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.