If you had to had to have surgery, who would you want to perform the operation? Some surgeon that you randomly picked out of the phone book or looked up on the internet? An intern fresh out of medical school? Or an experienced surgeon whose done this particular procedure a thousand times?
When you have to fly, who do you want in the cockpit flying the plane? A novice making their first professional flight? Or a pilot whose logged over a thousand flight hours and has flown over a quarter of a million miles?
I think the answer is obvious in both cases, don’t you?
Let’s see … what’s that feeling that you get when you know that the surgeon’s done a thousand of these procedures? Or you know that the pilot has flown over a quarter of a million miles? Hum ….
What is that feeling? Trust? Yes. More like “confidence,” amen? But what is “confidence” really? It’s a compound word made up of the Latin words “con” and “fides” … which literally means “with faith.” You trust the surgeon whose done a thousand of these procedures because you have “confidence” … you have “faith” in him. And the same goes for the pilot … you have “confidence” … you have “faith” in him.
The rich young ruler went to see Jesus because he had heard of Jesus’ great knowledge and teaching but Jesus, as He is so good at doing, goes right to the heart of the matter and challenges the young man: “Do you have confidence in me? Do you trust me?” And that is the question that Jesus is asking us this morning. “Do you trust me? Do you have confidence in Me? Do you have faith in me?”
This is my “pay-attention-to-the words” moment of my sermon. Verse 17 says: “As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him.” Hum … notice anything thing? Listen again. “As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him.” Jesus was about to leave this particular area when this “man” literally knelt down before Him and blocked His way.
Mark starts out by telling us that this person, this “man,” was some kind of ruler or leader. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us that he was wealthy and had many possessions. None of them mention this man’s age … so we have no idea why he’s called the “rich YOUNG ruler.” For whatever reason, that’s how this man has come to be known over the years.
Another thing that we don’t know is why he sought out Jesus that day but he was clearly desperate. In fact, you can almost feel the panic in verse 17. Jesus is about to leave town and this man runs up to Him and drops to his knees and blocks His way. Men of his standing and reputation never ran to anyone for help … people came to him. Men of his standing and reputation never knelt down and humbled themselves before other men except men of higher station than them. But here was a respected man of the community … a leader … kneeling in the dust in his fine robe asking … almost begging … this Galilean teacher for an answer to what was clearly the most important question of his life: “What must I do to inherent eternal life?”
What about you? Wouldn’t you like to know what you have to do to inherit eternal life? I sure do! If you do, join me and this rich young ruler at the feet of our good Teacher.
Now, I know that none of you know what this is like but there is a point where you can have so much money that you can buy whatever you want whenever you want … go anywhere you want whenever you want. When you have that much money you have come to a place that I like to call “the end of more.” “The end of more” is the place where you have anything and everything that you could possibly want and you don’t want any more. I know … I know … it’s hard … well, impossible … to believe that such a place exists but it does for a rare few. Billionaire Elon Musk lost 15 million dollars investing in GameStop stock … a mere bump in the road for him. I doubt it impacted his lifestyle much, do you? He still lives at “the end of more” along with the likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Walton family.
There was one person in the Bible who managed to arrive at “the end of more.” That was King Solomon. “I made great works. I built houses and planted vineyards for myself,” he writes in Ecclesiastes (2:4-10). “I made myself gardens and parks and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had slaves who were born in my house; I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold, and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them; I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil.” Wow … sounds like “the end of more” doesn’t it? Whatever he saw with his eyes, whatever his heart desired, all he had to do was reach out and take it. I can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like.
I doubt that this “rich young ruler” had acquired the wealth that Solomon had but I do believe that he had reached the point where he, like King Solomon, had realized that “all was vanity and a chasing after the wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 2:11). I mean, what’s left when you have absolutely any and everything that you could possibly want, amen?
Except …
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17).
You see, my brothers and sisters, it turns out there actually are some thing that money just can’t buy … like time! I don’t care how much money you have, you can’t buy a single extra hour of time, can you? No one can. Everyone’s minute has 60 seconds in it. Everyone … rich or poor … gets 24 hours in a day, amen?
You see, I don’t care how much money you have … I don’t care how good your healthcare plan is … I don’t care if you have a personal trainer or a personal chef making you nothing but healthy, organic, nutritious meals … I don’t care if you have a team of world-renown doctors and healthcare professionals following you around 24/7 … I don’t care if you own a hospital … six hospitals! … guess what?
Yeah … everyone of us … from the highest to the lowest … from the richest to the poorest … is one day going to die. Death is inevitable … and when it comes for you, no amount of money can buy you one second or one minute of extra time.
Death is the great equalizer. It comes to all of us … rich, poor, brown, white, smart, dumb, strong, weak, male, female. We might exercise, eat right, have the world’s greatest health insurance and the world’s greatest doctors and you might be able to hold death off for a while but eventually we must all come face-to-face with our own mortality, amen? Until science cures death, it is a fact of life … for everyone.
So, you see … this “man’s” … this “rich young ruler’s” … question has not only profound implications for him but for everyone of us this morning, amen? Is there a life after this one? An “eternal” life? And if there is, what can the rich young ruler do, what can I do, what can you do to acquire eternal life? What can I do … what can you do … to know that there is a life after this one and that you and I will be a part of it? Is there something we can buy, read, study, eat, rub into our skin? Is there some potion, some spell, some philosophy, some magic pill that we can take? Is there some hidden doorway, some hidden stairs, some hidden path, some magic or mystical mountain that we can climb, some cave that we can meditate in that will give us the one thing that money can’t buy … more life … more time … eternal life … infinite time?
With incredible love, Jesus is about to answer this young man’s question and explain to him that “Yes!” there is a way!
Pretty exciting news for that young man, eh? Pretty exciting news for us, amen? But when Jesus shows him the way, he doesn’t want to follow Jesus’ directions. How about you? Are you willing to follow Jesus’ directions and go where Jesus is trying to lead this rich, young ruler? Let’s find out, shall we?
This isn’t the first time that Jesus had been asked a question like this. A lawyer … a Sadducee … once asked Jesus a similar question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matthew 22:35). Jesus’ answer was to sum up all 10 Commandments into one … or one great commandment with two intimately related parts. “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:28-34).
“’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” sums up the first four Commandments … and “‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself” sums up the last six Commandments.
Now … listen to Jesus’ response to the rich young ruler and see if you notice what’s missing. Are you ready? Follow along at verse 19 in your owner’s manual: “You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother’” (Mark 10:19-20).
Did you catch it? What’s missing? Count the number of commandments in verses 19-20.
One: You shall not murder.
Two: You shall not commit adultery.
Three: You shall not steal.
Four: You shall not bear false witness.
Five: You shall not defraud.
Six: Honor your father and mother.
Six. Hum … which six? The six that have to do with loving your neighbor as yourself. So … what’s missing? The first four commandments that have to do with loving God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
If you didn’t catch it, don’t feel bad … neither did the rich young ruler.
You see … if you follow all six of the commandments that Jesus listed, they can lead you into living a pretty good life in the here and now, can’t they? They can also bring YOU honor and respect and standing with your neighbors and community. I mean … not killing people is always a good thing, right? Not sleeping with your neighbor’s husband or wife … another good thing, right? Not stealing … being honest in a court of law … not ripping off your neighbor or your business partners … honoring your mother and father … you can see how doing all these things are good and can earn you the respect and a good reputation with your family and community, can’t you? Isn’t the point of these six commandments designed to help us live in the greatest peace and harmony with our family, our friends, and our neighbors? But … again, notice what is missing!
God.
These six commandments don’t require God or the power of God to do them or to keep them. You can do all these things under your own strength. I don’t know about you, but it really doesn’t take a lot of effort on my part to not murder someone … well, most of the time. Kidding aside, murdering or not murdering isn’t something that I struggle with in my life and I hope you don’t either. If you do, I strongly encourage you to come see me or seek some other kind of professional help before you actually do murder somebody.
Unless you’re a kleptomaniac, most of us understand why it’s so important not to steal. We all know what it feels like to have someone steal from us, so we don’t steal from others, amen? It’s that simple. The rationale behind each of these six commandments is pretty clear. They are designed to help us live in peace and harmony with each other.
“Teacher,” says the rich young ruler, “I have kept all these since my youth” (Mark 10:20). I think that the rich young ruler’s cool, glib response to Jesus’ instructions belies the fact that he’s never had to struggle with keeping any of these six commandments. Since he’s been old enough to understand what these commandments are and what they mean, he’s been able to keep all of them. He doesn’t need God to keep him from becoming a murderer. He doesn’t need God to keep him from taking what didn’t belong to him. He was able to keep all of these commandments since his youth without the help of God.
Children don’t usually obey their parent or teachers or authority figures because they understand the love and rationale behind the rules, do they? They obey for two reasons … either to avoid the consequences or to get a reward. It’s that pure and simple. At the time, I didn’t understand why my parents were so hard on me about studying and getting good grades. When they told me that I couldn’t go to the homecoming game because I got a “D” in math, well … I didn’t see or feel the love in that! What I learned, however, was that I needed to get my grades up in math if I wanted to borrow the family car for the prom, amen?
It wasn’t until later … when I finished my hitch in the military and enrolled in college … that I saw and understood the love behind all the rules and restrictions. I was thankful that they had been so strict and persistent with me. And then, when I had a child of my own … oh, boy! I learned not only the importance of all the rules and restrictions but how hard it must have been for them to enforce them and to listen to all my whining and put up with my attitude and all my long faces.
Maybe the man who approached Jesus is called the “rich young ruler” because he was acting like a petulant teenager trying to wrangle an advance or a raise on his allowance. You know … “If I wash the car and mow the lawn, Dad, can I go out to the movies with my friends tonight?” He almost seems to be bargaining with Jesus or struggling with Jesus to get Jesus’ stamp of approval. “What must I do to earn or to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17).
Jesus tries to help this young man grow up spiritually. “Seek ye first” … what? “… the Kingdom of God” … whose Kingdom? “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be given unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
Who comes first in the 10 Commandments?
God.
This man said that “he” kept all six of the commandments that Jesus listed … but what about the first four? He’s clearly familiar with the 10 Commandments … most Jews were … so He had to know that there were four other commandments, amen? And yet, interestingly enough, he doesn’t notice the four that Jesus left out. You know:
“You shall have no other gods before Yahweh…
“You shall not make, pray to, or serve any idols …
“You shall not take the name of the LORD in vain …
“And you shall remembser the Sabbath … the LORD’s day … and keep it holy …
What is the first half of the Greatest Commandment? “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:29-30). The 10 Commandments … and Jesus’ summation of the 10 Commandments are in the order that they are in for a reason. All ten of the Commandments are important but the first four … the top four about God … are the most important … which is why they are listed before the other six, amen? Seek ye first God … the things of God … the Kingdom of God ... the heart of God. Do that, says Jesus, and the things that come from seeking the Kingdom of God … the things that come from seeking the heart of God will be given unto you. Seek ye first God and you’ll have everything that matters – which is God.
Remember the Samaritan woman at the well that we met last week? Remember how Jesus knew exactly were to go … exactly the right spot to identify her deepest hurt and longing? Well, guess what? Jesus does it again to this rich young ruler. When the rich young ruler glibly tells Jesus that he’s kept the law since he was old enough to know and understand the law, Mark says Jesus looked at him like a parent who loves his child for their brave but misplaced innocence, and said: “One thing you lack” (Mark 10:21). Boom! Just like the woman at the well, remember? “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“One thing” … that’s it? I’m sure the rich young ruler liked the sound of that. “Wow, I got a 99 out of a 100,” right? One thing? Really? And that one thing is probably no harder than the other six, amen?
“One thing you lack,” says Jesus [pause] … “go, sell what you own and give the money to the poor and you will have treasure in Heaven … then come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). I’m sure that it took a second or two for this rich young ruler’s mind to unpack and process what he just heard. “Whoa! Do what again? Let me see if I’ve got this right. You want me to sell everything that I own … everything? And then you want me to give the money to the poor? And who said anything about following you? I didn’t ask you what it would take to become one of your disciples. I asked you what I must do to inherit eternal life. Really? Just sell everything that I own, give the money to the poor, and follow you … follow you where? That’s a mighty tall order, Rabbi … mighty tall order indeed. Nothing personal, Rabbi, but if that’s what it takes, I think I’ll pass on that offer.”
So many times I’ve heard that this man’s idol was gold … that he put his gold and his possessions on the throne of his life. People just love to zero in on the fact that this young man was wealthy and had many possessions. It even says in verse 32 that the man was “shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
True … the issue is “idolatry” … but what is “idolatry” exactly? It’s putting your faith … your trust … in someone or something other than God. I don’t believe that the rich young ruler’s issue was money or gold or possessions. I think that it was ego … pride. I think that he worshipped the idols of self-control and self-sufficiency. “Good Teacher, what must ‘I’ do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17).
When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he must do to earn eternal life, he started out by calling Jesus “Good Teacher.” Before addressing the young man’s request, Jesus asked him: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:18).
In Jesus’ day, the rabbis never called anyone good except God. We are fallen, sinful creatures. Only God is “good.” When Jesus asks the young man why he called him “good,” he was trying to find out what impression the young man really had of Him. “Why do you call me ‘good’ … who do you think that I am? By calling me ‘good,’ are you saying that I am ‘God’?”
Jesus’ question … “why do you call me ‘good’” … is Jesus’ attempt to get the young man to decide who Jesus is and what authority does Jesus have over him. Does the rich young ruler see Jesus as just another rabbi … or the Messiah? Is Jesus just another street corner preacher … or is Jesus ‘Emmanuel’ … God Incarnate? There’s a big difference. A rabbi or a teacher was good for advice … which appears to be all that this man was looking for because he didn’t like the “advice” that Jesus had given him but instead chose to turn and walk away.
Do you think that this man would have turned his back on Yahweh and walked away like that if he truly believed that he was standing in the very presence of God Himself? I don’t think so … not if he truly believed that Jesus was God. Would you? Would you turn your back on God and just walk away? Not if you thought He was Emmanuel, but you could if you thought of Him as nothing more than just another rabbi or teacher, amen? The rich young ruler walked away … choosing not to follow Jesus or his “advice” … thus missing out on the very thing that he was searching for … eternal life. He left … not knowing that God loved the world … that God loved him … so much that He sent His only son … the Rabbi that he had turned his back on … so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but will have the very thing that the rich young ruler was searching for … eternal life. The rich young ruler’s quest for eternal life was driven by his fear of death … and the person whose advice he sought would die that so that he might have the one thing that would calm the fear in his heart … eternal life.
We don’t know what happened but I suspect that the “rich young ruler” did not sell all his possession and give the money to the poor because he never came back and became one of Jesus’ disciples or followers. The scripture says that he had many possessions, so apparently he had done pretty good doing his own thing … going his own way. The reason that I don’t think that he worshiped his gold or wealth more than God is because he, like most Jews in his day, saw their wealth and their possessions as blessings … as gifts from God. I don’t believe that he saw Jesus’ offer as a choice between trusting God or trusting in himself and in his stuff because he didn’t see Jesus as anything more than a teacher or rabbi who was trying to make a point or teach him a very difficult object lesson … one he chose not to do.
But here’s the sticking point for us as well as for this rich young ruler. Rabbi or Son of God … what Jesus was asking this young man to do was to put his entire trust and faith in God. This is where the rubber meets the road for all of us. Do we trust God with everything? Or do we trust God with some things?
What do you put your trust in? Is it your wealth … your money? Money can take care of a lot of things. It can provide you with food and shelter. It can provide you with a good life … a very good life … but can it provide you with eternal life?
Do you put your trust in your intellect … your brains? Sure, brains and intellect can open doors for you … take you places … get you a job where you can earn a good living so that you can do all of the great things that I’ve mentioned. Maybe you have a great personality and lots of friends who can help you when life kicks you in the teeth … but can brains and friends or money give you eternal life like Jesus Christ can? The answer’s pretty obvious, amen?
Do you absolutely … beyond a shadow of a doubt … trust God? Do you trust Him with your stuff … your possessions? Do you trust Him with your future … your life? You might think that you do … and you may … or you might just be like this rich young ruler … all talk.
The Disciples were willing to trust God with their possessions … their future. “Look,” says Peter, “we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). They gave up their livelihoods … their homes … their security … the familiar comfort of family and friends … they gave up everything to do what? To follow Jesus. To follow the Messiah. To follow the King of kings. To follow God.
They didn’t just learn about God and the Kingdom of God from a rabbi. They learned about God and about the Kingdom of God from God Himself … God Incarnate. And while they were with Jesus, He took care of them like He did His people when they wandered in the wilderness … guiding them … feeding them … providing for their daily needs as well as their spiritual needs. And while they were following Jesus, listening to Jesus, learning from Jesus they were also learning to depend on Him … learning to put their trust and their faith in Him. They took a chance … a leap of faith … a risk that the rich young ruler wasn’t willing to take, amen? “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back,” says Jesus, “is fit for service in the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).
How will YOU know what God can do until you take that leap of faith, amen? How can what we’re talking about today go from being an abstract concept that you read about in the Bible or hear preached in a sermon to becoming something real and tangible and O-so-precious in your life?
There’s only one way, my friends. There’s only one thing we MUST do. We must take that leap of faith! We must put everything we have … our stuff … our lives … our ambitions … our dreams … completely in the hands of God. And when you step out … when you take that leap of faith … you will have something far more precious than anything that that rich young ruler ever had … and that is an absolute trust and faith and confidence in God … not head trust … not abstract faith … not intellectual confidence in God but an absolute, unshakeable faith and trust and confidence in God. And what is that worth to you, my friend?
What must YOU do to inherit eternal life? Only one thing! Trust Jesus with your life in the here and now. Jesus told the rich young ruler that if he sold all his possessions, his stuff, his earthly treasure he would receive “treasure in Heaven” (Mark 10:21). Hum …. What constitutes “treasure in Heaven?” Gold? Silver? Jewels? Money? Nope! Those things have such little value in Heaven that they’re used as building materials … and, as far as I know, there is no money in heaven. Hum … what could my treasure in Heaven be? You ready for this? My treasure in Heaven would be the same treasure that I have here on earth. Not gold! Not silver! Not jewels! Not money! My treasure in Heaven … just like my treasure here on earth … is JESUS CHRIST! … the priceless, perfect Lamb of God who bought me with His own life’s blood.
My most precious gift in the whole world … the very thing that the rich young ruler was asking for … is eternal life … something that neither the rich young ruler nor you nor I could ever purchase with our earthly treasures.
But we’re not just talking about eternal life with no point or purpose here. After all, what would eternity be without Jesus but endless time. No matter how much fun or excitement there might be in Heaven … no matter how much joy we might get from hanging out with our family and friends in Heaven … no matter how relieved we might be that we will never have to face death again … guess what? We’ll eventually get bored, amen?
Eternity without Jesus? We would be existing just to exist. How boring! But eternity with Jesus Christ … the love of my heart … the love of my mind … my soul … my treasure? Priceless because Jesus paid the price, amen? And eternity is a long, long, long time to be bored, amen?
If Jesus is my “treasure” and my “treasure” is in Heaven, like He said, how do I get to where my treasure is? How do I get to Heaven? There’s only one way my friend … only one way. “I am the way and the truth and the life,” says Jesus. “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus is my “treasure” in Heaven and He is my way to Heaven. I can only reach my treasure in Heaven by putting my full and complete trust in Him. It cannot be Christ plus something else. It can only be Christ plus nothing … period.
How do you inherit eternal life? It’s an “all or nothing” proposition. Either you put all your trust, all your possessions, all your hopes, all your dreams, you put your future completely in Jesus’ hands … or you walk away like this poor unfortunate man who had everything of earthly value … who had reached the “end of more” … but who had nothing of eternal value. I can trust Jesus with my life today because He gave up His life so that you and I might live a spiritual life with Him forever.
So … do you trust Him? Do you trust Jesus with all your mind? Do you trust Him with all your heart? Do you trust Him with your eternal soul? Do you trust Him with everything you have … including your life? Do you trust Him enough to give Him everything that you have to follow Him?
I pray that the day comes when you will have no choice but to lean on Him and trust Him completely … and that’s not an easy thing to pray for because of what you may have to go through to get there. You may have to lose everything in the here and now to gain everything in the future.
And speaking of praying …
Let’s bow our heads and put our trust and everything we have … including our very lives and our very souls … into the hands of God right now … but don’t pray this prayer unless you absolutely mean it. Seriously, it’s one of those prayers. So, if you think that you are ready to make that commitment, please repeat after me:
Almighty and Eternal God:
I understand what You did for me through Jesus Christ, Your Son, when He died for me on that cross …
And I am putting my trust, my faith in You, Jesus Christ, fully and completely …
Without hesitation or reservation.
Put me in a place or a position where I have no choice but to put my faith and trust in You so that I may follow You and learn to trust You and have complete confidence in You … today and for all eternity.
In Jesus’ name I pray … amen!
