It's time for us to begin.
We'll be continuing our study in Mark chapter 10 this evening.
we will be.
Doesn't matter what they're going to be.
Yeah, yeah, I gotta get it working.
There, ring the bell.
It's the one that's labeled Bell.
There you go.
It works it for the students at school.
All right, we are in Mark chapter 10 this evening.
We'll begin with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our study.
A gracious Father in heaven, we bow before your throne, grateful for the day that you've blessed us with, grateful for the opportunities that we have to serve you, and we pray
that we might always be pleasing to you in all that we say and all that we do.
We pray that you will be with those who have been afflicted by hurricanes and by uh storms and natural circumstances in life.
We're mindful of Christians in the Philippines and in Jamaica and throughout the islands.
We pray also that you will be with those who are dealing with man-made catastrophes and pray that you will be with those who are dealing with wars and things like that.
We pray for our brethren throughout the world that they might have safety, that they might have the provisions that they need for their daily needs.
We pray always that we might be content with those things which we need.
All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name, Amen.
Mark chapter 10, beginning in verse 20, the rich young ruler replies to Jesus, he answered and said to him, teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.
I wanted to spend just a moment with that idea.
Is it possible for someone who has been taught the right thing, who has been taught
the Word of God who has been taught how to live to then fail to do it.
Absolutely.
Do you think that this young man had also been taught, Thou shalt not covet?
You think he was probably taught that in the youth that he references when he says, I've kept all these things from my youth?
You think perhaps that that was part of his instruction, was that command that Jesus kind of breezed over and didn't mention in his list, thou shalt not cut it?
Absolutely.
Sometimes we wonder if people don't do what they should do simply because they've never been taught, and sometimes that's true.
Sometimes people have never been taught, and it's very hard to do better if you've never been taught better.
But we also realize that there's times where people know full well exactly what they should do.
They just don't do it.
We know there are times where children are raised to do what's right.
They're taught to live in a way that's right.
They're taught what is right, and then they choose to do that which is wrong.
What is a New Testament example from the parables of a young person growing up and doing that?
Prodigal son.
Here's a father that clearly has taught his son what to do, has taught him how to live, and we know that he taught him because what did the son realize when he was away from his
father, when he was destitute, and when he was hungry, and when he desired to eat what the hogs were eating?
that he'd sinned.
He knew what was right and he went the other direction anyway.
but there's also the older brother.
The older brother knew what was right and yet refused to forgive his brother.
And he refused not because he had never been taught any better, but because it didn't conform to what he wanted.
And now we come back to the core theme of all of these discussions of Jesus.
Jesus as he speaks with this rich young individual.
is challenging this young man to not follow after what he wants.
but rather to exchange what he wants for what God wants.
And that's every one of our challenge.
To exchange what we want.
To exchange how we think.
To exchange what we prioritize for what God does.
And when we do that, then we're challenged to be content with that.
To not go, all right, Lord, I'll do it.
two weeks.
I'll do it for three months.
I can make it a quarter.
I can do it free here, but patience is going to run out pretty fast.
How long did Paul spend in prison in Caesarea after he was arrested in Jerusalem?
Do you remember we talked about this not long ago when we were in the book of Acts?
He spent nearly two and a half to three years in prison in Caesarea after being arrested in Jerusalem before he ever even was put on a boat to go to Rome.
two and a half to three years in prison.
And yet, after he leaves prison, then he's going to be shipwrecked.
Then he's going to spend the entire winter on an island after being shipwrecked.
Then he's finally going to get to Rome.
And what happens to him when he gets there?
He gets put under house arrest.
And yet, there's never an indication in anything that we read about what Paul was doing or thinking where Paul determined that he was ready to just be done with this whole letting
God decide what happens thing.
We don't read that.
We rather read over and over as Paul writes to these churches while sitting in prison.
that he was there because he was a bond servant to Jesus Christ.
When Paul uses that terminology, the implication of the message is, I am exactly where my master wants me to be.
Wait a minute, why would God want anyone in prison?
I mean, not an evil person.
Alright?
Well, so let's ask it this way.
Why would God want a good person who was not guilty in prison?
He does have a captive audience.
That's true.
All right, opportunity, Jesus said, or Eddie said, uh because what God had in mind was going to happen through that experience.
Paul will end up meeting with the Jewish leaders in Rome while sitting in prison.
Paul will come time and time and time again to reason before Festus and before Agrippa to speak to them concerning the judgment and righteousness.
Do you think he would have had those opportunities had he just been preaching in the street or preaching in the synagogue or preaching among the Gentiles?
Would he have been before Agrippa and Festus?
No.
Or Felix?
No.
oh
When we read that through Paul's imprisonment, Paul preached and taught and converted even those within Caesar's own house.
Would that have happened had Paul not been in prison and he'd just been a regular old Joe missionary in Rome?
Not likely.
what we're seeing is that when we determine that we will do it God's way so long as we don't have to suffer for too long, so long as we don't have to deal with out or go without
for too long, so long as we don't have to put off our plans for too long, as long as it's temporary, we'll do it God's way.
Everything is.
We fall into the same trap of many who have determined to just not do it God's way.
Because what we're doing is qualifying how God does it.
What we're doing is saying, God, I will do what you want to a limit.
But then it has to go back to my way.
I will obey your will.
as long as it fits in my box that I already planned for how I think my life's going to work out.
It's a challenge to all of us because what Jesus has just told this young man is, I want you to take your box that you thought your life was going to look like and I want you to
throw it away and I want you to pick up your cross and come and follow me.
And our challenge every single day is whose plan are we enacting?
Whose process are we following?
Whose will are we doing?
Many people will tell you, I'm doing the will of God.
Really?
When you read his words and when you read what he says to do, do you do it?
When He tells you how to live, do you do it?
When He tells you what not to do, do you avoid it?
When He challenges you with the Scriptures, do you listen?
But at the same time, when you look at everything you do that you claim to be the will of God, did He actually tell you to do it?
And for many in the religious world, they go, listen, we're doing the will of God.
Great, what are you doing?
Well, we're doing this thing that God never told us anything about.
then you're probably not doing the will of God.
Jesus makes the point that this young man thought he knew how his life should be.
And what he was missing was how his life should be.
He literally missed the entire boat because he thought he knew how it should be.
But further you'll notice this, how many things did Jesus say this individual lacked?
One.
How many things do you have to be guilty of to miss heaven?
One.
One thing that you say to God,
I'm not changing that.
I'm going to do that, I don't care what you say.
That is more important to me than you are, God, than what you have said, than what you have taught.
That matters more to me than all of this.
and Jesus made it clear one thing will keep you out of heaven.
Now does that mean that if you make one mistake as a faithful Christian you're going to miss heaven?
No.
If we believed that we would not believe in what?
Huh?
Grace.
or mercy.
or forgiveness.
But now let's examine.
What if you have an individual who has determined to do what's right, carry out what's right, continue in what's right, and then they depart from that path and die having
departed from that path?
Then what?
What if the prodigal son had died while he was out spending all of his time, interest, money in the lusts of this world and never have repented?
What would his state have been then?
Lost.
Jesus says to this man, take up the cross and follow me.
But he was sad at his word and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
Can people with very few possessions hold on to them so desperately as to lose heaven because of them?
Absolutely.
You don't have to have great possessions for that to be a problem.
But Jesus is about to make a point about possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God.
Jesus doesn't, to my knowledge, ever say it's extremely hard for the poor to enter the kingdom of God.
Does he?
No!
But numerous times scripture draws to our attention.
We just read about it, just studied it in 1 Timothy chapter 6.
We went through nearly in half a chapter where Paul is writing exhortations to the rich, telling Timothy to exhort the rich, making sure they know that these possessions can be a
deterrence and a roadblock to their eternal salvation.
Jesus says the same thing.
He makes it a point to establish and visualize for the disciples that what they have just witnessed is something that would not have occurred had this young man not been rich.
I don't know if you ever thought about it that way, but Jesus is identifying that the young man's heart would have been different had he not been rich.
that his opportunity was the same either way to follow Jesus, but that the roadblock, the stumbling block in his way was not the Jewish religion, it wasn't the scribes of the
Pharisees, it wasn't the rabbis that he had met before, it wasn't any of those things, it was a pile of riches that stood between him and being obedient to God.
Jesus says that this situation is not abnormal.
And it's a challenge for us.
to realize that we are surrounded daily by people who live in the same state, or technically a better state than this young ruler.
We're surrounded in this country by wealth.
We're surrounded by riches.
I find it amusing somewhat when our president talks about becoming the richest country in the world, as if we haven't been for the last 80 years.
All you have to do is go travel for a while.
Now, can you travel to places where the local population has a high density of ultra-rich people?
Sure, you can.
But the fact of the matter is, by comparison to much of the world,
The average American is a wealthy, rich person.
that been in conversation throughout this week with some of our brethren that are in the Philippines that just got hit by a typhoon.
And the typhoon wouldn't have caused nearly as much damage except upriver from them, there was a dam that they decided to open as opposed to letting it break.
Well, what they let out from the dam did far more damage to the cities down below the dam.
than what the typhoon did.
But now you've got brethren in the Philippines who the entire first floor of their house was underwater, which is by the way where the refrigerator, the rice, the food, the goods,
the necessities of life were stored.
And as they watched from the fourth floor of a school, they're watching and realizing everything they've saved, everything they've put aside, everything that they plan to have
for their provisions for the next months and year is gone in a day.
And it wasn't because of the typhoon, per se, but because of the dam that wouldn't have held back what the typhoon brought.
And we think about that and realize, you know what, that happens to people.
We all remember what happened when the hurricane came up and hit North Carolina.
That happens in America too.
And people have been just as devastated by it.
But one of the major things that we have that Philippines doesn't, we have the US dollar and we have the US government.
Philippines don't have that.
And it doesn't fix everything, but generally speaking across our nation, it's a different scenario.
When we have things like that happen, we usually have a few buffers, things like insurance.
That's not always the same in a lot of places in the world.
But I bring that out to make sure we don't divorce ourselves and being American, go.
Well, I drive by all the rich people's places in America, and I ain't one of them.
Because what we don't often do in America is drive by real poverty like it is a lot of places in the world.
Because if we did, we would look at ourselves and go, I ain't one of them.
This young man became an example that Jesus identified to the disciples and said, how hard, not impossible, not it can never be, but how hard it is for those who have riches to
enter the kingdom of God.
Now let's see the opposite example.
I don't want to spend the entire class on this, but we might before we're done.
What's the opposite example of this rich young ruler?
Turn back to Genesis chapter 11.
Genesis chapter 11 verse 27, this is the genealogy of Tira, Tira begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
Haran begat Lot, and Haran died before his father Tira in his native land in Ur, the Chaldeans.
Then Abram and Nahor took wives.
The name of Abram's wife was Sarai, the name of Nahor's wife, Milcha, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcha and the father of Iska.
But Sarai was barren, she had no child.
And Tyra took his son Abram and his grandson Lot the son of Haran and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram's wife, and they went out with them from Ur the Chaldees to go to the
land of Canaan.
And they came to Haran and dwelt there.
So the days of Tyra were two hundred and five years.
And Tyra died in Haran.
Now the Lord said to Abram, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to
him.
Now, we understand that God promised Abraham many things as he tells him to leave.
but he also tells him to leave everything that he's always had around him.
Not just his country, but his family.
In the day and time where multi-generational stability meant much of everything.
You didn't grow up and leave home.
You grew up and built your own home with your family.
And then the next generation did that.
How do we know?
It's right there in the passage.
When Tira left, who went with him?
His son, his daughter-in-law, his grandson?
They all left with him.
When Abram leaves, who's going to go with him?
Lot and all of his family.
The stability of the family was a major factor in your wealth, your sustainability, your ability to provide when hard times came, the support system around you, your own defense.
Yet when God tells Abraham to do something, what does Abraham do?
He does it.
Now again, say, yes, but if we were going to be skeptics, yes, but look at all the things God promised him.
Sure, look at all the things God promised him.
Let's go back and ask ourselves one thing about Mark chapter 10.
In Mark chapter 10, what was the question the young man asked?
What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
were the promises of Abraham greater in substance in Genesis 12 than the opportunity that the rich young man was after?
God says, I'll make you a blessing, you'll have a nation, you'll have a land.
Were those greater than the opportunity that this young man had available to him?
No.
Which one had the greater blessings?
Which one had the greater opportunity?
This one was after something greater than even was that which was promised to Abraham.
It wasn't about the promises.
Abraham's decision wasn't made based upon the promises.
It was made based upon the fact that if the Lord told him to depart, that's what he was going to do.
Now ask yourself, do you think that the rich young rulers education included in education about the life of Abraham?
yeah, absolutely.
What did Jews consider themselves?
The children of Abraham.
Who would they call their father?
Abraham.
You better believe he had an education on Abraham.
Did he live the example of Abraham?
Romans chapter 3.
sorry roman chapter four
Romans chapter 4 verse 1, what then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
For what does the scripture say?
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt.
But to him who does not work,
but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness
apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.
Does the blessedness then come upon the circumcised only or upon the uncircumcised also?
for we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.
How then was it accounted?
While he was circumcised or uncircumcised?
Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised.
So in the context here, Paul is dealing with can those who are Gentiles be saved without circumcision?
Because there were the Judaizing teachers in the first century teaching that a Gentile had to be circumcised and keep the law in order to be saved.
Paul's pushing back on that, but don't miss the rest of the argument as he does so.
He's looking at Abraham and says, here's Abraham, the pattern of faith.
Then notice what he says.
He says, verse 13, for the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
For if those who are of the law are heirs...
faith is made void and the promise made of no effect.
Because the law brings about wrath.
For where there is no law, there is no transgression.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also those who are of the
faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations."
in the presence of Him who believed, God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did, who contrary to hope in hope believed, so
that He became the father of many nations according to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be." Paul makes it clear that the evidence of what God had promised
in Abram's actual life was nonexistent.
The evidence of Abram's ascent to being the father of all who believe, of being the one who was the blessing for many nations, the one who would have descendants, had no evidence
surrounding him of that being the case when God told him it would be.
He had none of that.
Rather, he had faith that God could do what God said.
he could do.
This all comes back to what we should understand about the problem with riches.
The problem with riches is not the riches themselves.
It is our tendency to trust in them.
What is it that Paul wrote to Timothy to exhort the Christians in 1 Corinthians chapter 6?
Teach them not to trust in uncertain riches.
Abraham didn't trust in riches.
Abraham trusted God.
And therefore, when God said, this, Abraham did it.
Now notice.
Jesus says how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God and the disciples were astonished at his words.
But Jesus answered again and said to them, children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God.
When you don't trust and believe Jesus the first time, what does he do?
He repeats his statement to you.
When you are astounded at the statement that was made
Jesus is going to tell you again.
Why would they have been astounded at the statement?
uh Why would anyone assume that the rich were headed to heaven?
There's the key.
All right.
Because if we in our minds have equated riches with blessings from God, we will draw the conclusion that if someone is wealthy, if someone is, his wealth is growing and his
abundance is growing, therefore he is blessed by God.
And now our assumption is if we look at him and say, well, look at what he does, look at how God is blessing him, I should live more like him so I can have the blessings he has.
Jesus said, you have made an incorrect calculation.
Your math doesn't work because you have looked at physical possessions as a blessing and I'm telling you they're a stumbling block.
Notice, he says, how hard it is for those who trust in, oh, there's your problem.
He first said those who have riches.
He comes back with trust in riches.
How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God.
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Why?
Some have suggested there's a gate of Jerusalem that they call the Eye of the Needle and that it was not large enough for a camel.
That's not what Jesus has said.
He's not talking about a small gate in a wall.
He is talking about the Eye of a Needle and a camel trying to fit through it.
He's not talking about something that's hard, he's talking about something that's impossible.
How do I know?
Because he says the same thing in Matthew chapter 6.
Watch it.
Matthew chapter 6.
Beginning of verse 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is there your heart will be
also.
The lamp of the body is the eye.
If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in you is darkness,
how great is that darkness?
And then he says, no one can serve two masters.
For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and money.
Jesus is making it clear.
If you serve wealth, if you serve money, if you serve mammon, as the King James translates,
If your trust is in that, why would you put your trust in it?
Because that's what you serve.
He says, you do that, then your whole body, your whole existence is full of darkness.
How hard is it to leave an existence personified by darkness and come to the light?
Jesus will tell you how hard it is.
You have to get rid of the darkness.
What did he tell the young man he needed to do?
take not not 25 % not a tenth not a tithe not 50 %
Go sell all that you have.
Why?
Because the light in you is darkness.
and darkness is pervasive.
He says, go sell all that you have, give it to the poor.
Come follow me.
He's challenging him to do exactly what Jesus had told them in Matthew chapter 6, to lay up for yourself treasure in heaven.
Doesn't even tell him that?
He's challenging this young man to do the same thing that he's challenging all those who are rich to do.
He's not challenging all those who are rich to sell everything they have, he's challenging all those who are rich to not trust in riches.
Verse 26.
says and they were greatly astonished.
They just went from being astonished two verses before to greatly astonished.
It's not as though it immediately clicked for them.
It was further from their thinking than it had ever been when he used the analogy of the camel.
So they ask themselves, who then can be saved?
Jesus looked at them and said, with men it is impossible, but not with God.
For with God all things are possible.
Jesus lets them know that as they consider their actions, as they consider their deeds,
as they consider how they understand the world that is around them.
Hey Jacob, if you will hit the bell for me, first bell.
he did?
All right, I missed it.
That happens pretty regularly, by the way.
When Jesus challenges them with these things.
He is challenging the fundamental thinking of their lives.
the fundamental preconceptions of everything they believe.
Because what was it that the Jews were looking for?
a kingdom where they would be at peace, where they would be prosperous, where they would be wealthy, where they would again return to the state of what they were as a nation when
David and Solomon reigned.
That's what they were looking for.
Well, in that system, in that envisioning, you think they were imagining that as the ministers and the disciples of the Messiah, they'd be paupers?
And yet, what does Jesus call them to be?
Jesus would tell those who desired to be His disciples.
Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
He says the son of man, homeless.
He doesn't have a bed.
He doesn't have a home tied to His name on this earth.
And here's someone who says, I'll be your disciple.
And Jesus says, really?
Do you know what you're asking for?
Do you know what you're actually saying you'll do?
Do you know what it will cost you?
for Abraham.
He cost him everything.
One last passage as we close.
Hebrews chapter 11.
Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance and he went out not knowing where he was
going.
By faith he dwelt in the land of promises in a foreign country dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise.
For he waited for the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God.
by faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed and she bore a child while she was past the age but because she judged him faithful who had promised therefore from
one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore these all died in faith not having
received the promises
What did it cost him?
Everything.
What did it cost the next generation?
Everything.
What about the generation after that?
Everything.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
on the earth.
What are they saying?
Same thing Jesus did.
Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
They said, our home's not here.
We traveled from Ur-of-the-Caldes and we got to the land of Canaan and guess what we found out?
Our home's not here.
but it is in heaven.
And we need to be reminded that no matter what wealth can buy you here, can't buy you a home with God.
only faithfulness to him can.
We have to challenge ourselves to be faithful to him and not trust in uncertain riches.
Thank you for your attention.