The Final Vindication
Notes
Transcript
Call to Worship
Call to Worship
To all who are weary and in need of rest
To all who are mourning and longing for comfort
To all who fail and desire strength
To all who sin and need a Savior
We, Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church, open wide our arms
With a welcome from Jesus Christ.
He is the ally to the guilty and failing
He is the comfort to those who are mourning
He is the joy of our hearts
And He is the friend of sinners
So Come, worship Him with us.
Scripture Reading & Reader
Scripture Reading & Reader
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Henry Wang , Reader
Post-Scripture Prayer
Post-Scripture Prayer
Pray.
Introduction to Sermon
Introduction to Sermon
My name is Brandon, I get to serve as one of the pastors here at Moraga Valley! Thanks for making last week so special for my installation!
Today we’re going to continue our Lent series that we’ve called “On the Move.” In scripture we see that Jesus is always calling people to leave something behind and pick up something new, a new way of life, and so for Lent we’re making the decision to put down our lives and pick up the life that Jesus has for us instead.
If you would open your Bibles, please turn with me to Mark 10, we’ll be hanging out in verses 17-31.
I’ve titled this message, “The Final Vindication,” because I want us to see that Jesus has in mind, putting every thing to rights. Not only will He put every wrong to rights, but He says that what we’ve chosen to leave behind, it’ll be worth it in the end — He says will make us first in His Kingdom, and He’ll repay everything that was sacrificed for Him.
Where we are today is what’s been called the Rich Young Man, or maybe could be called the Rich and the Kingdom of God, and there’s a challenge here for us today on whether or not we want to follow God on His terms.
And to be fair, this is, or at least should be, a common point of reflection, for followers of Jesus. By whose term’s am I living? My terms or the terms of Jesus?
Let’s look at Mark 10:17-21
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
We talked briefly about this several weeks ago. A man approaches Jesus in search of forever, and asks the question, “if there’s a club, how do I get in?”
Jesus responds, but the guy isn’t quite getting it. When the guy first talks to Jesus, in verse 17, he calls him a Good Teacher. This is like my kids calling me dude — there’s a kind of insinuation that we’re on the same level. Jesus is a Good Teacher, but this man and Jesus aren’t on the same level.
The entry into eternity, the entry into the Kingdom, is not based off of our own goodness. There’s a bit of freedom here for rule-followers and perfectionists. That’s not what’s required to get in.
Being “good” isn’t about doing the right things, saying the right words, measuring up to some outward standard…
Good works do not make a good man, but a good man makes the works to be good.
Martin Luther
How do we become good? We have to encounter Jesus, and to be freed from every other affection — our common objection to this is that we can love Jesus and other things… No, John Calvin said the human heart is an idol-making factory. We end up moving something in place of Jesus.
So Jesus says to the man in verse 21, there’s “one thing you lack.” It isn’t that the man was trying to be disingenuous… He thought he brought something to the table. But Jesus could see the man’s heart, and saw that there were other affections there...
The invitation to drop those affections and follow Jesus end up falling short, and the scripture says he went away sad — for he had great wealth.
Look with me at verse 23 and I want you to note Jesus’ reaction.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
And then He gives them the answer! It’s this hard, and then he tells an illustration that it would be as if a camel were to enter through the eye of a needle.
Wealth is just too big of a burden to take into the Kingdom.
And in verse 26, this is an astonishment to His followers. They ask the question, “if they can’t get in, then who can?” And this is a great question that we need to chat about.
In the first century, and certainly for Jewish people of that day, wealth was a sign of God’s blessing, — we often think the same thing, that a new car, or a big house, or what people wear are a signal of God’s favor, or we all know someone whose life just seems to work — and so the idea of the people who we think are really blessed, that they’re not getting in, then what hope is there for us?
In Mark 10:27 we find one of the greatest answers we need to hear (Mark 10:27)
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
We can’t save ourselves! We can’t get in, no matter how hard we try, no matter how blessed we appear… but God has provided a way, and His name is Jesus.
Look with me at verse 28-31.
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
I think it’s funny that Jesus doesn’t really respond to Peter’s congratulatory remark… Jesus just doubles down on what He’s been getting at the whole time.
The goodness that Jesus offers will cost you.
It might be your job. It might be your family.
When we engage with God, on God’s terms, we do have to leave some things behind, but Jesus says in Mark 10:30 that whatever we lose, He’ll give us back 100x over. Jesus says, “Follow me on my terms, it’s going to be worth it.” And He invites us to test Him to see if it’s true.
Eternity is the perspective of the believer. We’re learning to play the long game with our life. This idea of “forever” is helping us keep all that we’ve lost for Jesus in perspective.
Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
2 Corinthians 4:17–18 (NIV)
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
And when we do lose everything, and when we leave everything, verse 31 points to a great ending… Mark 10:31
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Now… all of this isn’t some Christian version of delayed gratification, though there’s nothing wrong with delayed gratification, I just don’t know if it’s the fullest idea of what Mark 10 wants us to see.
I think a better idea is of fulfillment.
Your greatest hungers and desires are going to be met, Jesus says, if you search after me — BUT — Verse 30 is a clear indication of suffering. “along with persecutions” mean that this won’t be difficult, it just means that you won’t be doing it alone — Jesus is with us.
The delayed part of this isn’t a guarantee that it’ll be in this life, but Jesus says there are great rewards in the next life – in the age to come.
There are traditions and movements throughout Christian history that have pushed the notion that Jesus has in mind that you need to take a vow of poverty, sell all of your stuff, and live like a monk — I don’t think this is the heart of the passage though.
Jesus doesn’t condemn having possessions, or from having wealth.
Those are good gifts from a good God that loves you.
Japanese Theologian Kosuke Koyama said, “We all have to decide whether we have a generous God or a stingy God.”
What He does condemn is when your possessions, or the state of your wealth, start to take up ownership of you.
The way that the scriptures talk about this, is that your things are in a way, personified. They have control over you, they’re malicious in nature, they’re a terrible thing to give your lives to, and the way that it’s personified is because you treat it as if it has life: you feed the beast of your possessions, or you try to tame the wildness that is wealth. Let me explain it to you this way…
When I was growing up at the end of the 1900’s, it was a common belief in that area that the pinnacle of your life was to buy a boat. Except everyone said that there are two great days in the life of every boat owner: the day you buy the boat, and the day you sell the boat. You’re getting from underneath the thumb of your Master.
Jesus talk about this as a kind of Master in Matthew 6:24
Matthew 6:24 (NIV)
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Wealth is a terrible Master and an even worse Mistress.
We can’t play games with our hearts, yet there’s a handful of ways we do this:
We look to comfort in things. This is what we call “mammon” in the scriptures. It’s the false promise that value and meaning is derived in accumulation. At some point, the line of them servicing you turns into you servicing it.
Another way we feed the beast is by not diagnosing the root of our disease. We take things like clothes, homes, vehicles, as a façade. We can’t stomach being loved as we are, so we find things that we think others will love... and then, without really recognizing it, we take it as an offering before God, only to find out that He doesn’t care about those things. I mean, He cares about how we steward those things, but He’s not impressed by them. He wants you. He’s looking for you. He wants you, for you.
So the affections of our heart have to be maintained at all costs. We’ve got to be in the constant process of losing everything for the sake of Jesus — the final vindication is already coming, we know that at this point — but man...
My friend Daniel Henderson says, “The worst thing about the Christian life is that it’s so daily.” Daily, we have to renew our hearts, guard them, keep them before Jesus.
Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) says
Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
John Flavel, the Puritan writer, said:
“Heart-work is the hardest work indeed. It takes no great effort to shuffle through religious duties with a loose and careless spirit; but to tie up your loose and vain thoughts, to set yourself before the Lord in a constant and serious attendance upon Him, this will cost you something. It is easy to attain a familiarity and ability in the language of prayer, putting your meaning into apt and appropriate expressions; but to get your heart broken for sin while you are confessing it, to be melted with free grace while you are blessing God for it, to be really humbled and ashamed when contemplating God’s infinite holiness, and to keep your heart in this frame—not only in but after this duty—will surely cost you some groans and painful exertions in your soul.”
A suggested practice for this message is simplicity. Simplicity, or minimalism, isn’t meant to be a Christian fad, or a religious spin on Marie Kondo. Simplicity is aligning your life with things that matter, living our lives on God’s terms, and the stark reality we have to come to terms with is that there’s only so much of you to go around, and so simplicity reminds us that we can’t be divided for our affections. Jesus wants us to create space so we can be with Him.
The gist of this can be simple: fewer clothes, less stuff, fewer things we don’t need, fewer hobbies, fewer options, and more prayer, more joy, more peace, more loving relationships – seek first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). Many judge minimalism as a kind of legalism, but really, it’s a form of freedom. Freedom to be the people now, that Jesus said we’re going to be later. We live under the rule and reign of King Jesus. We don’t have to wait for Jesus to rule over us in some other place. He is doing the thing now, that He promises to finish when He returns. So that’s why we live on His terms now, because we’re waiting for that final vindication that He said He would bring about later.
3 Practices for Living on God’s Terms:
Live within Your Means - When shopping, buy what you need as opposed to what you want.
Plan for Margin - Plan for one 24-hour period of life-giving activity or rest, per week. This is what the Christian tradition has called the Sabbath and it is the ultimate declaration that you’re living on God’s terms.
God walks “slowly” because he is love. If he is not love he would have gone much faster. Love has its speed. It is an inner speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It is “slow” yet it is lord over all other speeds since it is the speed of love. There’s a reason people talk about “walking with God,” not “running with God.” It’s because God is love. - Kosuke Koyama
Schedule some Joy - What is the thing that you’ve told yourself you’re going to do in 6 weeks after you’re less busy? Schedule it and make sure it happens.
Jesus will do what He said He’s going to do, so that’s why we live on His terms, no matter the cost.