns. "I will do... I will tear down... I will build... I will store... my barns... my grain... my goods... I will say to my soul." His universe revolves entirely around himself. He sees his possessions as the source of his security and the substance of his joy. He believes his "goods" can satisfy his "soul." This is the great lie of materialism. He is talking to his soul as if it were a pig at a trough. He thinks that a spiritual entity can be satisfied with material things. He has planned meticulously for his retirement, for "many years" of ease. His gospel is "eat, drink, and be merry," a sad echo of the Epicurean creed. He has built a fortress of self-sufficiency, and he believes he is finally safe.
The Divine Interruption (v. 20-21)
The man has made his plans without consulting the one who holds his next breath. And just as he is settling in to enjoy his self-made paradise, God speaks. The divine interruption shatters his little world.
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you prepared?'" (Luke 12:20)
The man thought he was wise, a master of his fate. God's verdict is blunt: "You fool!" Why? Because his accounting was fatally flawed. He had calculated everything except for God and death. He had planned for many years, but he did not have one more day. "This very night." The verb "is required" is a commercial term, like a loan being called in. His soul was never his own to begin with; it was on loan from God, and the loan was due. And the haunting question follows: "who will own what you prepared?" All his stuff, his bigger barns, his grain, his goods, all the things he had identified with his very life, would now pass to others. He spent his whole life accumulating things he could not keep, while neglecting the one thing he could not afford to lose.
The Great Conclusion
Jesus concludes the parable by drawing the sharp, unavoidable line between two ways of life, two kinds of wealth.
"So is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." (Luke 12:21)
This is the final balance sheet. You are either laying up treasure for yourself, or you are rich toward God. There is no third option. To be rich toward God is to have a completely different portfolio. It is to invest in the kingdom of God. It means that your heart, your desires, your resources, and your plans are all oriented vertically, toward Him. It means understanding that wealth is a tool, not a goal. It is a gift from God, to be managed for His glory and the good of others. It is to be a conduit, not a reservoir.
The rich fool's sin was not his wealth, but his self-centered, God-ignoring, materialistic worldview. He saw his blessings as his own achievement and for his own consumption. A man who is rich toward God sees his blessings as a stewardship. He asks not, "What shall I do with my stuff?" but rather, "Lord, what would you have me do with Your stuff?" His security is not in his barns, but in his Father's house. His joy is not in eating and drinking, but in fellowship with the living God.
The gospel flips this entire parable on its head. The ultimate fool is the man who thinks he can save himself, who tries to store up enough good works to satisfy God. His soul will be required of him, and he will be found bankrupt at the judgment.
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matthew 16:26)
But Jesus Christ is the one who was infinitely rich toward God, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Cor. 8:9). He did not build bigger barns for Himself, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. He laid up no treasure on earth. His treasure was doing the will of His Father. And on the cross, His soul was "required of Him," not as a debt called in, but as a ransom freely paid.
The True Inheritance
Because of Christ's work, we are offered a true and lasting inheritance, one that cannot be spoiled or fade away, reserved in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:4). We are called to stop living like spiritual fools, frantically storing up treasures that rust and decay. We are called to repent of our greed, our self-sufficiency, and our materialistic definitions of life.
To be rich toward God is to be justified by faith alone in Christ alone. It is to have your sins forgiven and to be clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus. That is true wealth. From that position of ultimate security, we are then freed to be radically generous with the earthly resources God gives us. We can hold them loosely, because our true treasure is secure. We can invest joyfully in the work of the gospel, knowing we are laying up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
The question this parable leaves us with is simple and stark. When God requires your soul, and He will, what will your portfolio look like? Will it be a collection of decaying assets stored in earthly barns? Or will you be found to be rich, truly and eternally rich, toward God?