Impossible Made Possible

We joke about it, but that’s because there’s more truth in there than we like to admit. Sometimes life is harder for one person than it is another and we see in this how unfair life can really be.

Another cliché that we like to through around is that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Again, we joke about it but it’s because it’s all too true in how we feel. Husbands have roaming eyes. Wives dream of picture perfect husbands. Children wish for better parents. Parents wish for better children. People look for better pastors. Pastors look for the perfect church. None of it has ever been found, but that doesn’t stop our coveting and wandering hearts. We all shop for happiness as if we lived in a cafeteria with a menu of choices. Sin has given us longing eyes but not wise ones. We want what we do not have, what is easy, what satisfies our desires.

It is no different when it comes to matters of faith.

One of the biggest issues in the church over the last couple of generations is how people shop for religion the way we shop for everything else. Denominational loyalties do not run as deep as they used to and all too easily people go from one church to another looking for that one thing, that one pastor, that one program that fits into what we think God and His church ought to be.

Part of what drives this is nothing else than our fear.

We see that in our Gospel Text this morning. This comes right after a rich young ruler asks Jesus what He must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers him by speaking of the 10 Commandments, then by telling him to give up all that he has in this life to the poor and to come and follow Jesus. The man walks away sorrowful, disheartened of how difficult that would be.

Impossible (vv. 23-25)

Jesus is flipping the script of what was believed to be true

Mark 10:23–25 ESV

And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 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.”

Traditional view of blessing/God’s favor to the rich

Difficult for rich person to enter the kingdom

Difficult for anyone rich or poor to enter the kingdom… in fact its impossible!!!

Completely impossible - not only for those seen as blessed by God, but for anyone!

No riches can pay to enter the kingdom

No work can earn your way to the kingdom

No good deeds, laws kept, nothing can bring about your salvation.

Salvation is completely impossible! Can’t happen! No Way!

Unless there is a miracle… There needs to be a miracle - a divine miracle for it to be remotely possible

Peter & the disciples respond in an exceedingly astonished fashion. It says:

Mark 10:26 ESV

And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”

now exceedingly astonished doesn’t give the full breadth of what was happening.

They were in shock, panic is setting in, a fear and trembling taking place

if the rich can’t get in… those blessed by God, if they can’t get in “then who can!” this is impossible…

And amongst the fear, and the panic, Jesus gives them this truth:

Possible (v. 27)

Mark 10:27 ESV

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

This possibility/ miracle started with a promise way back in the Old Testament

Isaiah 7:14 ESV

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 53:3–5 ESV

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

Jesus came as a divine miracle from heaven to do the impossible

He’s the only One who can pay the enormous debt of our sin. It’s Jesus. If there was ever anyone who knew what riches were, it was Him, being God in human flesh. He was there at the creation of the world. He created everything in it. Where we in our sinfulness were not able to completely give up our worldly riches, at least without complaint, He willingly gave up the splendors of heaven, and submitted to the limits of a human body. While in this world, He wasn’t wealthy by any worldly measure, He was born of humble parents, grew up a carpenter’s son, and during His public ministry, relied on the generosity of others to meet his physical needs.

In a world that believes that those who have much are blessed, it would appear that at the cross, Jesus lost. The clothes on his back were gambled away. He died with nothing. But, He allowed Himself to become nothing so that we could be something. At the cross, Jesus takes all those times where we put ourselves, our selfish desires, our “stuff” of this world ahead of others, and dies for those sins, He dies for all of our sins of thought, word, and deed. And then, Jesus takes that gift of forgiveness, life, and salvation He won at the cross, and gives it to us. Free. No strings attached. When it comes to forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, It’s not possible with you, but it IS POSSIBLE with Christ!

John 3:16–17 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

The impossibility of salvation is possible because the one from the beginning has come to us in the flesh to rescue us from the impossible state of condemnation that we are in.

The first (the one from the very beginning) became last so that the last can become first.

If you’re here thinking you are a lost cause for Jesus, or that you are too impossible for Jesus to save… I want you to know that nothing… absolutely nothing is too impossible for God.

But what if I lose friends, family, my comfortable life to follow this Saviour?

What if I leave everything for this possible salvation in Jesus?

A Hundred Fold/Family (vv. 28-31)

Mark 10:28–31 ESV

Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Peter answers: look what we’ve given up… Look, we’ve left everything and followed you!

Jesus says “truly, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

In the age to come salvation gives eternal life, but the majority of Jesus’ answer is in this time.

Ok Jesus, where are my houses and my brothers and sisters?

I had a house in Osakis and another in Fergus Falls.

Where are my father or mother or children or lands? You said in this time, 100 fold.

Where are they?

Go out amongst the people

Look around. Look at the person sitting next to you. Look at the children running around or the houses that have been opened to you. Look around, because right here in this church, in this family called out of the world to be God’s holy people by grace, right here we find our living grace. In this community of God we find our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and children and lands. Right here, we have our 100 fold.

Conclusion

The impossible was made possible through the blood of Christ.

C.S. Lewis said about the camel: “picture how the camel feels, squeezed out in one bloody thread from tail to snout.”

Christ was squeezed out in one bloody thread from head to toe through the eye of the needle… the cross to do the impossible. To make the impossible salvation of sinners possible through His body and blood on the cross. Rising victoriously on Easter morning.

We are called into this family of believers… we have received a hundred fold. Brothers, sisters, parents, children… but most importantly, we are a part of a family that is saved by the grace of God through His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the only one who could have ever even made this impossible gift… possible.