Mark 10:17-31
Notes
Transcript
Handout
It is interesting when you begin to think about how Christianity has moved over the years since Jesus ascended to heaven, compared to other religions within the world.
There is this Historian of world Christianity, who noted that wherever the other great world religions began, that is still their center today.
ISLAM started in Arabia, at Mecca: and the Middle East is still the center of Islam.
BUDDHISM started in the Far East, and that’s still the center of Buddhism.
HINDUISM: began in India and is still predominantly an Indian religion.
CHRISTIANITY is the exception. Christianity’s center is always moving. It’s always on a pilgrimage. The original center of Christianity was Jerusalem. But then Hellenistic Gentiles (considered unwashed barbarians, embraced Christianity with such forced that soon the center of Christianity moved to the Hellenistic Mediterranean world, to Alexandria, North Africa, and Rome.
It stayed there for a number of centuries. But then another set of unwashed barbarians, the northern Europeans - Franks, Anglo-Saxons and Celts - they took hold of the Christian faith. Soon after the center of Christianity moved again, to northern Europe, there and North America through colonization and immigration.
It has been here that the center of Christianity has rested for a thousand years. But recently it has started to shift again.
NOW it has started to shift to the southern hemisphere.
LATIN AMERICA, ASIA, AFRICA. Here Christianity has been growing up to ten times the population growth rate.
more than 50% of Christians now live in the southern hemisphere.
In the next 50 to 70 years, it is predicted to completely shift away from European countries and the United States. It will migrate, as it always has.
WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN?
If the other religion centers remain constant, why does the center of Christianity change over many years?
Well, what is the heart of the GOSPEL? The cross. And the cross is all about giving up power, pouring out resources, serving, and laying down you’re self centered identity (which is usually something we’ve built to cover up our blemishes), laying dow that identity and and following Jesus as Lord.
The historian hints that when Christianity is in a place of power and wealth for a long period of time, the radical message of sin and grace and the cross can become muted or even lost. Then Christianity starts to transmute into a nice, safe religion, one that’s for respectable people who try to be good. And eventually it becomes virtually dormant in those places and the center moves somewhere else.
Its why we see here in God’s Word, Jesus make such a crazy pronouncement about a camel and the eye of a needle.
Let’s read our scripture for today...
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.” 28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
There are many of Jesus’ sayings that we will often remind you of a hard layered candy. If you try to take it in too fast, you’re likely to be headed to the dentist very soon.
They are sayings that you must work through, allow it time to resinate. And this is one of them. You are rewarded layer after layer of sweetness.
The saying from the scripture is Mark 10:25
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.”
At first glance to this saying… for somebody who understands the riches of our country and of our culture in the West. You are immediately alarmed and are asking the same questions that the disciples asked.
“Then who can be saved?”
The median household income of $71,000 places a family in the top 4% of richest people in the world accordingly to Giving What We Can.
As an individual (and not including the whole household), you are in the top 1% of worldwide earners if you make more than $60,000 per year.
The median worldwide income is $2,800 per year according to Giving What We Can. That means half the household in America makes more than 25 times the median worldwide income.
We are a rich country. You are a rich people. Even if right here right now you don’t feel like you are.
There are many people and places who feel like there is something to wrong about being super wealthy.
They believe that you can’t have great wealth without taking advantage of people. This is the premise behind many political/economic philosophies. Having a lot of wealth to be seen as an injustice.
You might even think the disciples would look at this rich young ruler in that light.
BUT, to them and their culture. Having a lot of money and material prosperity meant you were living a good life and God was pleased by your life.
While poverty was seen as a sign that you were not living right and that God was not pleased by your life.
YOU CAN TELL THAT BY JESUS’S RESPONSE, THAT NONE OF THIS IS PARTICULARLY TRUE.
JESUS HAS NO IDEALOGICAL PROBLEM WITH CREATING WEALTH IN YOUR LIFE.
How does Jesus respond to the Rich Young Ruler?
He says, first of all. You said that’ i’m good to flatter me. (We’ll get to that in a sec…)
V. 19— Also, “do not murder, do not commit adultery, no not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.”
V. 20— The man says… “All these commandments I have kept since I was a boy!”
Basically saying, “no with all my wealth I have always acted in justice and kindness and fairness. I have never sinned in any of these ways.”
NOTICE: Jesus doesn’t give any argument here. Jesus accepts this saying.
Jesus then tells the man…
V. 21 — “You lack one things; go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; AND come, follow me.”
It is interesting in how Jesus counsels this man.
The man comes and ask this question in which every good Jew would have known the answer for. Their answer for the way to eternal life would have been “Obey the statutes of God and avoid all sin.”
The young man would have known this answer. WHY THEN WAS HE ASKING JESUS?
Jesus’s statement of “the one thing you lack” help us understand the man’s struggle.
The man is basically saying…
“I’ve done everything right:
I’ve been successful economically,
successful socially,
successful morally,
successful religiously.
I’ve heard that you are a GOOD Rabbi and i’m wondering if there is anything else that I’ve missed. Something i’m overlooking or lacking.”
What the man finds out is that of course he is lacking something.
Because anyone who is counting on what they are doing to get eternal life will find that, in spite of everything they’ve accomplished, there’s emptiness, an insecurity, and a doubt. Something is bound to be missing. How can anyone ever be good enough?
Here’s a man who has it ALL TOGETHER. Has degrees from the right places, is on a partnership track, has already made millions and is only 28 years old. YET to his surprise he finds himself seeking out gurus and rabbis and saying, “I’m still missing something.”
Jesus then replies with this sort of layered reply.
First with “Why did you call me good? No one is good except for God alone.”
Now, by this Jesus is not saying, “Why are you calling me good? I am not.”
He’s saying, “Why are you walking up to somebody you think is just a normal human rabbi and calling him good? There’s a flaw in your whole understanding of goodness and badness.”
That’s the hint.
Then Jesus delivers the blow with V. 21 that we read earlier.
JESUS says to him, I know you have filled your identity with all these good things. These good things that you have tried to hide your imperfections with.
You see, you have tried to turn this material wealth into a spiritual treasure, to deal with that inner sense of poverty.
You have tried to turn that physical beauty into spiritual beauty, to deal with that inner sense of deformity.
You have been trying to use your good thing to feel superior to others or to get them to do things we want them to do.
MOST OF ALL, we may point to our good things — our achievements and our attainments — and say God, “Look at what I’ve accomplished! You owe it to me to answer my prayers.”
SO JESUS IS SAYING THO THIS GUY… “You have put your faith and trust in wealth and accomplishments. But your effort in these things is alienating you from God.”
Right now your boss is God but God is not your Savior, and here’s how you can see it…
“I want you to imagine life without money. I want you to imagine all of it gone. No inheritance, no inventory, no servants, no mansions — all of that is gone. All you have is me. Can you live like that?”
“Sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
And scripture says that he walked away grieved.
Let me tell you why Tim Keller says that’s better than sorrowful or disheartened.
There’s a place where the same greek word is applied to Jesus. Matthew records in his Gospel that in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus started to sweat blood as he grieved in deep distress. Why? He knew He was about to experience the ultimate dislocation, the ultimate disorientation. He was about to lose the joy of His life, the core of His identity. He was going to lose His Father. Jesus was losing His spiritual center, His very self.
When Jesus called this young man to give up his money, the man started to grieve, because money was for him what the Father was for Jesus. It was the center or his identity. To lose his money would have been to lose himself — to lose what little sense he had of covering the stain that he knows is present within his heart.
It’s one thing to have God as a boss, an example, a mentor; but if you want God to be your Savior, you have to repent and replace what you’re already looking to as savior. Everybody’s got something. What is it for you?
Students… your eternal salvation or damnation, has nothing to do with the works of little you. It has everything to do with the works of the one and only Messiah. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He came to show you the greatest love in giving up His life for you to have a right relationship with the Father.
If you have never laid down what Jesus is asking you to lay down for Him in order to follow Him. What is it?