A Sad Ending To A Great Opportunity
A SAD ENDING TO A GREAT OPPORTUNITY
Most opportunities only comes once in a lifetime. Some times you only have just moment to capitalize on before it is gone. But what is sad is that when opportunity comes, we fail to see it is an opportunity but we see it more as a liability. We then become skeptical, doubtful and delay seizing the moment of the opportunity. And it is not until you missed it that you start to realize what you really missed. And when you finally become fully aware of what you missed, you become somewhat remorseful and down right disappointed. You hope to see the opportunity again, but to your disappointment you don’t ever see it again. You thought that the investment opportunity was all a hoax but it was not until your neighbor began to become more wealthy and you saw your money getting funny that you realized you missed the opportunity. You thought that man or that woman was someone that would love you and leave you, but it was not until they married your friend and you remained single that you realized you missed an opportunity. You were given a quote on a vehicle in which you thought that you could beat, but it was after you went out visiting some of the other car lots that you realized that you have missed opportunity. But out of all the opportunities that you my have missed, the one opportunity that you don’t want to miss is the opportunity of salvation.
In this text on today Jesus has just stopped his disciples from rebuking children that wanted to come to Him. And I think before I go any further that I ought to tell you that if you are a follower of Jesus, you ought to draw people to Jesus and not drive them from Jesus. But the truth is that many of us that wear the title Christian that carry the name New Union Grove member drive folks from Jesus by what we say and do. We need to stop driving folks away from Jesus and start drawing them to Jesus. After Jesus has stopped his disciples from stopping the children from coming to Him, the Bible declares that a certain ruler all of a sudden, unannounced came before Jesus and asked him, saying Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus told Him to keep the commandments, and he said I am already doing them. Jesus told Him there is one thing you lack, sell all of your goods and distribute them to poor, take up the cross and follow me. And he walked away grieved for he was rich. Why was there a sad ending to a great opportunity?
Request…prompter of the request……In order for him to make the request he had to be restless. Because as long as he was feeling fine he would not have made the request, but what prompted the request was he was restless. Nothing can prompt you to go to Jesus like restlessness. Your restlessness is when your soul can’t be satisfied. Well how do you know that he was restless because if he had peace he would not have sought it. And I think that I ought to tell you that you can have all of the stuff you want but stuff will not satisfy your soul like salvation will. Let me put it to you this way you can have a big pretty house but only God can give you a home. You can have a king sized bed with a Sealy Posturpedic matrress and still have no rest because only God can give you rest. Oh you can have a big elaborate wedding, but only God can give you a marriage. Drugs can’t fulfill your need, alcohol can’t fulfill your need, folks can’t fulfill your need. No wonder why the songwriter said can’t nobody do me like Jesus. You can keep looking for something and keep finding nothing. You can keep going to nowhere trying to find somewhere but you will always end up finding nowhere until you look up. Anybody in here know that He will give your soul rest?
problem with the requester….. He had religion but no relationship. In other words he was observing the law but he did not have a relationship with the Lord. It is okay and it is mighty good to come to church, to pay your tithes, to come to Sunday School, to have your name on the church roll, to know scripture, but all of that is in vain if you have no relationship with the Lord. Well how do you know that He did not have a relationship with the Lord. Well because if you have a relationship with the Lord you two reasons, first of all when he addressed the Lord he addressed Jesus as Good master, the word good agathos in the greek means morally and wholly good. Jesus responded by asking why do you call me good, no one is good except God. Since Jesus was God in the flesh, he never acknowledged Jesus as Lord he only as Master or teacher. Then secondly if He had relationship he would have not have asked what must I do to inherit eternal life. The word do in the greek is the word poieo which means any external act as manifested in the production of something tangible. It means to do, to perform, to practice. What he failed to realize was that we don’t do to be saved. We do because we are saved.
Requirement
Retain the commandments…..Keep the commandments. Jesus told him to keep the commandments because the commandments that Jesus told him was in the aorist impearative. The aorist impearative is a command to forbid an action that is not in progress and thus commands it not to be started. So in other words all of the do nots he was not doing them at this time and the Lord was telling Him that He should not start to do any of them. But then Jesus tells him to Honor his father and mother, it was in the present imperative. A present imperative is an action that transpires in the past and continues into the future. So in other words He was to keep on honoring his parents.
Release his cash …… It was something that he had to let go in order to receive eternal life. Because it was his cash that came between Him and Jesus. It might not be cash for you, but in order to receive eternal life, you have to release that which is coming between you and Jesus. In other words anything that is hindering you from total commitment to Jesus, you need to release it. If it is some old friends you need to let them go, if it is some old habits, like lying, cheating, gossiping, you need to let it go. If it is pride or greed, you need to let it go. For the truth is what I need to loose is nothing in comparison to what I will get if I let go of what I need to loose. I can agree with Kirk Franklin when He said silver and gold, silver and gold, I ‘d rather have Jesus than silver and gold. The
Rejection of the requirement to receive the request…..resulted in something that He regretted. But the problem was that he refused to release what the Lord told him to release. For the text said that he was rich. The word was in greek means en, the word en means to be. Imperfect tense is a continuous repeated action that transpires in the past. So it is to say that he kept on being rich. And he kept on being rich because He would not give up his stuff. He held on to his stuff because he had allowed the stuff to define who he was. I think I need to tell you to go on and release the stuff because when you get connected with the Lord He will define who you really are.
A small boy liked to pull out of the cupboard the paper bags that his mother saved. He would then spread them around the kitchen floor and use them as a playing surface for his toy cars. This was permitted on the condition that he collect the bags and put them away when he was finished playing. One day, his mother found the bags all over the kitchen and the boy in the living room where his father was playing the piano. When she told her son to pick up the bags, there was a short silence. Then his small voice said, “But I want to sing ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ ”
His father took the opportunity to point out that it’s no good singing God’s praises while you’re being disobedient.
External religion does not always equate to an internal relationship
Eventhough it is not what you want to do it is what you need to do
Religious practices does not mean that you are heaven bound
You can’t rake out requirements that you are not meeting and think that you