The Rich Young Ruler (Coming to Jesus)
Christos • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 79 viewsNothing in life is more important or more valuable than following Christ
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Good Morning Friendship Church, how are we doing this morning. We are continuing in our “Christos Series” and today we are going to look at the story of the only person who ever fell at the feet of Jesus and then went away worse then when he came.
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? 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 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And if this same thing happened today, he aftermath may have looked something like this...
Skit Guys: Rich Young Ruler Video
“You bought into the lie” what a great description of the response of this man. Sometimes it helps to see things in a more familiar context, but the big idea remains the same. This younger, wealthy and powerful man comes to Jesus to ask him: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” and he did not like the answer that he recieved so he got up and walked away.
The word “inherit” here is the Greek Word “κληρονομέω”(klero-nomio). It’s a compound word made from the roots κληρος“kleros” which means a portions or lot given and “νόμος” (nomos)” meaning law. So this young man of affluence and importance wanted to know what steps he needed to take to “lawfully” secure for himself eternal life. He had a good thing going and he was looking to his future, hoping to make an investment that would pay off in eternal dividends.
Tension
In that way, this young man is not unlike many people today who think God to be something like a big accountant in the sky who will add up their good works in the earnings column and then compare that the list of wrongs in the losses column and and long as the earnings out weight the losses we are good to go.
The problem with that plan is that God does math different than we do, (even MORE different than “common core” math that has driven so many parents crazy this past year.) It is different because God does not just count our “good works” from just the outside, but He considers the motivation of the heart on the inside. So we have verses like Proverbs 16:2
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord.
In other words, when “right things” are done with wrong hearts then what we thought would go in the win column, God counts as a loss. And without the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, even the good work that we do ends up in the “wrong” column. The writer of Hebrews tells us that
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
So even though this guy seems to have everything going for him on the outside, he still knows that something is missing. But when Jesus tells him the one thing he lacks, he decides the cost is too high, and he gets up from his knees and walks away from Jesus disheartened.
And this is the story of many people today. For a time they may see wisdom and beauty in the ideas of Jesus and they come to fall at His feet only to get up again when they find out that following Him is not a recipe to make you healthy, wealthy and powerful here on earth, but it is a investment in eternal things with eternal rewards.
With those thoughts in mind, open your Bible’s with me to Mark Chapter 10, page 846 in the Bibles in the chairs and we will diver deeper into this story of the many who the man who came to find the answer to the question “What must I do to inherit eternal life”. As you are turning there, I will pray.
Truth
The first them that we find in this story is that...
1. Eternal life cannot be earned, but is given to those who trust and follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-22)
1. Eternal life cannot be earned, but is given to those who trust and follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-22)
Let’s look again at the Scripture in Mark 10, starting with verse 17...
17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? 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 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”
We can see in his falling at the feet of Jesus and his calling him “Good Teacher” that this man had developed a respect for Jesus. He probably had heard Him teaching and was thankful to get this moment to ask Him his question.
And as Jesus begins to answer, He is not questioning his divinity in asking him, “Why do you call me good?”, He was pointing to it in a way that would draw out what the young man understood about Him.
And the because this young ruler began the conversation in the lane of what he must “do” to inherit eternal life or “lawfully secure his position” (klero-nomio), Jesus began his answer by instructing him to keep the law, even giving specific examples.
It’s important that we understand the purpose of the law before we can understand why Jesus would answer as He did. The law did, and in effect does even now, serve as a mirror to show us how unclean we are in our sin. It can show us the problem, but it has no power to fix it. It has no power to make us clean again, only to show us how dirty we are.
It’s like when when I am working under my Jeep I will get grease or oil on my hands and not realize it and then I when I go to scratch my nose I get grease on my face without realizing it. Then I go in to wash up and I start with washing my hands because I can see how they are dirty but then I look up in the mirror and see the grease smudge on my face.
I can stand there looking into that mirror all day, but it will not make me cleaner. That mirror does a great job showing me the grease, but it doesn’t clean anything, it only shows me the problem. I am very thankful for the mirror, otherwise I would have no idea that I wasn’t clean, but I have to go under the sink and bust out the fast orange and try my hardest not to get that in my eyes before my face is clean.
It is the same idea with the law. It has no power to make anyone clean, only to show us how dirty we are.
It show us the holy nature and will of God and the sinful nature and disobedience of our hearts, and thus our need for a savior.
That is exactly what this young man was missing, he was looking to earn “eternal life” on his own and if you ask him, he was doing a really good job, but Jesus was trying to show him the one area He missed:
21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
I love how Mark tells us that Jesus looked at him…and loved him and then told him the truth.
That is such a needed truth for our lives today. There is so much hostility and tension in so many of our conversations right now that we may need to be be like Jesus in this way more than ever before. And I don’t exactly know how this looked, or if you could even see it on the outside. Maybe Jesus facial expression changed or maybe it was just something that was happening in His Spirit, all I know is that many of our conversations will be made so much better if before we went pounding out the truth we stopped and loved the person we were answering first. So that it isn’t about me being right and them needing to be prooved wrong - but I am sharing this truth with them out of my love for them and my desire for them to know the truth.
Do you hear me Church!
And understand that the young man didn’t just reject the idea of selling all his stuff. We tend to focus on that because the text says “he went away sad because he had great possessions”, and it is significant, but of much greater importance was his rejection of Jesus invitation to “come follow me”.
It wasn’t the possessions themselves that were the problem, it was the priority that they had become in this man’s life. He had placed his faith and trust in his earthly possesions, so when Jesus offered him “treasure in heaven” and called him to come follow him…he got up and walked away from Jesus, back to that which he trusted in more.
We will return to the promise of “treasure in heaven” in a minute, but first the story continues to find Jesus’ disciples caught with their mouths wide open, but not just because someone walked away from Jesus, but because Jesus was saying that...
2. Eternal life is harder to receive with the added distraction of earthly wealth (Mark 10:23-27)
2. Eternal life is harder to receive with the added distraction of earthly wealth (Mark 10:23-27)
Now if this idea surprises you, then you are not alone because Jesus’ own disciples were astonished to hear Jesus say such a thing. Continuing in verse 23..
23 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!”
Stop and consider this for a moment, and don’t just apply it to the 1% in our country. If you make $10/hour you are in the top 10% of the wealthiest people in the world. We live in the most affluent country in the world so we need to seriously consider Jesus’ words here. He is talking about us.
It reminds me of the quote I read a couple of weeks ago from Sergey who said “Christians in parts of the former Soviet union have actually voted for the communist to return to power because the church was so much more pure in those days. It seems we handle persecution better than prosperity.” We may not like those words, but we can see how they ring true. It is easy to forget God when times are good.
The disciples clearly were having trouble accepting what Jesus said, and so he doubled down...
24 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! 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 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?”
They just couldn’t believe it, because it was well accepted that wealth was a blessing from God so if you were really wealthy then you were really blessed by God and so you must be doing something right... but now Jesus is saying that you could more easily squeeze a camel, the biggest land animal of their day through the hole of a needle - the smallest space in their day. That is an impossible task, and since the disciples considered the wealthy Jews like this man up here…and they were like down here…they figured they had not hope.
“If you don’t have a chance how do any of us have a chance”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
It’s not really about the money, it’s about the role that money plays in your life. Whenever we look to our “earthly resources” for our hope and happiness, our significance or security we won’t be searching for God. So is just makes sense that those with more “earthly resources” will have a harder time trusting in God that those with fewer resources.
As I remember one missionary telling me, “I feel sorry for those Christians who have never been in the position where they had not idea where even their next meal would come from and all they can do is pray, because that is where my faith has really grown!”
I wonder what we could be holding onto right now that God has asked us to give up in order to follow Him into a deeper level of faith? Something to think and talk through in our Table Talk Groups later.
As I promised, I wanted to get back to the idea of “treasure” because one of the things that I was struck with this week was the fact that Jesus didn’t ask the young man to give up treasure. What he told him to do was to trade in his “earthly possessions” for treasure in heaven.
But is that a good trade? The rich young ruler didn’t think so, and so he walked away from Jesus, but the disciples were still standing there and so they asked about what it will mean for them that they have left everything to “follow” Jesus.
28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 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, 30 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. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Our final them for the week is that Jesus taught us that...
3. Eternal life is not all that awaits those who persist in faithfully following Jesus (Mark 10:28-31)
3. Eternal life is not all that awaits those who persist in faithfully following Jesus (Mark 10:28-31)
The rich young ruler came to Jesus with the question of how to inherit eternal life, but Jesus’ wanted to give him even more than that.
Sometimes I think we don’t talk enough about the idea of storing up “treasures in heaven”. I don’t know... there is just something that seems wrong about it. Most of us are just overwhelmed by the idea of getting in the gates, the idea of getting anything more is just too much... but Jesus didn’t shy away from talking about it. He seemed to think that it was important. He told this young man that if he gave all he had to the poor then he would “have treasure in heaven”.
He didn’t say the “treasure of heaven”... that only comes through faith, but he would be storing up treasures in heaven.
Jesus talked about this other times as well. Matthew quotes Jesus as having said:
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Not only is working toward “treasures in heaven” not a bad thing, it is something Jesus commanded, and expects His followers to be pursuing. Sure, just getting into heaven is definitely more than we deserve - but to take what Jesus has done for us and what the Holy Spirit is doing in us and invest that into our world pleases God. As we said, it is impossible to please God without faith in Jesus, but once that foundation is set, then we are to spent the rest of our earthly live building on that foundation.
The Apostle Paul said it like this:
11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
Paul is echoing Jesus here in saying that we need to be building our lives with the right stuff, things that are permanent, beautiful and costly like “gold, silver and precious stones” instead of things that are passing, temporary, cheap and easy like “wood, hay or straw”. This is how we lay up treasure in heaven.
For the Rich young ruler, the giving of his possessions to the poor would have been a permanent, beautiful and costly decision - and that is why he would have “treasure in heaven”. That would be his reward, as 1 Corinthians continues to say...
14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.
This is not the “reward of heaven” - we cannot earn that. The only hope of heaven is faith in Jesus, but on that foundation, the Kingdom of God is built and every permanent, beautiful and costly “good work” that we do will bring us treasure in heaven. but on the other side...
15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
It’s true we don’t talk much about treasure in heaven, but many of us have probably never even heard of the idea of someone “suffering loss” in heaven. And it isn’t that they “lose heaven” they are still “saved” but they will feel loss over the fact that they could have gone into eternal life with much more. Not more to be selfish and greedy with - it is still heaven! - but much more to please God with as we have invested in His Kingdom work here on earth.
That should be more motivating than it is for most of us, and there is much that we could continue to say about “treasures in heaven”, but I do want to go back to look at the one glaring word that Jesus used in the middle of all this talk of receiving things “a hundredfold”. There was one word that stuck out because it didn’t seem like it fit with the others...
He says they receive “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions...”
As brothers and sisters in Christ we have received a hundredfold family with resources and relationships that span the entire globe, but we be can be just as certain that all of this will come “with persecutions”. In most cases that is exactly why we need that extended Christian support, and why we need to be that support for our Christian family around the world. I believe that here in our country we are moving in to a time when the Christian Church needs to come together like it never has before to answer the pressures of the world around us.
Landing
We need to as one Church stand up, look the world in the eye, love them and speak the truth that they so desperately need to hear. The truth that..
1. Eternal life cannot be earned, but is given (only) to those who trust and follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-22)
1. Eternal life cannot be earned, but is given (only) to those who trust and follow Jesus (Mark 10:17-22)
For there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved
2. Eternal life is harder to receive with the added distraction of earthly wealth (Mark 10:23-27)
2. Eternal life is harder to receive with the added distraction of earthly wealth (Mark 10:23-27)
More money doesn’t fix every problem, our wealth could be getting in the way of our greatest needs.
Thankfully, all things are possible with God.
3. Eternal life is not all that awaits those who persist in faithfully obeying the Lord. (Mark 10:28-31)
3. Eternal life is not all that awaits those who persist in faithfully obeying the Lord. (Mark 10:28-31)
Following Christ will bring a hundredfold of both blessings and battles here on earth, and what we do in this life will echo into our eternity.
Communion
The Rich young ruler bowed at Jesus’ feet hoping to inherit eternal life. He wasn’t looking for a Savior or Lord, he saw Jesus solely as a means to an end. But we know the best part of “eternal life” is that we will be there with Jesus, and so while we are still here on earth we will seek to build the Kingdom of God on the foundation of Jesus for His glory.
Part of how we do that is obey Jesus in remembering Him in something called “The Lord’s Supper” He initiated this ordinance of the Christian Church so we walk in it willingly and gratefully. Here at Friendship Church we practice something called “Open Communion...
