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and enjoying some time with them,
but I'm back now. So we're gonna continue in our
study of the Gospel of Mark, and I'm gonna go ahead and pray
as we begin, and then we'll get into our study. this morning. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
thank you, Lord, so much for this day. Thank you for the Word
of God. Thank you that we can indeed lead on it. Help us to
be students of the Word. Help us to take the things that
we learn, whether it's church or some other source of teaching.
But, Lord, help us to especially be focused on being in the Word,
as we were challenged in the message this morning, to become
more and more biblically literate, to become deeper to go deeper
and deeper into the Word of God so that we know you better, as
that's your revelation to us. It's your way of helping us know
you. So Lord, help us to be faithful in that, as you are always faithful
with us, and we're so thankful for it. Be with our study this
morning, and Mark, may it bless us, may it speak to us, Lord,
may we have ears to hear what you have to say. We pray this
in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're in part 50 of our
study here. We've made it to 50 lessons,
if you will. And this morning, we're going
to talk about this issue of wealth and money. And really, this is
a pickup of the lesson that we talked about the last time we
were in Mark together, where we met this rich young ruler.
who met Christ, he came to him, but really didn't see him as
anything more than a good teacher, and called him that, if you remember.
And so we went through all the meaning and the importance of
that, and how that Jesus really used the law to expose this man's
shortcomings. Well, when the man failed to
see that, Jesus pinpointed the thing that the man was trusting
in, which was his wealth. And when Jesus asked him to stop
trusting in that wealth, what was his response? He went away
sad, sorrowful, full of sorrow because he didn't want to give
up his idol of wealth. He really had faith in that wealth
to protect him. And as somebody said at the end,
I'd like to think that eventually he came back came to his senses,
like the prodigal son did, and came back to Christ and said,
You know what? I've realized this wealth isn't going to help
me. The Bible does not give us that knowledge. But Jesus used
that now as He turns to the disciples in this passage, and He begins
in To teach them, Jesus said more about money than almost
any other topic. I used to believe it was the,
I read that somewhere, that money was the thing he talked about
the most, and I've since done a little bit more study and reading.
It's at least, though, in the top three. The kingdom of God,
I think, in those things and potentially the gospel message
itself. But money was was right up there toward the top of the
list of topics that Jesus talked about and which is striking because
think of all the theological truths in the Bible. When we
look at like systematic theology, we look at, you know, bibliology
and Christology and pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit
and eschatology, the study of the end time. We have all these
theologies in these categories. Jesus could have talked about
any of those. But he chose at one of the highest levels to
talk about money, at least what we have recorded in Scripture.
Wealth affects our lives in countless ways. It really drives almost
all of our decisions, doesn't it? Now, hopefully, as Christians,
we're making decisions by faith and we're saying, Lord, I'm going
to sacrifice or I'm going to give or I'm going to be stewards
of this. And we see it as actually God's.
Every dollar in our wallets and in our bank accounts And even
in our investments and funds and retirement, that's all God's
property. He owns it all, right? He owns
the earth. He owns the gold that that money
is value is based on. And so all these things go together
to help us understand, but yet wealth does affect our daily
decisions. Don't we make decisions about
vacations and vehicle purchases and house purchases and what
we buy in the store? Which item do I select? The cheaper
one or the more expensive? And it's all based on what we
can what? Afford. So we make all these decisions
based on wealth and our relationships to wealth, it seems to control
those things. It seems to greatly affect our
daily choices. So in this lesson today, we're
going to see that Jesus is going to take this teaching moment
to express and dispel a common false belief that the disciples
had about riches and their relationship to godliness. And do you know
that that false belief is still propagated today? We're going
to talk about that as we get into it. And then he makes a
promise at the end. So as we have time here, hopefully
we'll have time for these three main points. Puzzling, prosperity's
predicament, possibility in the paradox, and prioritizing kingdom
promises. So let's look at that first one.
So we're in Mark 10. So if you're not there, please
open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 10. We're going to start
down in verse 23. The rich young ruler back in
22, He was sad, just as we mentioned a moment ago. He turned and walked
away. He turned his back on the only
person that could offer eternal life, which is a very sad statement. Then, let's look at the verse
here in 23. Notice what Mark writes for us
here. Then Jesus looked around and
said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have riches
to enter the kingdom of God. Think about this from the disciples'
perspective, because that's what we're supposed to be, disciples
of Christ, right? So this man, who was a rich, young ruler,
he had youth and strength, he had vitality, he had some kind
of authority as a ruler. Again, we're not told exactly
what that authority was, but if he had authority, that means
he was probably somewhat well-known. He was a man of some providence
within the community, and he was very wealthy. Wouldn't that
be someone you would want on your ministry team as part of
your church, as part of your ministry or mission field or
what have you? I mean, this is an ideal guy.
He's young, he's got energy, yet he has some maturity because
he's at a place of leadership. He knows how to lead people.
And he has the means, the wealth to support. Think of the support
he could have brought to the disciples in their ministry.
But that's not what happened. They watched this man, perhaps
anticipating him joining as the 13th disciple. They didn't know. We have to remember to try to
see this in real time. We have the hindsight. It's all
2020 for us. But for them living in the moment,
it wasn't. They didn't know what was going to happen. So Jesus,
I think he looks around. I think that's a key little phrase
we don't want to miss. I don't want to spend too much
time. If you look through Mark, this is not the first time we've
seen him use this little phrase, and I think it's a telltale phrase
of, I think Jesus, what he's doing here, he's seeing the questions
in the hearts of the men. Wait a minute, here's a guy that
was a prime candidate to join our group. He could financially
have supported us. He had prestige, he had some
political sway, if you will, to help us navigate some of the
politics of first century Judaism. He would be a great addition
to our team, and now he's walking away. And Jesus is pointing again
to the idol of wealth that perhaps the disciples might have been
dealing with. And he tells them how hard it is for those who
have riches to enter the kingdom. And so he seizes the moment to
teach this important lesson. Now, we need to dispel any false notions,
though, about this right away. have wrongfully assumed that
Jesus was condemning anyone who is wealthy, as if having wealth
and being a good steward of it, which God calls some Christians
to great wealth. There are Christians that are
millionaires. There are millionaires that believe
in Jesus and that have been called by God and gifted by him. And we have examples actually
in the Bible of believers that God blessed financially, but
yet they were faithful to him and God called them to be good
stewards. If we go all the way back to Abraham in Genesis 13,
remember he and Lot had to split away from one another. Why? For
their possessions were so great they could not dwell together.
The land could not support two empires, if you will. And Abraham
had massive amounts of flocks, and servants, and gold. And he
was a very wealthy Bedouin traveler through that Middle East region
at the time. Very wealthy, yet he's not condemned
for that. Jacob, God blessed Jacob as he
was there working his way through for his wife. If you remember,
Laban, his father-in-law kind of deceived him. which is I think
God's way of teaching him a lesson as he deceived his father to
take his brother's blessing. But Jacob was deceived and then
I believe at some point repented because God blessed. Notice that
the brothers are upset because he has acquired all this what? Wealth. God blessed him. Job was blessed. We read that
at the beginning of Job. He was a very, very wealthy man.
And I'm actually reading through Job right now as part of my Bible
reading daily. And it's just a really interesting
dialogue he has with those friends of his. But we get to the end
and Job 42 said the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than
his beginning. And then he lists how many thousands
upon thousands of property and animals and herds and things
that he had. We go into the New Testament
and God continues to use wealthy people to do his work. In Luke
8-3 we have Joanna and Susanna. Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's
steward, and Susanna, and then many others who were not given
their names. And what did they do for Jesus?
They provided for him from their what? Their wealth, their substance. So Jesus is not saying it's wrong
to have wealth. We've talked about Barnabas before.
He was a wealthy landowner. He sold money, he brought it
to the disciples. He was a early supporter of the
church financially. There's nothing in scripture
against having wealth. The issue is how we manage it.
We're called to be stewards of the wealth we have. Whether your
wealth is small or in the middle range or it's a large amount
of wealth, God has called everyone to manage their own wealth well,
and to be good stewards of that, knowing that it is actually God's
anyway, as we stated earlier. So Jesus reiterates this again,
because notice the disciples' response in verse 24. And the
disciples were astonished, we're gonna come back to that, because
that has actually significant meaning in understanding this
text properly. They were astonished at his words,
but Jesus answered again and said to them, now he clarifies,
and this is where we're going, children, how hard it is for
those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. The
man that had just walked away was the man who was trusting
in his riches. We talked about that, we covered
it last time we were in this passage. The rich young ruler
went away sorrowful, why? Because his faith was in his
riches and he refused to take his faith away from that material
blessing and turn it to Jesus. which he would have had to do
to do the things Jesus asked him to do, sell everything he
had, give it to the poor and take up the cross and follow
him. Those are all acts of service one does after they believe in
Jesus. He would have had to believe,
and he refused. He refused to do that. The commonly held belief in Jesus'
day, and I would argue is still propagated in our day today,
was that if a person was blessed with monetary wealth, then God
must be blessing them due to their righteousness before him.
That's why the disciples are astonished here. They could not
comprehend, and we're gonna see down a couple verses, they ask
a question that helps us understand it further, but they could not
comprehend how a wealthy person was not justified. They've got
all this wealth. They must be justified. They
must be right with God because otherwise why would God bless
them with that wealth? It's really a form of what we
would call today the prosperity gospel that says that God makes,
if we have enough faith, if we have enough faith, God will bless
us with great health, and great wealth. He will prosper us if
we have enough faith. And so you have someone that
comes under this teaching, and they become a disciple, if you
will, of this prosperity gospel teaching, and they're stricken
with a debilitating disease, or they lose their job, or some
other financial crisis comes their way. And they go to the
pastor or the teacher that's teaching this, and they say,
I've been praying and now I'm facing difficulty." And his response
is, I guess you didn't have enough faith. What a blow, what a really
heresy, if you will, to teach people that they just didn't
have enough faith for God to bless them or God to keep them
healthy or their loved ones healthy. And that's what the disciples
were struggling with as well. The scriptures confirm though
that We are gonna go through hard times. We're gonna be faced
with trials. And I know that many, if not
all in the room, their life bears that out. But the scriptures
tell us don't trust in riches. Psalm 62.10 says, do not trust
in oppression nor vainly hope in robbery. If riches increase,
do not set your heart on them. Don't make them the focus. Proverbs
is filled with verses on finances and wealth and money and how
to view it biblically. Here in Proverbs 11, 28, he who
trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish
like foliage. Let's go back to our text. Look
what Jesus says in verse 25 after telling them, it's hard for those
who trust in... Oh, has it been not sliding the whole
time? Well, I'm glad you guys told me. Let's see here. I usually check it. There we
go. All right. Well, hopefully you
were. Yeah, no. Restart. Yes, there we go. That's where
we're supposed to be. All right. Jesus goes on here in verse 25.
Notice what he says here. It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
of God. So first he says those that are
rich cannot enter, then those who trust in riches cannot enter.
And in case you guys don't understand this yet, he's saying this to
the disciples, let me give you this vivid word picture to help
you visualize what I'm trying to teach you here. I want to
show you the impossibility of someone who trusts in anything
but me, but in Jesus, to enter the kingdom. Now, this statement
has received a lot of commentary, if you will. There's a lot of
statements made, and I've heard different teachings on it. Here's
where I stand on this. Some have tried to soften this
by claiming that there existed in Jerusalem, in the wall, a
gate called the Eye of the Needle. but it was for pedestrian use
only. And if a camel was to go through that gate, he had to
have all his packs and everything stripped off. He had to be trained
to go on his knees and crawl through the gate, which I think
camels can be trained to do those things. But here's the thing
that I found. Nothing about this gate was written
about in historical documents. Certainly nothing in the Bible
talks about it that I know of. but nothing as far as extra-biblical
or historical documents was written about this gate until the ninth
century. Between eight and 900 years after
Jesus said this, long after the Jerusalem of Jesus' day was destroyed,
this makes its existence, in my mind, highly suspect. Also,
the disciples are shocked going to see that in verse 26. Again,
it repeats to us in verse 24, it says, the disciples were astonished. Look with me down at verse 26.
And they were greatly astonished. And they said among themselves,
well, who can be saved then? If Jesus was giving a caveat
here, that okay, it's like going through the eye and the needle,
so you have to strip the things off and you have to get the camel
down and then he can get through. There was no caveat given because
the disciples' question of who then can be saved tells us there
was no exception. Jesus was giving them a literal,
a literal word picture and I believe the disciples took it that way.
I believe we should take it that way. Can anyone enter the kingdom
without trusting in Jesus? I mean, let's just ask ourselves
that question. It's impossible, right? Right, you can't do it with money,
you can't do it with works. So if anything, the idea that
a camel being taken all his packs off and bowing down and kneeling,
to me, that's a works gospel. You've got to get rid of all
the weights of this world, and you've got to bow down. Now,
there's a certain amount of bowing we do. We come under the authority,
but that grows as we get to know Christ more. And then you've
got to crawl through this. It's almost like making penance
or something to do a work to get into the kingdom. So this
idea of this eye of the needle gate and all of that to me does
not sit within the context and also it's adding to the context
because we don't read of it here. That's where I stand on it. I
know others might feel differently based on their studies and I'd
be open to learning more but that is what I see at least especially
in our text. Let's move on to the next one
which is the possibility in the paradox. Yes. enter the kingdom,
right? And there's places in the Bible
where, I mean, this is clearly talking about salvation, about
receiving everlasting life through faith. There's other places in
the Bible, not in the book of Mark, where it talks about inherit
the kingdom of God, which doesn't mean the same thing. You don't
have to bring it up here, but I thought I'd just throw that
out. So yeah, there's different, Brad was just pointing out, there's
different contexts or different statements made up in regards
to the Kingdom, whether it's entering it or inheriting it,
and there's different views on that. But this one specifically
I truly believe is this enter the Kingdom of God, specifically
I believe this is salvation. This is attaining eternal life. And Jesus is making that really
clear. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So if
there's some other gate somewhere, we don't find that in the teachings
of scripture. Let's move on now to this next
part of our outline, number two, the possibility and the paradox.
Because the disciples, again, they were greatly astonished. I mean, this is going against
everything that they kind of thought was true. that these
wealthy people, God's blessing them with wealth, that means
they must be justified before God. They must be living righteous
lives. So they're astonished. They're like, well, who can be
saved? If the rich can't be saved, well, then who can be saved?
And I wonder if they're looking at themselves going, we're not
rich. We're not wealthy. What about, can we be saved? Jesus was talking about a literal
camel and a literal needle. to explain the impossibility
of anyone trusting in riches instead of himself in order to
enter the kingdom, or the way we understand this, to have eternal
life. Jesus' proverb was clear. The disciples understood it that
way, and I think if we try to look at it a different way, it
really undermines the power of the message, takes away from
it. But what is Jesus' response in
verse 27? Jesus looked at them and said,
with men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God, all
things are possible. So even those that are trusting
in riches or anything else, works, whatever, they have an opportunity
to turn to Jesus. They have an opportunity to have
faith in Him alone. And I think this verse is really
the key to this entire passage. I think this is the heart of
it right here. With men, it is impossible. It is impossible. The rich young ruler turns sadly
and walked away. It was impossible for him to
enter. Well, because he didn't you do
enough good things, or he didn't take up his cross and follow
and all those things Jesus said, no. It was impossible because
he refused to put his faith in Christ alone. And it's still the same today.
It's impossible for anyone today to enter the kingdom, to have
eternal life, when they're trusting in anyone or anything except
for Jesus. Man left to himself, if we were
just left to ourselves, and God had not revealed anything in
this book, and we had no understanding of salvation, now obviously Romans
1 tells us we look outside, and we see what the creation shows,
and we look up at the planets, and there must be something bigger
than us for this to have happened. So no one is, No one is without
excuse. But God took the initiative to
do the creating, didn't he? So he was the first mover. He was the prime mover. He then
took the initiative even further by coming down to earth as a
man to die as a sacrifice for a sin to pay a debt we could
not pay, but that we owed. And he did that out of love for
us. Then he was buried and rose up from the dead so that he could
defeat death and give us the gift of eternal life. God initiated
salvation. He began it. He planned it before
the foundation of the world that this is how it would be. And
so without God's initiative, whether it's through the revelation
of creation, or the cross or the empty tomb, without that
initiative, it would be impossible. We would all be still in our
sins and on our way to hell without God's initiative. He is the prime
mover. He is the self-existent God who
created all things. He created you and me. We are
his creation. He paid the price for all sin
in the work of Jesus on the cross. Without that initiative, we are
lost. Because we could not come up
with that plan ourselves. Yes? What's the reference for
that? Job 31, 24 to So if you wanna do a little homework,
Job actually, and of course he does, because Job is inspired
by the same Holy Spirit that Jesus was empowered by, and who
inspired Mark to write this down so it all fits together. But
Job here perfectly matches Jesus' teaching, where he says, if I
count on money for salvation, and basically summing up what
Dean is saying. If I count on money for salvation,
it's as if I'm worshiping the sun, moon, and stars as my God,
and counting on them for my salvation. So thank you for that, excellent.
We were in Job earlier, but not that passage, so thank you for
bringing that up. The point is, every salvation is a miracle
of God. salvation, whether it's a small
child between the ages of five and six, like was in my case,
personally, or the testimonies we heard this morning of those
saved much later than that in their lives. And every one of
us has that. Hopefully, we all have that testimony. We can look back and say, there
was a point in time where I put my faith in Jesus. But who saved
you? God did. God did. Yes, your faith
was necessary to access that, but at that point in your life,
God is the, Jesus is the Savior. He is the Lamb of God to save
us from our sin. And he did that. He did that.
So hopefully you have that that you can look back on. If you
don't have that, you can have that today. I'm just putting
that out there. I know many in here are believers. Maybe someone
watching right now, you've never put your faith in Jesus. Jesus
says, I'm ready. I'm ready to do this salvation
miracle in your life. Believe on me and be saved. All
right, let's go to the last one here. Number three, prioritizing
kingdom promises. So Jesus has spoken, I think
this happens in, I know it's been a couple weeks, but I really
believe this is very sequential. Sometimes, In the Bible, the
timelines get kind of extended, or even compressed is what I'm
getting for it. The timelines get compressed, and we go from
one, even within the same chapter, we go from one paragraph, if
you will, or sentence even, to another, and we don't really
know how much time has passed. It seems as though what we've been
reading last time we were together two weeks ago and today are very
close connected. It's almost as if they're in
the same conversation. Jesus talking to the rich young
ruler, challenging his beliefs, showing him the law as a mirror.
He didn't catch that. So Jesus went further and pinpointed
the idol of his heart, which made him turn away in sadness
because he didn't want to stop trusting in his riches. Now Jesus
turns, and he has his disciples, mouths agape, wondering what
is going on here, how is this happening, now we've lost the
opportunity for this man to bless our ministry, and then Jesus
is saying this about, it's hard for wealthy people, that trust
enriches to get, it's actually impossible, not just hard, and
the whole eye, and the camel, and the needle, and all of that.
And so I think this is all in one, extended conversation happening
sequentially. So Jesus looks at them. He tells
them that with men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God,
all things are possible. And all the thoughts, if you
can imagine, put yourself there in real time. We can read this
and we've read this, if you've been reading through your Bible,
probably read this passage many times. You've probably heard
lots of other sermons and messages and lessons on this passage.
These men didn't have that. They were living it in real time.
They were taking it in as it was happening. And so just kind
of put yourself in their place and think about the thoughts
you'd be thinking Peter voices them as he usually does. He's kind of the spokesman, the
one that sometimes speaks without thinking. But he says here in
verse 28, look at his response. I think this will be most of
our responses. Peter began to say to him, he's
thinking about all this. He's thinking about the fact
that they've put their faith in him. They've chosen to follow
him and live this life. Notice what Peter says. Peter
began to say to him, see, we have left all and followed you.
And I don't know if he was thinking of the lack of wealth or what
here, but Peter's beginning to piece these things in his mind. He's thinking about, unlike the
rich young ruler, we have and we've forsaken everything. We've
forsaken everything to follow you. Peter, Andrew, James, and
John, they had left behind a fishing business. How lucrative and such
was it, we're not really told. But they'd left their family
business, they'd left their, quote, normal life for the life
of an itinerant disciple following around this traveling rabbi who
said radical things and stoked the anger of the religious establishment
while he was doing amazing miracles. And so there's conflict, and
yet there's these wonderful miracles happening. They're traveling
from place to place, not often in their homes any longer. Matthew, remember what he was
doing before Jesus called him? He had a very lucrative career,
right, as a tax collector. He had forsaken his tax and customs
booth to follow Christ. He had given all of that up.
And we're not told a lot about the other disciples and their
jobs. It's believed that there was at least two or three more
that were probably fishermen, based on just a few little details
in the text and things. We're not told what the rest
of them did. It doesn't really matter. Hadn't they left everything
to follow Jesus? Had they done that? Yes. So they
were doing what Jesus had told this man to do. And so they were
living a life of faith in Jesus. They weren't trusting in riches.
I would caveat that with Judas, who I think probably was, based
on what the Bible tells us about him and his relationship to money.
But Peter voiced what the rest of them were probably thinking. Lord, we've left all, we've done
all this. They heard Jesus' statement to the young man, wondered if
those same promises applied to them. So Jesus takes all that
into consideration. I love there's no rebuke from
Jesus. He's not angry at Peter's question, just like he's never
angry about our questions. We're supposed to come to him
and ask him for wisdom in the book of James, and he gives it
liberally and without what? Rebuke, I think is the word,
or that's at least the paraphrase. There's no rebuke here. There's
this amazing promise. Watch what Jesus says. Look with
me at verse 29. So Jesus answered. He's answering
Peter's question. He's looking at them all. He
says, who has left house, or brothers,
or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands,
for my sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold
now in this time, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers,
and children, and lands, with persecutions, we'll come back
to that, and in the age to come, eternal life. Let's break this
list down, and just kind of quickly here, look at, he gives them
this list of things. And what is he giving them? In the business
world, and I'm not a businessman, but I do know this, there's a
term, ROI. What does that stand for? Anybody
know? Return on investments. There is a return on investments.
It's called eternal rewards when we're talking about the Christian
life. And there's, I believe, returns in this life. and eternal
returns in the next. But notice he gives them the
blessings of discipleship. That's what I'm calling these.
I think that fits the text. Number one, home. Who shall not
receive a hundredfold, by the way, that's a pretty good return
on the investment, isn't it? A hundred times increase. Excellent return. A hundredfold
now in this time, he first says houses. When a person chooses
to truly follow Jesus, they believed in him, and they begin to grow
deeper in their knowledge, they begin to dig into the scriptures,
to know who he is, and to make the Bible the foundation of their
life, and they begin to embrace what God is doing, God becomes
their dwelling place. Moses wrote this, Psalm 90, verse
one, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. The next chapter of Psalms 91.1,
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty." Jesus is enough. God is enough. The book of Acts
describes this coming true. Jesus just said to Peter, Acts
2.44, Now all who believed were together, had all things in common,
and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among
all as anyone had need. Here's, I think, at least one
example of the promise that Jesus made to Peter coming true, because
Peter was part of this group. What's another verse here, last
one for this? We have the eternal, he said,
in this life and in the life to come. John 14, two, in my
father's house are many mansions, many dwelling places. If it were
not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. We have that eternal dwelling
place, to look forward to. The second blessing was family.
He says, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time,
houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children. What
family member is missing from the list? The father. And I believe
that's because God identifies himself as the father. He says,
I'm the father for you. I am your heavenly father. The
Bible calls us children of God. Romans 8.16, the Spirit himself
bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. That means we're all connected,
that special bond in Christ. 1 John 3.1, behold what manner
of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called
children of God. It is a new family. We have this spiritual family.
And it's such a wonderful thing as we consider our spiritual
family much greater in number and sometimes greater in spirit
than even our literal families. We have this common bond in Christ
through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. What else
does he say? Home, family, fields. Now, the
Bible uses the word lands here in this New King James here.
Who shall not receive a hundredfold, now in this time, houses, and
brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands. The
word lands there literally means fields. We are given new fields. Before Christ, we are focused
on harvesting only for ourselves and our own needs. It's an inward
focus. But after Christ, as we grow and mature in our and in
our relationship, and we start to follow Christ, that focus
changes from inward to outward. He leads us into new fields.
He leads us into new harvests. He shifts our focus from ourself
to the lost and dying around us. the Samaritan city of Sychar
laying before them. Jesus said this to His disciples,
Do you not say there are still four months? Then comes the harvest.
Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields,
for they are already white for harvest." The next verse as he
continues on, And he who reaps receives wages, and and gathers
fruit for eternal life." And I believe that's the blessings,
the rewards of eternal life. That both he who sows and he
who reaps may rejoice together. We used to labor for this life,
now we need to be laboring for the life to come. He also, and
it didn't make it on the slide, but number four is persecutions.
Like, wow, we were doing so good in this list, sounded so nice,
but now persecutions? Yes, so there should be a number
four, persecution, up there. And we see that there in verse
30. He lists all these things, and
then he says this, with persecutions. I thought we were doing a list
of blessings, but now we come to this word. Question for you,
what do persecutions typically cause to happen within the Christian
community? It brings us together, doesn't
it? When we have a common enemy, which we do in the enemy of Satan,
and he uses his means and his designs and his people, if you
will, to attack Christians, to attack the church, the unity
grows exponentially. Satan cannot destroy the church.
Jesus said he will build the church, the gates of hell will
not prevail against it. He can't destroy it from the
outside. Now he tries to destroy it from the inside. And we need
to be on guard against that. But these persecutions from the
outside, they cause all kinds of really actually good things
to happen. Now there is pain, suffering.
Sometimes we hear from those serving in undisclosed locations
across the globe. Christians are dying. They're
being persecuted heavily. What's happening in those areas?
You're seeing explosive growth within those churches and the
Christian community there. Persecutions tend to drive us
closer together. Who else do they tend to drive
us closer to that's even more important? God, right? Because
the rug comes out from under, the floor drops out. Who else
do we have to cling to? Persecutions. Yes, magnifies
God because He's the only one that we can give any glory to
when we're faced with these heavy persecutions. Causes deeper love
and support for one another. Do you know that a lot of the
little petty arguments and differences of opinion and preference, they
have no place in that environment. They have no place in that environment.
All of a sudden the things that were so important at one point
And I'm not talking about Bible things. I'm talking about different
ideas and preferences. Those seem to be resolved. It
also tends to cause the spread of the gospel, which is what
we're seeing in some of these persecuted areas in the world.
You're seeing the gospel be spread. Why? Because there's something
radically amazing. The light is so bright in those
dark areas and it draws people to it. So I think this was, in
a sense, a warning, but it's also a sense. Yeah. Right, right, exactly. Paul said,
when I'm weak, then I'm strong. So we say, well, we're not facing
all that. Well, we are still facing difficulty, are we not?
We are still facing issues and problems and trials. God is allowing
them into our life. And we can do one of two things.
We can get bitter and angry, or we can try to understand what
is God trying to teach us. He's allowing that difficulty
in your life. He's doing it to expose something He needs you
to see about yourself so that you trust in Him more. It reminds
us how much we need Him. When life is smooth and easy,
we tend to stop relying on Him. But then the other half of the
promise here, if we can bookend Mark 10.30 with John 16.33, these
things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation."
There's that promise again, like we just saw in Mark 10 30, but
then he says, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Couple more here, we're running
out of time. Again, my slide didn't come through. Number four is persecutions,
number five is eternal life and the rewards that go with it,
and he says that as he concludes the verse, and in the age to
come, eternal life. Some things to consider as we
close this out here. Our eternal life begins when? I'm hearing different things.
What am I hearing? When does eternal life begin? The point of believing in Christ.
Thanks. Yeah. So if you're a Christian today,
guess what? You're living your eternal life right now. It started
Now, this body is gonna pass away, but you're gonna just be
with the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord instantaneously. So we gotta consider the context
here. Is he saying that we have to earn our eternal life? No,
I don't believe so, because I think he's talking, because Peter's
already confessed his faith in Christ. You are the Christ. That
happened already, I believe. And he's told them, Lord, we've
done this. And now we're showing our faith by how we live for
you So Jesus is talking to those who've already believed in him.
They've already given up homes and families and fields. They've
already endured persecutions. So eternal life, it's not just
this existing eternal thing in the future, but it's the blessings,
I believe, that he's focusing on. The eternal rewards that
await those who follow Jesus in this life. And then he concludes,
as we wrap up this morning, with this final statement, verse 31,
but many who are first will be last, and the last first. And I think this was a common
statement of Jesus. Because if you read through the
other cross-references of this verse, it is repeated in different
contexts. This is really a revolutionary
value statement about the kingdom of God. It's revolutionary to
the context of first century Israel. I think it's just as
revolutionary to the 21st century America that we live in. Many people who believe that
they are first in this world's economy And we're receiving the
blessing, just like the rich young ruler. He was first, wasn't
he, at the time? Financially, he was first. He
was first with his prestige and power and influence because he
was a ruler. He had authority. He was first. But he's coming in last. In fact,
he's not even finishing because he refused to put his faith in
Jesus. So I think this statement further
refutes the false belief in that prosperity gospel that we talked
about earlier. If it's true that God only blesses those, or that
God gives wealth to only those who are right with him, let me
look at today's list of the wealthy. I think I have a problem with
that belief. Let's conclude here. We need
to pursue the wealth of heaven. Which is what Jesus' instruction
to the rich young ruler, if you go back and look, what did he
say to him? He said that you may have riches where? In heaven. So, yes, we need to be good stewards,
and it's not wrong to invest and to grow our accounts and
to do things, and that's just good stewardship. But what is
our main pursuit? Why are we doing that? That's
not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. We are
to lay up treasure, He, the rich young ruler, thought his wealth
and power made him first place. Jesus set it straight. He says,
no, these men, they're poor. These disciples I've chosen have
no political influence. They have no wealth to speak
of. They're nobodies in terms of the society at large. But
they're the ones that are going to be first. They're the ones,
they're last now in the world's eyes. They're the ones that will
receive God's blessing. And remember that return on investment,
a hundredfold. I'm gonna bless them more than
they can possibly imagine. That's what he wants to do with
us. Let's pray. Father, thank you, Lord, so much
for your word. Thank you for this passage and thank you for
the different characters that came across Jesus' path and how
you allowed these men to write these things down. so that we
could read them today as the readers of this, knowing it's
a historical document in our hands, knowing that this actually
happened in real time and space. This man was a real man that
lived and talked and walked at this time with Jesus and the
disciples. And Lord, sometimes we find ourselves
questioning the issues. We find ourselves questioning
the persecution. We find ourselves questioning the difficulties
and the trials that we're living in. Help us to keep heaven in
mind. Help us to keep eternity the
focus, Lord. And while we're doing that, be
good stewards of what we have. But Lord, help our purpose for
that to be to honor you and to look forward to those eternal
rewards with you one day in heaven. We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Thanks, guys. Have a great day.
The Gospel of Mark Part 50
Series The Gospel of Mark
Wealth and the Kingdom of God
As the rich young ruler walks away, Jesus uses the opportunity to teach the disciples a valuable lesson on wealth and eternal rewards.
| Sermon ID | 82724155854235 |
| Duration | 49:23 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Mark 10:23-31 |
| Language | English |
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