The Two Rich Young Rulers - 21

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Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au. Welcome to Turning Point Weekend Edition. Now, it may be the only time that someone approached Jesus feeling hopeful and left feeling discouraged. Today, Dr. David Jeremiah looks at Christ's encounter with the rich young ruler. Listen, as David introduces today's message, the two rich young rulers.

This is a play on words, obviously, as we look together at Mark chapter 10, verses 17 to 25. The rich young human ruler and the rich young heavenly ruler. Two rich young rulers.

It's right here on the Weekend Edition of Turning Point, and it begins right now. I've called this message, not the rich young ruler, but the two rich young rulers. Because two men are going to meet in this story. Both of them are young, both of them are rich, and both of them are rulers. One is a human rich young ruler, and the other is a heavenly rich young ruler. And in their meeting, two world views collide. Two ideas about what life is all about come together in a few moments of conversation between two rich young rulers.

Let me tell you about the first one, the rich young human ruler. Several things about him are given to us in the text. First of all, if we read this, we pick up the fact that he is young, but Matthew's account tells us his age. Basically, he was a young man. When the young man heard this saying, he went away, says Matthew 19, 22. Most scholars believe this puts this young man in the age bracket of somewhere between maybe 28 and 32.

He was a man who not only was young, but he had great accomplishments. Verse 18 of Luke's account of this gospel. Luke 18, 18 says, a certain ruler asked him saying. The Bible calls this man a ruler.

It's a Greek word, which is really the word archon, and it means to be a principle one, a first one. Maybe the ruler of a synagogue or the most important person in the group. Sometimes called a great man or a prince. This man was evidently not only young, but in his youth had become a person of great importance in his Jewish community. And then the Bible tells us he was affluent. He was rich. In fact, all of the synoptic gospels which record this event make note of the fact that this man was wealthy.

Let me read the verses to you. Matthew 19, 22 says, the young man heard him saying, went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Mark says he had great possessions, and Luke says he was very rich. A very rich man with great possessions. Young, accomplished, affluent, and he was also aggressive.

Now that shouldn't surprise us. Most young, accomplished, affluent people are aggressive. And this young man is aggressive.

Watch this. Verse 17, as he was going out on the road, one came running. As Jesus was going out on the road that day, this guy comes running up to him, and he kneels before him and asks him a question. The way Mark tells it, this man didn't just run up to Jesus, he ran up to Jesus, fell on his knees in front of him.

I mean, he was trying to get his attention, no question. We don't know why he was in such a hurry. The Bible doesn't give us that information, but maybe somewhere along the way he had heard Jesus teach. And he had sensed that in the teaching of Jesus, maybe there was an answer to the question that was burning in his heart. So he couldn't wait to get there. If he thought the answer was there, he was going to find the answer. And no question about the fact this was a self-assured young man who went after whatever he wanted. He wanted an answer. We don't know why he used this word, but he called Jesus teacher.

Our modern word would be doctor, or perhaps even the word rabbi would be better. In the Middle East, it was very undignified for a grown man to run in public. They walked with a sense of gait and dignity to them, but to run, that was very undignified. This man with his youthful passion was throwing his respectability at the feet of Jesus. He could not wait to ask the great teacher how to find the answer to the longing that was in his heart. And he didn't mind the risk of losing faith with all those who probably didn't like him anyway because of who he was. And as young as he was, and as rich as he was, and as affluent as he was, there was this emptying in his life, and he wanted to find the answer to it.

His age, his accomplishments, his affluence, his aggressiveness, notice his actions. After he asked the question, what do I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to the young man, why do you call me good?

He had called him good teacher. Don't you know there's only one good, and that's God? You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Don't murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother. And he answered and said to him, teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.

This is an incredible young man. When he had said he had kept all the commandments from his youth and up, Jesus didn't correct him. He didn't say, no, you haven't. If anybody would have known if he had broken those commandments, Jesus would have known it. And of course he did break them, but Jesus didn't confront him with his inaccuracy. One of the things you notice about it is that this man apparently was outwardly a good and moral person. As we will see in a few moments, what he said was not about anything good that he did, but it was all about the bad things he didn't do. And in spite of all these things, he was searching. In spite of all that we've discussed, he had an emptiness in his life that he couldn't fill with his wealth and his success. Despite his high standing in the eyes of men, he knew he did not have the peace that he read about in the Psalms and the peace about which the prophets had spoken. He felt this deep spiritual emptiness. For all of his religious efforts, he was unfulfilled. He knew that he did not possess the life of God that satisfies now and gives eternal life. He had everything that money could buy, and he was unhappy. And all of this was because of an assumption that he made.

Let's look at his assumption. In verse 17, he said to the good teacher, What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Now, there's a disconnect there before you even get out of the Bible. You don't do anything to inherit. You've got to be related. You've got to have a relationship before you just do something to inherit. This rich young ruler, though, only had one mode of operation. This is all he knew. He assumed there was something that he could do to get this commodity that he was missing in his life. This man came to Jesus, and he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? He had everything one could ever dream of having, but he just didn't know the answer to the most important question in life.

He had everything going for him in the realm of the temporary. He had nothing going for him in the realm of the eternal. Now, this is not the only time this has happened to Jesus. On another occasion, we are told in the book of Luke that a lawyer came up to him and asked him the same question. In Luke 10 25, behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Jesus, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Now, the sameness of these two questions is because these men were following the argument that was a mainstream Jewish concept. They thought they had to do something.

They were under the principles of the law. They did not understand that salvation is not about what you do for God, but it's about what God does for you. On one occasion, when Jesus was speaking to a multitude of people near Capernaum, the multitude asked Jesus a question, and Jesus answered it with a clarity that no one should ever have to question again. Listen to these words from John chapter 6. And they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent.

What is the work of God? It's to believe. That's what had escaped this young man. He had everything that you could have wanted.

He was at the peak of his success, but he was saying in his own words, isn't there something more? There's got to be something more than this. What he's about to learn from the great teacher is that he has the right question, but he's looking for the answer in all the wrong places. The question, of course, is how do I have eternal life? And the answer has nothing to do with what you do.

It's about who you know. The Bible says the wages of sin are death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Salvation is not a reward for something you do.

It's an absolutely unwarranted gift from Almighty God. In 1 John 5, 11, and 12, it says, This is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. Ladies and gentlemen, if there's anything we can do to have eternal life, there is no such thing as eternal life, because all we have to offer to God is the imperfection of our humanity, and that's for every single one of us no matter who we are.

What we need is something that's perfect, something that's flawless, something that has no chinks in it, and that only comes from the hand of God. He must give us eternal life or we can't have it. So this young man came to Jesus looking for some answers.

He was young, he was prominent, he was rich, he was aggressive, and he assumed that that was enough. Now he's about to meet someone like he's never met before. He's going to this man to get an answer, and all of a sudden he's going to discover that this man not only wants to give him the answer, this man is the answer. And so the rich young human ruler is now meeting the rich young heavenly ruler. It's an outstanding moment in life, a moment where a man full of questions meets the answer.

These two men meeting that day represent the two ways open to all men today. The rich young ruler had made this earth and his possessions the reason for living. He had everything that you could ever want, but he was empty. The rich young heavenly ruler had left all of his riches behind in order to come to this earth and do the will of his father. His whole life was about the future. The young human ruler had only his past and his present.

He had nothing going in the future at all. Two men standing face to face representing the broad way and the narrow way, the way of life and the way of death, the way of works and the way of grace, the way of man and the way of God. In the beginning of the story, this man was searching out Jesus for answers to his emptiness. Now Jesus is going to search out the heart of this young man for the truth about his life. Watch Jesus' work as he talks with this young ruler.

First of all, he begins to search him for truth about Christ. In verse 18, Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? There's no one good but one, and that is God. Jesus wanted to see if this young man knew who he was talking to. In essence, he was saying to him, You can't call me good if you don't call me God because there's only one good, and that's God.

If you're calling me good, you must think I'm God. Even though he did not acknowledge that Jesus was God in the flesh, he had come to the right person. Jesus then begins to search him out with regard to the commandments. In verses 19 and 20, Jesus says, You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother. In Matthew's Gospel, we are told that when Jesus said to this young man, You know the commandments, the young man asked Jesus, What commandments are you talking about? And here Jesus cites five of the last six commandments.

Do not defraud, he leaves out. He basically quotes them according to the Hebrew order. He moves the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother, to the end, and he omits the last commandment, You shall not covet. The first four of the ten commandments, as you know, have to do with our relationship with God.

The last six have to do with our relationships with each other. Jesus chose the least difficult section of the commandments to show this man his sin. The young man answered, I've kept all of these from my youth, I have bar mitzvah, I have not done any of these things. These words could also be translated, I have avoided these sins.

I have kept myself from doing these things from my youth. The rich young ruler was more interested in avoiding sin than in doing good, that's quite evident. Now, Jesus wasn't examining this man's works so that he could determine whether he was fit for heaven. He was examining this man's works to help him understand that he wasn't fit for heaven. Because in his own mind, he thought that he had done enough with maybe one little exception, and he thought Jesus could fix that for him. So the Lord Jesus is asking him these questions to help him begin to see where he really stands in his relationship with God. Money, you see, was his God.

That's pretty evident. So we already know he blew up the first commandment, you shall have no other God before me. The first commandments, he'd already messed those up. Thankfully, Christ didn't ask him about the first four commandments, because the most evident commandment that he was not keeping was he had put a God before God, and that God was his money.

He had trusted in it, he had worshiped it, he had gotten his fulfillment from it. His morality and his good manners were just a front for a covetous heart. And that's the reason Jesus asked him about the commandments, because one of the purposes of the commandments is to show us our sin. Romans says, By the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

If we didn't know that God said, this is right and this is wrong, we wouldn't know what's right and wrong. But this man is being confronted with the fact that though he claims to have been a good person, down underneath the exterior of his life was this broken heart that did not have any relationship with God at all. He was good at posturing, but he did not have reality. Jesus had carefully crafted these questions and brought him to this place where he was beginning to understand that his outward goodness was not sufficient.

And maybe that was a part of the question he was asking. Maybe that was why he didn't have this inner peace that he wanted. And finally, Jesus begins to search for truth about the condition of his heart. Jesus, we're told, looked at him and loved him and said to him, one thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have, give to the poor, you will have treasure in heaven, come take up the cross, follow me. And he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. Now, let me just stop here and say, this particular passage has frustrated a lot of Christian people because it looks like on the surface that Jesus is telling this guy he can buy his way to heaven.

Isn't that what it looks like? I want you to walk through this with me and understand where Jesus is taking this man. First of all, note his compassion. Jesus looked at him and he loved him. Sometimes we think when Jesus is confronting us, he's mad at us, but usually it's because he's loving us, like we love our children when we confront them with things they're doing that are wrong. Mark is the only gospel that speaks of Jesus' compassion for this man, and he describes Jesus looking right into his soul and loving him. Why was Jesus' heart suddenly so filled with love for this very rich and pretentious man?

One writer has explained it. Jesus, who at this point is about 31 years old, looks at this man and identifies with him. Jesus, too, is a rich young man, far richer than this man can imagine. But Jesus has lived in the incomprehensible glory, wealth, love, and joy of the Trinity from all eternity.

He has already left that wealth behind him. Paul says that Jesus Christ was rich, and for our sakes, he became poor. Here is Jesus looking at this man.

He's already made the transition, and he realizes that what he's asking of this man is of similar nature, and I believe in his humanity. Jesus looked at this young man and he realized the torture he had in his heart because he was so committed to his wealth, and he wondered where that was going to happen in his humanity. Of course, he was the Son of God, so obviously knew where this was all going. Now, notice Jesus' critique of him. Jesus said to him, "'One thing you lack.'" And I think that must have been the only moment of hope in the whole conversation.

I think the young ruler probably thought, okay, finally I'm going to get this. I'm going to find out what it is I need in my inventory that I don't have. He's going to tell me what it is.

I'm going to put it in my inventory, and then I'm going to be fine. "'One thing you lack.'" By the way, the word lack is the same word that is used in Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and come short, or lack, the glory of God. And then Jesus gives him a command, and here's where we wonder what this is all about. He said, "'Go your way. Sell whatever you have. Give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come, take up the cross, and follow me.'"

Now, he gives him five commands, and you've probably noticed that. Go your way. Sell what you have. Give to the poor. Take up your cross.

Follow me. Remember, the rich young ruler has asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, so in keeping with his question, Jesus gives him a to-do list. And Jesus is saying to this man, listen carefully, "'You have put your faith and your trust in your wealth and accomplishment, but your efforts are leading you to doubt and insecurity about the most important question in your life.'" I want you to imagine Jesus says, all of it gone, no inheritance, no inventory, no servants, no mansions, all of that gone, and all you have is me.

Can you live with that? Our Lord's directions here in Mark chapter 10, we can't apply those to everyone who wants to become a disciple. Jesus is using these questions particularly because those are the questions that are going to penetrate this man's sinful heart. This man was trusting in his riches, trusting in his wealth, trusting in his prominence for his standing before God, and Jesus is trying to help him understand that will never get him to where he wants to go. He says if you put that all away, if you send that all away, if you help others with what you have instead of hoarding it for yourself, and all you have left is me, will you be satisfied with that?

Because men and women, in reality, that's what salvation is, isn't it? It's saying that nothing else we have is sufficient to have a relationship with God, and that's where this man was. He'd accumulated it all, but down in his heart, he knew it wasn't enough, and he had this ache in his heart to be fulfilled, and he couldn't figure out what he had to do. Jesus is helping him with this. He loved this man, so here he is, confronted with two choices.

He's at a fork in the road. I can keep going where I'm going and continue to have the emptiness I have, or I can listen to this man from heaven, but the Bible says in verse 22, he was sad at this word, and he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. He went away crushed. He went away depressed, because money was the center of his life. If he had given away his money, he would have given away the most important thing in his life. He would have had to give away his God. If you want Jesus to be your Savior, you have to give away all your other Saviors.

You can only have one. Jesus will not share the throne of your life with anything or anyone. He's either your Savior, or he has nothing to you. Because this man was married to his possessions, he went away from Jesus. He went away sorrowful.

He went away. The Bible says of him that he tried to save his life in the here and now, and he lost the future. Now, you say, Pastor, that's really an interesting story, but I don't consider myself wealthy, and I'm not prominent, so I'm glad I heard this, but what does it mean to me? Let me just tell you something. Everybody trusts in something. One of the things we used to do when we would ask people about their faith, their relationship, if you were to stand before God tonight, and he were to ask you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say?

And I've asked that question hundreds of times, and most of the time, especially from men, I've gotten this answer somewhat similar to this man. I'm a good husband. I'm a good father. I think I'm pretty good in the community. I'm a part of the PTA. I try to do good things for people.

I've never harmed anybody. So then I would say, so you believe that if you're going to go to heaven, your way in is on the basis of the life that you've lived and how good that is. Is that correct?

And then they get a little tentative, but yeah. Well, do you think you've sinned? Well, I've made mistakes. That's a little nicer than sin. Well, do you think you've sinned a lot?

Not really. Would you say three times a day? Oh, yeah. Well, do you want to do the math on that? I mean, three times a day times 365 times, however many years you're going to be alive, and you stand before God and say, I haven't sinned much, but here's what I got.

You see, that's the problem. Whatever we trust in has to be able to produce, and this man was face to face with the fact that everything he had, all that he had accomplished, it was an enormous amount, but it wasn't enough. He had placed his trust. If this Bible is trust, he had placed his trust in himself and everything he had accomplished. He wanted to have eternal life, but you can't get eternal life that way because, as you know, God doesn't grate on the curve. You have to get it all right, and the only one who's ever gotten it all right is Jesus Christ, God's Son, and if you don't put your trust in him and let him take your test for you, you can't go to heaven, and Jesus was doing surgery on this man's heart, literally trying to help him understand that all the things he thought were enough, they weren't enough, and that's why he was so empty, and all that man needed to do was to transfer his trust from himself and put it in Jesus Christ.

That's all any of us have to do. What are you trusting in to go to heaven? Whatever it is, if it's not Jesus Christ, it won't get you there.

You say, well, that's pretty narrow. I have to tell you, that's what the Bible says. I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me, period. No exceptions, no clauses underneath.

The unvarnished truth of the gospel is, if your trust is in anything else except in Jesus Christ, you will miss heaven. So what should this man have done? If we could write a new ending to the story, what would it look like? Oh, I get it. I was just doing what I thought I should do, and now I realize I've spent my life building up things for myself, and I've missed the truth of your plan. Lord, please forgive me for not acknowledging your wonderful grace for me. I've been gifted to do this. I'm good at raising money. I'm good at business, and I've let that become my God.

But I want to put that all aside now. I want you to be my God. I want to put my faith in you. I want to transfer my trust, and I want to believe in Almighty God. I want to put my faith in Jesus Christ as the only one who can get me to heaven. Somebody would say, if you look back on that story five years from then, and this man has become a Christian, would he be poor? Oh, no.

He would probably still be knocking the ball out of the park in the industry wherever he was in, only now we'd be all focused on his new love, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, the story isn't about you've got to become poor to become a Christian. The story's about you've got to become committed to Jesus Christ as opposed to being committed. You can't have two thrones in your life, only one. And Jesus Christ is the only one that will get you to heaven.

Put him on the throne, and then subjugate all of this other stuff under him, and watch God use you in a way you've never thought possible. If you do that, you won't walk away sad. You'll walk away with the greatest hope in your heart you ever had in your life. Because Jesus said, I have come to give you life and life more abundantly.

He's not coming to make your life miserable. He's trying to help you understand that if you will put your trust in him, you can become a Christian. And until you do that, no matter what you try, it's going to leave you feeling empty. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

That's what it says. So today, whether you're rich or poor, men or a woman, young or old, it's the same truth for all of us. If you want to go to heaven someday, you better put your trust in Jesus Christ and in him alone. Watch what he does with your life. He will take you places you never dreamed you could ever go. He will make you the person that down deep in your heart you really always wanted to be.

And he has set you loose on an adventure in life that's like nothing you ever could experience without him. Hallelujah. We hope you enjoyed today's Turning Point weekend edition with Dr. David Jeremiah. You can hear this and other programs and get more information about our ministry by downloading the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or by visiting our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. You can also view Turning Point television on free to air channel 72 on Sunday mornings at 8, and ACC TV Sundays at 6.30 a.m. and Friday afternoons at 1. We invite you to join us again next weekend as Dr. David Jeremiah shares another powerful message from God's Word right here on Turning Point weekend edition. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au