Scripture Reading Mark 10

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Morning, everybody. Uh I'm Nathan. Uh today I'll be reading Mark 10, set verse 17 through 31. As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit all adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother. Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at and loved him. One thing you lack, he said, go sell everything and have it everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to the his disciples, How hard is it to the rich to enter the kingdom of God? His his the disciples were amazed at at his words, but Jesus said again, Children, how hard is it to enter the kingdom of God? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were even more amazed and said to each other, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With the man with man this is possible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Then Peter spoke up. We have left everything to follow you. Truly I tell you, Jesus replied, No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother, or father or children, or fields for me, and the gospel will fail fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age. Homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, fields, along with persecutions, and in the age to comes eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks be to God. Awesome job. Thank you, bud. All right, you

Announcements And What Is Next

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can have a seat. Hey, I'm really glad you're with us. My name is Lawrence. Just a couple housekeeping things. I want to let you know some stuff coming up before we hop into uh our passage today. Uh, first off, half of your age, uh half of your life ago, uh, founding Pastor Ken Jensen, uh, you were in an epic journey. Happy birthday today. Uh, can I believe that was half of your life ago? I won't tell everybody how old you are. You look great. But half of your life. Um, couple things coming up uh next week. Um, if you know someone or you are someone uh who's walking into this holiday season and um there's grief attached to that. Um we have uh a one day, it's during the second service, uh, just a gathering together called uh surviving the holidays. It's a survival guide for the holidays for those of you who've lost someone. Just that there's information out in the lobby about that, but that's next week. Uh, and also if you know somebody, that would be great for them. That's an awesome opportunity. They don't even have to, I mean, I'm gonna just be straight up, they don't even have to come in here. They can just go to that and then decide that could be a good first step for them just to get engaged with this community resources. The next week, Jada said that we have baptisms. That is very true. Uh, next week, also we're gonna be finishing up Mark for this year in 2026. So we're gonna wrap up chapter 10. Uh, Pastor Courtney Beard's gonna be here doing that. And then um, oh, okay. I see how that is. No. And then uh and then the end of the month, uh, right for Thanksgiving, um, we're gonna have Tom Eggham, the founder of Hope for Kids. He's gonna share an update. We're gonna give a whole update about kind of missions of what's going on, and actually an invitation to next summer doing a trip uh and taking a pilgrimage/slash missions trip together as a church family. So that's some stuff coming up. So let me hop in. We're gonna tackle a bunch today. Like I said, we're we're screaming through the 10th chapter of Mark. If you're new with us, welcome. We uh teach the Bible here verse by verse. Uh we don't skip anything. We learned that lesson last week. Um, that

Am I Doing Life Right

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was fun. And we're gonna hop right back into this week, which I think is a really pertinent, powerful conversation, and maybe not exactly what you think it is. Because here's here's here's kind of how I want to set this up is there's a question that almost every young person eventually asks, right? How do I know that I'm doing life right? Been there? Like nobody really tells you when adulthood begins. Apparently, one day you're asking permission to use the bathroom, and then suddenly someone expects you to understand health insurance, right? Like you're supposed to know what a deductible is, or how much to put into retirement, or whether you should buy or rent, or when you should get married, or uh what career that you're supposed to actually pursue. And somehow you're also supposed to know how to meal prep on Sundays, right? Meanwhile, I think half of us are Googling how long chicken's good for in the refrigerator, because we're just trying to figure that out. And underneath all of this uh is this quiet question for like so many of us Am I doing it right? Like, am I successful enough? Am I responsible enough? Am I good enough? Am I am I actually becoming the person that I'm supposed to become? And and if you're religious, you can add another question to this. And am I good enough for God? And that question right there is is literally ancient. Today, somebody literally runs up to Jesus and basically asks it. But what makes I think this conversation so fascinating is that this guy appears to have everything going for him. Like he's young. Come on, he's wealthy, all right. He's moral, he's religious, he's successful. And and later, Luke in the Gospel of Luke actually calls him a ruler. In other words, this guy, if he had an Instagram, you would hate follow him, right? Because he's got a great career, great clothes, vacations, Bible verse in the bio, probably has a sunrise picture with blessed underneath it. You're like, come on, bro. His life like appears to be working, but but here's the deal something isn't settled. And and Mark actually tells us when we hop in verse 17. It says, and as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what is it must I do to inherit eternal life? Notice the urgency right here first. Okay, so he he runs. So dignified men in the ancient world generally did not run around publicly. Running meant like pulling up your robe, exposing your legs. This isn't exactly ruler behavior. And then he kneels publicly in front of Jesus. And so this guy right here really wants an answer, and his question reveals the framework which he understands life, which is what must I do? Right? We do this. Give me an assignment. Like, what's the requirements? Give me a checklist. And some of you under, I think understand this man immediately, right? You're like, sweet, yeah, goals or achievements. Tell me, tell me what success looks like so I can start pursuing it or just get it out of the way. And others of us, I think, really want to know whether the answer is just logically coherent, like show me the pieces, like how they actually fit together in the giant scheme of things. And then there's other personalities in the room that already feel the emotional weight of like, am I doing enough? And some of you thinking, like, could we just not turn eternal

The Rich Ruler Runs To Jesus

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life into another thing that I have to achieve? Right? These are all different personalities, but it's the same question, which is what do I have to do to know that I'm okay? And I I was having a conversation with uh a Muslim uh the other day, and we were talking about this actually, about how you might recognize something in his seriousness about obedience and judgment and that expectation. Or if you're the Buddhist, you recognize the deeper problem of attachment that Jesus is actually about to expose in this. Or if you're the atheist or agnostic, you may not believe in eternal life at all, but I'm just gonna say, say like this: stay with this conversation because Jesus is about to ask something every worldview eventually has to answer, which is this what owns you? Like, what could you not imagine losing without losing yourself? And this man asks about eternal life, but Jesus, he's about to talk about this dude's God. First, Jesus responds kind of strangely. He says, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. So Jesus isn't right here divine denying his divinity, he's he's slowing this man down. You called me good, and do you understand what you just said? In Jewish thought, ultimate goodness belongs to God. Jesus is forcing this man to examine the category he's now just placed Jesus in. Good teacher sounds respectful, but respectful right here isn't enough. And that and that still matters. Um, I I know that uh a Muslim calls Jesus a great prophet, or a Buddhist sees like the extraordinary teacher of compassion, and an atheist may admire his ethics, or an agnostic might regard him as one of the history's most fascinating religious figures. And Jesus keeps pressing right here beyond admiration. Like, hold on, who do you think that I actually am? Because if Jesus is just merely a good teacher, you can take his advice, right? If Jesus is God, though, you surrender your life. Those are radically different relationships. And then Jesus, what he does is he meets this man literally inside of the framework that he's already understanding, says, you know the commands. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, and honor your father and your mother. So what Jesus is doing right here is pulling actually from the Ten Commandments, which are given in the Old Testament, particularly the commandments that are governing our relationships with other people, if you notice that. Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, right? Don't defend, honor your parents. And this guy is probably getting increasingly confident with every command. Like murder, no. That's good. Adultery, uh-uh, right? His stealing, no, fraud, uh-uh. Like uh parents, oh, my mom loves me. I mean, she tells me all the time, right? Like he's crushing this interview right now. And so then he responds. He said to him, Teacher, all the all of these I've kept actually from my youth, right? Now, now, before we roll our eyes at him, be like, come on, right? Mark doesn't portray him as like obviously lying. This man is a genuinely moral man. He's probably spent his entire life trying to obey the Torah, which is the law. He isn't, he isn't coming to Jesus saying, like, how close to sin can I get without technically sinning? Like, he's serious, like he wants God. And that's what makes what happens next so important because morality is good, but morality cannot save you. You can be kind and still be spiritually lost. Let me say that again, because some of you guys have friends like this. You can be kind and good and still be spiritually lost. You can be generous and still worship yourself. You can uh never cheat on your spouse and still have a heart that is completely controlled by something other than God. You can have impressive religious behavior while something deeper actually owns you. And then, Mark, what he does is he gives us a detail I don't want you to miss. And Jesus said, looking at him, that he loved him. This is this, I really want you to like even close your eyes and imagine like what his face looked like because we we we hear tone different when we don't understand that. He loved him. Like before Jesus challenges him, which is coming up, he loves him, looking at him. What does a what does a face looking at you with love look like rather than condemnation? Before he tells him, literally

Morality Cannot Save You

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the hardest thing he will ever hear, he loves him. Before this means a man like succeeds or fails, Jesus loves him. And that changes, I'm telling you, it changes the tone of everything that follows. Jesus is not trying to humiliate this man, this conversation. He get this, he's trying to free him. Some of you need to completely rethink how you hear conviction. You hear Jesus' Jesus like confronting something in your life, and you immediately think he's angry with you. But Mark intentionally tells us what's happening in Jesus before he speaks, which is love. Jesus sees the one thing imprisoning this man, and he actually loves him too much not to name it. To not name it. And then he says, You lack one thing. Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And then come. Follow me. So there it is. Sell everything, give it away, and then follow me. Now, I think some of you just instinctively grabbed your wallet. Jesus, can we discuss percentages before we get to everything? Like we've heard this growing up. Like we never heard the everything, everything bit. We've heard percentages, right? And we just really quickly we need to understand what Jesus is doing right here. This is not a universal command requiring that every Christian everywhere to liquidate every possession. Like we know that because Jesus actually encounters quite a few wealthy people without giving this exact same command. The issue is not that possessing money automatically makes you evil, uh, the issue is what possesses you. So Jesus has walked with this man through the commandments, dealing with other people. Remember, notice that. But underneath this conversation sits the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before me. And Jesus, he's just found his God. Money, security, status, control. His wealth is not just something he owns, it's the thing telling him who he is. And so what he does is he puts his finger directly on it and then notice something else. The man asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus ultimately answers, follow me. That that's literally Christianity in one sentence. Not achieve enough or perform enough or accumulate enough religious points. It's just follow me. Christianity is not fundamentally like an improvement program. What it is, is it's an allegiance to a person. And this is why Jesus' demand is so radical, like in this time. He's not asking this man to become poor for the sake of poverty. He's inviting him to exchange gods. Let go of the thing you trust and trust me. Let go of the thing that's giving you identity and find your identity in me. Let go of the thing that you believe makes you secure and discover that I am your security. And then Mark gives us one of the saddest verses, I think, in his gospel. Disheartened, it says by the saying, he went away sorrowful. For he had great possessions. I mean, notice he came running, he leaves walking away. He came kneeling, he leaves grieving. He came asking for eternal life, and literally when eternal life stood right in front of him, he chose his stuff. But notice he doesn't leave angry, he just leaves sad. Because somewhere inside, I think, I think, I think that he knows Jesus

Sell Everything Or Switch Gods

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is right. Have you ever had one of those moments? Like you know exactly what needs to change. Like nobody has to convince you. You know the relationship is unhealthy. You know the ambition has become like a little obsessive. You know, the spending is about more than just buying things. You know, the drinking isn't just social anymore. You know, the need for approval is controlling you. You know, the career has become your identity. You know, the image that you're maintaining online has almost nothing to do with who you actually are. And the hardest part isn't knowing. I I think. I think it's releasing. This man's tragedy is not that he has possessions, it's that his possessions have him. And here's where um the Buddhists in the room might say, ah, exactly. Attachment produces suffering. Now, there's something I think insightful about that diagnosis, but Jesus goes somewhere different. He isn't merely saying detach, he actually says, abide, reattach, follow me. Christianity does not ultimately replace attachment with emptiness, it replaces it with a lesser allegiance, a lesser allegiance, actually with a greater one. And if you're uh the atheist, the skeptic, I love you, the agnostic, you you can still ask the uncomfortable questions like what possession, what relationship, achievement, idolatry, um, ideology or identity have actually become central to me that is um, that losing it, that that not having that anymore would actually feel like losing myself. That's an invitation. You should you can ask that question. Because everybody worships something in the same sense that literally everybody organizes their life around something that I think they treat as ultimate. Here's a couple examples, like success, that's the ultimate, romance, that's it. Money, sex, career, approval, family, politics, freedom, control, like even being seen as a good person. I'll stop. But I mean, come on, like what whatever becomes ultimate will eventually ask sacrifices from you. Career will ask for your time, approval will ask for your honesty, money will ask for your relationships, image will ask for your authenticity, control will ask for your peace. Every God eventually sends you a bill. And get this Jesus is the only king who ultimately pays the bill himself. And remember where we are in Mark, right? What's Jesus walking toward? Jerusalem. He's walking towards, we know the story. He's walking towards a cross. He's been telling his disciples, he's gonna tell them for a third time uh soon. So when he tells this man, give everything and then follow me, Jesus isn't asking him to go somewhere that Jesus himself refuses to go. He he's already giving everything status, comfort, safety. Eventually, we're gonna see this, his own life. And the rich man is actually being invited to follow a king who practices the surrender that he's actually commanding. And maybe this is why this story hurts, because the man looks successful by every visible measurement. He's moral, religious, young, powerful, wealthy guy, right? But Jesus actually sees beneath every visible metric and asks the question nobody else is asking. Who owns your heart? And apparently, I mean, you can have everything and still lack one thing. And now the man walks away. And I imagine, I would just imagine if I'm sitting in this scene, there's this awkward silence, right? Because everybody just watched it happened, like, ugh, golly, right? This guy came running to Jesus and knelt down in front of him and he asked the right questions. He's lived the moral life. And Jesus, it says he loved him, and then he invited him to follow. And then he walked away. And here's what's crazy Jesus just lets him. That might be one of the most uncomfortable details of the entire story. He doesn't chase them down and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's talk about this. He doesn't lower the standard, he doesn't yell after him, wait, well, let's let's start with 10%, right? He doesn't negotiate because Jesus will not compete for the throne of your life. He loves you, he invites you, he tells the truth, but he will not pretend you can follow him while something else remains your God.

Why Wealth Makes Faith Harder

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And then Jesus turns towards his disciples and it says, Jesus looked around. Let me see, he looked around and he said to his disciples, how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. That statement would have shocked them because this is much of the ancient Jewish world. Wealth could be interpreted as evidence of God's blessing. I mean, this is like prosperity gospel stuff, right? You see examples of faithful people in Hebrew scriptures who possess enormous wealth Abraham, Job, uh, Solomon. So the disciples have categories where wealth and divine blessing can actually sit comfortably beside each other. And so then Jesus says, actually, you know what? Wealth can make entering the kingdom harder. Not because uh money is inherently evil. Evil, but because money is incredibly good at impersonating God. Money makes promises. I'll keep you safe. I'll give you freedom. I'll make people respect you. I'll protect you from uncertainty. I'll make sure you never need anyone. And then money can actually keep some of those promises. This is the best part. For a while, that's what makes it spiritually dangerous. Like nobody worships something they think is useless, right? Come on, we're all like this. We worship things because they work, at least temporarily. And money solves real problems. Like if your car breaks down and you have money, that helps, right? If rent is due and you have some money, right? That helps. If you need medical care and you have some money, that helps. If you're hungry and have some money, you can have some food, right? Jesus isn't pretending that money has no value here. This this is he's saying that money makes a terrible god. Because eventually you encounter something money cannot fix. Money can buy a mattress, it cannot make you sleep. Money can pay for therapy, it cannot force you to begin to mend or heal. Money can buy attention, it cannot guarantee love. Money can extend the life, but it cannot defeat death. And if your entire identity has been built around something that will eventually reach us for the limits of its power, what happens when you reach those limits? So Mark says the disciples were amazed at his words. And then Jesus said to him again, Children, how difficult is it to enter the kingdom of God? They're amazed. And I love then that Jesus calls them children. Because remember what happened earlier in Mark 10? I mean, just the other way, Jesus took children into his arms and said that the kingdom of God belongs to people who receive like them, this children. Now he looks at his disciples and he calls them children. And this connection matters, right? Children receive. The rich man is trying to achieve. What must I do? And Jesus keeps moving the disciples towards a completely different understanding of salvation. The kingdom is not something you purchase, friends, not something that you accomplish, not something you deserve. It's something you receive. And that confronts every personality in this type of room and in that space differently. Because some of us just want to earn it. Like, give me the standard. I'm going to hit it. This is the disciples' personalities and the room in here. Some of us just want to understand it completely before we even under trust it. Like, give me enough information and then I'm going to decide. And some of us, we just want reassurance that everybody's okay. Someone prefer God make this not quite so disruptive. But here's the deal: grace offends all of us eventually because grace says you can't save yourself. That's the point. And then he gives them

Camel And Needle Means Impossible

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an image that nobody would forget. He says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. So a camel through the eye of a needle, right? The thing you sew with. Now, some of you, I think, maybe have actually heard an explanation that there was supposedly like this tiny gate in Jerusalem called the eye of the needle, and that camels would have to kneel down and unload their baggage to squeeze through it. This makes a great sermon illustration. There's just one problem with it. There's actually no compelling historical evidence that such a gate actually existed in Jesus' day. So here's the deal: Jesus isn't describing like a hard, difficult, awkward maneuver that an animal's going to do. He's describing an impossible one. So that's the joke, right? He's telling them a joke. This is dry humor in this moment. The camel was among the largest animals of the people in that region that they regularly encountered, and the eye of a sewing needle was among the smallest of the openings imaginally. So Jesus literally literally, let's just get right down to it. He's intentionally putting the two together. What he's saying is, it's impossible, right? That's exactly what he wants them to feel because the disciples immediately respond and they say, and they were exceedingly astonished. And they said to him, Well, then who can be saved, right? Exactly. It's working, right? Now they get it. Notice they don't ask, then which rich people can be saved? No, no, no. They ask, who, right? Because suddenly they realize that this conversation is bigger than money. If the wealthy, moral, religious guy cannot uh secure eternal life through everything that he has done, then what chance does anybody have? And this is the theological center of this passage. The rich young ruler came asking, What must I do? And Jesus gradually has dismantled the entire premise of this question. You can't do enough, you can't behave enough, or give enough, or know enough, or achieve enough, you can't ask religiously enough, perform your way into the kingdom of God. And then comes the answer. Jesus looked at them and said, With man, it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. There's the gospel, friends. With man, impossible. With God, possible. Notice Jesus looks at him again. Mark keeps uh mentioning Jesus looking at people in this story. He looked at the mid-rich man and he loved him. Now he looks to the disciples and he tells them that salvation is impossible for humans to accomplish. And that's not condemnation. That's actually liberation. Stop it, friends. My performative

With God Salvation Is Possible

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friends, you're my people. Because some of you have spent your entire life trying to prove you're enough. Maybe not religiously, but professionally, academically, financially, relationally. You keep thinking, if I can just become successful enough, or if I can just become attractive enough, or I can just become disciplined enough, if I can just become spiritual enough, if I can, if I can fix enough of my past, then maybe I can just finally take a deep breath. And Jesus comes along and he says something that initially sounds offensive, but I think eventually becomes incredibly freeing. Hey, you, you, friend, my beloved children cannot save yourself. And you don't have to. Again, I was talking with uh a Muslim this other week and said this is one of the places where Jesus asks you to wrestle seriously with the understanding of grace. The Christian claim is not that human obedience is meaningless. Jesus clearly cares about obedience. But obedience is not the mechanism by which we rescue ourselves. God does what we cannot. And if you are Buddhist, Jesus agrees that our attachment can enslave us, like literally. But he goes beyond liberation from attachment. He says that salvation requires divine action. If you're the atheist, skeptical, agnostic, maybe you reject this entire supernatural framework, and that's okay. But at least understand the claim that Jesus is making. Christianity is not fundamentally advice about becoming slightly improved and human being. It's an announcement that humanity needs rescue and we cannot accomplish that ourselves. That's why Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem Him. What is impossible for us, God is about to do. We cannot bridge that distance. So God comes to us. We cannot defeat sin. So Jesus bears it. We cannot defeat death. Jesus walks into it and then, friends, eventually walks back out. But Peter, we're gonna see right here, is still Peter. So naturally, Peter hears this whole conversation and somehow starts calculating. Says Peter began to say to him, see, we've left everything and followed you. That's not his real voice. I'm just imagining. I love Peter, right? You can almost hear the unfinished sentence. Like, Jesus. Uh just noticing something here, by the way. The guy wouldn't leave everything. We did. So how are we doing? Huh? Like that is so incredibly human. The rich man is like walking away because he can't release what he has, and Peterly immediately looks around and says, We released ours, right? Comparison sneaks into discipleship so quickly, doesn't it? We can turn surrender into just another achievement. I sacrificed more, I serve more, I give more, I'm more committed, I read my Bible more, right? I have fewer doubts, I have better theology. I came to church during football season. Congratulations, right? And Peter's question actually reveals something all of us eventually wonder like, is following Jesus worth what it costs? And that's not a bad question because following Jesus does cost something. The rich man just discovered that. Peter knows it too. He left fishing nets and income and routine and familiarity and the family business. He has followed Jesus into storms

Is Following Jesus Worth It

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and gentile territory and hostile crowds, situations he never would have chosen for himself. So underneath Peter's slightly awkward statement is actually a legitimate question. Jesus, we gave everything up for this. Does it matter? And then he doesn't shame him for asking, he answers. And Jesus says, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and the gospel. So notice that phrase right there for my sake and for the gospel. Jesus is not glorifying loss for the sake of loss. He's talking about the cost of allegiance. In the first century, following Jesus could fracture families. It could affect businesses and the relationships. It could cost social standing. Later, Christians would actually experience rejection from communities, loss of uh their property and possessions and the generational stuff, even death. Following Jesus was not a lifestyle accessory like the jewelry of today. It could rearrange everything. And in parts of the world, still today, it does. I can tell you, friends, from personal experience, my extended family is literally on the run right now because they follow Jesus and their lives are in real danger. Not joking. For some of you in this room, following Jesus might not cost you your house, but it may cost a relationship. Could cost popularity, it could cost the version of your future that you had already planned. It could cost like a habit you love. It might cost an opportunity because taking it would require becoming someone that you don't want to or shouldn't become. It could cost the approval of people who liked you better before your life had boundaries. Jesus never hides at the cost. But he also refuses to describe discipleship only in the terms of loss. And so he continues. Who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time? Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands. So what he's doing right here is he's describing a new family created by the kingdom. And this becomes visible in the early church, right? Because what happens is people open their homes, they share possessions, they eat together, they care for widows, they welcome strangers, people who never naturally become family, become brothers and sisters in Christ. So following Jesus might actually rearrange your relationships, but it also brings you into a new community that you would have never manufactured for yourself. And then he adds two words that prosperity preachers would really prefer that he had left out. So what I just gave you is like the cherry pick version of the prosperity gospel, right? That's gonna like do this, and it's gonna, this is what you're getting. This is the guarantee, right? So let me just finish Jesus' sentence with persecutions. It's there it is, right? Jesus was doing so well, like it was so beautiful, a hundredfold houses, families, lands, and persecutions. Like one of one of these things doesn't belong in the brochure. I'm just gonna let you guys know. Jesus refuses to sell Christianity with fake

New Family Plus Persecutions

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advertising friends. Following him brings an extraordinary life, meaning and community, and grace and purpose, and family, and sometimes, all the time and a lot of times, pain, resistance, loss, grief, persecution. Jesus never promises that surrender makes life easy. He promises that surrender is worth it. And then he finishes. In the age to come, eternal life. In the age to come, eternal life. Did you catch it? That's the question the man actually originally asked. What must I do to inherit eternal life? We finally come back full circle. The man wanted his internal life as just one more possession, one more achievement, uh, one more thing that he could add to an already successful life. And Jesus offers eternal life, but only on the other side of surrender. Not because surrender earns salvation. Verse 27 already destroyed that idea. Salvation is possible because of God. But receiving the kingdom actually means opening your hands. Because why? You cannot receive something while desperately gripping what you refuse to release. And then Jesus closes the entire encounter with one sentence. But many who are first will be last. And the last first. That's the kingdom. The rich ruler looks first, his disciples look last. He has status, they have fishing nets. He has wealth, they have questions. He has the credentials, they have calloused hands and alarming inability to remember bread. But in the kingdom, the scoreboard gets flipped. The people everybody assumes are winning may actually be losing. And the people everybody assumes are losing may be closer to the life than anybody realizes. Which means maybe the question is not, how much do you have, or how successful are you, or how religious are you, or even like how good are you? May, maybe the question is, what are you holding on to that keeps you from following Jesus? Because this story begins with a man, again, who has literally almost everything and still knows something is missing. So he runs to Jesus, he looks at him, Jesus does, looks at him and loves him. I actually just went in there. He looks at him and loves him. Because some of you hear this passage about surrender and immediately hear threat. Jesus sees something you love and he wants to take it away, but Mark says Jesus looked at him and loved him. This command came from love. Jesus was not trying to make this man's life smaller. He was inviting him into something infinitely bigger. And the tragedy is that the man couldn't imagine life with what he was holding, without what he was holding on to. So he walked away from the one he had been searching for because his

First And Last Gets Reversed

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hands were full. And maybe today, Jesus is not asking you to sell everything that you own, but I think he is asking every one of us the same question. If I put my finger on the one thing you believe you cannot live without, would you trust me enough to open your hands? Your money, your relationship, your future, your career, your reputation, your politics, your sexuality, your success, your control, your imagination or image of yourself, your need to have every question answered before you trust. What's the one thing that if Jesus asked for it right now would make you walk away sorrowful? Because whatever your answer is, you may have just discovered your God. And then Jesus is standing in front of you. He's standing in front of this man saying, You can keep what you're holding, but you can't follow me with it. You can't make what you're holding your God and follow me as Lord. And so we walked away. And Mark never actually tells us whether he comes back. I think actually maybe that's intentional, right? Because the story's left unfinished. The question moves from him, then to us. What will you do? Because sooner or later, every one of us discovers that the things we thought would save us cannot. Your career eventually will end. The money eventually stays behind. The body eventually ages. People's approval eventually shifts. Control eventually meets something uncontrollable. Every lesser God eventually reaches their limit of power. But Jesus is walking toward the cross, amen. Where he will surrender everything to accomplish what he said and he told his disciples they could never do and accomplish in themselves. With man, it is impossible. But with God, all things are possible with God. You do not have to save yourself. You cannot, but you can. You can open your hands and actually follow the one who can. We uh, like I said, we have a ton of stuff going on next week. We're wrapping up chapter 10. Um, it's been a beautiful journey. If you came here today and uh you need prayer, um because maybe your life actually feels out of control, or you need prayer because you need help surrendering something, or you need prayer because you don't know what to do about that thing, and and you're finally ready to like say, I need help with the thing, whatever that is, you know what it is. We we are invited and inviting you to participate, um, praying for you and with you and alongside of you, carrying the stuff that's a beauty of a faith community. Uh, we have some walls, uh like little prayer walls as in the nook. You also can write something on that um connection card in front of you, the next steps card, and drop it in the boxes in the back.

Invitation To Prayer And Surrender

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Uh, or we'll have people physically there to pray with you. And then um, if if you're ready to let him do what only he can do, what is impossible, you cannot save yourself. If you're ready to surrender over and open your hands up and say, Yeah, I'm ready to come and follow you. I'm ready to receive the invitation and then figuring out what the heck it looks like to participate in this great invitation. Um, we would love to have a conversation with you. We have some great people that are out in the lobby and the this changes everything area. They've got a journal for you about it, just explains some of what the participation looks like in little steps and the 21 days of a journey uh that we have there as a free gift for you. You can go get that. Or if you're with somebody they're interested in it, go take them. Like bring a friend. Let's go. Um, and then let me just go ahead and send you guys off with a blessing. And we have this posture of giving up and receiving. And that's my exact blessing for you today. May you just give up and receive. He invites you to do both. And may we accept that invitation of surrender and then receiving. May we empty thy hand and may He fill it up back up with everything that we need. That's truly sustainable. I love you, friends, so much. I'll see you guys next week.