Mark 10:21

0:00 Well, turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 10. Our verse this evening will be verse 21 of Mark chapter 10. I encourage you to turn in your Bibles to this passage because we have just a little bit of setup to do before we actually get to 21 to appreciate the context from which Jesus speaks. So as you turn there, I want to ask a question this evening. I want you to think for a moment about life's ultimate question. What is life's ultimate question for a human being?

0:31 What is your most burning question that you need, you need, not just want, you need the answer to? Well, I can survey this room. I know many, not all, very well. I can survey this room and know that some of you would say my most urgent questions are economic in nature. How am I going to pay for next month's rent? How am I going to provide for my family and this profession in the future as my family grows?

1:02 How am I going to pay for next semester's tuition? I look at also across this room and know others that have health-oriented questions. Am I going to make it through this disease? How am I going to survive this illness? Is God going to sustain me through this infirmity? How is it going to work out in the end? and then across this room there's a multitude of relationship type questions will god grant me a spouse is god going to bless us with children and if so will these children grow up to love god and honor father and mother we don't know how in this world that's going to work out we're eager to know the answer to such questions well to be sure those are very important questions that we should concern ourselves with we should go to the scriptures seeking answers from the lord to those questions we should seek counsel from one another that's what we do together as a church

2:05 living as a family of god we should pray and ask god for wisdom and clarity on what those answers might be and how we would faithfully navigate our lives to answers that fulfill his will but I'm here to tell you tonight that those questions are not ultimate very important not to be neglected but those questions aren't ultimate there is a much larger question that supersedes all of these seemingly and rightly so urgent questions and so tonight we're going to see that there is an ultimate question that we should all ask individually. And we're also going to see that there is one and only one answer that we must all embrace.

3:02 Let's turn to the text. Mark chapter 10. I want to introduce to you tonight the most urgent, the most important question a human being can ever ask we draw this question from scripture not from our opinions i want you to start with me in mark chapter 10 verse 17 to build up to verse 21 speaking of jesus mark writes 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?

3:40 So here we have a man who is asking the question that I'm telling you tonight we must all ask and seek an affirmative answer to. What must I do to receive, to inherit eternal life? Matthew tells us that this is a young man. Luke tells us that this is a young ruler. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three, tell us this man is very, very wealthy. So he's the rich, young ruler.

4:14 And I want you to note something about him. He's got a sense of urgency. The text says he ran up and knelt before jesus in reverence this is not a pharisee that's asking jesus i got you question to trap him into some conundrum no this is a man that's got desperation on his heart he's got something in his life that he needs a solution to and he thinks jesus christ is the one and only that can help him so he runs up to jesus and he asks the question that we all must be asking What must I do to inherit eternal life?

4:57 This question reveals something about this man. It gives us great insight into this man's heart. For you see, this man is demonstrating vividly that he is highly dissatisfied with where he is in life. He's highly dissatisfied. his wealth, his power, perhaps his reputation that comes with his wealth and his rulership is not enough. He wants something more. He's dissatisfied. And I'm here to tell you tonight, he is right to be dissatisfied because those things are paltry. They are nothing if you consider the whole counsel of the word of God so this is a good thing that this man runs up to Jesus and asks this ultimate question for you see he's looking for a prescription that would settle things between him and God once and for all praise the Lord he's right there at this moment

6:02 so there's my first point tonight this man introduces to us the most ultimate question a human being could ever ask how do i attain eternal life well let's look next at the ultimate answer to this ultimate question because we don't want to leave here tonight with a question unanswered there is an ultimate answer there is one and only one answer to this urgent question and we find it from the mouth of our lord and savior jesus christ jesus you see meets this man right where he is and gives him a three-fold answer. I want you to follow along with me here real quick. Verse 18, Jesus says to him in response to this question, why do you call me good?

6:51 No one is good except God alone. What a strange response. Or is it? See, in this immediate response, Jesus is establishing in this man's mind the deity of him, Jesus the Christ. Jesus notes that this man reverently addresses him as good teacher. And Jesus begins his answer by telling him, hey, calling me good is calling me God.

7:23 Because only one is good, and if I'm good, I must be God. And I'm here to tell you tonight that I think at this moment, this man has no idea that he's talking to Emmanuel, God with us. I think he thinks he's talking to a rabbi, a good teacher. But no, he's talking to someone greater than that. At this point, he has no idea of Jesus's ultimate identity. But in Jesus's response, we see the importance for this man that Jesus rightly established the authority from which he's going to speak in just a moment in verse 21 when he ultimately answers this ultimate question. Second thing Jesus does is he goes to the law of Moses and he works this man through the commandments, the ten commandments of God. Look at verse 19.

8:15 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 them him teacher all of these things i have kept from my youth i'm good to go yes and amen i want you to note what jesus does here yes he takes him to the ten commandments but he takes him to commandments five through ten and we rightly divide the 10 commandments into two sections the first four are horizontal man's relationship between him and God verses 5 through 10 those last six commandments are how man is to relate to man in loving neighbor so we love God and we love neighbor and Jesus takes him to the love of neighbor commandments and he checks off the list as Jesus cites these to him in his answer

9:16 and at the end he concludes with great pride and joy oh i've kept all of these this is good right jesus we're progressing well here well then third jesus in his response performs what i might call a spiritual mri an x-ray of this man's soul look at verse 21 our verse for the night here we are and Jesus looking at him loved him and said to him quote you lack one thing go and sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me look in this text right quick jesus looked at him he looked at him intentionally he looked at him

10:26 searchingly this morning we had a great psalm of david's psalm 51 when he prayed to the lord confessing his sin and asking to be led on the right way well tonight i want to take you to another psalm that david wrote a prayer in psalm 139 where he says search me oh god and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Well, Jesus is going to fulfill the role of God in David's request with this rich young ruler and he's going to search him. In fact, he searches his soul through and through. He knows his heart. He tries his every thought. Jesus is acting like the God David prayed to. And Jesus, in this searching and knowing and trying, gets beyond all of the facades

11:32 and all of the masks that we as humans can put up. And through that x-ray vision that only our deity can have. He sees this man for whom he really is. First of all, we cannot hide ourselves from God, can we? And in this searching, Jesus finds a grievous way in this man's heart. He says, you lack one thing.

12:05 You lack one thing. Go and sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and then come and follow me. You see, the man has violated the first commandment. It's good on 5 through 10, but he's missed that first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me.

12:36 And remember, Jesus is God, the good teacher, speaking with authority. Well, this man doesn't even know this about himself. This man has allowed his wealth and his power and his reputation and his good life to quietly and subtly pollute and contaminate his soul to where he cannot even recognize that he has false gods, other gods in the place of the one true God in his life.

13:16 He was so proud of keeping commandments 5 through 10. But he was so blind to the fact that he had forsaken that first and ultimate commandment. No other gods before me. The truth is, he kept the commandments that perhaps he liked. He kept the easy ones for him. I think that he believed what I would call a morality gospel.

13:48 You've heard of the prosperity gospel. Well, here is the morality gospel, and I define that like this. The morality gospel is when someone says, I'm a Christian because I do these things and I don't do those things. That's where this man is. And Jesus says, those things mean nothing. You need to follow me. well Jesus does one other thing that I want to emphasize here tonight going back up to the very beginning of verse 21 I love what it says right here on I guess words six and seven in the English translation of this here we go Jesus looking at him right here loved him this is God in the flesh having a relationship with a human made in his image and he not only looks at him but Jesus loves this man he loved him and he intentionally put his finger on the sin

14:57 in this man's heart out of love to draw him out of this bondage that he's living in because he's so dissatisfied with his status in life and he says I love you and I want to show you what's ailing you, give all of that up and come and follow me. And all these things will be added unto you. What a loving God we know and we worship in this church. Don't you love that Jesus loved him? And Jesus loves you and me just like this. Jesus handles us just like this, searches us, tries us, knows us, finds grievous ways within us, and tries to call us, doesn't try, successfully confronts us and convicts us to lead us on the path to everlasting life.

15:51 What a great God that lovingly comes after us like this. So there you have it. First of all, we've got life's most ultimate question for a human being. How in the world can I inherit eternal life? And the second we've seen tonight is the ultimate one and only answer to that urgent question. Give up everything in this world that distracts you from me, God speaking here, and follow me. Well, I'm going to make application in just one moment, but I want to look at one third thing real quick.

16:25 We can't go on without looking at verse 22. And verse 22 gives us the third thing tonight, the most tragic response. You with me? There's going to be a response to what Jesus says to this man in his urgent question. And the response we get from the text is nothing short of absolute nightmare tragedy. It's a simple short verse. Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

17:04 The man went away disheartened. The man went away sorrowful. The man went away. The man went away from the one that he knelt at. Jesus truly is the good teacher. And to reject his word in this moment, this man is rejecting God. Not some rabbi. Not some guru. God. Jesus spoke of such people in the Sermon on the Mount, earlier in Matthew chapter 6, verse 24.

17:42 No one can serve two masters, Jesus says, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Well, this man despised God, and he loved money and possessions and power. This man chose to serve possessions instead of God. This man loved temporary life in the place of eternal life. What a tragic response to Christ's answer.

18:17 And all the while, by the way, he's sorrowful over it. He's not mad. He's sorrowful. What a bummer. I didn't get the answer I wanted. I don't know what I wanted, but I didn't want that answer. This, dearly beloved, is true bondage to sin. His heart was hardened to the point of choosing to live in miserable deception.

18:52 May that never, ever, ever be named among us. May we always encourage one another to not live right there. Well, let me make two applications, and then we will conclude. The first one is this. We need to look at a scenario like this in the Scriptures and analyze ourselves and take a quick audit. And we need to do this often. This isn't just for tonight. What do we have in this temporary world that we live in that tempts us to be disheartened and sorrowful and to reject eternal life offered to us in Jesus Christ?

19:32 I didn't say what do we have that's keeping us I'm saying what do we have that tempts us so that the temptation never goes strong enough that we concede to it we need to be fighting in the pre temptation stages to make certain that we don't have things in this world that we clutch to instead of chasing after Jesus our Christ you know I've counseled people with whom I've watched God tell very clearly from the scriptures and from counsel of a multitude of Christians what they ought to do in certain scenarios. I've seen God clearly define for a man the need to give up a job that causes him to sin and follow after Christ. I've seen a married couple where one wanted to get out of the marriage because they were not delighted in it and God said you must not leave this marriage you must remain in it and follow Christ I've seen God call people

20:33 to give up addictions that grip hearts and bodies and say give that up and follow Christ I could go on through a long list and I have watched such people turn from the Lord's instruction sorrowful and unwilling to follow him and it is crazy when you're in a moment watching this may it never be said about me and I do not declare that I am exempt from this you have an open invitation to come after me I am reminded of Jim Elliott's statement that we all know he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose well this man was a fool. And again, I'll say it, may we not be numbered amongst his membership. He was a fool because he held on to what he could not keep and turned down what he could not lose. Second point

21:37 of application, and this is our final. The Bible is strong and clear about who cannot enter the kingdom of god bible is clear about who does not gain eternal life you cannot number one enter the kingdom of god by being evil and unrepentant doing badly in this world first corinthians 6 9 do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god and it goes on to name out all kinds of sinful behaviors but secondly we learn tonight from this passage that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven we cannot inherit eternal life by merely doing good jesus says don't murder don't commit adultery don't steal and he goes on through the remaining commandments and he says one thing you lack all those good things all right but there's one thing

22:41 that you lack and it is massive you have other gods before me so doing evil will keep us out of heaven in the kingdom of god and merely being good will keep us as well for we have to have a following after Jesus Christ. Christianity is not the subtraction of evil from our lives. Nor is Christianity the addition of good to our lives.

23:15 It's neither one of those. Christianity is substitution. Christ, the righteous, substituting in our place, living a perfect life dying on a cross the death that we deserved for our sinfulness being buried and on that third day bodily rising from the dead to be the firstborn from the dead that eternal life that we're all seeking we must follow after him through faith and belief and trust in his substitutionary atonement in our place that is the christian life for our sake He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

24:04 This is how God enables man to inherit eternal life, to follow after our substitute and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, what in your life are you holding on to that God would call you to relinquish? It's a good question to ask towards this ultimate question. Is it a possession? Is it reputation? Is it a substance? Is it a relationship? Is it something about yourself? Jesus says, love me more and give that up and replace me for it.

24:39 Will you turn away from him discouraged or will you follow him? Consider that as we prepare to come to this table to remember the substitution of Jesus Christ in our place. Let's pray. Father, we stand under the authority of your word. We sit under the authority of your word. We kneel under the authority of your word tonight, confronted with this most urgent question and delighted to see the most beautiful answer to our urgent matter, Jesus Christ.

25:14 Father, would you convict us, would you search us, would you try us, would you know us and find any grievous way in us and then eliminate it by fixing our eyes and our hearts on your provision for our eternal life, Jesus, our Savior, the Christ. And we pray this in his name. Amen.