Sermon Tone Analysis

If you a details person you will have noticed that I made a mistake in the Church magazine as I had Mark 10:1-21 which would leave you part way through a passage.

It should be to verse 31 not 21.

Judith has read a rather long passage to us today so I will not be looking so closely at all the detail especially of the first 12 verses concerning divorce as I will God willing, be returning to it next year.

But what I will say is this: Divorce is so very easy today and it would appear that it was quite easy in Jesus’ day too.

When a man and a woman come together in marriage they become one.

Notice the man and woman bit, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman, nor a man and a woman and another woman.

And also note that only two genders are mentioned here; male and female.

God designed it that a man and a woman will live together until the death of one of them.

Jesus also gives us clearly two reasons as to why divorce and maybe remarriage may be permissible in this passage and in others and another reason I have also added that is normally accepted but may not be agreed to by all:

First, when one’s mate is guilty of sexual immorality and is unwilling to repent and live faithfully with the marriage partner, divorce and remarriage are permissible.

Second, when a believer is deserted by an unbelieving spouse, divorce and remarriage are again permitted.

And third, as an extension of the allowance for divorce and remarriage when deserted by an unbeliever, I personally believe that remariage is permissible for those who have been married and divorced before coming to Christ.

Otherwise being with another man or woman even when divorced is adultery.

And that puts a whole load of people right into this category that were not even aware of it.

It also raises pastoral questions about what they should now do especially if remarried.

But this is not for today’s sermon!

Jesus is making it clear what it should have been like not the present reality.

Jesus’ morality is absolutely perfect and puts the rest of us in the same sin bin.

13-16

Following on from marriage normally comes children and it so happens that in this passage we have parents bringing their children to Jesus.

In the Roman Empire children were a non-entity.

Sometimes they were looked after but oftentimes they were not.

More protection was offered by their fathers if the child born was male:

a papyrus letter written by a man named Hilarion to his expectant wife, Alis, dated June 17, 1 B.C., instructs her: “if it was a male child let it [live]; if it was female, cast it out.”

It took until the 4th Century to be outlawed in the Roman Empire though barely enforced.

And here we are in the 21st Century with all the debate about abortion especially in the States there is now talk of infanticide if a child has been born when the abortion method did not work.

But in the Hebrew culture then as now children were considered a blessing and a gift from God.

In this passage we have parents with their wonderful quiet and peaceful children standing in line to see Jesus.

Yeah, right!

The noise would have disturbed everything and the disciples were thinking to protect Jesus from this cacophony except they had completely misjudged the situation.

Spending nearly three years with Jesus had not taught them His attitude about children and Jesus was angry not with the children and their parents but with the disciples.

Jesus takes them up in his arms and embraces them and children who know they are loved love in return.

He treated the children as people.

Children can come to Christ at any age and we should not prevent them.

When we look at the age of when people became Christians the vast majority did so by their teenage years - well over 80%.

The older we become the harder our hearts are against the gospel and as we go up the age brackets the fewer become Christians.

One estimate is that at 35 years old one in 50,000 will become Christians, at 55, one in 300,000 and at 75 one in 700,000.

Children are very important when it comes to preaching the Gospel.

D. L. Moody once returned from a meeting and reported two and a half conversions.

“Two adults and a child, I suppose?” asked his host.

“No,” said Moody, “two children and an adult.

The children gave their whole lives.

The adult had only half of his left to give.”

When Jesus says we are to come like little children what does Jesus have in mind?

Some have suggested their innocence or their simple belief.

This cannot be for this is not true of all children.

So, what is true of every child?

Their complete and utter dependence upon others for they are all helpless.

This is the lesson we all have to learn if we would enter the Kingdom of God: complete and utter dependence upon God:

Nothing in my hand I bring,

Simply to Thy cross I cling;

Naked, come to Thee for dress:

Helpless, look to Thee for grace.

17-31

If we are to come to the Kingdom of God with such dependence then we are about to find someone who is the complete opposite.

Here was a self-made man.

He was young, rich and powerful.

He as an aggressive, self-assured man who went after what he wanted.

Plainly, from early in his life he was one who ran towards his goals, a real go-getter or in today’s parlance ‘proactive’.

What is interesting about this man was that though he already achieved all that he had set his mind on to do and get there was something in him that said that something was missing, what some have termed as a God-shaped hole.

It was what Solomon said in Ecc 3:11, God has put eternity in their hearts.

There was a longing for spiritual satisfaction that was alluding him and the assurance of eternal life.

He had heard about Jesus and that he had been teaching about eternal life and he thought that this was something else he could run towards and achieve.

Don’t get me wrong he is absolutely genuine about his goal and knew that he had not quite made it for some reason and thought Jesus would know for sure the answer he needed so that he could get right on and do whatever was needed.

And so he asks the question that resonated with those around and ever since:

Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

This reminds me of C.S.Lewis who said in trying to prevent people from saying:

I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.

That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

Why do you call me good?

There is none good except God.

Do you not know what you are saying?

By calling me good you are calling me God?

He was trying to elevate the man’s thinking that Jesus IS God.

No one else is actually good.

We are born in sin.

And

Then the crux of his question, what is it that I need to do is also a fallacy.

He assumes that to be good is something that can be achieved and that Jesus has just knocked that on the head for only God is good.

It is not about something he can do by effort.

Eternal life cannot be earned.

The young man thought it was something he had to do, what one thing must I do to get to Heaven.

And that’s a problem.

Because it is not about what we must do but it is about a change of heart and of trust in Jesus.

So when Jesus talked of the commands and listed several of them the man’s self-assurance abounded.

Yes, I’ve done these.

Do I now have eternal life?

Jesus loved this man, locked eyes with him and spoke the most loving words this man would ever hear, the key to eternal life, words of mercy.

Boom!

The man’s expectant face dropped to sheer despondency.

An uncompromising challenge which took him completely unawares.

And it was one of the commands that Jesus did not mention was one is relation to God Himself:

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

He had made an idol of his possessions.

If you would be perfect, mature and not lacking he said to the young rich ruler.

But at the very beginning Jesus said that there is only one who is good.

This means that even if he had been willing there would still have been something that held onto imperfection.

Not only was he to give all that he had to the poor he was then to follow Jesus by taking up his cross.