2.27.19
Message 46
Mark 10:17-31
17 As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not defraud; honor your father and mother.” 20 He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these from my youth.” 21 Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 The disciples were astonished at his words. Again Jesus said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They were even more astonished, saying to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God, because all things are possible with God.” 28 Peter began to tell him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundred times more, now at this time—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and eternal life in the age to come. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
1. Everyone here has a desire to be a better follower of Jesus.
A. That’s why we are here.
1. We may have a hard time explaining exactly what we want, but we all want to be a better Christian.
2. We want to be better people.
3. We want to experience all that God has for us.
B. Along the way, we all have things that hang us up.
1. Our hang-ups are those actions, thoughts, or behaviors that keep us from growing as we are supposed to.
2. Early on in our Christian walk, our hang-ups are more obvious:
a. Your hang-up might be your addiction.
b. You might be engaged in some long-term sinful behavior and you know it isn’t what God wants you to do.
3. Maybe your hang-up is your past: You just can’t seem to outrun what you did years ago.
C. If so, you are in good company.
1. These are all usual hang-ups that we all have had to deal with.
2. It’s easier to look at the obvious sins and know what we need to fix.
3. But what if our hang-up is not so obvious and blatant?
4. That is where the story of this rich young ruler comes in.
2. The young ruler didn’t have the usual hang-ups.
A. He didn’t cheat or steal, he hadn’t killed someone, he hadn’t broken the “law”.
1. He was a good, solid, person.
2. In fact he looked to be the perfect example of the kind of disciples Jesus would want:
a. Rich, young, and successful.
b. But these very qualities led to a few hang-ups no one had told him about.
c. He didn’t need God.
B. To this point, following God hadn’t cost him anything.
1. The other disciples had given up homes, family, and careers.
2. This “rich, young ruler” didn’t have to sacrifice like that:
a. His wealth made it possible for him to be extremely religious without being fully devoted.
b. The American Church is wealthy enough that we can afford to be religious without being fully committed followers of Jesus.
C. Therefore, Jesus asked the young man to give up the “one” thing that would cost him.
1. Jesus recognized in this young man that the one thing that made him desirable in the world, his wealth, was the main thing that kept him from being a truly, devoted follower of Jesus.
2. Mark 10:21–22 (CSB)
21 Looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, “You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 But he was dismayed by this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.
3. Jesus asks this young man for a trade: his worldly wealth for treasure in heaven.
a. In other words, Jesus asked this young man to give up the one thing in this world that he loved the most.
b. In his wealth, the young man found:
1. Safety,
2. Identity,
3. Direction,
4. Meaning.
c. As long as the young man found all of this in wealth, he would never find these things in Jesus.
d. As long as we find our safety, identity, direction, and meaning in anything other than Jesus, we will never find them in our relationship with Jesus.
D. Notice the young man’s response:
1. The young ruler “grieved” over Jesus’ words.
a. This means he was distressed and sorrowful.
b. This was not mere disappointment or frustration.
c. This was an internal response that shook the young man’s very internal world.
2. I can hear the internal conversation now:
a. Why did Jesus have to say that?
b. I was willing to do anything, but that.
c. It’s like the soundtrack of the old Meatloaf song, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.”
3. Having heard Jesus’ request, the young man walk away from a life of discipleship and followership.
E. This is exactly what Jesus does to us.
1. Jesus looks into our life and he demands the one thing we don’t want to give up.
a. He doesn’t ask for the replaceable, the extra, or the outdated.
b. Jesus asks for that which we love the dearest and he makes that the condition of our discipleship.
2. If your identity and safety is found in money, then Jesus will challenge you in that area the most.
3. If your identity and delight is found in your family, then He asks you to trust him with your family. (We must never allow our family be the reason we don’t say a full YES to Jesus.)
F. Jesus’ motivation for asking is love.
1. “Looking at him, Jesus loved him…”
2. When God asks you to follow him, He is not asking out of anger, hatred, or any other motivation.
3. Jesus’ motivation is love.
a. For He knows that HE is asking you to exchange the temporary for the eternal.
b. Often we act like the kid who has a pocketful of pennies who won’t exchange it for 1, $5 bill.
c. We overestimate the value of what we have in our possession and we devalue what Jesus is offering us.
4. Jesus is calling many of you here, he is challenging you, he is pushing you out of your comfort zone.
a. And you think that God is being mean.
b. You think He is being unfair.
c. What you don’t realize is that Jesus’s greatest concern is for our salvation not for our comfort.
1. That is why the greatest Gift that Jesus has given us is the opportunity to follow Him in the now and in the future.
2. And that Gift has responsibilities.
3. God’s gifts have responsibilities.
A. The disciples were watching this interaction between Jesus and the Rich young ruler.
1. And they heard Jesus say that it is very difficult for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God.
2. If wealth and status couldn’t earn them the kingdom, then what could?
B. The answer is found in Jesus’ use of the word “child”.
1. Has anyone noticed how often Jesus used “child” to demonstrate his Kingdom?
2. Jesus refers to his disciples as children:
a. This refers to their present condition and to the previous passage.
b. Children are dependent upon someone else to provide for them.
C. If a rich person can’t buy or earn their way to heaven, then, how can they?
1. Only through the gift of God.
2. Being a child in the kingdom means that we receive the benefits of the kingdom as a gift.
3. We enter the kingdom of God as a gift.
4. We can’t earn it, buy it, or achieve it.
5. Our entrance into eternal life is completely dependent upon the Grace and Gift of God.
D. Yet, the kingdom of God has responsibility.
1. No illustration is perfect, but think of it like this:
a. If someone gave you a brand-new car, could you afford it?
b. Can you afford the taxes on its value?
c. Can you afford the insurance?
d. If it was a foreign car, could you afford the upkeep?
e. Although the car is a GIFT, the GIFT has responsibilities.
2. The kingdom of God is a gift with responsibilities.
a. Jesus was glad for the rich young ruler to enter the kingdom.
b. But the gift required discipleship on the part of the young ruler.
c. And for the young ruler, Jesus asked that he give up his wealth in order to receive the gift.
3. This seems like a paradox.
a. How can gifts also have “requirements”?
b. But the problem isn’t with God but with our modern-day culture.
1. Our culture wants “free”.
2. Free education and free opportunities.
3. Free from responsibility, free from work, free from effort, free from cost.
4. Millennials, listen up: Our parents and grandparents were right when they told us that there “is no such thing as a free lunch.”
a. Our salvation is a gift, but it wasn’t free.
b. Our healing is a gift, but it came at a terrible cost.
c. Entrance into the kingdom is a gift that has responsibility.
4. And the responsibility is to follow Jesus.
4. There is no such thing as different levels of discipleship.
Mark 10:28–31 (CSB)
28 Peter began to tell him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said, “there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundred times more, now at this time—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and eternal life in the age to come. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
A. The disciples were wondering if Jesus was going to set up a different set of requirements for this young ruler.
1. Peter, James, John and the rest had left everything in exchange for Jesus.
a. They had held nothing back.
b. They gave it all and risked it all for the opportunity to follow Jesus.
2. Now they were wondering if there could have been a less expensive option.
1. No one ever wants to spend more money than they have to for the same result.
2. We want the most we can get with the least cost.
3. One of the worst feelings in the world is to buy something only to find it on sale somewhere else.
3. Peter told Jesus, “Look, we have left it all for you. Was it necessary?
B. There is no such thing as a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level of discipleship.
1. God is an all or nothing kind of God.
a. You can’t hold back part of your life and expect the whole to be blessed.
b. You can’ be obedient in one area in your life and disobedient in others and expect to get the same result.
2. There cannot be different levels of cost and sacrifice.
a. Jesus demands either all of our life or none of it.
b. When we say “Yes” to Jesus, we are signing the dotted line of a blank-contract.
5. For many of us, it isn’t the “hard” stuff that is keeping us from following Jesus with all of our lives.
A. Many of us are like the rich young ruler.
1. We don’t steal.
2. We go to church.
3. We haven’t killed anybody lately.
4. We must be good in the Jesus department.
B. Sometimes, it is the good stuff that gets in the way of the great.
1. It is the pursuit of good dreams that get in the way of great dreams.
2. It Is the accumulation of “stuff” that keeps us from saying Yes to Jesus.
3. When our lives are too full of stuff, our yes’s become maybes and our maybes become no’s.
C. Sometimes our “hang-up” in giving our all to Jesus isn’t the “bad” stuff but the marginally good.
Illustration
1. In high school, I was accepted to Central Bible College.
a. This was not only my dream, but it was the only school I applied for.
b. I knew I was called to be a pastor, and every good pastor must go to Central Bible College in order to make it.
c. This is what I believed.
2. I remember one day after graduating high school, riding with my dad to Poplar Bluff, that I fully realized that I was not meant to go to CBC.
a. I had applied for the loans, I had toured the campus, everything was getting ready to go.
b. But instead of being excited, I came to a different realization.
c. I remember, being in that car, telling my dad that I had changed my mind and that I wasn’t sure why, but God had different plans for me.
d. I feared his rejection or scorn, but instead he smiled and basically said he knew that but was waiting for me to figure it out.
3. For a time, I grieved.
a. I grieved missing out on my dream.
b. I grieved the loss of a dream I had worked for.
c. I grieved change and a sense of failure.
d. I grieved, that while many of my colleagues were going, that I would miss out.
e. I grieved, just like the rich young ruler, about what God was asking me to do.
4. That was 2004. 6 years later, I realized why God had changed my path.
a. Because if Julie and I had gone to CBC, and taken on the $60k+ in debt we would have, I would have missed out on what God had for me:
b. That was for me to pastor this church.
5. God’s plans for my life were so much more than the plans I had for my life. A. But, in that instance, I couldn’t have it both God’s way and my way. B. Both God and I wanted the same thing: to lead the local church by being a pastor.
c. But my plans were different than God’s plans.
D. Jesus and this rich young ruler both wanted the same end result:
1. They both wanted eternal life for the rich young ruler.
2. But the rich, young, ruler wanted eternal life without discipleship and followership.
3. You can’t follow Jesus without sacrifice.
4. You can’t follow Jesus and not be willing to walk away from it all.
E. In the kingdom of God, there is no such thing as an “unreasonable” sacrifice.
1. Paul talks about this in Romans 12:1 where he says for us to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
2. Whatever God asks of you is reasonable.
a. Your life, your dreams, your finances, your family, your comfort.
b. Nothing, He asks of you is unreasonable.
c. Hard, yes. Painful, yes. Costly, yes. Unreasonable? Never.
3. Think about this: If the government of the United States can ask men, and women, to fight and die for their country, how can we refuse God’s asking of us for our lives?
F. On a positive note, look at what Jesus promised!
1. No one who has left it all for the sake of the gospel, will not be rewarded in this life and in the next.
2. I truly believe that God’s plans for me are greater than my plans for me.
3. And I know that God is a rewarder, and that no sacrifice goes unnoticed.
4. Whatever you do or sacrifice for Jesus here will be worth it all.
What is my Next-Step with Jesus?
A. As we pray here in a few moments, I want to give us a few minutes to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
1. Would you ask Jesus to show you what He is asking from you.
2. Then, as He drops that in your heart, would you pray for boldness to respond?
B. Many of us are being held back.
1. But it isn’t the usual hang-ups.
2. Many of us are being held up by the good when God is calling you to great.
3. This morning, let us ask Jesus to help us be fully committed followers and disciples.