Why Perfection is Required
If you want to be justified by the law, you have to keep it perfectly. But why? We read the Sermon on the Mount and find out that if you get angry you’ve committed murder, if you so much as look in order to lust you’ve committed adultery, etc. And if you hear all that and think, Those examples are such minor infractions, you’re thinking exactly like the rich young ruler. What makes those examples minor? The only thing that could possibly make them minor is if your standard is set by the average sinful person. But Jesus already started this conversation by letting us know that we’re not talking about goodness compared to other people. We’re talking about goodness compared to God. James says if you keep the whole law but stumble at just one point, you’re guilty of breaking all of it. It’s not like bowling, where you can knock a few down and leave the rest standing. Breaking God’s law is more like putting a brick through a picture window. One brick breaks the whole thing.
Sin is Adultery
And that would be obvious to us if we understood what sin is. It’s adultery against God. It’s any time you love something in the world more than you love God. It’s a relational offense, not just a violation of a code. Imagine a wife is upset at her husband for committing adultery, and he says, “What are you so upset about? Sure, I slept with that woman, but not with that other woman. I didn’t sleep with her or her or her. I didn’t fall in love with hardly any of those other women—just two or three, that’s it!” Is the wife going to say, “Oh well, I guess 7 out of 10 aint bad”? No. You commit adultery with just one other woman and you shatter the covenant. Marriage exists to teach us what it’s like between us and God. And what have you and I done? Did we love something in this world more than God just two or three times? Just a handful of instances of adultery? No. It would be in the thousands just in recent months. We’re a lot closer to breaking all of God’s laws than breaking none of them.
Not Fair?
Someone says, “But it’s not fair! How can God require something of us that isn’t even possible?” Think of it this way. Suppose you have a 1 year old, and you want to take the child to MacDonald’s or to go out for ice cream or something. You’re more than willing to pick the child up, put him in a car seat, and take him to MacDonald’s. But the child wants to do it another way. He wants to go on his own. So he says, “Mom, what must I do to get to MacDonald’s.” “I’ll take you there.” “No! I want to do it on my own. What must I do?” “Well, you’d have to walk out the door, and—” “Mom! You know I can’t walk. Why are you making this impossible for me?” Is that mom being cruel? No. Is she making it impossible? No. The child is making it impossible by insisting that he get there some other way besides being carried. God says, “I’ll carry you to heaven if you want,” and we say, “No! I want to get there on my own.” Jesus says, “Ok, then, you’d have to keep the whole law, perfectly.” “Why are you making it impossible?” It’s only impossible if we insist on doing it in an impossible way. But if we will receive it like little children, then it’s very possible. But at this point in the conversation, you’re a little concerned that your child is a little confused about what he is—a child. So you put your hands on your hips and say, “Go to MacDonald’s.” He gives it a few tries, but can’t even stand on his feet, much less walk. So he starts crying and says, “I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a baby.”
“Ah, bingo. Now you understand.
So how are you going to get to MacDonald’s?”
“Mom, will you take me?”
Beware of Money
We Are Rich
The passage isn’t over when the man walks away because Jesus wants to debrief his disciples and warn them, and us, about ending up like that guy. He wants us to understand that the rich guy wasn’t some rare outlier. He represents the vast majority of people, and the threat that destroyed him could destroy us. Make no mistake—when Jesus talks about the rich in this passage, that’s us. Every person in this room, by the standards of those people in that time, by the standards of most people who have ever lived, by the standards of most people in the world today, we are fabulously wealthy. We live in luxury beyond what most people in the world could even imagine. The access we have to food, and shelter and clothes is unprecedented in human history. The #1 health problem for “poor” people in the United States is obesity. I doubt that’s ever happened in human history. So all that to say, when Jesus says, “rich,” that’s us. And it’s a real threat to our faith.
Wealth Increases Pride
At first glance it seems like there are two separate issues in this passage. First, he lacks baby faith because he’s trying to use the law to make himself a good person. Then he lacks baby faith because he’s more in love with his money than he is with God. Those are two separate issues, but they’re connected. The same pride is behind both problems. This man was the opposite of a baby. He had earthly greatness. Because he had so much money, that money pushed him into a mentality of earthly greatness. And that’s why his heart wouldn’t let him let go of the money and follow Jesus. And it’s also why he used the law for self-justification, because humble repentance and placing yourself under God’s law is incompatible with human greatness. The more money you have, the less you feel dependent on God, the more self-sufficient you feel, and the less baby-like you become.
Money is a Negative, not Neutral
Everyone knows money is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good or for evil. But that’s not to say money is neutral. In this passage we see that money and possessions are not only not and an advantage for entering the kingdom, but they are an obstacle. They make you far less likely to enter.
Wealth Makes You Forget God
The more money you have, the less you have a sense of dependence on God. And the solution to that is gratitude.
Deuteronomy 8:10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
The natural response to wealth is pride which leads to forgetting God, and the remedy is gratitude whenever you enjoy any of your wealth in any way.
Love the One and Despise the Other
This man’s walking away is a vivid illustration of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: You cannot serve both God and money because you will love the one and despise the other. We always think we can love God and our cherished idol. But the time will come when we’ll have to choose, and if we’ve allowed some earthly thing to put its chains around our heart, we’ll do exactly what this guy did—walk away from Jesus. We might be sad about it, and we might wish we could change our greatest love, but we’ll still walk away. William Barclay said money is an acid test of a man. For a hundred men who can stand adversity only one can stand prosperity.
Greed
Greed is a huge theme in Scripture. The tenth commandment forbids it, and the NT teaches that it’s the same as the first commandment. It is a devastating, deadly evil. And how common do you think it is? In a church of, say, 300, how many do you think have a significant problem with some form of greed—greedy for money, greedy for sex, for food, for some relationship, for prestige, for a certain job? How many? Out of 300, it’s going to be a lot closer to 300 than to zero (or to any other number). In 25 years of pastoring, guess how many people came in and asked for counseling because they were greedy? People come in all the time: “I committed this sin, I did this, I did that. Help me learn self control. Help me overcome anger.” But no one comes in and says, “I’m a walking violation of the 10th commandment. Help me overcome greed.”
Zacchaeus
But you can tell someone has caught a glimpse of the treasure in the field when their attitude about money completely changes. Zacchaeus voluntarily offers to give up half of his possessions and to restore fourfold whatever he may have gained by fraud, “Today salvation has come to this house” (Luke 19:8–9).
Should You Sell Everything?
Jesus didn’t require other followers to sell everything and give it all away, which is a great comfort to a lot of Christians who read this and think, Yipes, do I have to give everything away? Jesus didn’t require it of everyone, but on the other hand, would we assume this one man was the only person in all of human history needed to get rid of his earthly possessions? I doubt that. So what should you and I do about our money? There is a Bible college that has the saying, “Get as much education as you can keep sanctified.” Great advice. A lot of guys in seminary end up getting way more education than their humility can handle, and they get puffed up. We could say the same about money. Keep as much money as you can keep sanctified. But when it tips over that point where you’ve got so much that if Jesus told you to dump it all tomorrow you might not be able to do it, you’ve accumulated too much. If it’s getting a grip on your soul, get rid of it as fast as you can. The moment you start loving it is the moment you start destroying your relationship with God. It’s like an adulterous relationship—cut it off. Remember Jesus said if your hand or foot or eye causes you turn away, cut it off—gouge it out? Do your literal eyes and feet and hands actually cause your heart to turn away? But your money might if your heart gets wrapped around it. And once your heart wraps around something, giving it up feels a whole lot like gouging out your own eye. It really does feel like you’re losing a part of your very self when you give up a cherished idol. If your money is going to start taking up some of the room in your heart that belongs to Christ, dump it.
The Role of the Law
What do you have to do to inherit eternal life?
19 You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.' "
Implication: Keep God’s law and you’ll get eternal life. In fact, in Matthew’s account, Jesus says that explicitly.
Matthew 19:17 "… If you want to enter life, obey the commandments."
Was Jesus Serious?
A lot of Christians hear that and say, “Oh no—legalism!” What happened to grace? Back in v.15 it was all grace—enter the kingdom like a helpless baby. Now you have to keep the whole law of God to get in? Was this a trick? If you had been there, how would you have responded? “I see what you’re doing there, Jesus. Ha! Good one. I almost fell for it. ‘Keep the law’—Jesus, you know I could never do that. Keeping the law is impossible.” Is that the response Jesus was looking for? Or could it be that Jesus really meant this? This isn’t the only time when Jesus gave this answer.
Luke 10:25 … an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" [same question] 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. … [same question] 27 He answered: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and,`Love your neighbor as yourself.'" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
If you want eternal life, keep the law of God—that’s what Jesus taught. It wasn’t a trick; it wasn’t sarcastic; it was for real. If you want life from God, keep his law.
Romans 7:10 … the commandment … was intended to bring life.
And that’s exactly what the OT teaches.
Deuteronomy 30:16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live.
Keep his commands and you will live.
Someone says, “But wait—isn’t that impossible? Out of reach?”
Deuteronomy 30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven … 13 Nor is it beyond the sea … 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it.
So keeping God’s law is indeed possible, and if you do it, God will give you life. You say, “Maybe it’s possible, but no one ever did it.” No, many people have done it. For example, King David.
1 Kings 14:8 … you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart.
What About Galatians & Romans?
So it is possible, it has been done, and it’s what Jesus directed us to do in order to have life. But there’s a problem. What are we going to do with the nagging little problem of the book of Galatians? And Romans?
Galatians 2:16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 3:11 No-one is justified before God by the law.
Romans 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
Galatians 5:4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ.
That’s pretty clear, right? No one could ever be justified by keeping the law.
Law Can Bring Life or Death
So how do we reconcile this? Does keeping the law lead to life or not? It depends. The law of God can bring you life or it can bring you condemnation and death, depending on how you approach it. In Paul’s case, it brought death.
Romans 7:10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
Why? What determines whether the law brings you life or death? If you keep the law as an expression of baby faith and love for God, it brings life. It’s the pavement on the highway to eternal life. But if you keep it in an effort to justify yourself before God, that brings death. Two different times Jesus told someone to keep the law in order to have eternal life. And both times, it didn’t end well. Why? Let’s look at the law expert in Luke 10.
Luke 10:25 … "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" [Jesus] replied. … 27 He answered: "`Love the Lord your God with all your heart … and,`Love your neighbor as yourself.'" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live." 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
This guy wanted to keep the law in a way that justified him. That’s where it goes wrong—when you try to use the law for justification. All those passages in Romans and Galatians, they don’t say you can’t keep the law. They say you can’t be justified by the law. If you strive to obey God’s law because you love him and trust him and you want to follow his way, great. But if you try to use the law to make yourself a good person in God’s sight, that’s the opposite of humble, child-like trust. That’s prideful self-justification. When you come to God’s law asking, “What is God’s will? What does he desire? I trust him more than I trust myself, so I want to follow his way,” that’s an expression of faith, and God will credit that to your account as if it were moral perfection. But if you come the law trying to make yourself a good person so you can justify yourself, one of two things will happen. Either you’ll dumb down the commands enough so that you can keep them all perfectly, and then imagine that you’re a good person. Or you’ll do what Paul did in Romans 7.
[441 The Condemning Ministry of the Law]
Paul had been using the law to justify himself, he had dumbed down the law enough to where he could keep it all, and he was convinced he was a good person.
Romans 7:9 Once I was alive apart from law.
You can put the word “alive” in quotes. Before the law went to work on me, I thought I was alive—cruising along just fine. He was killin’ it as a pious Jew—morally good, righteous as they come. But then the law of God rolled up its sleeves and went to work on Paul—specifically the 10th commandment: thou shalt not covet.
Romans 7:7 … I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. 9 … the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
13 … in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
Romans 3:20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Paul’s eyes were opened to how deep-reaching that one law was, and he tried to keep it well enough to justify himself (to make him a good person), and the more he tried, the worse it got. That’s that whole passage where he says, “The things I want to do, I don’t do, but what I don’t want to do, I keep doing.” Then finally he just throws up his hands and says, “
Romans 7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!
That’s what the law of God is supposed to do in the heart of an unbeliever. It makes demands, you try to make yourself a good person by meeting those demands, the more you try that the more condemned you feel, until finally you have no other recourse but to run to Christ and beg for mercy and forgiveness. That’s the condemning function of the law. That’s how the law breaks pride and brings a person to the point of child-like trust that can do nothing but reach its arms out to God and say, “I’m hopeless. Rescue me.”
Galatians 3:24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
Childlike Faith
So you can be justified through lawkeeping, but you can express faith and love through lawkeeping. That’s why when you see passages in the Old Testament about obeying God’s law, you so frequently see references to trusting God or loving God. For example, go back to Dt.30 where God said there is a kind of lawkeeping that isn’t out of your reach.
Deuteronomy 30:6 The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands
19 … Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life.
Holding fast to God, clinging to him, listening to him, loving him—those are all the activities of faith. They are ways of expressing loyalty to God. When you obey God’s law as an expression of that, it pleases him, and he credits it to your account as righteousness in his sight.
Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
When you love and trust God like a child, and that’s your reason for obeying him, that brings life. A minute ago I read the verse from 1 Kings 8 that says David kept God’s law. How can God say that? David broke the 7th commandment with Bathsheba, the 6th commandment when he murdered her husband, and the 9th commandment when he lied about it. So how can he be called a lawkeeper? Answer: he repented, which showed he had child-like trust in God. David trusted God, repented of his sin, God forgave him, and David wrote:
Psalm 32:2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him.
The Condemning Purpose is Not the Only Purpose
I’m spending time on this because there are a lot of people these days who are teaching that the only purpose of the law is the condemning purpose. They see Romans 3 and Romans 7.
Romans 3:20 no-one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Romans 7:13 … in order that sin might be recognized as sin … so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
They see that and think that must be the only purpose of the law. They say that when God commands something, he doesn’t want you to put forth effort trying to obey it. They say any effort to obey is legalism—that’s the flesh; every command in the Bible is intended only to show you how impossible it is to obey God. Don’t fall for that teaching. That’s one purpose of the law—in cases where people are trying to justify themselves. But it’s not the only purpose; it’s not even the main purpose. The main purpose is to point the way to life. John Calvin talked about this in his Institutes. He delineated three purposes of the law: 1) to condemn, 2) to restrain evil in society, and 3) to teach the believer how to live. And I would adjust that third one just a bit to say it’s to teach us how to express our baby faith in God and love for God..
Evangelism
Verse 23: Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is to get people into the kingdom. If only I had taken a different approach! I just blew it with that guy. He was interested, and now, after talking to me, he walking away.” No, that’s not Jesus’ reaction. Did Jesus blow it? No. Keep this passage in mind the next time you experience some ministry failure.
Hot Prospect for EVANGELISM
It’s hard to imagine a hotter prospect than this for evangelism. For one thing, he’s asking the right question—he wants to know about eternal life. Very few people give any thought at all to eternity. If you walk into a Starbucks and looked over the shoulders of people with laptops, you won’t see them Googling “eternal life.” But this guy asked the right question, and even more rare—he comes to the right source: Jesus Christ. And he comes in the right posture—on his knees. And he’s not lackadaisical about it—he comes running (which was undignified for a man of his stature). From a human point of view this is the best person who ever approached Jesus. Not cowardly like Nicodemus, coming at night. We find out he’s a man who is striving to follow everything the Bible says the best he can. In our day, a guy like that would be considered more than just an ideal seeker—he might be hired as a pastor. But something was wrong. He knew he didn’t have eternal life and he was desperate to get it. So he comes to Jesus with this question.
The Guy Would Have Prayed a Prayer
By the way, we can learn something from Jesus here about how to share the gospel with people. What do you think most Christians say if this guy would have run up to them with this question? Pray and invite Jesus into your heart? Get baptized? There might be various different answers he would get. But whatever answer someone gave him, do you think he would do it? A guy this desperate for eternal life—if you told him he had to fill out a card and walk an isle and pray a prayer—do you think he would do it? In a heartbeat. This guy knows his eternal destiny is at stake. I’m sure in his mind, as he’s running to catch up to Jesus, he’s thinking, I don’t care what he says—I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes.” If Jesus would have done what so many evangelists today would do and close the deal while the iron was hot, this guy would have been the rocky soil.
1127 Footnotes
Verse 18 [FOOTNOTE?] OT Teaching about All Are Sinful
Even without Jesus’ hint, it’s not that hard. This guy is a synagogue ruler; you’d think he might have read the Old Testament at some point. Maybe Psalm 51, where David says, “Long before I committed adultery and murder, I was sinful from birth.” What? You’re better than David? "There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one." "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Every one of those is a quotation from the Old Testament. This guy is like Paul before Romans 7, when he said, “Once I was alive apart from the law.” He thinks he’s alive, because the law hasn’t penetrated his self-justifying pride yet. This guy’s only hope of being saved is for the law of God to break into his life and condemn him and put him to death—show him how dead he really is so he can finally become humble enough to receive the kingdom of God like a baby. And Jesus gives him that chance, but he passes it up.
Verse 19 The Commandments
19 You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.' "
The Ten Commandments are divided into two tables. The first four are about your relationship with God, and the second table—the last six have to do with how you interact with people. When Jesus gives this list, he skips the first table, and starts with #6—don’t murder. Then #7, 8, 9, 10, then 5.
Verse 19
[FOOTNOTE?] Why Emphasize #5?
Now, saying it that way draws a lot of attention to #5, right? Jesus is using some examples to make us think of the entire law of God, but by pulling one commandment out of order and ending with that, he places emphasis on that one: honor your father and mother. What’s special about that commandment? Remember, the first step is always to look to context. Think about the book of Mark. Where has Jesus talked about the fifth commandment before in Mark? It was when Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees for breaking God’s law when they thought they were keeping it.
Mark 7:9 And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10 For Moses said,`Honour your father and your mother,' (there’s the 5th Commandment) … 11 But you say that if a man says to his father or mother:`Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12 then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.
What happened there? They were breaking the 5th Commandment. Why? Because of money. When your parents get old, keeping the fifth Commandment can get expensive. So they figured out a way you could be a good, solid, respectable Jew without having to take too much of a hit in your pocketbook. Do you think maybe Jesus knows a little something about what’s in this rich man’s heart?
[FOOTNOTE?] Why Adjust #10?
There’s one other thing that catches our attention in Jesus’ list. I told you he listed the commandments 6,7,8,9,10,5, but that’s not exactly right. When Jesus got to #10, he didn’t really give us the tenth Commandment (do not covet). Instead of that, he says, “Do not defraud.” If you’re rich, you probably don’t think you have a big problem with coveting. You say, “I don’t covet my neighbor’s stuff—I’ve got my own stuff.” But defrauding—not very many rich people in that culture got rich without defrauding some folks along the way. Jesus is doing everything he can to help this guy see how much of a lawbreaker he really is. He starts by saying, “Remember, we’re talking about absolute moral perfection here.” Then he cites the second table of the law. It can be hard to spot areas where you sin in your relationship to God, but sins against people are more tangible and easy to see.
An Incomplete List
One thing I’m learning about Mark is that he really does seem to place significance in numbers. In this case, we know that Jesus mentioned some other commandments as well, but Mark only includes six—one shy of the number of completeness. An incomplete list of God’s commands. A subtle hint that something’s missing. This list isn’t complete. And that sets us up for what Jesus tells this guy next. 21 One thing you lack One thing. Six plus one more equals seven. You’re at six; you haven’t reached seven. You’re lawkeeping isn’t complete—you still lack something.
So considering the fact that only God is good, tell me, how have you done with keeping the commandments—especially ones that hit the pocketbook?”
My Children
QUESTION—Why did Jesus call his disciples ‘children’?
Could it be because they responded the opposite way as the rich man to Jesus’ call to discipleship?
Middle statement: Hard for all?
QUESTION—Is it significant that the person entering the kingdom is not identified as being rich?
2. This still refers to rich men [Gnd, Hb, Lns; KJV]. This statement is still speaking about rich men and is probably an ellipsis which is to be filled in by the surrounding verses that are focused on rich men [Gnd]. The context argues against a generalization here. The manuscripts that add ‘for the ones trusting in riches’ are probably original [ , Lns].
Irony
This whole passage is so ironic from an earthly point of view. Jesus says, "One thing you lack" (v.21). And the solution to him lacking what he needs it to get rid of something. That sounds backwards. I lack something so the solution is to lack even more? Then Jesus warns about how dangerous wealth is. The more you have, the more likely you are to lack what you need to enter the kingdom. The richer you are, the poorer you’re likely to be in the kingdom.
Saved v.26
Being saved is synonymous with inheriting eternal life [NAC, TRT], having treasure in heaven [BECNT], entering the kingdom of God [BECNT, EBC, NAC, NCBC, NICNT, Tay, TRT], deliverance from hellfire [Gnd].
Verse 28 We Left Everything
28 Then Peter spoke up, "We have left everything to follow you!"
Disciples Didn’t Quite Leave Everything
even though Peter and Andrew still possessed a home (1:29) and a boat (3:9; 4:1, 36), their commitment to Jesus was total and whatever Jesus did tell them to leave, they did leave to follow him [
Verse 29-30 100 Times as Much
No Sacrifice
Peter’s question implied, “So do we get eternal life?” “You get more than that. Yes, you’ll get eternal life in the age to come, but you’ll get something in this age too.” I don’t know if, in the back of Peter’s mind the thought might have been lurking about whether Jesus owed them. If they gave up everything for Jesus, is Jesus maybe a little bit indebted to him?
No. They are even more indebted to him. [Piper]
29 "Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields-- along with persecutions-- and in the age to come eternal life.
Jesus makes it so no one will ever, ever be able to say, “I made a sacrifice for Jesus.”
The most extreme sacrifice any person has ever made for Christ—including being tortured of decades and killed—to call that a sacrifice is like a lotto winner trying to get people to feel sorry for him because he sacrificed a dollar for the lotto ticket he bought. Or to put it in relational terms, would you expect the groom at a wedding to have a discussion with the bride about how much he had sacrificed to marry her?
Church Relationships
There have been billions of people who have lived and died and never once experienced a relationship like the ones I’ve enjoyed routinely all my life.
Spiritual Family idea Introduced in ch.3
The assurance Jesus offered is cast in the language of family, and it recalls the encounter between Jesus and his mother and brothers (Mar_3:31—35), where he introduced the idea of a new family composed of those who do the will of God. The material in Mar_10:29-31 expands upon the idea of this new family.
10:30 – Family
How can you replace the joy that should come in your life from family love and fellowship? In the church. Jesus is teaching us that we are to look to the church as our reward for all that we’ve given up. If you don’t see the church as a 100-fold reward, your perspective is off. Some people have put together huge networks. They have a thousand connections on LinkedIn. They have so many friends on FB, followers on Twitter – they have connections all over the place. But no one has a social network through those things that is even a fraction of what you and I have in our spiritual family. You could travel anywhere in the world and be welcomed as family in houses, farms, etc. We can’t be satisfied until we are fulfilling what Jesus promised to people who have lost family. If someone in our church has lost a spouse or a child or a parent or their whole family, but they aren’t getting 100 times as much, then we’re failing. This is why small groups are so important.
The Church as Family What a marvelous thing the family of God is. To know God as God, as King, as Creator, as Judge – that is all wonderful, but to know him as Father – Oh, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1) What earthly gift has God ever given us that is more wonderful than the physical family! What is there in the entire natural world more beautiful than a mother’s love? Can you think of anything? What’s better, if you’re a little kid and you’re lost or scared or in danger, and then you make it home? What better feeling is there than that? It’s the only place in the universe where you want to be at that moment. What’s better than the marital relationship at its best? What’s stronger than the bond between brothers? When people want to refer to the most unbreakable bond of closeness – like comrades on the battlefield or something like that, they use the metaphor of brotherhood. We are a band of brothers. What do people do at the holidays? They gather around family. And what brings the greatest pain in life? Isn’t it either loss of family, or when family isn’t acting like family? Is there anything in life that produces deeper pain than that? Family is the most wonderful gift God gave us in the natural world, and yet it’s not ultimate. It’s not the greatest thing. It’s only a scale model of something far greater. God made the natural family wonderful as an object lesson to enable us to grasp a little bit of the beauty and goodness of the concept of the family of God. This is such great news – especially for those with disappointing families. Sometimes people who grew up in a dysfunctional family think they can’t appreciate the imagery of God as Father, or the church as family, because their experience of those things growing up was a negative thing, not a beautiful thing. But in many ways, those people can appreciate the beauty and goodness of family more than those of us who had great families. They have unique insight into how wonderful true fatherhood is, because they have felt the misery of what it’s like when that’s missing. They have felt the sting of what happens when family isn’t really family, and that pain they have gone through is the most profound teacher on the importance of what they are missing. Whereas those of us who had good family experiences can easily take it for granted and fail to grasp how important it really is. So the family of God is a marvelous reality. And that applies to our relationship to our Father, it applies to our relationship with our elder Brother (Jesus), and it applies to our relationship to one another. Now, we could do a series of sermons on that first one – God as our Father. We could do a series of sermons on the last one – our family relationships with one another in the church. It’s very tempting to do that, but I’ll hold off until Mark 10:30, where Jesus promises those who have lost family 100 times as much family in this life (speaking of the church). You lose your natural mother; you have 100 spiritual mothers in the church. 100 older women who will love you and care for you and nurture you like a mother loves her child. You lose your brother; you gain 100 brothers in the church. And 100 sisters. Your earthly father was disappointing? That’s ok, because you have 100 fathers in the church. It’s painful to wait all the way until ch.10 to talk about that, but that’s where the Holy Spirit put it, so we have to wait.
NIVAC: if you put a mouse with a group of strange mice in a situation where they have to share an insufficient source of food, the outsider develops high blood pressure. But if you put the same mouse with its brothers and sisters in a group the same size and with the same inadequate amount of food, its blood pressure does not rise.42 Mice can handle stress if they have their family around them but not when they are alone among strangers. Other research shows that people are no different. People need to have families to help bear the stresses that life brings; and when they do not have one, the church needs to get busy and help make one or straighten out the feeling of isolation in a family gone sour.
We need to create special family relationships within the community of God that cut across the boundaries of blood and marriage. A congregation of a thousand people, or even two hundred people, cannot really be family to one another except in the extended family sense. Within that large family there need to be intimate family relationships.
Persecutions
This is a precaution against the prosperity gospel heresy.
It’s also a fascinating promise because it’s still part of what is given in return for what we give up. Jesus promises that if you are willing to give up your house and your livelihood and your family for him, in return he will give you persecutions. Persecution for Christ is a glorious, priceless honor.
The readers were being persecuted, and Mark assures them: Your troubles are not a sign that God has abandoned you. Far from it. They are a sign he is favoring you.
Verse 31 First Last
31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first."
This whole section is showing that—wives and children lifted up, the rich ruler brought down.
But the conjunction d? …]. If it means ‘and’, it could make this verse a positive statement that reinforces the promise of verses 29-30, but if it means ‘but’, it could make this verse a warning against the presumption voiced by Peter,.
We Have Left Everything to Follow You
The Disciples Had Separation Anxiety
What does it mean to come to receive the kingdom like a baby? One characteristic of babies is what they call separation anxiety. They panic when mom walks out of the room. Eventually they grow out of that, when they’re old enough to understand that she’s not leaving forever. But even older kids, if they did think she was leaving forever, they would panic. If they thought they might never see her again if they don’t go with her, they would drop anything they were doing no matter how much they liked it. They would leave any toy behind, friends, food—it wouldn’t matter. If it’s a choice between losing contact with Mom and Dad forever versus anything else, it’s no contest. One characteristic you see in the Apostles is a strong case of separation anxiety. If Jesus is going, they’re going.
John 11:7 Then he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea." 8 "But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?"
Jesus gives them an answer they don’t understand.
16 Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."
That’s how much separation anxiety the disciples had with Jesus. If it meant the risk of being stoned to death to be with Jesus, so be it. They weren’t going to be separated from him. But this guy has separation anxiety with his stuff, not Jesus. It makes him sad to be separated from Jesus but being separated from his wealth is a total non-starter. It’s not even on the table.
