Everything And Nothing

Everything and Nothing

Mark chapter 10

Note-

This sermon has thoughts and ideas shared from several SermonCentral Preachers and is not considered to be an original. Thank you to all who played a part in its writing.

Prayer

Introduction-

This week

Death of Rev. Billy Graham- I knew this day would come, he was 99 years old- it is still sad. The world needed him and God has finally in his old age taken him home. I am guessing that is how Apostle Paul felt. He wanted to be with Jesus, his savior, but knew that he had a job to do here. That is probably how Rev. Graham felt. He was happy to see his Jesus, but sad that he would leave the world.

This morning we will look at the rich young ruler and each of those words are important. It is recorded in all the gospels but only Matthew records that he was young. So we see a rich young man who has done well for himself and has an encounter with Jesus and has some questions for him.

Do you know that Jesus don’t mind you having questions? I think he wants us thinking through the scriptures and digesting what it means for our lives.

I sat for lunch this week with 5-6 pastors and they all had an opinion, but only mine was right-LOL!

I don’t know how you guys do it- everyone of us preaching to each other like it was only our way or the highway.

Jesus had just finished preaching about the kingdom of God and how we should come to him like little children.

We pick the text up with a Jewish man running to Jesus with questions-

Mark 10:17-31 Read from Bible slowly and carefully.

Let’s break this down a little-

you have Jesus preaching on the kingdom of God and you have a Jew listening to him and sorting out in his head what is being said and trying to line it up with what he has been taught.

Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? This was new to him.

“No one is good except God, why do you call me good”? That seems strange for the Son of Man to say why call me good- but you will see later that he is addressing wrong thinking but never dismisses who He is.

Jesus says-

You know the commandments- Jesus names several commandments which deal with our relationship with each other.

Don’t murder

Don’t steal’

Don’t commit adultery

No false testimony

Honor your parents.

Our passage introduces us to a young man searching for something.

He is often called the Rich young ruler. Matthew uses young man. Luke describes him as a ruler, or maybe an aristocrat. Matthew, Mark, and Luke acknowledge he is rich.

He was a man with two things- wealth and success, but he turned to Jesus for something more to life.

Illustration-

Have you ever left home and had a funny feeling that you have forgotten something? You don’t know what it was, but just this nagging feeling. A man tells the story that every time his family drove off for vacation, his mom would say to his dad, “Honey, we have got to go back to the house and check because I think I left the iron on. I don’t want the house to burn down.” His dad would turn around and they would go back and check and the iron would be turned off. This continued for several trips. Finally on one trip, when she told her husband to turn around and go back and check, he didn’t say a word and he pulled the car over to the shoulder, got out of the car and opened his trunk and handed her the iron.

Millions of people are searching for something.

They can’t put their finger on what they are looking for.

We come across people like that almost every day of our lives.

Maybe at times you feel the same way.

One writer shares Bono, the singer from the group U2 recorded a song in 1987 about his universal search. He sang: “I have run; I have crawled; I have scaled these city walls; only to be with you. But I still haven’t found what I was looking for. He even ends the song referring to Jesus. You broke the bonds; you loosed the chains; carried the cross of my shame, oh my shame, you know I believe it. But I haven’t found what I was looking for. Years later, Bono then 55 years old interviewed on Focus on the family, a Christian radio program said that he has found what he was looking for – a relationship with Jesus Christ.

These verses give us several life lessons-