back to index2018-09-02 The Danger of Heartfelt Religiosity
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We're going to be looking in the book of Mark, chapter 10, verse 17. 00:00:20.720 |
Mark 10, verse 17, and we'll read till verse 22. 00:00:29.040 |
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him and asked 00:00:32.240 |
him, "Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 00:00:37.000 |
And Jesus said to me, "Why do you call me good? 00:00:51.240 |
And he said to him, "Teacher, I've kept all these things from my youth up." 00:00:55.800 |
Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, "One thing you lack. 00:01:00.040 |
Go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. 00:01:05.940 |
But at these words, he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned 00:01:17.120 |
Dear God, as we look into your word today, we marvel at it because we know this is your 00:01:21.720 |
Father, thank you for the privilege that we have. 00:01:33.880 |
And Father, would this be something that lasts as the Holy Spirit carries it into the depths 00:01:42.880 |
Well the story of the rich young ruler is a common one, and it has to do with works 00:01:52.980 |
So if you've ever heard this story, which likelihood of you having heard it is pretty 00:02:01.000 |
It's about following Jesus as his disciple, which is actually synonymous as to what it 00:02:10.720 |
And so to follow Christ, it requires us not to work out our salvation in a way where we 00:02:16.920 |
would be working, doing, performing to receive it, but instead that our salvation is bought 00:02:24.720 |
by the blood of Christ and given to us freely through the work of Jesus. 00:02:31.360 |
And most of us know this, but today what I'm hoping to take a look at this passage and 00:02:34.560 |
see is how this kind of living, the kind of living that this rich young ruler lived, might 00:02:41.080 |
be closer to even us as Christians, might be prone to follow. 00:02:47.880 |
It threatens our ability to live following Jesus on a day-to-day basis, and it also threatens 00:02:54.240 |
the joy that we might have in following him as well. 00:02:58.600 |
So if you look down at the passage in verse 17 through 22, it kind of pinballs back and 00:03:02.800 |
forth from here's the rich young ruler, then Jesus, then rich young ruler, then Jesus, 00:03:08.080 |
So in verse 17, if you look there, it says that this man runs up to him and he says this, 00:03:12.840 |
"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 00:03:18.320 |
So he's asking this deep, profound question, "How can I get salvation?" 00:03:24.720 |
And then in verse 18, Jesus responds to that, he says, "Why do you call me good?" 00:03:31.640 |
Jesus tends to do this every once in a while. 00:03:34.000 |
Someone will come up with this, I mean, we would say this was a great question, right? 00:03:42.440 |
And we just kind of do a double-take on Jesus. 00:03:45.880 |
Like, why does he focus on this title that this man has given to him? 00:03:49.760 |
And he says, "No one is good except God alone." 00:03:52.120 |
And then Jesus says, "You know the commandments, do not murder." 00:03:54.360 |
And he continues to go and he lists out six different commandments. 00:03:58.740 |
And then this man says, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up." 00:04:03.760 |
And then verse 21, it says that Jesus looks at him, that he loves him. 00:04:12.180 |
And he says to him, "Well, you're lacking one thing. 00:04:17.060 |
Great, you've upheld the law, but you lack one thing. 00:04:21.340 |
Go and sell everything that you have and then come and follow me." 00:04:26.300 |
At those words, that's when the man walks away with his head hung because he was unwilling 00:04:35.780 |
And after the two points, we're going to hit an application. 00:04:40.540 |
First, good intentions and heartfelt fervor are not enough to truly follow Christ. 00:04:46.660 |
Good intentions and heartfelt fervor are not enough to truly follow Christ. 00:04:52.740 |
We could have a deep desire of religious things and even the things of God, but that's not 00:04:59.820 |
Now, it says in verse 17 that Jesus was setting out on a journey. 00:05:04.020 |
And this journey that is happening here is a very specific one. 00:05:07.640 |
This is the journey to the cross, which is going to be found in chapter 11 of Mark. 00:05:12.260 |
Jesus has been doing all this ministry in the first 11 chapters of Mark. 00:05:17.180 |
And in the book of Mark, if you're familiar with it, the word that comes up a lot is the 00:05:22.280 |
And so it says immediately Jesus did this, and he got up and he did this, and he woke 00:05:26.580 |
And it says that he's just kind of going all over the place. 00:05:28.700 |
And it's a very fast-paced, action-packed gospel. 00:05:33.520 |
And so with that, if we kind of think about what happens beyond chapter 11 is it kind 00:05:40.420 |
Jesus all of a sudden finds himself in Jerusalem, and then the last days play out very, very 00:05:46.780 |
And so in chapter 10, verse 17, it says he's setting out on a journey, specifically talking 00:05:51.220 |
about that journey to Jerusalem, to the cross, where he'll complete what he came to the earth 00:05:58.180 |
And this is where we find this encounter with the rich young ruler. 00:06:03.380 |
Now this account in Mark, if you're wondering, why is he called the rich young ruler? 00:06:07.180 |
That should be a question as you kind of read through this. 00:06:09.260 |
This says something, it says nothing about him being young, and it says nothing about 00:06:17.140 |
But you'll see it in the account of Matthew that he is considered a young man, and he's 00:06:33.580 |
Now what's interesting about Luke's account is that as a ruler, it's strange to find a 00:06:44.360 |
And the reason why that's interesting is because it's not a position easily given to a young 00:06:50.180 |
It'd be given to older, wiser, seasoned people, people who have been kind of approved by the 00:07:01.560 |
He probably held the esteem of all these rulers, of the people that were above him. 00:07:05.920 |
And just because he was rich, it doesn't mean that he could just buy this position. 00:07:12.080 |
This was a man held in high regard by society for his religious affections. 00:07:19.160 |
And now as Jesus is preparing for his final journey to the cross, this guy comes running 00:07:23.240 |
up to him, and what we would think initially is that this is a perfect candidate for the 00:07:33.360 |
This is a man who has good intentions, and we know this by some clues in Scripture. 00:07:38.720 |
In verse 17, it says that this man ran up to Jesus. 00:07:47.360 |
Because respectable, honorable, self-respecting, noble men didn't run during times like this. 00:07:54.640 |
If you've ever heard of the parable of the prodigal son, you're going to see that the 00:07:58.360 |
father, upon seeing his prodigal son return from a distance, he hikes up his robes, and 00:08:03.400 |
then he runs through the town where everyone can see him. 00:08:07.360 |
Communities are probably listening to this and gasping. 00:08:21.480 |
Next it says not only that this man ran up to him, but that he knelt before him. 00:08:38.480 |
This isn't something that should happen, but in a culture like this, this is seen then 00:08:43.300 |
as a very radical, drastic action by this rich young man. 00:08:50.800 |
Continuing in verse 17, it says that he runs up, he kneels, and then he asks. 00:08:57.720 |
By the way, whenever you see a bunch of verbs like this kind of describing an encounter, 00:09:01.760 |
you should kind of perk your attention up because you want to see why is he, especially 00:09:05.400 |
in a book like Mark where everything is so fast, very deliberate about these things. 00:09:19.320 |
This is the student that every teacher loves. 00:09:21.560 |
If you've ever been a small group leader, this is like your favorite small group kid. 00:09:26.960 |
He asks great questions, profound questions even, deep thinker, wants the right things. 00:09:36.400 |
It also says in verse 17 that this man addresses Jesus as good teacher. 00:09:42.040 |
That's another sign that he's ready to learn, that he's ready to give his attention to Jesus. 00:09:48.400 |
Fifthly, in verse 17, it says that he asks this question, "What must I do to inherit 00:09:58.440 |
You would think that this young man is well on his way to eternal life already, right? 00:10:04.500 |
You would think that he's done enough, but he understands something more and he wants 00:10:13.560 |
So he asks that question, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" 00:10:18.200 |
Shouldn't he be someone that you go to to ask that question? 00:10:23.420 |
And then in verse 20, after Jesus answers him and says, "Hey, here are six commandments. 00:10:31.860 |
That's what you must do to inherit eternal life." 00:10:34.020 |
It says that he responds in this manner, "I have kept all these things from my youth." 00:10:38.180 |
Now at first glance, that might make you feel like, "Man, that's kind of hypocritical. 00:10:45.380 |
And there is hypocrisy and arrogance here, but it's not overt. 00:10:52.500 |
This is actually something that he believes he's done. 00:10:55.980 |
He's genuine in his understanding of like, "I've really kept to this law." 00:11:05.820 |
How else do we know that this man was genuine in heart? 00:11:09.060 |
Well, in verse 21, this is probably the best evidence of it. 00:11:13.380 |
In verse 21, it says, "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him," and 00:11:20.660 |
Jesus wouldn't look upon blatant hypocrisy with this kind of compassion and love. 00:11:26.980 |
And we know that in Matthew chapter 23, if you know that chapter. 00:11:29.500 |
I have a passage for you, but we're going to skip it for time sake. 00:11:33.940 |
And these Pharisees, Jesus encounters them and says, "Woe is you. 00:11:42.660 |
You teach, but you do not receive what you teach. 00:11:46.100 |
You do not live what you're telling all these people to do. 00:11:58.140 |
Jesus looks at him, looks at him, and he loves him. 00:12:04.380 |
There's a level of compassion that Jesus has upon this man because this is a genuine man 00:12:12.740 |
This man was not in blatant hypocrisy trying to puff himself up. 00:12:18.500 |
Unfortunately this is the only time in Mark where it says that Jesus looks at someone 00:12:26.560 |
All appearances indicate that this is a sincere man, that he really wants to get into the 00:12:32.100 |
And if I were to ask you that question today, like who wants to go to heaven after they 00:12:40.580 |
Or if we were to ask ourselves that question right now, like this is a real question for 00:12:48.900 |
We can be genuine at heart in desire, in a depth of wanting what this question is asking, 00:12:58.300 |
and yet it's not enough to truly follow Jesus. 00:13:02.860 |
It's scary because we've grown so accustomed to knowing what religious leaders look like, 00:13:12.660 |
This is scary for us because this man is a religious leader who's genuine and still isn't 00:13:28.580 |
We can be genuine in desire, but we might still fall into this category of good intentions 00:13:35.800 |
and heartfelt fervor that might not lead us to eternal life. 00:13:48.260 |
Something about the way he was living was off. 00:13:50.980 |
It's tough to initially put a finger on it, but the rest of the passage goes on to show 00:13:57.260 |
He says to the commandments, "I've kept all these." 00:14:03.480 |
There was this overshadowing cloud of sin and ugliness and selfishness that not only 00:14:07.420 |
threatened his standing as a person trying to follow God, but his response shows that 00:14:14.380 |
it completely made all the good he was trying to do obsolete. 00:14:25.060 |
We might be thinking we're glorifying God, but that doesn't mean God will accept that. 00:14:32.660 |
God doesn't overlook the sinful parts and accept the service part. 00:14:35.660 |
He doesn't just divide us up and say, "Oh, well, that's okay. 00:14:44.380 |
If the heart isn't in the right place, God is not pleased by our service. 00:14:50.940 |
We can actually today do service, live for God in the midst of sinful living. 00:15:00.660 |
If you're to think about a marriage, if a husband was cheating on a wife, he was committing 00:15:06.860 |
adultery, and yet this husband is kind of a nice man. 00:15:16.100 |
He regularly buys his wife flowers and chocolates, cooks her her favorite meals, takes out the 00:15:21.100 |
trash, does the dishes, does everything like that, takes her on heartfelt dates, goes into 00:15:27.180 |
deep conversations, "How was your day?" and really starts talking through like, "Oh, man, 00:15:33.380 |
Well, in light of the cheating, it won't matter. 00:15:40.420 |
All of these actions that he's doing, it's all tainted. 00:15:45.220 |
Actually, those acts of service, if you think about it, takes on kind of a disgusting tinge, 00:15:56.660 |
We think that we can keep sinning and keep living in darkness and still serve God and 00:16:02.380 |
We think that with what we're able to, we will give to God. 00:16:05.380 |
And with our surplus, we will serve Him, but not wholeheartedly, not with everything that 00:16:14.060 |
So with that, we place conditions on our following of Jesus. 00:16:17.060 |
And there are places we say, "Don't touch this part of my life. 00:16:23.460 |
I've given you 95%, but this five, I need it." 00:16:33.700 |
And it seems like such a small part of our heart. 00:16:38.900 |
Largely, we are living in accordance to what we believe. 00:16:45.580 |
But if we become people who divide up our heart and say, like, with the way we live, 00:16:53.700 |
have it all, but not this, that is not what a Christian does or says. 00:16:59.280 |
And in that, it's possible that all our service gets tainted. 00:17:03.660 |
Because we're not actually wholeheartedly serving God. 00:17:06.780 |
We've relegated Him to portions in our lives. 00:17:11.220 |
And that in and of itself begins the great danger of Christianity that's half-hearted. 00:17:16.100 |
This is what you would call a deluded person. 00:17:24.820 |
He is something that we just kind of staple onto the end of it, instead of becoming the 00:17:31.340 |
Because as soon as He starts to infringe on the things that really matter, we back up 00:17:46.460 |
We could have a true desire for the things of God, for church things, for service things. 00:17:54.260 |
But even true desire can be devoid of submission to Christ. 00:17:59.500 |
Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ. 00:18:00.980 |
There is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." 00:18:15.420 |
Now if we have a knee-jerk reaction of rebellion to that understanding of what it is to be 00:18:19.060 |
a Christian, that I have been crucified with Christ, that I no longer live. 00:18:43.660 |
We say, "I can't even keep a little bit of my time. 00:18:49.140 |
I can't keep a little bit of my resources, a little bit of my life for myself." 00:18:54.820 |
Because the call to Christian living in Scripture seems to scream against that concept. 00:19:08.140 |
We can talk about enjoying vacations and food and entertainment and partaking in simple 00:19:18.820 |
But the problem with that is that is not the starting point. 00:19:30.980 |
I have been crucified with Christ and these things are rubbish to me. 00:19:38.100 |
But day to day, knee-jerk reaction, rebellion. 00:19:44.780 |
And until we get that straight in our lives, we cannot move on to how we might enjoy those 00:19:50.900 |
God is not honored in a life when hearts are divided. 00:19:57.660 |
He wants a heart that cannot be categorized, structured, and divided. 00:20:15.420 |
And as soon as we cut it up and say, "I'm serving here and here and here and here," 00:20:21.780 |
even if that's a majority of our time, that is not what a true Christian looks like. 00:20:25.700 |
There are lots of examples of scripture about God not wanting just sacrifices, just service. 00:20:31.660 |
In Psalms 51, verse 16, it says, "For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would 00:20:39.260 |
You know, if it was just give sacrifices, it would be so easy to follow God, right? 00:20:46.400 |
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you 00:20:51.020 |
It says in Hosea 6, "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge 00:20:57.620 |
And then Romans 14, 23, it says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin." 00:21:06.460 |
And so in this story, if you look down at verse 17 again, there's one word in verse 00:21:12.940 |
17 that sends off alarms in our head, and that word is good. 00:21:26.740 |
This wasn't a word very easily ascribed to people. 00:21:30.380 |
This was a word usually reserved and ascribed to God. 00:21:36.220 |
That explains why Jesus responds in the way he does in verse 18, if you look there. 00:21:46.060 |
This rich young ruler was flippantly using this word. 00:21:50.420 |
He isn't saying like, "No, no, no, I'm not good. 00:21:55.840 |
He is saying, "Your understanding of good is all wrong." 00:22:01.860 |
This man isn't coming to Jesus thinking that Jesus is God. 00:22:10.940 |
How can you say to a man in that context, "Good teacher," only if your understanding 00:22:19.000 |
In Romans 3, verse 10 through 12, it says, "There is none righteous, not even one. 00:22:33.500 |
Now this is a New Testament passage and you're thinking this comes later after the rich young 00:22:37.540 |
You're thinking this comes from Psalm chapter 14, where it says, "The fool has said in his 00:22:47.580 |
The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who 00:22:55.300 |
There is no one who does good, not even one." 00:22:59.500 |
How could this man come up to Jesus and say, "Good teacher," only if his understanding 00:23:04.900 |
In Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9, it says, "The heart is deceitful more than all else." 00:23:15.420 |
And Isaiah 64, 6, talking about the works that we might present. 00:23:19.340 |
"For all of us have become like one who is unclean and all our righteous deeds are like 00:23:24.060 |
And all of us wither like a leaf and our iniquities like the wind take us away. 00:23:35.340 |
I have a daughter, she's three and a half years old. 00:23:42.620 |
When she obeys, sometimes I am tempted to say something and it slips out. 00:23:53.420 |
Or when I'm leaving for work in the morning, what might I say? 00:24:04.940 |
Or at the end of the day, can have a conversation. 00:24:06.940 |
Because you can be like, "Man, Addy was so good today." 00:24:21.860 |
Let's take this three and a half year old girl. 00:24:39.100 |
If you're a parent and you say that, I have to remind myself, "That is a cruel thing to 00:24:49.100 |
But might it not show our misunderstanding of what good actually is? 00:24:55.780 |
Even doing good gets all mixed up with being a good person. 00:25:03.540 |
And so I'm just as guilty as having this flippant attitude of good. 00:25:14.620 |
But he still felt an improper understanding of it. 00:25:17.780 |
And it was affecting the most important question in the world to him, and that is how to receive 00:25:23.300 |
And this is something we can easily fall into. 00:25:31.420 |
It's really easy to know that we're not good, right? 00:25:34.440 |
We can know that we're desperately in need of God's grace and his mercy in our lives 00:25:49.740 |
And in that, work salvation doesn't just creep in. 00:25:51.320 |
It becomes the false foundation upon which we build our faith. 00:25:57.220 |
We think I can actually be good by my works, apart from God. 00:26:02.020 |
And we come back to this divided life, this divided heart again, because we have to be 00:26:06.660 |
able to separate our hearts if we think that we can do it. 00:26:10.420 |
Because we think in certain portions we can serve God. 00:26:16.540 |
We all kind of get ready to come to church, right? 00:26:20.460 |
At least we wash our faces and brush our teeth and put on clothes that maybe you wouldn't 00:26:31.260 |
I took a walk around this morning, and it was nice. 00:26:39.700 |
They're like, "Oh, do you want anything from cafe?" 00:26:45.660 |
And then I come down, and then two people are handing me bulletins like, "Good morning!" 00:27:02.180 |
And so we divide it up, and we say, like, in certain places, this is our service of 00:27:07.140 |
And even if that's a majority of our lives, if there are portions in our heart that we've 00:27:09.540 |
divided and said, "No," we begin to dissect and categorize things in our lives. 00:27:23.100 |
We have a place for the things that we really struggle with. 00:27:30.740 |
But we come to church, and we still look like a shining example of a Christian. 00:27:43.180 |
It's just those other places in our lives that are filled with sin. 00:27:48.460 |
And so as we divide up our heart, we struggle with laziness, but we don't really feel bad 00:27:55.060 |
We struggle with arrogance and ego, but it doesn't break our hearts. 00:28:10.580 |
So it becomes something accepted in our lives because we've gotten so good at this understanding 00:28:16.900 |
of thinking, "There's a way for me to be good." 00:28:23.900 |
But should we not, if this is all sin, despise all of it? 00:28:32.740 |
How could sin possibly become acceptable to us in our lives? 00:28:39.940 |
Should not every sinful thought and intention and encounter in our hearts cause us to desperately, 00:28:47.980 |
not just, "God, I need you," but in desperation and urgency, when we sense sin, that the Holy 00:28:56.900 |
Spirit would cause our hearts to see need for God. 00:29:09.620 |
But we don't function in that way because we think we're pretty good. 00:29:16.500 |
And so we're good people who kind of sort of struggle with sin. 00:29:19.060 |
And we relegate our sin struggles with one of the pet sins we have in our lives, and 00:29:22.220 |
we look at that one sin and we say, "If I just kick that sin, man, I'm flying high. 00:29:27.700 |
If I just get that one, I know I'm going to look like what I want to look like as a Christian." 00:29:31.980 |
And our standard is not God who says, "Be perfect as I am perfect. 00:29:43.700 |
And further broken down, our standard is each other. 00:29:48.060 |
Like for those of us who have been at church for a longer time, we think we know more, 00:29:53.380 |
And so we actually feel pretty good as people, generally. 00:30:01.260 |
We may say with our words what we know, "I'm not good. 00:30:05.260 |
But the whisper, whisper part of our hearts, it says, "But I'm not really that, but I'm 00:30:22.300 |
And we look at like this home group leader, "I'm not there." 00:30:27.900 |
There are lots of people that we might look up to, a small group leader, like an elder, 00:30:35.980 |
And just like this rich young ruler came before Jesus, that's how we start to kind of think 00:30:47.660 |
And so this man, this rich young ruler has come before Jesus with that kind of attitude. 00:31:01.660 |
Wasn't it the Apostle Paul himself toward the latter years of his life who said, "I 00:31:07.140 |
Not that this became his sole focus, but that it became a fodder to an increasing need and 00:31:11.500 |
urgency for the gospel in his own life till the day he dies. 00:31:20.020 |
Our sin should cause us to understand that there is nothing good in me. 00:31:32.900 |
And we come and we try to manipulate our hearts on Sunday mornings to feel some kind of guilt 00:31:41.100 |
Or we look at it improperly and just are weighed down with guilt and try to figure out, "What 00:31:50.180 |
This man comes to Jesus and throws around that word "good teacher" and Jesus says, "You 00:31:56.900 |
And this is the very place where you subtly and quietly declare that God isn't really 00:32:05.260 |
A religion that works for it rather than depending on the heart of the gospel message, which 00:32:20.660 |
And for us today, then we might need to ask the question, "Am I really saved? 00:32:24.220 |
Have I thrust myself onto the grace and mercy of God?" 00:32:26.460 |
And for those of us who are already believers, we might need to ask, "Is the same gospel 00:32:30.540 |
that we were justified into the same gospel that continues to save us in sanctification 00:32:37.220 |
This rich young ruler thought he knew what it meant to be good and that it pretty much 00:32:44.140 |
I think he just needed advice on how to become a better person. 00:32:53.660 |
And so in verse 19, if you look there, Jesus brings out these six commandments. 00:33:05.380 |
And so how that works is he goes into number six, seven, eight, nine, and then he says 00:33:13.260 |
Don't defraud is probably to a rich young man like this guy, coveting was probably like, 00:33:19.340 |
he probably wouldn't have gotten hit by that. 00:33:22.940 |
It's an application of what coveting might do. 00:33:24.900 |
And then it goes back to commandment number five. 00:33:36.300 |
And when Jesus says this, this man responds by saying, "I've kept them all." 00:33:46.420 |
It says, "You have heard that the ancients were told, 'You shall not commit murder, and 00:33:50.500 |
whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.' 00:33:52.860 |
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the 00:33:58.340 |
In verse 27, it says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' 00:34:02.540 |
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed 00:34:09.500 |
See, being religious is a danger to true Christianity. 00:34:14.540 |
They thought they could follow a set of rules, that this was religion. 00:34:19.320 |
And we might look at this and say, "I know this. 00:34:30.360 |
How often do we, when asked by someone how we're doing spiritually, think about how well 00:34:38.980 |
I haven't been, you know, I haven't been like cheating or, uh, I, I, you know." 00:34:49.420 |
How many of us, when we're asked how we're doing spiritually, think about, "Well, how 00:34:56.740 |
Our starting point just goes right to the actions. 00:35:03.420 |
You might say this is a story about people who call themselves Christians but don't really 00:35:09.220 |
As true Christ followers, what it shows is that this is, this is the inclination of a 00:35:18.420 |
Do we call ourselves Christians but in our own way don't really follow after Jesus? 00:35:24.340 |
Have we been blindfolded by heartfelt, desired religiosity? 00:35:32.660 |
Because just because we genuinely desire something, just because we're heartfelt in our service, 00:35:39.580 |
and we kind of want the things of God, and we don't want to do the things that God is, 00:35:44.740 |
like when we think about, like, let's say you lied this week, right? 00:35:47.800 |
We think about lying like, "Oh, I really don't want to lie." 00:35:49.940 |
You could be heartfelt in that, even be guilty in that, think like, "I don't want to be like 00:36:00.860 |
If we were to set on a gradient scale how a nominal Christian lived versus how a true 00:36:04.100 |
believer is to live, maybe here at Berean we look a little bit more biblical. 00:36:12.740 |
But in our hearts, are we actually any different? 00:36:17.380 |
This man was genuine and heartfelt, but he was puffed up in pride, arrogance, and self-centeredness. 00:36:35.540 |
Might we look like a shadow of the rich young ruler? 00:36:42.220 |
If we want to answer that question, this is our second and final point for today. 00:36:46.960 |
The command that Jesus gives next to the rich young ruler will help us to identify that. 00:36:56.020 |
Jesus responds and says, "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, 00:37:00.480 |
'One thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure 00:37:06.720 |
It says that Jesus looks past all the superficial stuff. 00:37:09.360 |
It says he looks, he loves, and then he answers. 00:37:15.360 |
This rich young ruler, if he walked through the back of our doors, this would be the guy 00:37:19.320 |
who were like, "Hey, join a service team immediately. 00:37:23.400 |
We want you to start discipling people really soon." 00:37:25.440 |
This is the type of person you're tempted to do that with. 00:37:38.680 |
Jesus' command to this person when he asked, "What must I do to be saved?" 00:37:47.000 |
You would expect something different from Jesus, right? 00:37:49.800 |
You would expect if someone comes up to Jesus and says, "What must I do to be saved?" 00:37:56.040 |
That's where the Philippian jailer comes and says, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 00:37:59.520 |
They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." 00:38:06.160 |
Because this is a man who has grown accustomed to doing and to performing. 00:38:12.640 |
So what Jesus does is almost like, man, it's like the word "savage" would kind of get to 00:38:26.520 |
Jesus is playing his game and he asks him to do something that is going to prove that 00:38:30.680 |
he can't do this without what is actually needed. 00:38:37.440 |
It's a complete and utter dependence and desperation and urgency and a love and a need for God. 00:38:42.320 |
The rich young ruler, he answers this question and shows everything that's needed to know 00:38:51.240 |
Beyond all this man's accolades, beyond all his credentials, beyond how long he's been 00:38:55.160 |
in the synagogue, beyond his good deeds and his good works and his service, Jesus is seeing 00:39:01.520 |
right through all the money that he's given to the poor. 00:39:04.400 |
He's looking right through all the words that he's used as a teacher to teach people in 00:39:12.920 |
And Jesus just simply says in verse 21, "Go and sell everything that you have and you'll 00:39:19.880 |
Now why does Jesus choose those six commandments? 00:39:28.000 |
Well, we know that the last six of the Ten Commandments have to do with relationship 00:39:33.280 |
And the first four of the commandments have to do with relationship with us and God. 00:39:37.520 |
And then in Matthew 22, verse 37 through 40, we understand that all the commandments have 00:39:43.480 |
everything to do about loving God and others. 00:39:54.000 |
Here's this man who comes up and says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" 00:39:59.640 |
And the man sits there and goes, "Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo," checks them all off. 00:40:12.740 |
Those things are all going to be a fruit, a result, an indicator of something that exists 00:40:22.960 |
But these Ten Commandments are built to show us something. 00:40:28.800 |
First is to show us that everything is about love. 00:40:31.640 |
That this relationship that God is wanting to have with people isn't so much, "Do what 00:40:38.840 |
And secondly, these commands are meant to show, "Doo, doo, we can't do it. 00:40:57.600 |
You can try to do things to manipulate your heart to love people. 00:41:02.680 |
With me and Keziah, if our anniversary is coming up, I could put it on my calendar a 00:41:06.200 |
week before and then I could say, "Oh, I better get something ready, like a date night 00:41:14.200 |
So I could do those kinds of actions, but devoid of love for Keziah. 00:41:19.360 |
We could try to force ourselves to love people. 00:41:26.600 |
And then, when I was a college student, what I began to do was, "Okay, I have to love 00:41:31.880 |
my parents, but this is really hard to love my parents sometimes. 00:41:34.820 |
And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to think about all the things that she's 00:41:37.680 |
done for me that was so nice over the years and how sacrificial she was of me." 00:41:43.900 |
And I think about it, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, my mom." 00:41:48.400 |
And so we manipulate ourselves to try to love people, but we cannot in our own souls love 00:41:54.080 |
people or love God without the transforming love of God coming into our souls and wrecking 00:42:04.780 |
This rich young ruler thought he was doing the things, but he didn't understand. 00:42:13.940 |
This rich young ruler had not and cannot keep these commandments that he thought he had 00:42:27.960 |
And that's why in verse 22 it says that he "hangs his head and he walks away saddened." 00:42:33.920 |
That word is actually, it's a cloud that comes above. 00:42:43.720 |
And Jesus says to this rich young ruler, "One thing you lack." 00:42:47.600 |
To a man who has never lacked anything, he says, "One thing you lack." 00:42:57.280 |
Jesus omitted the first four commandments, right, in his list to show that this man does 00:43:07.800 |
If he did, the answer to what Jesus says next, "Go and sell all that you have," we know what 00:43:28.720 |
Before becoming true believers and Christ followers, all Christians make this claim. 00:43:32.600 |
That we have forsaken the world because we desperately need Jesus. 00:43:39.200 |
That we don't want the things of the world because we love Christ. 00:43:44.520 |
That is every Christian's mantra and claim to what we believe. 00:43:51.360 |
The idea is that we aren't to look at what we're sacrificing. 00:43:56.600 |
His whole world darkens because he sees the things that he's being asked to sacrifice. 00:44:01.600 |
Because as soon as we start looking at the things that we're asked to sacrifice, that 00:44:14.920 |
The idea is that we are to look at the beauty of the one we're following. 00:44:20.600 |
It's that our desire is to drop everything when we see something of such great, infinite 00:44:33.520 |
What does it look like to give up everything then? 00:44:35.200 |
Because this story can be discouraging to us. 00:44:37.880 |
Because then aren't we supposed to give up everything? 00:44:48.400 |
Rather than look at like, "Oh man, Jesus, I would follow him for anything." 00:44:52.400 |
Rather that being our knee jerk, our knee jerk becomes what? 00:45:09.360 |
This passage doesn't literally mean sell everything. 00:45:19.760 |
It's that at any moment in time when we evaluate our hearts, we would gladly and willingly 00:45:33.800 |
We evaluate our hearts and we dig and we dig and we dig and we look in there and we look 00:45:37.780 |
up at Christ again and we say, "Yes, today I give it all up to follow you because I love 00:45:48.540 |
So much so that it doesn't even feel like a sacrifice. 00:46:00.760 |
All our aspirations, all our hopes, all our dreams, anything that we claim as our own, 00:46:05.440 |
we would bend our knee and say, "Lord Jesus, take it all. 00:46:10.300 |
You are my life and I will follow you to the cross. 00:46:12.880 |
The Father's kingdom, that's why I want to come. 00:46:18.480 |
I no longer function as a citizen of this world. 00:46:20.320 |
These things you're asking me to let go of, these are things of the world. 00:46:29.760 |
And so to that question, again, if we say you're meeting up with someone this week and 00:46:34.240 |
you ask that question to each other, "Hey, how are you doing spiritually?" 00:46:36.720 |
I've been very encouraged by the way here at Berean. 00:46:39.040 |
I've been seeing a lot of people meeting up and going deep into these talks. 00:46:43.000 |
A lot of them starting with that very question, "How are you doing spiritually?" 00:46:47.240 |
But to that question, our minds should not drift to how little we're sinning, how well 00:46:53.520 |
we're keeping our disciplines, that we're gauging in upon these different factors and 00:47:00.800 |
Maybe like, "Oh, I'm reading this really interesting book. 00:47:07.040 |
It's not about the amount of tangible service you're rendering to the church. 00:47:12.960 |
See, the thing about this is that rich young ruler could be given this list and he could 00:47:18.620 |
check them off and say, "I'm doing pretty good," and that's what happened. 00:47:29.500 |
But to be doing well spiritually, all you need to ask is, "Do you love God with all 00:47:39.340 |
So much so that everything becomes shadows and byproducts and things that don't matter 00:47:43.520 |
as much and things that are meant as a means to love my God more. 00:47:55.440 |
There's so much more than a religious activity. 00:47:58.460 |
The question of these disciplines is, "Do we do it out of our love for God and as a 00:48:02.480 |
result of every discipline, do we love God more?" 00:48:09.960 |
Every discipline, every single time we do it, is deemed successful only if it causes 00:48:21.400 |
If it doesn't, you might be puffing up your head. 00:48:26.160 |
I might be deluding myself into thinking things. 00:48:36.920 |
I don't want this person to experience the eternal wrath and judgment of God. 00:48:41.800 |
So we think about our mom and go, "Oh my goodness. 00:48:51.560 |
But shouldn't we be driven more out of a love for God? 00:48:54.920 |
You know when you love something or someone, you just kind of talk about that? 00:49:00.160 |
It's not so much a theological exercise or trying to convince people. 00:49:05.440 |
We throw around terms of imputations and first Adams and all this different stuff. 00:49:11.640 |
Or we might be big on apologetics, which is again, helpful, good, and necessary. 00:49:19.800 |
Or it might be philosophical, like the moral argument. 00:49:22.280 |
We have all these things and we're evangelizing. 00:49:25.960 |
And then all these things become words that come out of us, nothing showing that we love 00:49:33.120 |
But shouldn't that be the thing that drives everything? 00:49:35.520 |
That out of a love for God, "Let me tell you about this God that I love and I know. 00:49:47.560 |
Yeah, these questions are important to answer and they're going to be answered. 00:49:54.120 |
But you need to know who He is because I want you to know what I know, who I know, what 00:50:01.200 |
This is so important to me, so valuable to me, that God is worth that much to me. 00:50:10.680 |
We can give money, a lot of it, to the point it hurts. 00:50:16.320 |
To the India pastors, to missions, literally to the point where we have nothing left for 00:50:24.400 |
We can give, but it could be devoid of a love for God. 00:50:30.520 |
Remember some of the passages in Scripture that talk about these people who are doing 00:50:34.720 |
things but the result is completely opposite. 00:50:38.800 |
In Matthew 7.21 it says, "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy 00:50:44.480 |
And in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles.'" 00:50:47.200 |
This is a person who's done so much for the kingdom of God supposedly and then it says 00:50:53.920 |
Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. 00:51:00.640 |
First Corinthians 13.1, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels," look at what 00:51:05.680 |
I could do, I do all these things, "but do not have love, I become a noisy gong or a 00:51:10.800 |
If I have the gift of prophecy, I know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have 00:51:14.120 |
all faith so as to remove mountains, but I do not have love, I am nothing. 00:51:18.220 |
And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and if I surrender my body to be burned, 00:51:32.360 |
So the big question is, do you, do I, do we as a church, do we love God with all our heart, 00:51:42.840 |
The story is so challenging to us because as believers we need to be reminded that we 00:51:46.300 |
are prone to this, that even genuine heartfelt desire can be sinful. 00:51:51.920 |
We could want the things of God, but actually not want God. 00:51:59.620 |
And at every point in life we need to reevaluate this. 00:52:05.000 |
Because that question is going to help us answer, do I love him? 00:52:11.720 |
And we need to identify those things in our lives that we are unwilling to give up. 00:52:20.080 |
Find the thing that we're unwilling to give up and then figure out the way to give that 00:52:30.300 |
We cannot be looking at the time once upon a go, you know, that I gave up everything 00:52:38.320 |
to follow Christ and say like, "See, I'm saved. 00:52:40.880 |
Oh, I remember those days when I was passionate and I gave up everything. 00:52:45.280 |
Dealing with apathy today, but I remember then I actually gave up everything." 00:52:56.720 |
The Christian call to discipleship, what Jesus is saying, this is not a starting point, this 00:53:05.600 |
In heaven, God is going to be everything to us forever. 00:53:08.800 |
After 10,000 years you're like, "Whoa, I've just lived 10,000 years." 00:53:19.600 |
So I hope that this story of the rich young ruler will be reminding us today. 00:53:23.720 |
And I'll kind of close this off on these words that Jesus gave to this man, "Go sell all 00:53:47.000 |
Oh God, you are, you really are a great, awesome, worthy, beautiful, sovereign, powerful, magnificent 00:54:21.720 |
God, there is nothing I would trade in for my relationship with you. 00:54:29.280 |
And so God, would you help us then to turn around, look at our lives and see if how we're 00:54:39.800 |
And so today, would you help us to remember that and remember the original call. 00:54:47.360 |
And remember God, that today is the day you want us then to let go of these things, to 00:54:54.680 |
put aside the sins and the weight that so easily entangles us, to draw our eyes on our 00:55:00.920 |
Christ all the way to the cross where he was crucified, that we might be crucified with 00:55:05.800 |
him, that we might attain to the resurrection that he might give to us so that one day we 00:55:11.720 |
can attain not the inheritances that we're given here on this world, but God, the inheritance 00:55:17.400 |
of heaven, the heavenly things that he promises. 00:55:23.120 |
And God, even devoid of those things, even if we had nothing else, God, if you are there, 00:55:31.320 |
So God, teach us that, let us be a church who doesn't just do nice things and good things 00:55:35.760 |
and think we're okay, but Father, that we understand that we are in sin, that we are 00:55:39.760 |
in need of you and that we love God more than anything else.