Mark 10:17-27
“Jesus requires our all”
Main Point of Sermon- We must be willing to give Jesus our all or nothing, this is impossible, except with God all things are possible
Intro-focus on the man, let the people see ourselves in him
- I see a lot of myself in this young man
- Young
- Rich, lol
- Taught in the way from a young age
- “Church boy”
- Try to live holy, the best I knew how
- A sinful, duplicitous nature that fights the truth that Jesus is better than ________fill in the blank
- Insert bishop grier story
- Verse 16
- Culminates in verse 17
- Jesus’ response in verse 18 leads us to our first point:
*No one is good except God
Read verses 18-20
- Jesus is being facetious here. He is good, not only is He good, but He and the Father are one. He is God. So when He says only God alone is good, He is describing Himself.
- Matthew 5:48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
- He is perfect
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God
- Sinless, His sinlessness makes us righteous (good)
- Matthew 5:48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
- We need Jesus righteousness because we aren’t good
- However, this young man seems to be good
- He has kept all the commandments from his youth
- He appears to be the perfect young man
- Lets call him twenty something
- The type of man you would want your daughter to marry
- Rich
- Church going
- Tither
- Not a big drinker
- Kept himself for marriage
- Treats his mom and dad right
- Indicator of how he’d treat the daughter
- In most of our eyes, he is the perfect kid, a good kid….
- But Jesus says, no one is good except God
- All of our righteousness Isaiah 64:6 are like filthy rags
- Romans 3:10, 23 none is righteous, no not one; All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God
- Ecclesiastes 7:20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
- Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?
- 1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- No one is good except God, this is why we need Jesus, His righteousness, for our sin, the great exchange
- He has kept all the commandments from his youth
- This brings us to our second point:
- However, this young man seems to be good
**Jesus loves us, despite our sin
Verse 21a And Jesus, looking at him, loved him…
- If you look at anything long enough, you will see imperfections
- This is true for diamonds, art, paint jobs, music, our work assignments, our schoolwork and certainly people
- Any body ever had that person whether a family member or a celebrity that they idolized and thought were perfect until they found out better?
- When we look at people we see faults. How much more glaring are our spots against the gaze of a pure, holy, perfect God?
- Jeremiah 17:10 “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
- Imagine, God searches the heart and tests the mind
- What sin, what guilt, what imperfection would He find in our hearts? Despite this, verse 21 says Jesus, looking at him, loved him
- Despite our sin, despite our greed, despite the evil words we speak, despite the evil thoughts we think, despite that unspeakable thing we did, despite all the times we have committed the same sin over and over, despite what we did last year, last week, last night, despite what we will do in the future, Jesus looks at that and the bible says He still loves us! What a great God!
- Imagine, God searches the heart and tests the mind
- Jeremiah 17:10 “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
- More specifically, this text shows us that jesus knew this young man had fault
- He knew that he lacked something
- This brings us to our third point
***What do you love more than Jesus?
Verses 21-22
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- You lack one thing:
- He was doing good with everything else
- He was following all of the other commandments
- But this one was a command too great
- You lack one thing:
- Sell ALL
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- Give it all the way up
- Completely disown that sin which you love
- It appears he loved the comfort, the security, the power of being rich more than He loved Jesus
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- esus is giving him an invitation to be part of the squad
- Come and follow me…
- But this ask was too great…
- He loved his money more than Jesus
- Zion story…
- Definition of idol
- I believe this is one of the pervasive sins of our age, we want to be christians and still keep our sin
- We want to follow Jesus for the most part and just have our way in this one particular area
- For the rich young ruler, it was his riches, i want to follow Jesus, but I want to trust in my money more than God
- For some it may be something else: I want to follow Jesus, but I want to be able to say what I want, when I want, to whomever I want
- I want to follow Jesus, but I want to continue in my sexual sin: pornography, sex outside of marriage, practicing homosexuality
- I want to follow Jesus, but I want to continue getting drunk and high
- I want to follow Jesus, but ________fill in the blank
- Illustration of marriage 364 days a year
- Jesus is saying today that He requires all of us or none of us
- Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
- This is not to say that we are perfect
- We will fight the duplicity of our nature until we are completely redeemed and have a new glorious body and are standing in New Jerusalem
- There is a duplicitousness where we like the man in this story want to serve Jesus, but also want to sin
- Paul describes it in Romans 7:15-18
- So what is the difference, between this picture of sin nature painted in Romans 7 and the young man?
- In Romans 7 we see a fight, a war, a clash between the Spirit and the flesh of a man
- In this account of the rich young ruler, he has forfeited, he has waved the white flag, he has surrendered to his sin, he said, my riches are better than Jesus.
- Just in case any are thinking, this message doesn’t describe me, I’m cool, I’m good
- Remember Jesus’ words in verse 18, no one is good, every one that comes to Christ has sin and praise the Lord, 1 Timothy 1:15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
****This is too much…who can be saved? (praise team)
Verses 26-27
- Who can be saved, who can make the choice to choose God over everything?
- We can not do this on our own, it is only by the power of God that we can be saved
- It is only by the power of God that we can choose Him over our sinful desires
- Praise God Romans 10:13 “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
- The young man in this story didnt do that
- He was disheartened, walked away sad, choosing sin instead of the savior
- It is God who draws us, by faith we believe, and it was God who redeemed us, not ourselves, and it is God who sustains us
- Gospel
- Specifically for those christians who want to serve God and keep their sin
- Everyone else
- Those saved, that God would keep them
