[MUSIC] We are following Jesus in his disciples as they turn south from the region of Galilee toward Jerusalem. Each step of the way, Jesus reveals himself through his words and work, bringing his followers even closer to understanding his identity and his mission. How will the disciples respond? How about you and I? Will we allow his story to become our story? Let's pick up where we left off in this story. Well, hi everyone. There's a well-known Bible verse over in the Gospel of Matthew that says, "Why does the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it? But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Now, there's a couple ways to read that text. The classic understanding is that it's talking about heaven and hell, that a few people are going to find their way to heaven, and a whole bunch of people are on the wide road to hell. And I certainly think there's truth to that. But it could also point to the narrow way as a very specific path that you follow to kind of find your way to true life. Maybe it's less about who's in and who's out of heaven, and more about a specific way to live your life as an apprentice of Jesus. The way is not broad in terms of you can just do whatever you want to do all the time. No unbridled freedom where you just do whatever brings you pleasure in the moment right now. But the way of Jesus is a narrow way. It's a specific way to live your life, and it ultimately leads to true life, to abundant life in Christ. Well, all the last month we spent talking about our awake-the-lake vision here at Grace, doubling down on our commitment to the discipleship journey of each individual believer, in an effort to help you to find and live out your divine calling. When we started this two-year teaching journey through the Book of Mark, we knew it was going to intermingle with rolling out this new vision. And the idea is that we would spend a couple of years marinating in the Word of God in a book of the Bible that gives a raw, unfiltered look at following Jesus. And if we're going to double down on discipleship, we thought, let's go straight to the source and see what discipleship really looks like through the eyes of Jesus and through the lives of the original disciples. So let's immerse ourselves in the details of this narrow way that he talks about. And so in the very first week of our journey through Mark's gospel, just over a year ago, in August 2023, I said this phrase, I said, we're going to ask and answer the question throughout this series, "Who is Jesus? Why is he worth following? And how do we do it?" And Mark will help to focus all our attention on Jesus because the more we know of him and the more we know of ourselves, the more of ourselves we can give to him. And we chose Mark because he tends to be a little bit more relatable. He takes the veneer off of following Jesus. He shows us that the disciples not only in their best moments, but also in their worst moments, which is reassuring to common people like us as we seek to follow Jesus every day and everywhere we go. And so we looked at, we kind of divide into three acts. We looked at act one of Mark, which was in Galilee, Jesus was starting his ministry, he was raising up the disciples to follow him. And we're just about to close out act two today as Jesus has been about his itinerant teaching and healing ministry and he's faced a really heated opposition from the religious leaders. And we now see that he's in transition in which he's going to set his eyes in his heart. He's going to turn his attention to Jerusalem. And so as we head into act three next week, Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem. His own path is narrowing, his focus trains on what he has come to earth to do, to die for the sins of humanity. It's going to be clearer to the watching world each day between now and then that he is the king, that he is the Messiah, and ultimately he is a threat to the earthly powers of the day who would ultimately choose to eliminate him. His teaching is going to also come to a sharper point as he continues to call his followers to greater and greater obedience. So that's why we've called this next section of the series of Mark's Gospel, the king's narrow path. The section is going to take us right up to Christmas and we're going to reach the holidays right as Jesus is talking about the Antichrist and the great tribulation and the second coming and so that should make everything merry and bright. If you're just jumping into this journey through Mark, you can catch up and just get a ton of resources over at whoisgrace.com/mark. Today we're going to be in chapter 10 starting in verse 17 and you can get there in your Bible or your Bible app to this story that we know as the rich young ruler. And the question the story poses to us across the pages of history is our big idea today. It's a question I want us to wrestle with and that is what do you need to leave behind in order to follow Christ? That's what we're building toward but our passage begins with a different question. I want you to look at chapter 10 verse 17. It says, "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?' And so we begin our passage today with a man and his question. The man who asks Jesus this question is a very successful man by human standards. This account is a rare thing but it's found in all four gospels. And so Matthew adds a detail. He calls him young and Luke calls him a ruler and Mark tells us that he's rich. He's widely admired and so he's rich and he's a leader and he's young. I can hear all the single women like, does he have a number? Anyway, the man's description actually makes this a very difficult story for people like us because he is in many ways a picture of what a lot of people listening today would aspire to be. He's independently wealthy. He's a good person. He's moral and sincere, serious about his faith. He wants to follow Jesus. He shows respect, even reverence for Jesus as seen in his kneeling posture. This man could describe many of us and he's the kind of dude you'd want your daughter to marry. But right out of the gates we find out that despite his success he knows he's still missing something. He appears to have it all together but inside he knows that he doesn't have it all together. I have a hunch that some of you, you've been there, in fact some of you are there right now today. In this room there are people who are plugging along with your life and everything looks great on the outside. But inside there's this nagging thought that something isn't right. So the young man needed to check in with Jesus on this whole salvation thing. And sadly in the end he would choose not to follow Jesus. But right now his question is sincere. Right now he says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" And the way the question is phrased he's basically asking, "How can I save myself? What religious task must I accomplish? What size check must I write? What sacred pilgrimage do I need to go?" It's complete because he thinks in addition to all of his other fantastic achievements and his great accomplishments of life that he wants to be able to add to his resume, he saved himself. He merited his salvation. He was pleasing in the sight of God. See instead of coming to Christ with his hands empty and saying to Jesus, "I'm empty. I'm open. I'm in need of receiving your salvation." He comes with his hands full and he says, "Look at these achievements. Look at all of these accomplishments. Jesus, here I am and you'd be lucky to have me on your team." Good teacher, he says, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Now look at Jesus' response in verse 18. He says, "And Jesus said, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 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." And he said to him, "Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth." All right. So did you see how Jesus starts his response in verse 18? He says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, young man. You can't just throw around that word good like it applies to everyone." So we're going to look at Jesus in his response here. He says, "Goodness isn't found in man-made achievements or earthly accomplishments. True goodness is found in God alone. People still think this. They're like, "Well, I'm a good person. I should go to heaven." Where she's such a nice person, she's good, surely God would overlook all the other stuff. She's a good person, but our best goodness is not even in the same category as the goodness of God. Paul would later say, "Your righteousness, your very best day on the planet of doing good is like filthy rags," he said next to the righteousness, the goodness of God. It would be the same as a parent of an eight-year-old kid, this eight-year-old kid who won MVP of his little gridders football team. But compared to all the other kids on his team, this little kid is an all-star. It would be like that parent trying to talk the NFL into letting that kid play on Sundays. It would be so silly. They would be like, "Man, he might be good compared to the other eight-year-olds, but these are grown men we're talking about." Jesus says, "You're throwing around this word good like it applies to everybody, but nobody is good except God alone and this point will become crystal clear. If you and I want to be good before God, that goodness has to come from God and not us. It has to be imparted to us by God. In fact, we're going to need a substitute so that when God looks for the good in us, he actually sees the good of another. But just for giggles, Jesus does a little quiz with this guy. He starts listing off random pieces of the Ten Commandments. Here's how religious this guy is. And Jesus says, "Here's what you've got to do, you've got to keep the law." The man says back to him, "I do. I have all of it since I was a kid." And we shouldn't doubt that he was telling the truth. Jesus didn't dock him for lying, but Jesus is using this line of questioning to both reveal his heart and to show the contrast between keeping the Hebrew law and this new way, the narrow way of Jesus. Look at verses 21 and 22, it says, "And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, loved him, and he 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 and follow me.'" Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Here we have this line in the sand challenge. Notice that this whole exchange is motivated by the love of Jesus. Jesus loves this young man. He looks him in the eyes. He notices him. He sees him. He sees him and the way that he loved him was by telling him the truth about the condition of his heart. Jesus says, "You lack one thing." Now let me reveal to you what that one thing is. This is not about money, per se. Jesus says, "Using this man's love for money to expose what's really in the core of his heart." You see, up until now this man had put his faith and trust and wealth and accomplishments, but all those efforts are actually alienating him from the one true God. So Jesus is saying, "I want you to imagine your life without money. Imagine all of it gone. No inheritance, no inventories, no P&L reports, no servants, no mansions. All of it is gone, and all you have is me. Can you live like that?" You see, it's interesting of all the 10 commandments that Jesus had just rattled off. The young man had obeyed all of them, remember, but Jesus had conveniently left off the very first commandment, and that's the one that was the issue. The first commandment says, "You will have no other gods before me." You see, Jesus isn't trying to change the young man's behavior. He's trying to change the young man's God. If you commit adultery, your problem is not just sexual. Your problem is that you're worshiping the wrong God. If you have an addiction, if you're chronically angry, if you're a gossip, if you're consumed with success or achievement, or what your parents think of you, your problem is not necessarily just that thing. It's that you're bowing your life before the wrong God, and at the end of the day the solution is not about behavior modification, it's about changing who you bow before in worship. So Jesus says to the young man, and he says to all of us, "Let's sift through all the stuff until we find the idol, until we find that thing that stands between you and me, that thing that you value more than me, that thing that you find identity in more than me, that thing that you seek out for security or comfort instead of me, and let's get about the business of destroying that thing, that idol. And for this man, his idol was money. And so Jesus gives him this kind of three-part challenge. He says, "Go sell everything, give it to the poor, and then come follow me." Now just to be clear, this isn't a universal directive. It was a different directive with Zacchaeus' money. It looked different for Barnabas' lands and fields. It was different with Mary and Martha and what he called them to surrender. But with each one and with us as well, Jesus is after the key to your heart. He says that devotion needs to be centered on me, Jesus. And so that the man went away, the Bible says sorrowful. This word is the same word that's used of Jesus' emotions in the garden of Gethsemane. This man was grieved because money is to him what the father was to Jesus in the garden, the very center of his identity. And faced with the prospect of losing the most valuable thing, the only option is sorrow. It's grieving. So what is your idol? What would you be unwilling to give up to follow Jesus? What would you cling to as you hung your head and walked away from Jesus sorrowful? Because ultimately your God had been exposed. We oftentimes don't know what our idol is until we're faced with the prospect of losing it. So is there anything that you need to leave behind in order to follow Christ? This young man came right up to that line of following Jesus. He put his toes right on the line and he said, "I want this abundant life that you've been promising. I want to be a part of this kingdom that you're talking about. Jesus responds, 'I need all of your heart. I need you to give up that one thing that's consuming you more than me. Step across the line and he couldn't do it.' What is that thing for you? Well, back to our text as Jesus often did, he pulled his disciples aside to explain the situation. Look at verse 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.'" And the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them, "Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. 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." They were exceedingly astonished and they said to him, "Then who can be saved?" And Jesus looked at them and he said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God." And Peter began to say to him, "See, we have left everything and followed you." And 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 who will not receive a hundred fold. 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, but many who are first will be last." And the last, first, it's a wild passage. For every time Jesus warns about sex, for example, in the gospels, he warns ten times more about money. This should stand as a stark warning for all of us in America as money is really truly one of the primary idols of our society. It's back to that narrow road, the broad road that we started with today. So I want to get really practical from this passage and I want to talk about three lessons from the guy who had it all. Here's the first and maybe the most obvious. It's to scrutinize the power wealth has over you. Jesus said it's more difficult to get a camel through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy person to make it into the kingdom. And this phrase has led many modern interpreters to say, "Surely Jesus didn't mean that." And so they come up with interpretations like one of my favorites. Perhaps there was a needle that had a small hole and there was this unusual thread called camel thread. It was thicker than the normal thread and that's what wouldn't get through the hole in the needle. Guys, there is no historical evidence of camel thread. Camel thread is like a flying unicorn and an honest presidential candidate. Doesn't exist. Some of you may have heard the interpretation that there was a gate in the wall around Jerusalem called the Needles Eye Gate and that's where camels would certainly have been able to crouch down and kind of shimmy their way through a hole in the gate and they'll say, "See, that solves it. Camels can get through the eye of a needle after all." So the rich can make it into the kingdom after all. Here's the problem. The Needles Eye Gate wasn't around until the Middle Ages, far after the time of Jesus. So Jesus means what he means. The disciples were dumbfounded, but look at what he says in verse 24. This is the only time Jesus refers to his disciples as children. So we have to ask, what's true of children? Well, children don't depend on money and possessions for security. They depend on who? Their parents. They are dependents, not independents. And so one of the reasons that wealth is so dangerous to us is because it gives us the illusion of independence, the illusion that I don't need God. I'm good. I've got this. I'm getting by. I can purchase my way through life. I can invest my way through and save my way through. And as long as I do all of that successfully, I'll make it to the finish line. But with that self-reliance comes an almost infinite ability to distract yourself from things that really matter. Like when I have money and I feel lonely or I feel afraid or anxious or depressed, I can just go on vacation, distract myself. I can just buy a new trinket. When I'm craving the need to feel security, I can purchase something and feel instantly better about life, even though I haven't ultimately solved any of those problems. And so Jesus says, guys, it's difficult for the wealthy to inherit the kingdom, which means we should really be scrutinizing the power wealth has over us. Maybe money makes a great tool, but it makes a terrible God. So we have to constantly ask, what kind of power does wealth wield over my soul? And what does it look like to surrender this area of my life to Jesus in the midst of a society that's obsessed with wealth? See Christians have always been called to be counter-cultural in whatever culture they find themselves in. We're strangers and we're aliens in this world after all. We march to a different drum or we follow the king of a different kingdom. And if you're a Christian and if you want to be counter-cultural in America in 2024, please, you don't have to wear cleverly worded T-shirts to do it or you don't have to wear a cross around your neck to do it even. You don't have to listen to sub-par music just because it's called Christian. Like, you want to be counter-cultural? Take the God that our entire culture worships, called money, success, status, and break its hold over your life. We're Christians. We don't hoard. We don't get selfish. We don't abuse people to get more money. We don't keep score with our money. We don't leverage it for personal gain only. In fact, just the opposite. We're Christian. We freely give it. Will we get taken advantage of from time to time because of this posture? Probably. But guess what? Wealth has no power over us. We follow Jesus. And so the first lesson, scrutinize the power wealth has over you. The second is this, is to recognize that the Kingdom of God will cost you everything. See, there's a contrast here in Jesus' explanation between the rich young ruler who was unwilling to give up his idol and his identity and his security. He was unwilling to give those up to follow Jesus. And there's this contrast between him and the disciples who had left everything. So the original disciples, they show us that when you sign up to the Kingdom of God, like you sign over everything to your new King, you retain ownership of nothing. It's all his. Now, does that mean that you'll have no possessions? I don't think so. There are plenty of examples in the Bible of Godly saints who have stuff. But man, in this new Kingdom, we hold everything very loosely. To be clear, I'm not talking about like we handed over to buy our way into the Kingdom of God. salvation is accomplished by God's grace alone. There is no earning your way in. But Jesus is pointing out that when a person finally comprehends the true value of the Kingdom of God, they will be willing to sacrifice or surrender anything to enter into it. And we adopt this kind of ongoing practice of looking at everything in your life and saying, if it's a choice between that and Jesus, I'm going to lose anything so I can keep Jesus. Like if it's between my image and Jesus, I choose Jesus. If it's between my reputation and Jesus, my money and Jesus, if it's between my career and Jesus, like I choose to have Him on the throne of my life. It's this posture of unconditional surrender to the one true King. There's no halfway way to follow Christ. And some of you are trying to follow Him halfway to keep one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom. And it just doesn't work. It demands everything. Remember the parable of the pearl of great price and the parable of the treasure in the field, these two back to back beautiful stories in both of them. The one who found that invaluable item went off at once and in their joy, it says, in their joy spent all that they had to buy that one irreplaceable treasure. And Jesus says, this is what the Kingdom of God is like. What does he mean? It'll cost you everything. But what you get in return will blow your mind. It will be worth every penny, every sacrifice, every investment of time and energy and reputation. It will be worth every insult, every trial, because you'll give it all up and in return, you'll get the King. But when you get the King, you hand Him all authority. Like He's now on the throne. See if money is on the throne of your life, that means God isn't. And if you are on the throne of your life, that means God isn't. And if that's the case, I've got news for you, you aren't in the Kingdom of God. It's called the Kingdom of God for a reason, because God is the King. You don't get to be King in God's Kingdom. There's a change in authority, and so I ask you, who is your King? Who do you submit to? Who do you trust? Who do you serve? In Matthew 6, Jesus makes it very clear. He says, "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." And do you know who the two masters are that Jesus calls out? He says, "You cannot serve both God and money." And it comes down to who do you trust. I mean, heck, our money even says, "In God we trust, but it's who's on the throne." See, we tend to trust in that which we think will bring us two things. Money and comfort. How do we know if we're trusting God or money? I actually think it's very simple. Do a checkbook check. Like total, and then you don't use checkbooks anymore, but whatever, wherever you account for your money, total up the amount of money that you spend as a direct consequence of your faith in Christ. And compare that number, let's call that your faith money, to your fun money, and see where things shake out. The bottom line doesn't lie. Who is on the throne of your life? You know, I watched the Lion King far too many times when my kids were little. So I have this love-hate relationship with the Lion King movie. But one important lesson from the Lion King is when the wrong king is in place, all of life disintegrates. But when the right king is in place, all of life is in harmony. Simba's reign and Scar's reign were two very different realities. So we've said, scrutinize the power wealth has over you. We said, recognize that the kingdom of God will cost you everything. And here's the third lesson today from the guy who had it all. It's to realize the sacrifices you make will pay off in the end. Now hang on, hang on. Are we allowed to talk about payoffs when it comes to our faith? Some of us have been taught that this is a very selfish and unspiritual thing to do. You just follow Jesus because that's the right thing to do. Just be humble and keep your head down and keep kicking the dirt. And hopefully, you know, you'll get to heaven in the end and there'll be a bunch of harps and clouds and worship music. People hear that and they're like, remind me what the alternative is again? I think it's healthy for us to think about the payoff, to think about the rewards both in this life and in the next life for following Christ. In fact, I think we think far too little about these things. Jesus didn't shy away from talking about these ever. In fact, listen to how he handled this statement from Peter. Don't you love Peter? Jesus just tells the rich young ruler to sell everything and follow him and the man refuses the offer. Had to have been a very tense moment, but light bulbs are going on in Peter's head. He's like, wait a minute, we left everything and followed you. We did what that crazy guy wouldn't do, hooray for us. And there's kind of an implied question under Peter's statement, like, what's the payoff? And Jesus graciously responds to this statement. He says, there is no one who left house or brother or sister, mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold. Now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, yes, that comes with planet earth. And in the age to come, eternal life, he says, unimaginable splendor awaits you. Everything you gave up for him, you'll receive it back a hundred fold and you'll inherit eternal life. In other words, there will be some payoff in this lifetime. And then the true payoff will come in eternity. And there's this principle that you can't get away from when you read your Bible. It's reflected here in this, this account as well. It's that what you receive from God is always far more valuable than what you could ever give up for God. It doesn't, doesn't even compare. So Jesus says you're going to get so much back in return that the stuff you gave up will seem like nothing. We're called to make this glorious trade, unconditional surrender for unimaginable splendor. And is it worth it? We ask, is it worth it? And that's a fair question. It's actually a question I've been thinking a lot about. I turned 53 this year and to some of you that's really old, to some of you that's a spring chicken. But for me, there's something about being at this stage of life that has sparked a lot of reflection for me. I mean, when I look back, if I'm doing an honest, just cost-benefit analysis, and I look at the total worth of everything in my life on this one side of the scale, and the total value of the treasure of the kingdom of God, Jesus Himself on the other, guys, it's just no contest. Having Jesus Christ as the king of my life, knowing Him, enjoying the forgiveness He provides, seeing my conscience made clean through His sacrifice, being adopted into His family, having my past made right, being guided through times of confusion by His Holy Spirit, being comforted in my sorrows, being rebuked in my wanderings, having my dearest friends by my side that I get to do life in ministry with every day, having access to His heart and His wisdom as I'm trying to be a good dad, seeing His grace sustain Kim and I through 33 years of marriage that hasn't always been perfect, but it's deeper and richer today than it's ever been, having God spirit beside me through seasons of opposition and fear and hardship and regret, and all this to eventually bring me safely home at last, this treasure, Jesus is of infinite value. He's worth it just in this lifetime alone, and I can't even comprehend the glory that awaits. You know, I've always wondered about this rich young ruler, the man who said no to Jesus. I wonder if he lived to be an old man, if he became a rich old ruler. I wonder if one day he looked back and he was remembering when that young carpenter, that young rabbi from Nazareth, came and challenged him to give everything away, to lay it all on the table, to push all the chips to the middle, to bless the poor with his wealth and then become a follower in this new kingdom. I wonder if he ever thought about that moment and asked, you know, how would my life have turned out if I had said yes instead of no? Maybe his heart that had grown hard and cold would have caught on blazing fire. Maybe his spirit that had become self-absorbed would have exploded in generosity. Maybe a life that got lonely would have been filled with love, like did he ever ask? I wonder how things would have turned out way back when I was a young man if I would have said yes and trusted that rabbi from Galilee. Guys, I just don't want any of you to live with those kinds of regrets, to look back over your life with a bunch of what ifs and say, what if I had said yes to Jesus? Some of you, you need to follow him. You know, I kind of buried the lead in this whole sermon. I didn't even address what I believe is the key question and answer of this whole passage. Happens right in the middle, it's in verse 26, Jesus is going on about how difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom and and Marx has a couple of times like the disciples were amazed, they were exceedingly astonished at all this. They looked at that rich young ruler who had kept the law to a T and they were thinking like, if that guy isn't saved, then who can possibly be saved? And that's the question they asked Jesus. Then who can be saved? And Jesus in this one statement takes away the need for all of the interpretive gymnastics that I talked about earlier, that the needles I gate and the camel, the camel thread, you know, through the needle. He says, yeah, it is actually impossible for the rich to get in. And it actually is impossible for anyone else to get in on their own merits also. But here's the whole key in verse 27. Jesus looked at them and he said, with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. This is the gospel and this is exceedingly good news. The disciples needed to learn as do we, that salvation is beyond human power to achieve. The key to all of it is Jesus' declaration. All things are possible with God. God alone is the source of our salvation. Not our goodness, not our sincerity, not our achievements. Only God can get a camel through the eye of a needle. No problem. That's the point, which means God can also make a way for you, sinner, to come home to him. God can also make a way for you to be forgiven, for you to be loved, for you to be received and for you to gain an identity and a purpose in life, for you to receive a new family in his church, new brothers and sisters to share life with and for you to receive an eternal home that will put these earthly shackles to shame. And he has made a way through his son, Jesus. And so we're going to provide an opportunity for many of you to respond today. If you're in one of our locations, I really believe the Spirit of God has been moving through this passage today. And I want to come back to this question that we started with that I ask you to consider. What do you need to leave behind in order to follow Christ? For some of you who are already Christians, like this is a reminder of your need to repent of your tendency to put things before God. Would you call those things to mind? Would you repent of them? And for the others of you, we want to provide an opportunity to take an initial step of faith. Like today, the thing you need to leave behind is your sin and it's your shame and it's your insecurity and it's your insistence on carrying all of those things yourself without the saving grace of Jesus to set you free from all of it. So I'm going to ask your host to come now and to walk you through this time of response. I love you guys very much.
