Continuing our verse-by-verse exposition of the Gospel of Mark.
! And last week we dealt with verses 17-31 in some part,
! And this week we're going to look at the other part, the second part of this text.
Let's begin by reading it.
Beginning at verse 17 of chapter 10.
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him,
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And 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 bear false witness.
Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.
And he said to him, Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.
And Jesus said, looking at him, I'm sorry, Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him,
You lack one thing. Go sell all that you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.
Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples,
How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
And the disciples were amazed at his words.
But Jesus said to them again, Children, how difficult 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.
And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him,
Then who can be saved?
Jesus looked at them and said, With man it is impossible, but not with God,
for all things are possible with God.
Peter began to say to him, See, we have left everything and followed you.
Jesus said,
Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel,
who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.
But many who are first will be last and the last first.
This is God's word to us, written for his glory and our good.
We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.
Let's pray together.
Father, I have no good thing in me apart from you.
The gifting that we would call natural only has its proper effect when you work powerfully in me.
The gifts that you have given me were ultimately given for the church,
and so I would pray that you would use them this morning.
Use me beyond my giftedness to speak your word with clarity and conviction to your people.
Father, we would ask this morning that you would have the word properly work in our hearts,
convict us of sin, turn us to repentance and further belief.
Make us this morning long for Christ all the more as we hear the preaching of your word.
And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
Now, as I mentioned, this is part two of us dealing with this text.
Last week we dealt with the more evangelistic aspect of the text.
You remember that we have here, aptly subtitled in most of your copies of the word,
the rich young man or the rich young ruler,
a man who comes up and interrupts Jesus as he's setting out on his journey,
his journey towards Jerusalem.
We're in the months leading up to his crucifixion and subsequent resurrection.
And he's trying to pack in the last bit of teaching that the disciples need to receive,
the things that he's trying to build into them that he promised he would bring to their remembrance
by the power of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
So he's setting out on this journey and he's interrupted.
We get from the context of the parallel passages in Luke chapter 18 and in Matthew chapter 19
that he's this rich young ruler, likely a ruler of the synagogue,
which would have been a very esteemed religious position.
As a young man, he would have had to be incredibly pious by the culture standards
to be able to hold this position at that age.
And it was also a position that came with a lot of wealth.
He would have had great possessions.
And we see that in verse 22 of our text.
He had great possessions.
He knows, though, that he's lacking something.
He gets that the equation is not quite completed
as we see him come in an apparent act of humility
and come to Jesus and say,
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And in fact, he runs to him,
which is a thing that rich people did not do in this day,
and he kneels down before him.
But Jesus gives him a curious response.
Most of us would have wanted to just preach the gospel to him,
give him the very clear repent and believe.
But Jesus instead gets at his very heart.
And he knows where this man stands as he calls,
he throws around this term good.
He uses it very flippantly of a man who he knows is a teacher,
but he doesn't know that he's the Son of God.
He does not know that he is the Christ.
And so Jesus sees that his intention is not really a humble intention,
but what he wanted to do was to add to the things that he already had.
He didn't come to him seeking God himself.
He came seeking what could be added to his account.
He wanted to see what he could gain from God.
This is evidence in the way he responds as Jesus tells him the thing he's lacking.
This is what you lack.
The thing that you treasure,
the thing that you are holding so dear to,
is your material possession.
And if you're to worship the one true God,
you have to stop worshiping this thing,
and the command he gives to him is,
therefore, get rid of it.
Prove it.
Prove that you don't worship the things that you have
by giving it away to the poor.
And come follow me.
And the young man we see goes away disheartened.
So we dealt with that primarily last week.
Jesus' evangelistic strategy in this case.
Today we're going to look and see what true wealth is in God's economy.
What true wealth is in God's economy.
Now we have to be really, really careful, I think, when we talk about money.
The scriptures have a lot to say concerning the matter.
And it's very easy to get on the pendulum and swing from one extreme to the other
and not walk the proper balance of the doctrine of money
and how it is we're meant to deal with it as followers of Christ.
Because the Bible does not condemn the right of private property.
The Bible has been used throughout history to make claims of socialism
and more severe forms of the same.
But the Bible doesn't condemn the right of private property
but actually assumes the rightness of it.
In the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20.15 says,
You shall not steal.
Why?
Because those are other people's possessions, not your possessions, right?
They rightly own those things.
Therefore, don't take it from them because it's not yours.
Another wonderful example of this, if you'll turn to Acts chapter 5,
is the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
This is early days of the church.
And we see at the beginning of chapter 5, verse 1,
But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property.
And with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds
and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.
If we were to stop here, it would seem that the right and proper thing
for all Christians to do is to sell things we have, give to the poor.
I'm going to make a case to that later, but not on this text.
Look at what Peter says in verse 3.
But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit
and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
So the lie here is against God, against the Spirit.
Verse 4, while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?
It was yours. It was your property.
Was it not yours?
And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?
Was it not your possession to do with it as you please, is what he's saying?
Why is it that you contrive this deed in your heart?
You have not lied to man, but to God.
We see shortly after, the two of them dropped dead in the presence of Peter.
The issue at hand was not that they didn't give all of the proceeds,
but that they lied about giving all of the proceeds.
That they did this good act to mount on themselves a claim for being so devoted to the early church,
when in fact, they sold it, kept some for themselves, and said,
here's the proceeds from the selling of that land.
So Peter affirms that they had a right to the personal possession.
Now there are other teachings, of course, in the Scriptures about this.
Let's look together at what the Proverbs, just the Proverbs, right?
The challenge of preparing for this is narrowing down what text we're going to use.
Let's look just at the Proverbs together, what they say concerning possessions,
because they both commend the having of wealth
and give strong warning concerning the having of the same wealth.
They do both.
There's a balance struck here.
Proverbs 10, verse 15.
A rich man's wealth is his strong city.
The poverty of the poor is their ruin.
So wealth has a place.
It serves a purpose.
It gives to us security.
It is the way in which we deal in the world.
This is what this Proverb is saying.
Proverbs 10, verse 15.
However, on the other side of the coin,
Proverbs 18, verse 11,
says,
A rich man's wealth is his strong city.
Notice the same phrasing.
And like a high wall in his imagination.
So this Proverbs says that it would seem to those who have wealth
that they are in fact secure
when the reality of it is that their security comes from a higher place.
God uses their wealth as a means for their provision.
So you see the two sides there.
The proper way to think about wealth as a security.
All right.
Again, chapter 10, verse 4.
A slack hand causes poverty,
but the hand of the diligent makes rich.
Here, a positive thing for working hard,
for not being lazy,
because if you are, you will be impoverished.
But if you're to work hard,
you will be rich.
But, Proverbs 11, verse 4,
So, we're being commended to be rich.
However, 11, verse 4 says,
but they're not going to profit you in the end.
But righteousness is what delivers us from death.
And the Proverbs go on.
And again and again and again,
the Proverbs are full of encouragements to generosity.
Chapter 19, verse 17.
Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord,
and he will repay him for his deed.
Proverbs 11, verse 24.
One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.
Another withholds what he should give,
and only suffers want.
They're being commended to give,
not necessarily to receive monetary wealth,
but that will be richer in another way,
which we'll talk about shortly.
Right?
But the ones who withhold only suffers want.
It's lacking.
Proverbs 28, verse 27.
Whoever gives to the poor will not want,
but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.
So there's a proper balance to strike here,
especially as we look at our text before us today,
and see that Jesus gives a very pointed,
unavoidable command to the rich young ruler.
In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount,
James Montgomery Boyce,
who was a 20th century Presbyterian pastor,
commentator, as I mentioned,
wrote this,
Now someone will ask,
Aren't we to sell all that we have and give to the poor?
After all, this is how Jesus instructed the rich young ruler.
Boyce writes,
Yes, he did.
But we must also note that he did not say it to Mary or Martha or Lazarus or to John the Evangelist or to Zebedee.
He said it to the rich young ruler because his chief obstruction to a life of following Christ lay in his possessions.
He proved that by turning away.
For such a person,
and there are many today,
don't catch,
miss that phrase,
for such a person,
and there are many today,
many in this room,
the loss of their possessions would be the most significant blessing of their lives.
The best thing they could do would be to give them away.
This does not mean, however,
that possessions in themselves are wrong.
It's the people and the way we use the possessions that's wrong,
not the possessions themselves.
They're amoral.
Or, for that matter,
that poverty is a particularly blessed form of Christianity.
God has not called us to poverty,
but he has told us how we should deal with our wealth.
In a very particular way.
So let's look together first in our text at the poverty of possessions.
Beginning in verse 23.
Jesus looks around after this encounter with the rich young ruler,
and he makes some very big statements.
How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom.
Right?
They're amazed by this.
Verse 24.
Children, how difficult 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.
He keeps raising this.
He says in verse 24 how difficult it is,
and he goes on to use this analogy of a camel going through the eye of a needle,
which was a popular saying of the day,
and it meant, simply, it's impossible.
There are many people that try to get around this,
many commentators that make up all sorts of things
about there potentially being in Jerusalem.
A gate called the needle gate that they took camels through
that they just barely fit through.
There's no archaeological evidence of that.
It's absolutely insane to think that anyone would try to stuff a camel
through a small gate rather than taking them through the big gates
that were conveniently located around the exterior of the city.
No, what he is saying is that it's impossible.
That is what he is saying to them in our text so far.
Why is it particularly impossible for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of God,
which is his address?
And that is because it is easy to love the things that you have.
It's particularly easy to love the things that you hold in your hands.
You can love things either way.
Don't miss that.
You can love and worship stuff and not have much at all.
But it's especially easy when it's in your hands to love it.
A number of years ago, I don't remember how many exactly,
but we were preaching something similar about wealth
and holding on to material things in this world.
I've come to a place in my life where I'm pretty open-handed with the things that I have.
And I can't say to you this morning that I always am.
I struggle just like you do, loving stuff too much sometimes.
But for the most part, I'm pretty open-handed.
I have plenty of things taken from me.
I've lost things.
I've come to realize that my goal is to be eternal and not temporal here.
But there's one thing in this world that it would just break my heart to lose,
and that's my wedding band.
My wife gave me this wedding band.
I really can't replace it.
I could get another wedding band, sure,
but it wouldn't be this wedding band.
I really, really like this.
It's not worth a ton of money, right?
Maybe you could sell it for $100, right?
But it's really precious to me.
And after we had gotten done with this sermon,
I talked quite a bit about holding so tightly to Jesus
that we didn't have anything else, no other room in our hands for anything else.
We went out, and it was the 4th of July,
with her parents out onto the lake to watch the fireworks.
And we pulled around the front of this island close to the dam
where the waves are three feet tall because everyone's out on the lake
renting their massive houseboats and causing quite a commotion out there.
And her dad, who has this old pontoon boat and doesn't have a proper anchor
that drags and catches you in the sand when you're trying to sit in those kinds of ways,
you boat people know what I'm talking about,
but instead had an old set of barbells with a rope tied to it,
which would roll along the bottom because they were round,
was trying to get us off the bank, and we were smashing into the bank,
and so I thought it'd be helpful.
I hopped up on the back of the boat, pulled the rope up,
and gave it a good heave-ho out there.
And the rope actually made my ring spin on my finger,
and it spun straight up right off my finger
and then dropped, I mean, an inch from the edge of the boat.
And I was standing on the edge, I mean, you know, phone-in pocket and all that,
and I didn't catch it, and it went into the bottom of the lake.
I promptly threw everything out of my pockets and jumped in after it,
but the water was so murky, and I'm really not a fantastic swimmer,
that I spent 20 just desperate minutes trying to find my ring on the bottom of the lake
and finally had to say, well, oh well.
And as I gave up and got out, climbed up out of the water onto the boat,
the thought that went through my mind was, prove it.
Everything that I had been saying that very morning,
God was saying to me, show it to be true.
Even your wedding band, you have to be okay.
With this.
Praise God, two days later, actually it took me a couple days to kind of settle on it all
and say, well, it is just a thing.
It is temporal, right?
It's fading away like everything else in this world.
It is, in fact, a temporal thing.
Just about the time I had become okay with that,
her dad had really graciously gone back out with a triathlete from his church
and a much better swimmer than myself is the point I'm making,
and he dove a hundred times and found my ring.
So I got it back.
I got to tell the story the next Sunday, and I had it off my finger as I'm telling the story,
so people are having heart attacks, and then I put it back on my finger.
So this is the ring, still on my finger.
Here, I have it back.
Right?
But are we willing to let go of all those things that we have?
And it's just so easy when it's in your hands to love it.
To absolutely love it.
And to not want to give it up for the sake of Christ.
1 John 2, verse 15-17 says this,
Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life,
is not from the Father, but is from the world.
And the world is passing away along with its desires.
But whoever does the will of God abides forever.
And a lot of people want to stop at this point.
And they want to say,
Yes, it's okay to have things as long as I don't worship those things.
And if I were observing a life that seemed properly oriented,
that in all ways said,
I love Jesus more than these things,
I would say,
Amen, I think you've got it right.
I think you're walking the balance just so.
But most of the people who will say that,
don't live that way.
By all appearances,
they love their stuff much more than they love Jesus.
John goes on to say in 1 John, in chapter 3, verse 17-18,
But if anyone has the world's goods,
and sees his brother in need,
yet closes his heart against him,
how does God's love abide in him?
Little children,
let us not love in word or talk,
but in deed and truth.
We live in an incredibly broken world.
Sin is ravaging across the face of our planet.
One of the major ways it does this is in poverty.
And there's a lot of factors that go into poverty
there's a lot of factors that go into bringing people out of poverty.
But it's a reality.
It exists.
And we all know that it exists.
We very conveniently hold poverty at an arm's length
because we pay taxes
and we have social welfare programs in place in our country,
which we all know are horrible failures.
They don't do the work
because they're not accompanied by love and truth.
Just money.
It's not accompanied by love and truth.
There's all kinds of statistics out there
about poverty in the world.
I'm just going to give you a couple.
Gallup did a world poll
where they actually asked individuals these questions.
And of course, it was a broad study.
I think you guys all know how statistics work, though.
But they say,
self-reporting,
33% worldwide say they don't have money for food.
They're lacking money for food.
38% say their living standards are poor.
39% say they are in difficulty.
So there's a big issue out there of poverty.
And the way in which we can go and minister and love on people in difficult situations,
the tool that's used to accomplish that is financial.
The means are necessary to get these types of things accomplished.
And we live in a world,
American evangelicals give on average 2% of their income.
2%.
Which means there's probably many who don't give at all,
and there's a lot that give way beyond.
But the average, it averages out.
American evangelicals,
those who say that we follow Christ,
and we follow Christ in such a way
that we know we need to share our faith.
That we want to bring people into the church.
That this is our goal.
The Great Commission means something to us.
Give 2% of their income.
And they live on the rest.
We live in a nation that's indebted.
The average American household
has $15,000 in credit card debt.
$15,000.
So not only,
we would include Christians in that category,
not only do we only give 2%,
but we live beyond our means just the same.
It's a sickness.
And it's the sickness of our souls.
Now in these things,
just writing checks and throwing money around
is not the solution.
And I'm not suggesting that.
We don't have time today
to talk about a proper methodology of giving
and therefore helping issues like this.
It's not the time for that type of thing.
However,
there's a high calling for us in Christ
to give,
not just materially,
but also of our time,
of our energy.
To really love people out of these situations,
we're going to have to enter into relationships with them
and love them with the truth.
We've pursued them with everything that we have.
Another case by Paul in 1 Timothy 6.
He instructs at the end of his letter to Timothy,
beginning of verse 17,
As for the rich in this present age,
charge them not to be haughty,
nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches,
but on God,
who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
You've probably heard this verse in your life.
It's another one that likes to be flagged,
heralded as a way of saying,
See,
I can have stuff.
The stuff is good.
The stuff is for me to enjoy.
That's why God gave it to me.
He richly provided it for me to enjoy.
I just can't hope in it.
I've got to hope in Him
and not in Him.
I've got to worship the giver,
not the gift.
But read on.
Context here.
What's the instruction that Timothy's meant to give to the rich?
They are in fact rich.
Be rich.
But what are you to do with that?
Verse 18,
They are to do good.
To be rich in good works.
To be generous and ready to share.
Which necessitates sharing.
Not just ready,
but sharing.
You're ready to share so you do.
Verse 19,
Thus,
storing up treasure for themselves
as a good foundation
for the future
so that they may take hold of that
which is truly life.
So does God give us things to enjoy?
Yes.
He does
by enjoying Him.
By being engaged
in His kingdom work.
He gives money
to people.
And let's face it,
even you college students in the room,
we are wealthy.
We are wealthy by the world's standards.
And in fact,
most of you,
socioeconomically,
from your background,
are wealthy by American standards as well.
You're doing better
than a lot of people.
We have
so that we can enjoy Christ.
So we can get the thing
that's ultimately enjoyable.
Wouldn't God be a mean God
if He is the greatest thing
that He could possibly give us?
Himself,
the Creator,
and instead He says,
Here, go play with these toys.
Don't spend time with me.
Don't be around me.
Don't be involved in my work.
But instead,
go be distracted by cars
and fancy vacations
and clothes
and stupid jewelry.
He'd be a horribly mean God
if He doesn't give us Himself.
Dietrich Braunhofer,
an early 20th century
German Lutheran pastor,
theologian,
who was an anti-Nazi dissident.
He was part of a plot
to murder,
to assassinate Hitler.
He was also a martyr.
He said,
Earthly goods are given
to be used,
not to be collected.
Hoarding is idolatry.
Now there's some
in our world,
certainly in our country,
that teach
that a camel can squeeze
through the eye of a needle.
Jesus is very clear about this.
It's impossible.
A camel cannot squeeze
through the eye of a needle,
but many teach
that a camel can.
It's most commonly called
the prosperous.
prosperity gospel.
And it is a special type
of devilish heresy.
It's being exported now
from our country
into other countries,
into incredibly impoverished countries.
Proponents of it
are false teachers.
They're absolutely false teachers
who say true things at times
which only proves
that the devil does in fact
come as an angel of light.
Joel Osteen,
Joyce Meyer,
T.D. Jakes,
Benny Hinn,
Creflo Dollar,
to name a few of them.
Heretics,
cut off from the faith.
We ought not listen
to such people.
If I just shattered
your world
with any of these names,
please come talk to me.
Stop.
Stop listening
to these teachers.
They are false.
They're leading you astray.
And the shame is
that it's more subversive,
but I think much
of this teaching
has crept into
a lot of our
evangelical churches
as well,
primarily in the form
of silence.
We just don't talk
about it that much.
People are afraid
to get into
that area
of people's lives
because they know
the idol
that it is.
As Paul says,
I seek not
what is yours,
but you.
I want you
to have the greatest
and highest joy.
I want you
to be caught up
in the mission of God
and not sit around
playing with toys.
I seek not
what is yours,
but you.
The Bible's not
silent on this matter
and neither
should we be.
I want to encourage you
to begin to read
your scriptures
with the idea
of money in mind
and just see
all the many places
it's dealt with.
And this is the case
because we're all
going to encounter it.
This is not a situation
that's unique
to any of us.
Not all of us
will walk through cancer
in our lives,
but we're all
going to deal
with money
and we all
need to deal
with money
rightly.
Now as it concerns
false teachers,
whether so
out in the open
or more closeted
on the matter,
take some courage
in this.
2 Peter 2,
1-3
But false prophets
also arose
among the people
just as there
will be false teachers
among you
who will secretly
bring in destructive
heresies,
even denying the
master who bought them,
bringing upon themselves
swift destruction.
Not swift by my standard,
but swift by God's standard.
And many will follow
their sensuality
and because of them
the way of truth
will be blasphemed.
And in their greed
they will exploit you
with false words.
Their condemnation
from long ago
is not idle
and their destruction
is not asleep.
There will be damnation
for people
who lead people away
from the true and living God
to worship things.
Who say to them
that if you add Jesus
to your life,
you will gain
materially.
No.
You will gain spiritually.
You will have joy
abounding.
You will have peace
in Him,
but it does not come
with money.
If you have been
given things,
you have been given
things to get more
of Him.
To get more of Him.
The gospel's not cheap.
It's costly.
Jim Elliott,
famous missionary,
Christian martyred
by the people
he went to go
share the gospel with,
famously said,
He is no fool
who gives what
he cannot keep
to gain that
which he cannot lose.
Are we fools,
beloved?
Jesus in today's text
is really just elaborating
on the general call
He made to the crowd
in Mark chapter 8,
verse 34 through 37.
You remember this?
If anyone would come
after Me,
let him deny himself
and take up his cross
and follow Me.
That is to die.
That is to die
to our own desires.
For whoever would
save his life
will lose it.
But whoever loses
his life for My sake
and the gospel's
will save it.
For what does it
profit a man
to gain the whole world
and forfeit his soul?
For what can a man
give in return
for his soul?
It costs us something
to follow Jesus.
It costs us
our self-determination.
It costs us
our desires.
But praise God,
He makes our desires
into His.
He shapes us
into one who wants
to worship Him,
who wants to give up
these things.
Discipleship is costly.
It asks everything of us.
We are to be men
selling all that we have
to buy a field
and merchants
selling everything
to have the pearl
of surpassing value.
You recall these parables?
Mark chapter 13.
Back to back,
the kingdom of heaven
is like treasure
hidden in a field
which a man found
and covered up.
Then in his joy
he goes and sells
all that he has
and buys that field.
Jesus is the treasure.
Again,
the kingdom of heaven
is like a merchant
in search of fine pearls
who on finding
one pearl
of great value
went and sold
all that he had
and bought it.
Willing to give up
everything
to have this
greater prize,
this greater treasure.
That's found in Christ.
Now again,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
to quote,
the previous quote
was from his book
The Cost of Discipleship
that I would really
commend to you.
He talks a lot in there
about cheap grace
versus costly grace
and let me read you
an excerpt
from that book.
Cheap grace,
which is what's being peddled
so often today
in American churches,
means grace sold
on the market
like cheap jacks wears.
The sacraments,
the forgiveness of sin,
and the consolations
of religion
are thrown away
at cut prices.
Grace is represented
as the church's
inexhaustible treasury
from which she showers
blessings with generous hands
without asking questions
or fixing limits.
Grace without price,
grace without cost.
The essence of grace,
we suppose,
is that the account
has been paid in advance
and because it has been paid,
everything can be had
for nothing.
Since the cost
was infinite,
the possibilities
of using and spending it
are infinite.
What would grace be
if it were not cheap?
What he's saying is
the way we tend to think
about grace
is that it's this free gift
and because it's a free gift
bought by Christ,
we can just presume upon it
and presume upon it
and presume upon it.
We can go say
some trivial,
trite little prayer
and never respond.
We can never live
in a different way.
We can never say
God has rescued me.
He's made me a child.
He's put me into his kingdom
and now I'm meant
to live a certain way.
I'm meant to worship him
with everything that I am.
That's cheap grace.
Cheap grace is the preaching
of forgiveness
without requiring repentance.
Baptism without church discipline.
Communion without confection.
Absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace
without discipleship.
Grace without the cross.
Grace without Jesus Christ
living and incarnate.
Costly grace
is the treasure hidden in the field.
For the sake of it
a man will go and sell
all that he has.
It is the pearl of great price
to buy with the wife
which the merchant
will sell all his goods.
It is the kingly rule
of Christ
over our lives.
For whose sake
a man will pluck out the eye
which causes him to stumble.
It is the call of Jesus Christ
at which the disciple
leaves his nets
and follows him.
Costly grace
is the gospel
which must be sought
again and again.
The gift which must be asked for.
The door at which
a man must knock.
Such grace is costly
because it calls us
to follow.
And it is grace
because it calls us
to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly
because it costs
a man his life.
And it is grace
because it gives
a man the only true life.
It is costly
because it condemns sin.
And grace
because it justifies
the sinner.
Above all
it is costly
because it cost God
the life of his son.
You were bought
at a price.
And what has cost God
much cannot be cheap
for us.
Above all
it is grace
because God
did not reckon his son
too dear a price
to pay for our life
but delivered him up
for us.
Costly grace
is the incarnation
of God.
God
means something.
It is going to require
things
of us.
Jesus is just
further developing
this idea.
He very soon
in our text
in Mark 10
is going to once again
foretell his death.
And once again
the disciples
are not going to get it.
They have been debating
all along
what does it mean
that Jesus is going to die.
How can this be?
We don't want you
to have the suffering.
We just want you
to have the glory
because we want the glory.
We don't want the suffering.
We don't want to have
to give up anything
to follow you.
We want to be us
like the rich young ruler
to have all that we have
and just add to it.
Just give me a little extra
for eternal life
and not be willing
to give away anything
to gain it.
Do you recognize
that you can have
all that this world
has to offer
every bit of it
and still be
impoverished?
That this life
is fleeting.
You're passing through it.
It's a vapor
in the wind
and that your mind
should be set on things
eternal
and not those things
that are temporal.
Everything you can
see right now
besides the souls
of the people
you're looking around at
is finite.
It's going away.
It's not infinite.
It will all be turned
to dust one day.
It will all be tested
by fire.
Do you recognize
that wealth
has been given to you
for the sake
of eternal joy
and not just
your temporal joy?
If Jesus were to say
to you,
you lack one thing,
go sell all
that you have
and give to the poor
and you will have
treasure in heaven
and come,
follow me.
Would you go away
disheartened
or would you gladly
trade it all
to gain him?
Now in response
to this,
verse 26,
the disciples
are exceedingly
astonished.
Exceedingly
astonished.
Then,
who can be saved?
And we have to
understand why
they were exceedingly
astonished.
The common
teaching of this day,
and I'll thank
John MacArthur
for spelling this out
in his sermon
on this very text
for me.
Saved me a ton
of time.
The common
misconception of the day,
which was from
the rabbis,
the teachers
that had worked
through time
over the previous
400 years,
is that the way
in which you
gained redemption
is through the
giving of alms,
which was giving
to the poor.
This is the thing
that Jesus has
asked them to do.
They said that
with alms,
one purchases
his redemption.
A couple of
examples for you.
One writing taken
from Tobit
says this,
It is good
to do alms
rather than
to treasure up
gold for alms,
deliver from death,
and this will
purge away
every sin.
Syriac 3
says,
alms will atone
for sin.
The Talmud
says,
almsgiving
is more excellent
than all offerings
and is equal
to the whole law.
If you give
to the poor,
then this is
an equal thing.
And who was
most able
to give to the poor?
For the rich.
Here,
even Jesus
gave the command
to this young man
which he was
unwilling to do.
But what Jesus
was telling him
to do
is not to do
a good work
that he might
gain righteousness,
that he would
have his redemption,
that he would
be justified
before God
because of the action.
He was telling him
to give up an idol
and to worship
Jesus,
to follow him.
That's the key
distinction here.
It's a matter
of the heart.
Not that we go
through some works
in order to gain
our salvation
which is an impossibility.
None of us
can keep the whole law.
You can't do it.
Don't try to amass works
in order to gain salvation.
Be saved,
respond to the gospel,
and then do works
as a response to it.
The disciples got this,
but they got it wrongly.
They went too far
with the cultural understanding.
And as such,
Jesus broadens
the impossibility.
Look at him
broaden it out.
They say,
then who can be saved?
Jesus looked at them
and said,
with man it is impossible,
but not with God.
He doesn't say
with rich men
it is impossible,
but not with God.
He says,
with man it is impossible.
You cannot save yourself.
God can save you
if he so desires.
If you have some working
in your heart
to respond to the gospel,
see it as the Spirit's work
on your behalf
and respond to it.
Jesus says to them in this
that man is spiritually
impoverished,
whether they're rich or poor,
they're spiritually impoverished.
We have nothing to offer God
for the dimptive of our souls.
This is why we need grace.
It's why we need a Savior.
We cannot save ourselves.
That's the bad news side
of the gospel
which makes the good news
so good
because Jesus did it
on our behalf.
He paid the debt
for us
that if we would believe in Him,
we would have eternal life.
Paul puts it this way
in Ephesians 2,
verse 8, 9,
grace given as a gift to us.
For by grace you have been saved
through faith.
And this is not your own doing.
It's the gift of God,
not a result of work
so that no one may boast.
So proper living
is a response
to the work
that God has wrought
in our hearts,
the way in which
He has changed us.
So we looked at
the poverty of possessions.
Let's look now together
quickly at the possessions
of poverty.
Verse 28,
Peter began to say to Him,
and I really love this
just because I'm musing about it.
Mark seems to cut Him off.
Peter was always
the wordy one.
You see Him constantly
interrupting
and opening His mouth
when He shouldn't have.
So He just says,
Peter began to say to Him,
see if we have left everything
and followed you.
I would imagine
that He went on
to elaborate
on that point.
And Jesus responds to Him
with His rather amazing truth.
Truly I say to you,
no one is left,
and I won't read all those
for the sake of time,
for my sake
and for the gospel.
Not left those things
that they might gain more things,
but for the sake
of Jesus Christ
and the good news
of Jesus Christ
who will not receive
a hundredfold
now in this time
all those things
with persecutions
and in the age to come
eternal life.
He says to us again,
but many who are first
will be last
and the last first.
The one who wants to leave
might become a servant.
The one who wants to leave
the gospel of all.
Look at this proper response
of Peter.
John chapter 6
beginning in verse 65.
Jesus just said
some very difficult things
to the larger group
of disciples.
He's talked about
drinking His blood
and feasting on His flesh
and they just don't get it.
And He says to them,
not all of you believe.
Not all of you believe.
No one can come to Me
unless the Father sent Me
and draws them.
He's using this type of language.
Verse 65.
This is why I told you
that no one can come to Me
unless it is granted Him
by the Father.
Verse 66.
After this,
many of the disciples
turned back
and no longer walked
with Him.
Verse 67.
So Jesus said to the twelve,
Do you want to go away as well?
Do you also want to leave?
Is this too hard for you?
And Simon Peter answered Him,
Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words
of eternal life
and we have believed
and have come to know
that You are the Holy One
of God.
You can put these texts together.
We have left everything
for Your sake.
Right?
Where are we going to go?
We've left it all behind.
We know that You're the Christ.
Why would we leave?
Look at some improper responses.
Luke chapter 9,
beginning of verse 57.
As they,
Jesus and the disciples,
were going along the road,
someone said to Him,
I will follow you
wherever you go.
And Jesus said to him,
Foxes have holes
and birds of the air
have nests,
but the Son of Man
has nowhere
to lay His head.
It's presumed at this point
that the man did not follow Him
because of this saying.
Verse 59.
To another,
He said,
Follow Me.
But He said,
Lord, let me first go
and bury my father.
And Jesus said to him,
Leave the dead
to bury their own dead.
But as for you,
go and proclaim
the kingdom of God.
Yet another said,
I will follow you, Lord,
but let me first say farewell
to those at my home.
Jesus said to him,
No one who puts his hand
to the plow
and looks back
is fit for the kingdom of God.
We must set our sights
fully on Jesus Christ.
Whatever may come,
whatever may fall away,
here you have men
who are leaving Judaism
to follow Jesus.
This happens in our day as well.
Many of you college students
experience this
with unbelieving parents.
You become strange
to your parents.
Your parents don't want
to spend time with you
the way they did.
The decisions that you're making
are counter-cultural.
They don't want you
to enter the ministry.
They want you to have a career.
They want you to make money.
They want you to take care of them
in their old age.
It puts you at odds with them.
This is a common thing.
The gospel often divides people
because people become devoted
to Christ
and others just don't get that.
What are we to do with that?
He gives us a promise.
This is the way
in which we leave behind
houses, brothers, sisters,
mother, father, children, lands.
He says he'll give to us
a hundredfold in this day.
How is that the case?
What does he mean by that?
What he means
is that in this age
he'll give us the church.
He'll deliver us
into a community,
a faith family,
that we might love each other
the way in which
a family is meant
to love each other.
Praise God,
many of you have
believing parents
and this has not been
the case for you.
But we as a church
need to do better
at loving each other
like a family loves.
Because there are people
amongst us
that are hurting in that way
who need spiritual fathers
and mothers
and brothers
and sisters.
How do you have
houses and lands?
Because you have my house
and you have my lands.
Right?
You come over
and you can eat with me.
You need a place to crash?
Let me know.
Not just me.
There's other people
in this church too
that have houses
and lands.
I don't want to run
a bed and breakfast.
Look at an example
of this from the scriptures.
Acts 2
is after the day
of Pentecost.
We have seen
thousands,
3,000 is the number
I believe in verse 41
recorded of people
added to the early church
and most of these people
would have been pilgrims
from Jewish settlements.
They would have traveled
to Jerusalem
and they didn't want
to go home.
The only church
at the time
was this group of people,
these thousands of people
that were gathered
in Jerusalem.
They didn't want to go back
to their towns
where there were no Christians
and so they lingered.
They stuck around
for a little while.
We see beginning
in verse 42
and they,
all these new Christians,
devoted themselves
to the apostles' teaching
and the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread
and the prayers
and all came upon
every soul
and many wonders
and signs were being done
through the apostles
and all who believed
were together
and had all things
in common
and they were selling
their possessions
and belongings
and distributing
the proceeds to all
as any had need
and day by day
attending the temple
together
and breaking bread
in their homes
they received their food
with glad and generous hearts
praising God
and having favor
with all people
and the Lord added
to their number
day by day
those who were being saved.
So you see that these people
crashed on the couch.
They wanted to stick around
and they were glad to have them.
All these new baby Christians
got together
and they were so hungry
to hear the teaching
of the apostles
to know more about Jesus Christ
that they got really practical
about it
and they shared things
and they sold lands.
Ananias and Sapphira,
the failures in this thing,
but that's what they were about doing
in this process
of providing for
and being a family
together.
So for those of us,
for those of you
who are leaving behind
these types of things
to follow Jesus,
giving up that kind of stuff,
it's being granted to you,
it's being given to you
in the church.
But he includes in here
also
that persecutions
will come.
Isn't that curious?
He talks about
all these things
but he includes
all these other things
in this age
that are going to be
given back to you,
families, brothers, sisters,
with persecutions.
Why would he include this here?
It's because he wants them
to know that life's not
going to just get easy.
You've left behind
this family,
I'm giving you
a different family,
there's going to be
limitless resources,
you're going to have
so much fun,
it's going to be great.
No,
you'll be persecuted.
Matthew 5.10,
Blessed are those
who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you
when others revile you
and persecute you
and utter all kinds
of evil against you
falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad
for your reward
is great in heaven.
For so they persecuted
the prophets
who were before you.
It's a wonderful response
that the apostles
are recorded for us
in Acts chapter 5
after the apostles
are beaten by a council
of Sadducees
in these early days
of the church.
It says,
Then they left the presence
of the council rejoicing
that they were counted
worthy to suffer dishonor
for the name.
One of the ways
we'll know
that we're following Jesus
is if we're persecuted
for his name,
rightly,
not in some of the
bizarre political ways
we see in our day,
but rightly persecuted
for sharing the gospel
of Jesus Christ.
So how do we
in this day
properly
manage our money?
All I can say to you
is what the scriptures
say to you.
Work hard.
Gain it.
Please,
young people,
go after it
because the church
needs it.
Our church needs it.
Other churches need it.
The work of God
needs your resources.
Be generous.
Recognize
that you're given money
to live on
for your needs,
the temporal things,
and take the excess
and give it
freely
to the kingdom.
Gain Christ.
Buy more of him
with your money.
Not the salvation,
but the experience
of him.
Be involved
in what he's doing
around the world
with your finances.
It used to frustrate me
that the scriptures
seem to be so vague
on some issues.
Like,
I just want the list.
Just give me the budget.
I want the percentages.
Just tell me exactly
what it is I'm supposed
to do in every area
of my life.
And I've come to the point
where I believe
that God does not do that
because he wants us.
He wants to know you.
And he wants you
to know him.
He wants you to align
your desires
with his desires.
Right?
If I was given a list,
I would ignore him
altogether.
I'd stop asking.
He already gave me the list.
I know how I'm supposed
to send in my money.
He wants us to go to him.
He wants us to go to him
on our knees humbly,
recognizing that nothing
that we have
belongs to us ultimately.
It was given to us
as a gift
by his provision.
He gave it.
He could certainly
take it away.
Pay attention to the story
of Job on that point.
And he gave it back.
Why is he giving it to us?
What is the point
of him giving it to us?
It's that we might
enjoy him forever.
He also promises here
that this gifting,
this giving,
will have some effect
in the age to come.
And that is eternal life.
Our grace can't be cheap.
There must be a response.
There's a cost
to following Jesus.
And how do you know
if you're a disciple
of Jesus Christ?
How do you know?
Don't pin it on a date.
Don't pin it on some card
that somebody handed you,
a little placard,
or a date you wrote
in the front of your Bible.
I grew up in a church
that told me constantly
if you ever doubt your faith,
if you're ever not so sure
that you're saved,
remember the date
that you were saved.
This is entirely anti-biblical.
It's not in the Scriptures anywhere
to pin it on a date like that.
Rather,
pin it on the fact
that you're growing in holiness,
that you don't love
the things of the world,
but you love the things of God,
and that you're growing
in that way.
Test your faith.
If you don't know
that you're a Christian,
I plead with you,
repent and believe.
Repent and believe.
If you are a Christian,
there's room for repentance
and belief as well.
Let me close by reading to you
a psalm.
Psalm 73.
Let me ask you to turn there.
I'll finish quickly.
I had every intention
of not going this long today.
Psalm 73 is a psalm of Asaph.
He's a songwriter.
Some of my favorite psalms are his.
He says,
Truly God is good to Israel
for those who are pure in heart.
And so,
God is good.
I'm setting that up
as the very premise of this psalm.
For those who are pure in heart,
God is good to us.
Verse 2,
But as for me,
my feet had almost stumbled.
My steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity
of the wicked.
For they have no pangs until death.
Their bodies are fat and sleek,
which would have been a good thing
in this day.
They are not in trouble
as others are.
They are not stricken
like the rest of mankind.
Therefore,
pride is their necklace.
Violence covers them
as a garment.
Their eyes swell out
through fatness.
Their hearts overflow with follies.
They scoff and speak with malice.
Loftily,
they threaten oppression.
They set their mouths
against the heavens
and their tongue struts the earth.
Therefore,
his people turn back to them
and find no fault in them.
And they say,
How can God know?
Is there knowledge
in the Most High?
Behold,
these are the wicked,
always at ease.
They increase in riches.
So see,
he's recognizing
the folly
and the error
of these men.
But that these men
are followed by other people.
People look to them
for leadership.
They think they've got it
all together
because they're fat and sleek.
Because they have wealth.
Because they're not suffering
at all in this world.
He says,
My feet almost slipped.
I almost bought into this.
I almost thought
that was a better way.
We brought this
into our current context.
We could throw the word
American in here
a few times.
Verse 13.
All in vain
have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands
in innocence.
For all the day long
I have been stricken
and rebuked
every morning.
If I had said
I will speak thus,
I would have betrayed
the generation
of your children.
There's that summation
of the way he was feeling
and the things he was thinking.
The way he almost aired.
Verse 16.
But when I thought
how to understand this,
it seemed to me
a wearisome task.
How is it that
these people,
these evil people,
these adulterous people
have everything?
And those who
keep their hands clean,
who try to follow God,
don't have things?
It was a wearisome task
to understand this
until I went
into the sanctuary of God.
Then I discerned
their end.
Truly you set them
in slippery places.
How they are destroyed
in a moment,
swept away utterly
by chairs,
like a dream
when one awakes.
O Lord,
when you rouse yourself,
you despise them
as phantoms.
Their eternal destruction.
He understood
their eternal destruction.
His eternal life,
their eternal destruction.
Verse 21.
My soul was embittered
when I was pricked in heart.
I was brutish and ignorant.
I was like a beast towards you.
Nevertheless,
I am continually with you.
You hold my right hand.
You guide me
with your counsel.
And afterward,
you will receive me
to glory.
Whom have I in heaven
but you?
And there is nothing
on earth
that I desire beside you.
My flesh
and my heart
may fail,
but God is the strength
of my heart
and my portion
forever.
For those who are far from you
shall perish.
You put an end
to everyone
who is unfaithful to you.
But for me,
it is good
to be near God.
There's the wealth.
There's the true wealth.
There's the possession
of poverty.
God himself.
I have made the Lord God
my refuge
that I may tell
of all
your works.
Let's pray together.
God bless.