Luke 12:15

Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

From Background Notes [BN] for May 5^th & 6^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Our Lord's use of the imperative, "Watch out!" only serves to underscore the high stakes of material ownership.

Of course, a person who has a great deal of wealth will naturally "watch out" for fear that it will be lost. He takes great pains to invest it in certain ways, or secure it in safe places. He only allows trusted assistants access to its use and disposition. It is, after all, something he "treasures" and does not wish to lose. Ironically, that is not the point of Jesus' imperative in this passage. Instead, it is not the loss of the possessions but their greed which occupies his interest. "Guard against greed,” Jesus warns. It's not the thief lurking without that threatens the well-being of the man who has all these possessions, but the one living within. And apparently, he isn't alone, for Jesus refers to "all kinds of greed" (Greek: pases pas pleonexias, the compounding of the words for "all" amounts to saying, "guard against all greed of all kinds"). The word for "greed" combines the idea of "having" or "having authority over" with the notion of "more": greed is simply the wanting of "more.” Little is good; more is better.

Jesus then gives the rationale for his imperative. "Life" (Greek: zoe) does not take its beginning (Greek: huparcho) from the "abundance" (Greek: perisseuo, "overflowing") that comes to him. It is as if Jesus imagines a man's life as a flowing stream, supplied from headwaters above him. Those headwaters, says Jesus, are not his riches. They do not make him, nor do they sustain him. They cannot define him nor do they distinguish him. In his essence, "his life,” he owes nothing to them. He is better than all of that. His greatness mounts beyond the object of his greed.  [BN, 2-3]

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