Good morning. This is always a really weird
view for me. I'm so used to seeing all of the
back of your heads because I sit in the sound booth most of the
time, but it's good to see all your smiling faces.
So, morning. Like Cole said, we've been here
for a while. My wife Carly and I have been
here for the past seven years. If I have not crossed paths with
you yet, please come find me after.
I'd love to change that up. I'm also sorry if my family took
any of your seats this morning. They're taking up a few rows.
I did promise I'm not going to embarrass them too much, so I'm
not going to point it out. You know where you normally sit.
I did, however, get approval to embarrass one member of my
family, my mother. She's always so gracious with
me. But if you end up hanging out
with my mom ever, or see her after, you might start hear some
stories about me. Chances are they are all true,
unfortunately for me. But there was a story that I
felt was particularly important for our passage today, or at
least it applied. So she likes to tell the story
of when I was my oldest son's age, So anywhere from three to
five. I was at that age.
I really loved shoes. Not just any shoes.
They had to be my shoes. OK, that could be light up, be
whatever most kids do. Most most kids get obsessive
about one thing. And yes, I'm trying to justify
myself here, but it just really liked my shoes.
And it became a problem because when my mom would take me and my
older, of my two younger sisters to the store, she'd pop me out
and say, OK, you need to follow me now so we can get what we
need done. Well, a few minutes, a few steps
in, I'd be walking along and be like, Oh yeah, I got my cool
shoes on today. Now most kids are smart enough
to just stop and do this. I'm not that smart.
I kept walking in a parking lot. You can see how this would
become an issue. But a few steps.
A few more steps in. I'm just looking at my shoes,
minding my own business, and right into somebody's side
mirror multiple times. This is I wish that I could say
I learned I did not. This was, if the stories are
true, quite a while. There was just a nice big old
red Welt on my forehead. I don't have much recollection
of this. You can probably guess why, and
I wish that I could say that this is no longer an issue.
It's not. It's still an issue.
My parents, being the great parents that they are, actually
bought me a new pair of work boots this year.
They are the same ones that I've been wearing for the past three
years. These ones just don't look like
they got in a fight with an angry wood chipper and my first
day walking into work. Does anybody want to guess what
I'm doing? These are nice.
I'm going to mess these up so bad.
Pretty sure my Co workers were all looking to see if I was
looking for my last brain cell. Keep that image in mind for you
looking at your shoes. It will come in play later.
We've got a lot of ground to cover this morning.
I've got I think 14 verses, so a lot.
But I'm excited to see what God has for us in this.
We've already actually covered a lot of where I'm going to go
this morning, so it's not going to be new.
But I'm hoping that what I have this morning will allow you to
see Jesus more clearly and out of love, follow him more
closely. So if you are able, either in
body or mind, would you go ahead and stand as we open God's word
together? I am going to be reading Mark
10/17/31 Seventeen through 31, excuse me, and we're going to be
reading out of the NET. It will be on the screen behind
us. There are bibles in front of you
if that's easier for you. Now as Jesus was starting out on
his way, someone ran up to him, fell on his knees and said good
teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Jesus said to him, 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
give false testimony, Do not defraud.
Honor your father and mother, the man said to him.
Teacher, I've wholeheartedly obeyed all of these since my
youth. As Jesus looked at him, he felt
what church love for him and said you lack one thing, go sell
whatever you have. Give the money to the poor,
meaning you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come and follow me. But at this statement the man
looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples how hard
it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God.
The disciples were astonished at these words.
But again Jesus said to them children, how hard 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 even more astonished
and said to one another than who can be saved.
Jesus looked at them and replied, this is impossible for
mere humans, but not for God. All things are possible for God.
Peter began to speak to him, looking.
Look, we have left everything to follow you.
Jesus said, I tell you the truth.
There is no one who has left home, or brothers, or sisters,
or mothers, or father, or children or fields, for my sake
and for the sake of the gospel, who will not receive in this age
100 times as much Holmes, brothers, sisters, mothers,
children, fields, all with persecutions and in the age to
come eternal life. But many who are first will be
last and the last first. You guys can be seated.
Dear Lord, we thank you for this morning.
We thank you for the opportunity to sit under the preaching of
your word. Lord, I have a lot that I feel
like I could say, but they're just words.
And like we sang this morning, if you are not here, I don't
want to be. Please use this in whatever way
you see fit. Amen, right.
Pretty common passage, right? We at least most of us have
heard of it. I did poll my coworkers.
Most of them are not Christians, and most of them actually knew
what the story was as well. Right away we're introduced to
the main character. He's rich, he's young, and he
comes before Jesus with a question.
But there's something missing, isn't there?
What's his name? Anybody.
Anybody want to give him a name? Is I?
He got a name for him. He's preoccupied.
Sorry, Fred. We'll go with Fred.
I like it. So there's no name.
Not in any of the other gospels either.
No account of this story. He's got no origin story, no
outward appearance that needs fixed.
Nothing. Nothing to tie him even
concretely to the timeline of Jesus he's just mentioned here.
Now whether that's because the disciples didn't think it was
important that we knew who he was.
They didn't actually catch his name.
Something that's important to realize when you see a character
without name is that the author. So John Mark in this case wants
us to see ourselves in this person.
He's almost holding up a mirror and saying, hey, this is you.
And he's not allowing for what CS Lewis would call
chronological snobbery, which is this idea that because we're
here, they're there, we have time between us.
We know the beginning, the middle and the end.
So we assume that, OK, we know this, we're not gonna make the
same mistakes. John Mark does not allow for
that, he says. You're still gonna make this
mistake. Learn from it.
And if you've been with us for the past few months, as we've
been going through Mark, almost a year now, isn't it?
This isn't a new concept. We're reminded of this pretty
often, but that is important. So hold on to that as well as we
go forward. So back to our guy, Fred.
So we're introduced to this man and we find out that he's
wealthy, he's young and he knows the law.
We can assume a couple of things.
We can assume a couple of things about from these descriptions.
Option A, his family has handed around generational wealth to
him to inherit. Or Option B and this one is the
one that resonates a little more.
Personally, he worked hard, pulled himself up by his
bootstraps, and God has blessed his laborers with excess.
We don't really know. Both are plausible.
But he comes up to Jesus and he says in verse 17, Good teacher,
what must I do to inherit eternal life?
There's a lot in that question, but let's bring it into the
current era. What he's asking is essentially
the same thing that each one of you and I is asking on a daily
basis. Jesus, what do I need to do to
get the good life? And Jesus being Jesus sees right
through that question. Almost seems as though Jesus has
had enough of the pleasantries though, right?
It's like, why do you call me good?
Seems like a little bit of an odd response, but he has a point
to it and he has a reason, and he addresses it for a reason.
Why do you call me good? Don't you know that only God is
good? Immediately Jesus reminds us of
our humanity and he actually aligns himself with us.
He does not claim to be God. He does not claim that which is
rightfully his, which is He has God, so he is good.
But he wants to remind us of our humanity.
He wants to remind us of what happened in Eden, that because
of our sin we are all marred by it for the rest of eternity.
Unfortunately without him. Sorry, my notes are all over the
place this morning. I should have organized a little
better. Let's go to verse 19.
Just doesn't stop there. You know the commandments.
Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not
give false testimony, do not defraud and honor your father
and mother. Now, you guys have all been in
church for a while. You know that that list is
enough for us to fail pretty quickly.
It just is. Especially if we've been hearing
what Jesus had been teaching at this time.
He breaks each of those down. So what is he doing as he's
somehow now pointing to the law and saying, Oh no, this can get
you in front of God. Absolutely you can be getting in
front of God because of this. No, what he's actually doing is
he's starting to peel off the layers and the rich regularly
doesn't seem to quite get it yet.
We we probably don't, if we look at it just on face value, but
it's going to start peeling back those layers piece by piece.
Verse 20, the young man responds.
Teacher, I have wholeheartedly obeyed all of these things since
my youth. Now when I read this as I was
preparing, started to try and imagine what this guy sounds
like a little bit since we don't know much about him.
And when I read this, what I hear, and it just feels like
there's a layer of honest to goodness, tired in that, in that
sentence. And I wonder if you can hear it.
Jesus, I'm doing everything that I can.
There are a lot of laws, and I'm keeping all of them.
I'm an upstanding citizen. I'm caring for the widow and the
orphan, serving when I'm needed, tithing the prescribed amount
and more, caring for my neighbors.
I can do this. Just give me one thing that
proves that my efforts are worth it, that resonate with anybody
coming to church on Sunday morning and fighting for joy
while realizing there's a mountain to climb when we get
back to work this week, or even a mountain to climb When you get
back home this afternoon. Trying to meet all of the
expectations that you have for yourself everywhere you go,
along with the expectations that everybody else has for you.
So I'm an electrician, for those of you who didn't know, and
being a blue collar guy in the trades, this is actually the
biggest trap that I fall into on a weekly basis.
And it's this trap that says that I can earn my spot before
God If I work hard enough, if I do enough quiet time, if I kill
enough of my sin, pray often enough, serve every opportunity
in the right ministries, preach a good enough sermon, I might be
able to squeak into God's favor. All of those things are good
things, and they are actually worthy of your time.
But church? If they are the currency that
you are using to buy your ticket in front of the throne, you will
find that you are bankrupt every time, every time.
These things that we do are only the symptoms of our faith.
They are not the price to attain it, and I know that you all know
that as well. But our actions often proves
otherwise, don't they? We go home late from work again
because we think a few more hours on the paycheck will make
it worth it. So we don't feel like we're
drowning because God helps those who help themselves first,
right? We go to another solitude
retreat because we feel like a little bit more time with God
will make up for all the time that we've spent avoiding him on
our daily lives. We give all of our time and
effort to the church with no boundaries and at the expense of
our families, because that's what a good Christ follower
would do, right? I think that the worst part of
that, though, is we can see that car mirror coming and we still
run into it. We still are trying these things
and expecting that we can avoid it.
We're expecting a different outcome.
Even if it's subconscious or we put a churchy spin on it, many
of us are still trying to earn it, no matter how much we
verbally acknowledge that. That isn't how it works.
But as we were reminded this morning, thank God there is
grace and hope. Amen.
Jesus doesn't leave him there and he's not going to leave us
there either this morning. This is where the loving and
gentle scalpel comes in and Jesus uses it to separate and it
hurts but it's good. Verse 21 As Jesus looked at him,
he felt love for him and said you lack one thing, go sell
whatever you have, give the money to the poor and you will
have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.
Jesus is about to do open heart surgery.
Jesus response is not something that this man or we can actually
do to inherit the Kingdom. If you guys go sell all that you
have, you're going to have treasure in heaven.
He says that, but it's not going to get you there.
There's still something more to it.
It is practical in nature what Jesus is saying.
Remember, Jesus did not come to abolish the law, only to
complete it, so it is still important.
The practical is what he is using to get to the spiritual,
and this is a chance for all of us to get our eyes off of our
feet and look up. Our efforts in the practical
will point us in the right direction, but they will not
carry us home and family. This is where the truth gets a
little uncomfortable. Most of you know this, but it's
still uncomfortable when we look at it.
If you haven't realized yet in your walk, Jesus makes claims of
absolution on all of us. Loyalty claims, and he makes
them in every area of our life. Here's what I mean.
He says that he is either our king or we are nothing.
Jesus can't be added to our lives.
He is either our life or we do not have life.
He's it. I'm not talking about just
discussing Jesus. Every opportunity that we get ad
nauseam. Talking about how our lives need
to be so saturated and infused, so incredibly secure in him and
what he has done. That every decision, every
relationship, every thought, every ounce of our being is
submitted and carried out imperfectly through the lens of
our love for our King. And that's what Jesus is getting
at here. He opens this man's chest and
puts his finger on the problem. He doesn't go into some diatribe
about how it's not possible that this man has ever fully
accomplished the law. We know it's not possible.
He did too. But he also doesn't pretend like
that law is actually going to get him anywhere near his goal.
He reaches in and lovingly says, hey, there's something sitting
on my throne. He does this with overwhelming
love and care, but it's still uncomfortable.
If we apply this to our lives today, it's almost as if he's
saying, hey, everything you have is in the way.
Give it up. Imagine this with me for a
second. You're the rich young ruler, and
you have this life that you've built around you and you've
worked hard for it. You've poured hours of blood,
sweat and tears into everything. You've prayed for, one thing and
one thing alone. Could be a career, could be your
home, your children, all of it. And he says, this is in the way.
It's not me. How do we respond to that?
I think most of us can see a lot of times that wool white knuckle
hold on to it screaming, no, this is mine.
But we have an example in Abraham and Isaac, don't we?
Abraham trusted that even though God was asking him for his one
son, the only son that he would ever have with promise, back.
And he trusted him and trusted that God is the God who keeps
promises. And I see how most of the time I
respond, I respond with no this is mine.
This is the one thing I get. This is what I want, even if
it's the one thing that I've wanted, or one thing in a long
list of things that I'm fighting for, right?
Keep moving forward. We see what will happen on our
own power, because even though Jesus has opened the hearts of
light, he still gives each of us the opportunity to choose him
over our things in verse 222. But at this statement, the man
looked sad and went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.
He walks away. We're left wondering what will
become of him. Will we turn around and take up
the invitation anyway? Will he walk away from his faith
entirely because what he's being asked is too hard?
As I've read this over and over again, there's a lot of me that
just hopes that he turns around. He realizes that all of his
stuff is just going to rot and rust and burn and not last and
go to somebody else. Even that the one thing that's
standing in front of him is actually the only thing that
will last at the end of the day. And there is actually hope for
that. We don't, like we said, we don't
know who he is. We don't know how the story
ends. That could still be a
possibility, but left to our own devices, without the Holy
Spirit, we do see how we will react.
We will walk away, we'll keep our eyes down on our shoes, and
eventually we will walk right into traffic.
The passage gets kind of clunky right here because there's this
weird transition, and I've been really looking on a way to tie
this up nicely. There's just, there's not.
It's it's awkward. It's painful.
Fred just walks away without a word and everyone is left
standing in stunned silence. Because what What do you do?
You just walked away, but Jesus isn't done.
Verse 23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples how hard
it is to enter the Kingdom of God.
The disciples were astonished at these words.
But again, Jesus said to them children how hard 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 heaven. So they were astonished saying
to one another who can be saved. Jesus did open heart surgery on
this man, but he's not done. He actually turns the mirror on
his disciples. He makes the next cut and holds
the mirror up to them as well. How hard it is to enter the
Kingdom of God. Christian life is hard, and
actually Jesus would argue that it's impossible without him.
Jesus doesn't shy away from what happened and he doesn't
sugarcoat the truth either. Jesus tells his disciples in
more words that there is no hope in our efforts.
The rich, or even just those who seem to be blessed with the
Kingdom in this life don't have a chance on their own.
Our odds are so small that it would actually be easier for a
camel to be shoved through the smallest doorway in the universe
in one piece than for us to earn our way into the into God's
presence. So what's the point?
Why even try? If those who have seemed to earn
God's favor here don't have a chance, then what hope do we
have? Disciples are actually asking
the same question of Jesus, but they have another layer on top
of it. That's even harder for us to
understand. What hope do we have?
We are God's chosen people. You're saying that there isn't a
chance? It's impossible.
Look at his response. This is impossible for mere
humans, but not with God. All things are possible with God
left to the law. In our own efforts, doing all
the Christianese things that we do will give us a moral life.
It will make us look really good on the outside.
It will even actually point us in the right direction.
Laws there for a good reason. But it's not going to get us
anywhere. It's not going to reanimate
this. Our dead hearts, and sadly, no
matter what we try to cram into them, none of that will either.
We need to get our eyes off of our shoes.
Thank God we are not in a completely and utterly hopeless
state. It is impossible for us.
We've established that it's impossible for us, but it is not
impossible for God. Our salvation, our entrance to
the Kingdom, is solely dependent upon him and what he
accomplished. Jesus reminds us of the most
fundamental part of our entire faith, and we actually said it
this morning. In liturgy.
It's grace. It is by grace and grace alone
that we will see God. The disciples don't fully
understand this yet. There's several miles of walking
before they get to Calvary where they will start to understand.
But we do know the end of the story.
And yes, I understand we talked about not doing chronological
snobbery, but I'm going to breaking my own rules this
morning. Church.
We know the truth, and the truth is that we are in desperate need
of reminding of this every morning.
At least I know that I am. His mercy is new every morning.
His Grace is new every morning. But His grace in what the truth
of the matter is that works, will earn our salvation for us.
They just aren't ours. There's a pastor that I admire,
so I cannot take credit for that.
He reminded me of that, and it's helped me attempt to wrap my
brain around grace. We are saved by works.
They're Jesus's works. In fact, the only thing that you
and I contribute to our salvation is the sin that held
him to the cross where he paid for it.
I can't do it. You can't do it.
He did it. We are saved and made secure by
the work of Jesus. When we place our faith solely
in Him, not in our own efforts. When we do place our faith in
Him and Him alone, our failures are made into victory.
The grave that we live in is turned into a garden.
Our sins, all of them are forgiven.
And when I say all of them, I mean past, present and future
because of the love of God for us and because of where Jesus is
heading. In Mark 10, we're given the
righteousness, the perfect nature, the perfect track record
of Jesus, and we are brought into the family of God and
called Children of the Most High.
He did it, and because of him all things are possible, even
and most specifically, turning dead sinners into living,
flourishing children, Dirk reminded us last week.
And it hit home. God does this and he delights to
do it and he does it again and again and again, joyfully and
happily. There's a whole nother section
that I am not going to get to today because I think that
that's probably where we're going to land the plane this
morning a little bit. But for those of you who are in
here saying, OK, I'm giving up and I'm following Jesus, He sees
you and he says that you're going to get it back 1000 times
more. When you get a chance.
This week, read through 20 verses, 28 through 31.
There's beautiful promises in there for each of you.
But there is a word of warning that I do have with that because
I know my propensity. When you read those promises,
remember that the things he is going to give you are not the
reward, he is. The things he's going to give
you back in tenfold are just icing on the cake.
They're going to make following him easier and more loving, but
they are not the reward. In closing today I do have some
application and I did want to get back around to the story.
So it makes a little bit more sense when I would run into the
side mirror of a car, or just a car as a kid, my mom, being the
loving parent that she is, would do what any loving parent does.
She'd come back, kneel down and make sure I was OK, probably
giggling a little bit because we did this again.
OK, but she would remind me of something.
Chad, stop looking at your shoes.
I know that they're really cool, but you need to get your eyes
off of your shoes and follow me, because that is what will keep
you safe. And this is actually what I
think Jesus is saying to us this morning in this passage.
Yes, there's a lot more. I have a notebook full of what I
would call red string on where this passage goes.
We can nerd out about it at some other time, but this right here,
it's so easy for us for me to be distracted by the things, the
good things in life. Get your eyes up and on.
Jesus, your steps to follow him are important, but not as
important as the finished work that he did.
So thought experiment for each of you.
Imagine with me for a second your favorite pair of shoes.
Go for it. Brand new, out-of-the-box, first
time wearing them. Yes, much like I did the other
day. These shoes are actually the
life that God has given you. They are a gift.
They are not the gift. As we move to follow Jesus,
there are going to be times that we look down and get so focused
on our shoes that we forget to follow Him and it will lead us
to run into things. Sometimes it'll lead us in the
wrong direction, and all the time it leads us closer to
danger. Get your eyes off your feet,
repent and follow him. Looking at my own life, there
are actually times that my shoes have actually gotten in the way
of me taking another step to follow Jesus at all.
In those times like me, you probably will need to rip them
off and run after him with no shoes on.
So I actually put idea or boots on that idea.
These are some of the ways that my shoes have gotten in the way
of me following Jesus. This list is in no way
comprehensive, and it is left vague for a reason.
I'd love to talk about it at some point, but I don't have the
time to fully elaborate on all of them.
So here we go. If our pursuit of joy and
contentment in Jesus has turned into the pursuit of joy in spite
of Jesus, take off your shoes, repent, and follow him.
He is our reward, not the happy feelings of doing the easy
things that he asks of us. If our theological worldview has
caused us to resort to tribalism and caused us to treat others in
an unloving way, take off your shoes, repent and follow him.
Theology did not create God, and in reality it's a stick figure
drawing of who he actually is. If our social causes have
prohibited us from extending the same grace and mercy that we
have received in Christ to both our friend and our enemy, take
off your shoes, repent, and follow him.
In Jesus all things will be made new.
Amen. And the Kingdom will be
restored. These things are not going to
happen because of us. They're going to happen because
of him. I did debate on this last one,
but I'm going to do it anyway. We're moving into another
politically heavy year. Tensions are high already, which
is fun if our political party causes us to see any other human
being as anything less than the very image of God, no matter our
disagreements on good things to disagree with.
Take off your shoes, repent, and follow him.
Remember that our politics, no matter how important, are not
going to save us. But Jesus will, and he is
returning someday to do it this week.
My challenge to you is take some stock of your life, both
internal and external. Follow your money and follow
your things. Because a lot of times that will
tell you where your heart is and whether your eyes are on your
feet or not. Taking internal stock, I would
actually encourage you to get with your fighter group or
community group, or even just with the Holy Spirit by
yourself. That may look like getting away
for some time and praying with an open journal.
It may also look like asking your fighter group what they see
you struggling with the most, what they see that may have
climbed up on Jesus's throne, and then asking and praying
together that God would dethrone it.
Be gutsy for the Kingdom. It's worth it.
Look at your life. Pray earnestly for the Holy
Spirit to show you if there is anything sitting on Jesus's
throne. If there is, and last
encouragement is actually the same as before, dethrone it
while there is time. Get your eyes off of your feet.
Repent and follow him. Jesus, Thank you again for just
the opportunity that you've given me to stand up here this
morning for. Thank you more for your grace,
Lord. In my life that is the one
constant that has been there, and it is the only reason that I
can stand here today. Whereas we go through this week.
I pray that we would fall more deeply in love with you and that
that would cause us to chase after you with everything that
we have.