SELLING OUT OR HOLDING OUT
Matthew 19:16-22, "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions."
The question upon the lips of every one of us, “Jesus, what else can I do to obtain eternal life? Is there anything in my heart that would keep me from being one of those who is ready for the Rapture of the church? Is there anything in my life that will keep me from entering Heaven?
This same question has risen in the heart of every man and woman upon the earth as the Spirit of the Lord moved upon them in an attempt to reach them and draw them from the river of sin that leads to the edge of Hell! Every soul, who has not accepted the salvation offered through the Blood of Jesus, will suddenly plunge into the eternal regions of the damned.
Oh what a terrible thought that one instant we are enjoying life and the pleasures it brings, going our merry way, fulfilling every desire of the heart – then suddenly, without warning, life is snuffed out in an auto accident, heart attack, brain aneurysm or some other catastrophic event and, in an instant, all of the good things disappear and we are plunged into the pits of Hell where there is never a pleasant moment for eternity.
It is no wonder that the Rich Young Ruler came running to Jesus that day as Jesus walked on the road from Judea to Jerusalem to ask this same question. I believe that there was great sincerity in the heart of this young man. He wasn’t just showing off his own piety. He wasn’t just making a grand gesture to impress anyone. He was really curious to know what he needed to do to enter into eternal life.
Do you believe that honest, sincere people, who really want to know about Jesus can still lose their soul? How can anyone who comes to the Lord, reads His Word, does all that is possible to obey every commandment of Law, and lives a good moral life, not make it into Heaven and not have eternal life?
The Rich Young Ruler came running up to the Lord, fell on his knees before Jesus and recognized Jesus as a “good man”.
This is still the greatest problem of mankind today. As long as Jesus is relegated to the place where He is just a “good man”, then we never can understand the fact that He is more than a man, He is very God. Until we reach the place where we know that Jesus is God, there stands a great roadblock on our path to eternal life. Only through realizing that Jesus is God, and not just a good man, can we begin to make the choices and obey those laws that will bring us through the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross to the way of Truth and eternal life in Him.
Every false, idolatrous religion in the world recognizes that fact that Jesus was real, that he did walk those roads of Judea and Galilee so many years ago. No one will ever deny the historical fact that the man Jesus Christ lived and was crucified. No one will deny his existence, but none of them recognize Him for any more than a “good man” or a prophet or a teacher. Oh my friend, we must get past that and realize that Jesus was more than just a good man, HE WAS VERY GOD WALKING AMONG MEN WHO HAD COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN TO DIE FOR MAN’S SALVATION!
Jesus then began to take that Rich Young Ruler down the same path that all of us, who have come to know the Lord as our Savior, have had to walk.
Once we really mean business with God and desire to know the way to eternal life then God steps into our heart, meddles in the affairs of our life and begins to lead us into the paths of righteousness.
Jesus said in Luke 12:32-34, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Where does that path to righteousness begin? It begins with the realization that all have sinned, including me! God wants me to realize that I cannot live according every moral law without fail. I read God’s law and cringe every time I reach a point where my heart is condemned. Only one instance of disobedience to that law means eternal death.
Where does the breaking of the law of man occur? Do we only break the law after we have repeatedly ran the stop sign, or repeatedly robbed the bank? No my brother, we have broken the law from the very first time we disobeyed it. Only one time of breaking the law of man makes us guilty. We may never suffer the consequences of breaking man’s law unless we are finally caught by a police officer who defends and enforces that law, but if we break God’s law, we never get away with it for God sees all and knows all and He must bring all to justice where every debt will be paid.
Man’s laws carry many different penalties, a monetary fine, loss of driving privileges, jail time, community service, etc. Judges in our courts can pass judgment and sentence those guilty to whatever extent they wish most of the time. Our courts tend to be very lenient in some cases and extremely harsh in others and there are often great discrepancies in the sentences given forth.
God’s laws carry only one penalty, no matter what the crime, how large or how small, and that penalty is eternal death! In our human way of thinking we may think that this is not fair. After all, how many of you would favor the death penalty for running a stop sign or for illegal parking?
The difference is that man judges according to actions while God judges according to the heart! Man can only judge by what you do, while God judges by the way you think and the way you believe. Man knows only what’s on the outside. God knows what makes us sin is the desire of the heart.
Luke 6:45, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh."
Jesus begins to deal with the heart of this Rich Young Ruler in much the same fashion that He deals with each of us every time we hear the Word of God brought forth.
The Holy Spirit bring conviction into the heart of those who stand before Him by reminding us of the Law of God and His multitude of commandments on how we are to live, act and believe. I have come under that conviction power as well as every one of you. Without that conviction for sin, we would never turn away from sin and turn back to Jesus to seek salvation just as this Rich Young Ruler was doing.
What about the commandments was Jesus question to him. Which one of the commandments was the young ruler’s reply. All of them matter. There is not one commandment that God has given that is not important for eternal life. You must keep them all. What part of “ALL” do you not understand?
Have you ever killed anyone? Perhaps not with a knife or a gun, but what about with words?
Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." How many of your former friends, brothers and sisters in the Lord have we killed with the tongue by saying things that hurt deeply?
Have you ever committed adultery or fornication? Perhaps you have never done such an abominable thing in the flesh but what about in the realm of the Spirit?
Jeremiah 3:8-9, "And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks."
Isreal was described as committing adultery by worshipping gods of stone and wood. Do we worship our gods of stucco and brick, metal and glass, gold and silver or stocks and bonds? Are they more important to us than worshipping the One True God?
Have you every been guilty of stealing? Perhaps you are among those few who have never cheated on their income tax, never stolen one minute of time from your employer to take care of personal business, never failed to pay a single debt you owe, never robbed a bank or never “borrowed” something that you never returned to its rightful owner.
Joshua 7:11, "Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff."
What is there in your life that should not be there? Are you still hiding secret sins in the closet of your heart as though you have stolen something that is cursed by God that will bring condemnation to your soul and hid it away where no one can see it but you and God? Have you stolen God’s tithes and offerings? Have you stolen the time and the life that Jesus has bought and paid for and not given it to God as your reasonable service?
I dare say that there is not one of us who is not guilty of stealing from God in our time and in our finances, therefore, we are all condemned and we all deserve eternal death.
Will every liar in the church please stand up! If you are still sitting down, then you can now stand up with the rest because you have just lied by saying that you aren’t a liar! No, maybe you don’t go around telling big black lies but how many times have we exaggerated the truth and made it a lie? How many times have not told the whole truth because a half-truth would keep us out of trouble?
Where did you go last night, the parent may ask the teenager. Oh, I went to get a burger, then we went to the movies, - but I’m not going to tell you that we sat in the car and made out for two hours, or that we passed by the night club where all our friends hang out for an hour or so because that would get me in trouble.
Why are you late for work, the boss may ask the worker. Oh, I had car trouble, or a flat tire, or the alarm failed to go off, or the traffic was terrible, or I was caught by a train – any excuse will do but I won’t tell you the real truth that I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep and woke up late.
I ask you again, which of us is not a liar?
Have you ever failed to honor your father and mother or to love your neighbor as yourself?
Our parents in the flesh are honored by our truthfulness and obedience as good children. We honor them by being model citizens and begin honest, upright, hard working and trustworthy. We have spawned several generations in our land who thinks that they have the right to everything without earning anything! They believe that having a car to go to High School is a right and not a privilege. They believe that they should be given money to spend, TV’s to watch, the most expensive clothes and the best of everything, but they won’t even take out the trash or clean up their room as a small token of their appreciation for what they have been given.
It’s not just the younger ones either because so many of those who are older think that they should be given everything too. Just give me my unemployment check and leave me alone. Don’t ask me to take a job that I think is below my dignity. Just give me my paycheck so I can go home. I don’t care what happens on this job as long I get my money. It’s my right to have everything I need or want given to me just because I’m alive and live in the land of the free.
I want you to know that nothing is ever free. With every blessing, with every provision for the needs of your life, there is a price that must be paid and work that must be done, either by you or someone else who was willing to pay the price for you. Nothing in this life is free, and nothing of eternal life is free either, because Jesus paid a terrible price for your eternal life.
How can we say that we love our neighbor as ourselves when we are so willing to take what is not ours or to covet that which we have not earned?
I know that there are many who need help. I know that many are struggling and doing all they can to earn their own way and just are not quite able to do so for many reasons. Those are the ones that we all desire to help in any way we can and we will do so with a willing heart.
I never liked the idea of some government agency doing the job that the church was designated to do in giving relief to those in need. Politics and give away programs just don’t match because there are too many open pockets and hands reaching out that shouldn’t be there and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it.
When a person hands out food stamps at the grocery line who I can see has every capability of earning their own living but are too lazy to do so, and they are getting free groceries that you and I cannot afford to buy for our own families for free, and then walking out and getting into new cars and going to better houses than we can afford, that’s when I join those who cry out for reform in our give away programs.
How can we say we love our neighbor as ourselves when such things are happening?
Then Jesus comes to the point of His entire line of questioning and gives the real answer for obtaining eternal life!
Eternal life can never be obtained through obedience to the law because none of us can fully obey it. The law that we break only condemns us to eternal death.
Eternal life can only be obtained by selling out to Jesus, taking up our cross of service to Him and then following Him into the paths of all righteousness.
If you are here this day thinking that your own good things, good works, obedience to the commandments of the Word of God and giving of your talents to the work of the Lord will somehow earn you eternal life, you are sadly mistaken.
It take’s more than that. We must surrender our whole heart and life to Jesus, give up everything for His service, be willing to leave everything in this world behind us and count it all as nothing to serve the Lord.
All of our ambitions, dreams, hopes and goals must come under His lordship. If we persist in going for what we want above what God wants, we will come to destruction.
Matthew 6:21 says, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Where is your treasure today? Is your treasure in the things of this life, or is your treasure in Heaven? We will all know where your treasure is some day but the Holy Spirit is revealing to you right now where your treasure is right now!
The Rich Young Ruler could only turn away saddened because he loved the things of this life and the pleasures of his riches, popularity, position and fame more than he loved eternal life. His treasure was in this life not in the one to come!
I hope and pray that your treasure is in Heaven. Wherever your treasure is, wherever the most important things in your life are, that’s where your soul will spend eternity!
Will you surrender all to Jesus, take up your cross and follow Him to obtain eternal life? Or, will you choose to not have eternal life! The choice is yours and your decision will stand forever, so choose carefully!
Let’s not have the attitude of the Rich Young Ruler, but let’s have the same attitude as the Apostle Paul did in Philippians 3:7-11, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
Let me read this to you again from a different translation!
These things that I once considered valuable, I now consider worthless for Christ. It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It’s because of him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ. This is the approval that comes from God and is based on faith that knows Christ. Faith knows the power that his coming back to life gives and what it means to share his suffering. In this way I’m becoming like him in his death, with the
confidence that I’ll come back to life from the dead.
