Betting on the Wrong World - Part 2

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In which economy would you rather be rich? Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah returns to Mark Chapter 10, and considers the ongoing tension between the two worlds in which believers live, heaven and earth. Here's David to conclude his message betting on the wrong world. I hope this message can connect you with all the ways and woes of the world, just in a moment. But as Christians, we have to remember that this world is not our home. There is another world that we will inhabit for all eternity, and we need to keep that in mind even as we go about living in this one. We're talking about how you can bet on the wrong world. Please don't do that. Listen carefully today as we complete this message from Mark 10, 23 to 31.

And make sure you do good inventory on your own life, and make good decisions. Well today we're going to finish up what we started yesterday. We're talking about the two worlds that are in front of us. There's the world in which we live in, the world toward which we are headed.

Which world deserves the most attention, and what will be the result depending on what we do with these two worlds. We're going to talk about it today, right here on Turning Point. Jesus uses this as a way of saying to his disciples, don't try it. It's foolish.

It's useless. It can't work. It'll never happen.

You cannot go to heaven if you're trusting in your riches to get you there. It would be like trying to put a camel through the eye of a needle. It's impossible. In fact, he goes on to prove that. He uses the word impossible here. He uses the word of possibility.

Almighty God is impossible. Almighty God is saying that if you want to go to heaven and you think you can get there because you've got a lot of stuff, it's as crazy for you to think that as to think that a camel could somehow be processed through the eye of a needle. Right in the middle of Jesus' interchange with his disciples, he gives us a clue as to how we can enter the kingdom of God.

The answer is wrapped up in one word. It's the word children. Notice verse 24, children. How hard is it for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God? If the wealthy are at a disadvantage when it comes to salvation, the childlike are at an advantage. In fact, in the Bible, the opposite of disadvantage is not advantage.

The opposite of disadvantage is childlikeness. And Jesus says the way you get to heaven is not because of all the stuff you have, but through the humility that you have to realize you haven't got anything that God needs or wants, that all you have is open hands to receive the blessing that he wants to give you. Do you know that it takes a great deal of grace for somebody to receive a gift?

Have you ever noticed that? A lot of people are so proud that they don't want to receive a gift. They don't want to receive a gift from you or from God.

They want to make sure that they've earned it. And the Bible says if you want to go to heaven that way, it's as impossible to do that as to put a camel through the eye of a needle. It ain't going to happen. It can't happen.

It's impossible. So the wealth of this world, while it has some advantages and none of us wants to make a case for being as poor as we can be, the wealth of this world is going to leave you where it left the rich young ruler, realizing there's something more that you need that you don't have if all you have is trust in riches. So now Jesus is going to talk about the world to come, beginning in verse 26, the wealth of the world to come, and he begins by discussing the difficulty of salvation. And it says in verse 26, Underline that in your thinking. With men, salvation is impossible. It's not difficult. It's not hard.

It's impossible. And the disciples are so astonished by Jesus' words because they've grown up in a Jewish culture where wealth and success were symbols of unqualified blessing from God. If you grew up in the Jewish community where they grew up and you saw a person who was wealthy and had lots of stuff, large families, a lot of product, you would say that person must be really blessed of God. That's the way they thought. And so the disciples are thinking, well, if the people that have all this wealth and all these riches, if they can't go to heaven, who then can? I mean, if they can't make it, who can? And Jesus said, let me just give you the answer to that.

Nobody. It's impossible. It's impossible to go to heaven. And these words from Jesus just shattered the ideas and the images of the disciples.

They didn't know what to think. You see, the rich young rulers seemed like the perfect candidate for heaven. But Christianity makes all men equal. Nobody starts in Christianity with a balance in their account. Everybody stands at the foot of the cross where it's level, and we're all bankrupt when it comes to salvation. So salvation is not just difficult. It's not just hard. It's impossible for the richest person you know and for the poorest person you know. It's impossible for the best person you know and the worst person you know, and it's impossible for you if you want to climb up through your accomplishments and your treasure. And you may be astonished by that, like the disciples where I've met many people who have been. You mean there's not anything I can do?

No. All you can do is become like a child and humble yourself and say, Lord God, I need you. I know I can't get there on my own, and I come to you humbly just like a child.

Here's a good picture for that. Have you ever been to a department store with a little child and stood at the base of an escalator with them? And looked at the wonder in their eyes as they don't know anything about how that's going to get them to the top, but they just believe it, and they get on it. And this thing, they don't understand anything about it at all. They just get on it, and it takes them to the top. And then they want to ride back down and ride back up, and you know what I'm talking about.

That's the wonder of the humility of a child. We stand at the foot of the cross, and we don't understand it sometimes completely, but we are like a child, and we say, Lord God, I renounce all of my attempts to get to heaven in my own strength. And I believe you are absolutely right when you say, neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men. By we must be saved.

It's the name of Jesus. So now, we look at the definition of salvation in verse 27, Jesus looked at them, and he said, with men it is impossible, for with God all things are possible. Luke 1 37 says, with God nothing will be impossible. And over and over again in the Scripture, we find out that God can do what no one else can do.

And if that wouldn't be true, none of us could be saved. We've already learned that we don't have what it takes to become acceptable to God, because God demands perfection, and we can't achieve it. God doesn't grade on the curve.

You have to get 100% on his goodness test. No one in the world has ever done that except for Jesus Christ. And when Jesus Christ came into this world, he came into this world to take our test for us, and he went to the cross and he passed it with flying colors. And he offers to us a passing grade that we don't deserve, but he gives it to us by grace. That's how you go to heaven. You don't go to heaven in your own strength. You go to heaven in the power of Jesus Christ. He plainly declares that it is not possible for you to keep the way of salvation or to get to heaven in your own strength.

The only way you can get to heaven is through God. Now, right about this place in the story, Peter is going to get involved. And I always love it when Peter's getting involved, because it's very interesting.

You never know what Peter's going to come up with. And Peter's been standing there taking all this in and listening to this, and he's been watching the thing with the rich young ruler. And he heard Jesus say to the rich young ruler, I want you to go and sell everything you have and take up your cross and follow me.

And Peter latched onto that. And he says here to him, See, we have left all and we have followed you. Lord, we did it.

What you said we have to do, we've done it. And Peter really had done it. He and his friends were walking by the sea one day. He and Andrew, his brother, and Jesus said to them, Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. And they left their nets and followed Jesus. And they had been following him ever since through all of the things that Jesus experienced, through the ups and downs of being a disciple. They had followed Jesus through Israel, through lives of confusion and difficulty and disgrace. He had given all of them the opportunity to follow him, and they were following him. Now, Peter wants to be assured that this sacrifice is going to pay off. He actually asks in one of the accounts, Lord, what are we going to get for doing this? We've been following you, so what do we get for it? And you're going to find out later in the same text is the story where they stood and argued over who was going to be first in the kingdom and who would get to sit next to Jesus. You know, these people are just as confused about some of this stuff as we are. But Peter said, Lord, I've been following you ever since you called me.

I've done it. So what do I get? And I love Jesus' answer. Listen to this, Mark 10, 29 to 31. So Jesus answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake in the gospels who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. Jesus says, you want to know about the dividends of salvation?

Here they are. Whatever you leave, I will restore it to you one hundredfold. How many of you got any investments that are doing that for you? Right. Jesus says, when you invest in my kingdom, the rewards are incredible. What did he mean?

Well, he divided it up into two sections. He said some of the rewards you get in following Christ you get in this present world. You know, sometimes I hear preachers talk about how becoming a Christian is like devastating for all the time you're on this earth, and then you die, go to heaven, and it's fun.

Well, I want to tell you something. I've been a Christian for years, and if I could trade my life as a Christian for any life I've ever read about or heard about, I wouldn't even consider it for one minute. My life as a Christian is the most exciting life you could ever want. Jesus is promising his disciples that if they will follow him, he will reward them, not pie in the sky, by and by, but in the here and now. Now, watch what he says. When you become a Christian, I will give you brothers and sisters, mothers and houses and riches.

What is he saying? Every one of you here as a Christian knows what I'm talking about. When you became a Christian, you got a whole bunch of new friends. You joined a new family, and I've had people say to me, I am much closer to my Christian friends than I've ever been with anybody in my family. I tell my Christian friends things I would never tell my family. My family is really my Christian family. Do you know how this family works? We go all over the country and around the world, and everywhere we go, we have a family party, because the family members in the family of God are everywhere.

You know why? They're some of the brothers and sisters that God gave me when I became a Christian and joined his family. They're my brothers and sisters, and I want to tell you something. There's more than a hundred.

There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. When you become a Christian, you get a whole new life, a whole new perspective on life. That's what a church is all about, because we love God, and we believe God, and we love each other, and we love being together. We're just so energized because we're committed to a light, precious faith. When you put your resources in God's kingdom, your life, your energy, your treasure, your time, your talent, your influence, you don't have to wait until you die to be rewarded.

The rewards begin immediately. Now, Jesus is very honest. He says, you get all this with persecutions.

Can I get a witness? He just threw that in there, so just a little honesty here, a little reality. You get all of these things, but you don't get out of persecutions, because if you live godly in Christ Jesus, you're going to suffer persecution. And we're learning more about that in this generation than we've ever learned in the past. Now, that's what we get now, but Jesus says, and in the age to come, eternal life. And while Mark concentrates on the things we get on this earth, Matthew talks about the future dividends. However, in Matthew we read that Jesus has got something for us not only in this life, but in the life to come. He tells us that when we put our trust in him, he will bless us now, but there's even more and greater blessing when we get to heaven.

What does that mean? Well, here's the book of Matthew, and it tells us that God has some special things for us that are awaiting us, Matthew 19, 28 to 30. So Jesus said to them, Assuredly I say to you that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my sake shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life. There's Jesus' future take on this. Now he's talking to his disciples about sitting on the thrones, but he's talking to us about being rewarded in the future for our faithfulness down here. And he says when we get to heaven, if we've walked with the Lord down here and we've been faithful to him, he's going to reward us with responsibility in the kingdom.

Did you know that? If you're a Christian, you're going to have a position in the kingdom of God. So this is not just about here and now. When you get to heaven, it gets even better.

And you're going to be rewarded a hundredfold. I think that's what Paul was talking about when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 that, if in this life only we have hope, we are of most men miserable. We don't just have hope in this life. We have hope in the life to come, the dividends of salvation. But then there's one last thing, and that's the dilemma of salvation.

It's clear at the end of the text, Jesus says something that just looks like an add-on, but it's something we need to talk about. Verse 31, he says, But many who are first will be last and the last first. Who are the first that are going to be last? All the people that these Jewish brothers thought were prominent and had all the good stuff, they would have normally thought, well, they're going to be first. Who are the last? The humble, average person who just trusts Jesus like a child, and they become first. Someone has said that Jesus threw the whole human parade into reverse.

Generals will ride white horses behind marching foot soldiers. Pastors will bring up the end of the processional behind the lowliest of their parishioners. And the wealthy in their purple robes will follow ragged peasants into the kingdom of God. The first will be last and the last first. We are going to have so many surprises when we get to heaven.

I mean, our first several hundred years there, we're just going to be shaking our heads. Oh, I just can't believe it. So, the takeaway from this for all of us is, first of all, if you're not a Christian and you thought somehow you could do enough good stuff to become a Christian, then I need to tell you, if this is your trust, if your trust is in riches, Jesus says it's hard for a person who trusts in riches to go to heaven. How hard is it? It's like putting a camel through the eye of a needle.

In other words, it's not just hard, it's impossible. If your trust is in your riches, the Bible being your trust, in order to become a Christian, you have to transfer your trust from what it's in right now and put your trust in Jesus Christ. You have to make a mental decision to transfer your trust from your riches and put them in Jesus Christ. So, your prayer would sound something like this, Lord, I've been trusting the wrong things.

I've been thinking the wrong thoughts. I've been thinking that somehow I could be good enough to get to your heaven. And I renounce that because I now know that's not true. And so, I'm coming to you as a little child with my hands open to receive the gift of eternal life, which you alone have promised to give me if I will just ask. So, I'm asking you like a child, will you give me the gift of eternal life? Now, you have just transferred your trust and put it in the hands of God. That's how you get to heaven. You make the decision to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. And for those of us who are Christians, the issue for us is to make sure we don't get intoxicated and bamboozled by the things of this world. It is so hard to be proactive about that.

One of the things I believe about tithing and giving to your church, it's one of the things that helps you keep the right perspective on things in life. I want to leave you with a story that will speak reams of paper to what I have said today. Annie Dillard tells of the ill-fated Franklin expedition to the Arctic in 1845. That odyssey was a Turning Point in Arctic exploration because of its well-publicized failure.

Now, listen to this. The preparations that were made were more suitable for the Royal Navy Officers Club in England than for the frigid Arctic. The explorers made room on their ships for a large library, a hand organ, China place settings, cut glass wine goblets, and sterling silver flatware instead of additional coal for their steam engines. The ornate silver flatware was engraved with the individual officers' initials and their family crests. Search parties found clumps of bodies of men who had set off to walk for help when their supplies ran out.

One skeleton wore his fine blue cloth uniform edged with silk braid, hardly a match for the bitter Arctic cold. Another apparently chose to carry with him a place setting of sterling silver flatware. What he thought he was going to do with sterling silver tableware in search for help and food, nobody could figure out.

We can hardly imagine that any of these sailor adventures would have said, as they neared death on a frozen landscape, I wish I had brought more silver place settings. Hanging on to things that are ultimately useless will look no more foolish to us than it did to them. A lot of people can't envision life without the things they cherish. That's why the rich young ruler walked away sad.

He didn't get it. He didn't understand that he was holding on to things he could not keep and missing out on the things that God wanted him to have for eternity. And I want to ask you today as Christians to ponder that. All of us look around at a world full of need. No one's being told to ask God to make us poor so we don't have anything. But how we distribute our finances, what we do with our resources, is really a testimony to whether or not we have these worlds in perspective, is it not?

God wants us to enjoy everything he's given us, every good thing, and that's wonderful. But there is this tension that comes in these passages like the one we've studied today that makes us all stop and ask and pray, Lord God, give me wisdom to use what you've entrusted to me for the right world. And then we make that decision and we go forward and watch the adventure of life unfold before us.

So my question as we close our Bibles today is this. What world are you betting on? What world are you betting on? Well, it's the old story, friends, that we're either moving toward our reward or away from it. If we're counting on everything that we want to happen in this life, little by little we're moving away from that reward. But if we are looking toward the future and we have laid up treasures in heaven, we're not moving away from our reward, we're moving toward it.

It all depends on which world you bet on. And I'm hoping you make the right decision and determine that the world to come is also the world in which you should invest your time and talent. Can you believe it's Thanksgiving time? I know some of you are saying, man, it's 2020, pastor, what have we got to be thankful for?

Well, a lot more than you think. Tomorrow we're going to present a very special Thanksgiving message. This message is meant to encourage you to look at your life and realize how much God has done for you and have a spirit of gratitude. And I hope it's not just for Thanksgiving, not just when you're thinking about turkey and all the rest. I hope it will set the stage for the rest of the year, perhaps even for the rest of your life. Special Thanksgiving message right here on Turning Point tomorrow.

And then we have a couple of days left in the month of November, which we will continue to use to teach the book of Mark. I'm David Jeremiah. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you tomorrow. The message you just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church, where Dr. David Jeremiah serves as senior pastor. Let us know how Turning Point keeps you spiritually strong. Write to us at Turning Point, post office box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Ask for your copy of O. S. Hawkins' new book, The Bible Code, finding Jesus in every book in the Bible. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version, filled with hopeful notes and articles by Dr. Jeremiah. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hookefleet. Join us tomorrow for a special message. Thanksgiving is supernatural. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.