The Rich Young Ruler
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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.
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!”
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?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
Every human ever born, besides Jesus, all have the same problem. We are all born sinners and separated from God according to Romans 3
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and if left uncorrected before you die, the wages of that sin is death.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
you will be separated from God for all of eternity in everlasting punishment. This is not a popular message in our culture today. A very popular belief is that it doesn’t really matter if you’re a Christian, or Muslim, Mormon, Jehovah witness, buddhist, Hindu or Jewish. It really doesn’t matter as long as you’re genuine about your faith. It is the the idea that all roads lead to Heaven. One of the more interesting takes I heard on this view came from a young man I interviewed for my apologetics class. He believed in Jesus, but he also believed that all other religions would lead to heaven. He thought that all other religions were actually worshiping Jesus but did not realize it. Now I don’t want you to approach this with arrogance… that is with the attitude of superiority.. I want you this morning to approach this with humility counting others more highly than yourself… I give this examples this morning to stir your hearts with compassion… the same compassion that Jesus showed the rich young ruler and essentially us in our text this morning… So if you will turn with me to Mark chapter 10 beginning in verse 17 I want to examine a very important question this morning, “Do you have a correct view of eternal life and more importantly do you possess it?… please do not be too eager to think you have come to know all there is to know about eternal life and therefore believe that you don’t need this message… Scripture warns us that
9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9.
Even if you have a complete and correct understanding of eternal life personally and your heart is not tricking you, I still believe there is immense value in being aware of the misconceptions others are facing when it comes to eternal life and explore ways that you can help them overcome these barriers. I will not pretend this morning that I have all the answers or that we are going to cover all the incorrect views of eternal life… I only know the One that has all the answers and it is my prayer this morning that you will leave here today with a deeper desire to know Him. So let’s take a closer look at three incorrect views of eternal life and their consequences.
The first incorrect view and arguably the most important one to overcome is not recognizing Jesus for who He really is… Look with me at verses 17 & 18, “As He went out on the way, a man ran to meet Him and knelt in front of Him. He asked Him saying, “Good rabbi (that is teacher) what should I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Yeshua said to him, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, which is God”
I think Jesus is making a point. It was very common in 1st century Judaism for people to go to different Rabbis to get their opinion on different theological issues. It really isn’t much different than today is it? How often do we or maybe everyone here isn’t like me but I have my favorite pastors I turn to on different theological issues… But when the rich young ruler stopped Jesus to ask Him how to obtain eternal life, Jesus first makes a statement about His deity… Now I must confess that growing up Jesus’ initial response always confused me because He is God… But Jesus at times was subtle…. Jesus is pointing out that he wasn’t just a good rabbi whose opinion you should take and compare to the other rabbis and argue over who you thought was right. No, I agree with the one commentary I read that Jesus is sending a statement… Jesus is not just another good moral teacher… no He is God… One thing that seems very evident from the passage is that this rich young ruler is genuinely seeking the truth and desperately wants to find the answer and I think Jesus is beginning by telling him that he has found the answer… that is if the rich young ruler is willing to listen. His search for the truth and ultimately his desire for eternal life will be found because it is not just hearing a good opinion from another good rabbi that he needs to consider… no he is speaking to God himself… Why must you believe that Jesus is God to be saved? Why can’t you believe that He is just a prophet like the muslims? Why must you believe that He is the only begotten Son… not created, not a prophet, but God who has always existed? Because the wages of sin is death according to Romans 6 and if everyone is born a sinner everyone deserves to die for their own sin…they can’t die for yours because they must die for their own. No you needed a spotless lamb, one without blemish to die for you… and the only way for Jesus to be sinless is if He truly was the son of God… I like how C.S. Lewis sums it up… This outline is from a BBC radio series he did which later was published as the book Mere Christianity…
C.S. Lewis states:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
So you must decide is Jesus a liar, lunatic, or Lord?
If Jesus really is the Son of God, then you must heed His warning that, “ He is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but by Him. John 14:6” There is no other way to be saved except faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The second misconception is that receiving eternal life rests with us… that is that it all depends on our actions… Jesus, after establishing that He is the Son of God, answers the rich young ruler original question of what must he do to inherit eternal life? Jesus in verse 18 tells the young man to keep the commandments and begins listing some of the 10 commandments
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.’ ”
… Was Jesus telling the man that salvation comes by keeping the law? That obtaining eternal life is up to our ability to perform works of the law? No, the ability of your obedience saving you died when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit… They had the opportunity to be saved by their obedience, but once they sinned all chance of obedience based salvation died with the original sin… Listen to what Paul has to say to us in Romans chapter 3 verse 20,
20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Jesus was not telling the young man to keep the commandments and that through his obedience he would be saved… He was trying to point the young man to his need to trust God for his salvation… Where are you this morning? Now be careful you learned from scripture earlier that your heart is desperately wicked and the question was raised who can know it? We have been learning through 1 John that it is what? Easy to say the right thing but it is a lot harder to do it right?
We often times are in the same danger as people have always been, you trust a prayer you prayed, you trust your church attendance or your Bible reading or your gifts to charity, or your tithe… while all of these things are good none of them will save you… the only thing that can save you is genuine faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the Messiah… Only Christ can save you… Listen to the lines from the Hymn Rock of ages by Augustus M. Toplady,
Not the labor of my hands Can fulfill Thy law’s demands; Could my zeal no respite know, Could my tears forever flow, All for sin could not atone; Thou must save, and Thou alone. Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress; Helpless, look to Thee for grace; Foul, I to the fountain fly; Wash me, Savior, or I die.
Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, salvation has always been through faith in God to save… Everyone before Jesus was saved looking forward to the cross and everyone since has been saved by looking back to the cross. Those who looked forward for eternal life like king David may not have known the means by which God would save them, but they were very aware that they could not keep the law perfectly and save themselves… No they knew they had to trust God to save them…
The last misconception is what eternal life is. When someone dies, how have you heard people talk about heaven? Let’s say the deceased was a hunter, have you ever heard someone say oh he or she is on the big hunt up there or if they like to golf people will say he or she is on the big course in heaven… Is that really what eternal life is? No matter what your concept of heaven is or how far from reality it is… is eternal life even about a destination… is it the answer to our greatest problem? That is death. It is the one problem in life that no amount of money or intelligence has an answer for. Statistics show that 10 out of 10 people today will die. I use to think that eternal life begins after you die, however I was wrong…
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,
2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Remember back to the beginning of our passage, What did the rich young ruler come to ask Jesus? He wanted to obtain eternal life when he died… What did Jesus offer him? Eternal life that exact moment… He told the man to sell he possessions and and come follow Him… Jesus was asking him to give up everything that mattered to him in this world so that he may experience eternal life that day… Wow what an offer… Take a moment and let that sink in… Do you see the irony? The poor rich young ruler didn’t even know what he was asking for? Did he? Do you know what you are seeking? I believe that many people are living under this same misunderstanding of what eternal life is… Today, this morning, right now Jesus is offering every one of us this same deal the greatest business deal ever… give up your love of this world in exchange for eternal life today right now. You can get to know the creator of the world… this isn’t an intellectual knowing… this is a deep intimate knowing… How did the rich young ruler respond to this offer? the man walked away… He could have spent time with the very creator of the entire universe. Enteral life could have began for that man that very moment. Jesus was offering Him a relationship…
The verse that struck me the most as I prepared this sermon was verse 21… And Jesus, looking at him, loved him….
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.”
Just to recap, the rich young ruler had money and power and prestige… but he lacked something… He lacked peace about his salvation… he wasn’t sure where he would go when he died… So he came to Jesus to ask how he could have eternal life… Jesus begins by subtly letting the man know that he was talking to more than just a good Rabbi he was talking directly to God… The young man wasn’t about to get another Rabbi’s opinion about eternity… no the young man was about to get the truth that he was seeking… Jesus starts with keep the commandments… why does He go there… Maybe the young man was trusting in that for eternal life… I found it very interesting that the young man felt as though he was keeping the commands… but was he? Most Jewish scholars say there is 613 commandments. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest command do you remember His answer? Out of 613, He narrowed it down to two… He actually said all of the rest of the commandments rest on these two… Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength… So was the young man really keeping the commands? No, that is when Scripture says that Jesus loved the young man… and revealed that he did not love God with all his heart or resources and and wasn’t loving his fellow man either… Our hearts are deceitful… I urge you this morning to pray with King David… pray that God would search your heart and reveal to you any area that you are holding back from Him… any area… do not deceive yourself… are you loving God with your whole heart? What love our Savior has for us… this morning He is looking upon you with love and compassion that I can’t comprehend and He is urging you to give up this world and come follow Him… So what is your answer? Will you give your heart wholly to Him this morning? Eternity can begin today, you can come and commune with the living God. I implore you to press into know Christ… everything in this world will perish except your relationship with Christ…. Let us pray