An Invitation to Follow Jesus!

Mark 10:17-52
Introduction

A few years ago, we held a garage sale in Whiteridge in order to raise funds for the Arthritis Society. There were two things on the minds of people who came to the sale. They were looking for something and they were wondering how they would get it.

It was fun to watch people search for what they were looking for. One man came very early, walked through quite quickly and left. I suspect he was looking for things that he could resell for more money. Others browsed and purchased an odd collection of things that were of value to them. One lady came and asked if we had a tricycle and left when she found out we didn’t have one.

It was also interesting to see how people got what they wanted. Some people picked up an item and paid for it, others asked if we could reduce the price and some looked at the price and decided that it was too high. The funniest thing that happened was that when we had been doing the pricing the day before, we had been pricing some vases. We had put a price of 50 cents on most of them, but one was a little larger and just to be silly, I put a price of $30 on it. On the way home I told Carla what I had done and she wasn't too happy and determined that the next morning before the sale started she would put a more reasonable price on it, but the next morning she forgot. Fairly early in the day a lady came up to her and asked if she could lower the price on that vase. Our daughter was there and suggested a price of $15 and the lady countered with $10 and they sold it for that price.

These two questions – “what do you want and how will you get it?” are also questions that we ask in other areas of life.

All of us are looking for something. Leo Buscaglia became famous for his lectures on love and has spoken of it in books and on television because he believes that people are looking for love. Our government thinks that people are looking for more places to gamble, so they have increased the licenses for video lottery terminals. HGTV thinks we all want to remodel our homes and offer one show after another on home renovation. Home Depot hopes they are right. What are you looking for?

The other question is, "How are you going to get it?" I once saw a documentary on the 10 most beautiful buildings in the Muslim world. In the course of the program they described the five pillars of Islam, which is the term given to the five duties incumbent on every Muslim. These duties are profession of faith, prayers, fasting, giving of alms and pilgrimage to Mecca. That is how Muslims think they will get what they want.

            The stories in Mark 10:17-52 are stories of people who are seeking. What were they seeking? How did they think they would get what they wanted?

I.                What Do You Want?

            In this section of Mark several times people asked Jesus for things that they wanted. In Mark 10:17 the man whom we have come to know as the “rich young ruler” asked Jesus “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” What did he want? He was concerned about eternity and his place in it. He probably had a very comfortable life because he was wealthy, but was not confident that he would be OK forever. In Mark 10:26 the disciples asked Jesus, “Then who can be saved?” What did they want? They were aware of the eternal and mortal danger they were in and wondered how it was possible to be saved from that danger.

It is interesting, however, that as Jesus responded to their requests He did not use their language. He did not condemn their language and the desire it expressed, but He also did not use the same words. Three times Jesus used the same phrase when he responded to their requests. In verse 23 He spoke of entering "the kingdom of God!" The same language is used in verse 24 and 25. Each time Jesus did not use the language of inheriting eternal life or being saved, but rather spoke of entering the kingdom of God.

Why did he use this language instead of the language they used? What is the difference between asking to inherit eternal life and asking to enter the kingdom of God? What is the difference between asking to be saved and asking to enter the kingdom of God? To speak of inheriting eternal life is to focus narrowly on what will happen at the end. To speak of being saved has a focus on avoiding final destruction. When Jesus spoke of entering the kingdom of God he intended his followers to embrace something much bigger and much better. What we often want and what is often offered in presentations of the gospel is to make sure that we are OK in the end. What we want is for ourselves and those close to us to be in heaven when we die. What Jesus offers is a whole life focus. He not only wants to deal with our eternity. He also invites us to live in a relationship with God now. If we only want to have eternal life, we will never be able to understand how living for God is a much better way of living. We will never understand why following God may involve persecution. In Mark 10:30, in a passage that speaks of the rewards of following God, Jesus also mentions that it may involve persecution. If all we want is eternal life, we will never understand why persecution may be a part of our life now. When we desire to enter the kingdom of God, then we do understand that persecution may be a part of the path which will lead to ultimate victory. After all, Jesus went the way of the cross, and because He did, He gained a victory much greater than if he had called down 10,000 angels. Geddert says, “Jesus does not guarantee an easy life. He promises an identity, a support system, and security in abundance, sufficient even for times of persecution…(and)eternal life.”

If we only want to inherit eternal life, it implies that we are only interested in seeing God in the end. What Jesus wants for us is to enter into a relationship with Him now and to live in His way now for that is true life. If we do that, then we will not only inherit eternal life, but we will rejoice to enter into the presence of God and be glad to see the one whom we have come to know throughout life and for whom we have lived our lives.

So, how do you ask the question? What do you want? Are you only concerned about the end or do you also desire the life God has for you now?

II.             How Will You Get It

The next question is, “how will you get what you desire?”

A.              How You Won’t Get It

A number of statements in this passage imply how we won’t get what we desire.

1.              Being Good

The rich man addressed Jesus as “good teacher” and Jesus answered, “No one is good except God.” What did He mean? In part he meant for the man to realize that He Himself was God. The other part is that He was intending the man to understand that you cannot enter the kingdom of God by being good. If God is the only one who is good it means that all the rest of us are not good and no matter how much goodness we may have, there is never enough to qualify us to be in the presence of God. So it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God by being good because no one is good enough.

2.              Obeying the Law

            The other thing we learn is that no one can enter the kingdom of God by obeying the law. It is interesting that Jesus tells the man to keep the law. Was he actually pointing to keeping the law as the way to enter into the kingdom of God? It is true that one can enter the kingdom of God by keeping the law, but can anyone actually do that? The rich man thought he had, but we need to listen carefully to the way this conversation happens. The very fact that he was asking Jesus about eternal life suggests that perhaps he was not all that certain that his obedience was enough? Why not? The reason he did not have certainty is that in fact he actually had not kept the law as he thought he had. The way Jesus recited the ten commandments tells us that he was challenging the man's thinking. Jesus stated only the last 6 items in the ten commandments. He also changed “you shall not covet” to “you shall not defraud.” As we reflect on these differences we begin to realize what the man’s problem was. Although he could easily affirm that he kept the law the way Jesus quoted it, he would have had more difficulty saying he kept the law if Jesus had said do not “covet.” He walked away sad, when challenged to give all his possessions to the poor, and from that we see that he was guilty of coveting his own possessions and not wanting to part with them. We also see that he loved his possessions more than he loved God and so violated commandments 1-4, which speak of loving God, and which Jesus did not quote.

            What was true of this rich man is true of us. We may think that we keep the whole law, but we always will fall short in some way. Even if we think we are keeping the whole law it is on our terms and there is this nagging sense that we are missing something. That is why we cannot enter the kingdom of God by keeping the law.

B.              How Will You Get It?

So we are left with this great gap in our lives. We want the life God has for us. We want to enter God’s kingdom, both now and in eternity, but how is it possible?

1.              Leave Everything

Jesus told the man that the way into the kingdom of God was to "sell everything and give to the poor." Is that what we need to do? I believe that was what that man needed to do, but it was the application of a much more important principle and that is that in order to enter the kingdom of God what everyone needs to do is to leave everything.

Whenever anyone was being called by Jesus, they were always asked to leave everything. For the rich ruler, leaving everything required selling it. For others it meant different things. In Mark 10:28 Peter mentions to Jesus, “We have left everything and followed you.” And they had. They had left their nets and their families. As Jesus went on to explain what this meant, in Mark 10:29, he used the language of leaving home, brothers or sisters, mother or father, children or fields. Particularly in that culture these things represented things that related to who a person was. Geddert quotes that this is a list of life’s essentials. Home is where I belong; brothers and sisters are those to whom I belong; parents speak of who I am, my ancestry; children are a revelation of God’s blessing and can also represent our security in old age; fields refers to our visible inheritance and in that time it was a marker of God’s promises as they referred to the promised land. To leave these things is a large step, but unless we are willing to leave everything we cannot enter the kingdom of God. For at least two of the disciples, James and John, leaving everything meant giving up ambition and positions of honor in order to be servants. To enter into the kingdom may not mean that we have to sell everything and give it to the poor, but it does mean that we have to leave everything. Especially that which owns us, as the young man's wealth owned him. To leave everything is to acknowledge that there is nothing more important in our life than Jesus.

To leave everything in order to follow Jesus is a costly thing and that is why Jesus calls us to count the cost. Are we willing to bear the cost? As we think about that, we need to remember that Jesus Himself was willing to leave everything as He Himself says in Mark 10:45 when He pointed to His own example that He, “did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

            When Jesus gave this answer it wasn't because he was trying to provoke the man with an impossibly high standard. The call to leave everything is not because Jesus wants to make things as hard as possible. When Jesus met this man we read in verse 21, "Jesus, looking at him, loved him…" The motivation behind Jesus' answer was that he loved the man. This is also true when Jesus asks the same thing of us. He invites us to give up everything because he loves us. This love of Jesus is demonstrated in the promise which Jesus gave to the disciples because they had left everything. He assures those who make this costly decision that they will have a 100 fold return on their investment. That is a huge return. If a 100% return on investment means that you get everything back, what Jesus is promising is that we will be compensated 100 times over, which would be a 10,000% return on investment. Jesus promised those who would give up everything that He would supply all their needs and more. The question we need to ask as we want to know how to enter the kingdom of God is, “Do I really believe that God will be there to catch me if I give up everything?” Faith is believing that He will and it is that kind of faith that will allow us to enter into the kingdom of God.

2.              Follow Jesus         

But giving up everything is only part one of the answer. The second part is to follow Jesus. Jesus said to the man in Mark 10:21, “Come, follow me.” Peter acknowledged, in Mark 10:28, that they had left everything in order to follow Jesus. For the weeks and months since that time, the disciples had walked with Jesus wherever he went. They were beginning to learn what the way of God was like. They were learning to function in the power of Jesus. They were learning to trust Jesus.

The journey of following Jesus is not always an easy one. Like the disciples, we forget, we falter, we fade, and then we begin again. But it is a journey in which we will learn to think like Jesus thinks, to act like Jesus acted and to do what Jesus did. Being in the kingdom of God is not only a matter of having a ticket to heaven. It is a life of following Jesus. It means that Jesus is not the co-pilot in our car, as some bumper stickers indicate, but rather the driver and we go where He goes and we do what He wants us to do as we follow Him.

3.              By Faith in God Who Is Able

Is it possible for us to leave everything and follow Jesus?

As the disciples heard Jesus say that it was very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, they understood that they were included in that difficulty. Jesus went on to reinforce that in fact it was impossible. He told them that it is as possible for a camel, to go through the eye of a needle – both humps – as it is for any man to be saved. It cannot be done.

But then Jesus gave this wonderful promise in Mark 10:27, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” The rich man, who has a hard time letting go of his riches, cannot leave everything in order to follow Jesus. The poor man, who holds on to every little scrap he earns, cannot leave everything in order to follow Jesus. The student who has great ambitions for the future cannot leave everything in order to follow Jesus. The retiree who wants to squeeze as much life as possible out of what is left cannot leave everything in order to follow Jesus. The question of the disciples is such a relevant question. “Who then can be saved?”

What we cannot do, God can do. He can turn the heart of a rich man around so that he is able to hold loosely to his possessions and follow Jesus. God can change the heart of the poor man so that he is not consumed with survival and give him the freedom to live in dependence on God. He can take students bent on having good marks and on making a mark and change them into servants who desire to make their mark for Him. He can take retirees who want rest and recreation and change them into people who generously give their lives to serve God right until the end.

Conclusion

One of the themes which we have followed throughout this section has to do with seeing. In Mark 8 we read about how Jesus healed a blind man which we understood to be a promise that he would help his disciples see. But as the story goes on, we see that they often did not see. In this section Jesus makes a third announcement of His death and resurrection and once again the disciples were afraid and didn’t understand. They continued to be partly blind because even though they left everything to follow Jesus, they were still learning what that meant.

We have read a number of stories of Jesus healing blindness and have noted their significance to seeing spiritually. Therefore it is interesting that Mark ends this section with another story of the healing of a blind man. He gives his name as Bartimaeus, which means son of honor. But this man was anything but an honored man, he was a man of shame who had to sit and beg because of his blindness. He had his cloak spread out in front of him and listened for the drop of coins which meant he would be able to eat another meal.

When he heard that Jesus was walking by him he cried out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Although the crowd tried to shut him up, Jesus heard him and invited him to come. What he did next is important. We read in verse 50, “throwing off his cloak.” In that act, which seems incidental, we have a very deliberate action in which this poor man gave up everything he had. He did what the wealthy man was unable to do and what every disciple needs to do, he left everything.

As he came, Jesus asked what he wanted and he said, “let me see again.” In a context that has spoken as much about spiritual seeing as physical seeing, we once again need to understand that he wanted to see in every way. How did he enter the kingdom of God? Jesus affirmed that it was not by being good or by keeping the law. It was by faith, by turning in trust to the only one who could help him see and recognizing that what is impossible for man, is possible for God.

Then to affirm once again what is required to enter the kingdom of God, we read at the end of the story that he “followed him on the way.” Being on the way with Jesus is an important theme in this section. We encounter it several times and so when we read that this is what the blind man did, we know that it means that what the rich man was unable to do, what the disciples continued to struggle to do, the blind man did. He left everything to follow Jesus and he did this not by his own strength or ability, but by faith in God.

In a recent MB Herald, there is a story of a number of seniors who live with these kind of kingdom values. One couple, Bill & Jacquie Stevens, wrote “Turning 65 was like becoming a newborn baby. We’ve done more, experienced more, and loved more since we turned 65 than all the years before. My only regret was waiting until I retired to do this. The world was ready to put us out to pasture, but the Lord was just beginning our most fulfilling experiences of our lives.” I point to this story because I know that many in this congregation are like them. I want to affirm those who have left everything to follow Jesus and encourage all of us that if we want to enter the kingdom of God, no matter what our age or stage of life, we must do so by leaving everything and following Jesus. Doing so will be greatly rewarded both now and in eternity.

What do you want? Do you just want eternal life? Do you just want to be saved or do you want to enter the kingdom of God? Are you willing to leave everything in order to follow Jesus? If that is what you want, you can’t get it by yourself, you can only have it by the power of God through faith in Jesus.