July 22, 2024

Mark 10:21-22

²¹ Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

²² But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The context of this interaction between Jesus and this man was that the man had asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. And the answer that Jesus gave was radically different than the answer that the modern church gives to this question.

Now it isn’t a big secret that the modern church is in rough shape. There is a lot of behavior in it that shouldn’t be there. And there is a lot of behavior missing that ought to be there. Now personally, I think the reason for this is because our answer to the question that this man asked is not the same answer that Jesus gave.

If you read the entire passage, it is evident that this man was a very moral person. He was keeping the ten commandments. He was following the Law. By and large, he was doing what the Bible told him to do.

He had obtained morality. Outwardly, he was a good person. But the obtainment of outward morality was not the goal of eternal life. Obviously, he knew that something was missing in his life, or he would not have asked Jesus this question. But it is evident that he was not prepared for the answer that he got.

Now Jesus could very well have commended him for what he was doing. I am sure that since he was a good moral person, he was likely a regular attender at the local synagogue and a good financial supporter of it. He was probably connected to his religious community and even gave to the special offerings to support poor people. He would have done all of these things as a follower of the Law.

But instead of commending him for doing the religious things that made him look righteous, the Bible says that He looked at him and “loved him,” The implication is that if Jesus had encouraged him to continue in the things that were making him look outwardly religious, He would not have been loving him.

He loved him by putting the focus on the ONE THING that was missing in his life. He wasn’t missing morality. He wasn’t missing doing what the Bible told him to do. He wasn’t missing church attendance or the financial support of his local church. I think he would have been the model parishioner that the pastor wished he could clone,

But Jesus went right to the heart of the matter: his heart! He was a very religious person. But his religion was only outward actions. There was no heart involved in the process. And this state of affairs was proven in the fact that the great possessions in his life were what his heart was attached to.

It was a matter of ownership. The things in his life owned him. Truthfully, he thought he was the owner. But in reality, he was the slave who was owned by his things.

Modern salvation doesn’t tend to deal with this subject. It invites people to come into the Kingdom of God without renouncing the ownership that we have in the kingdom of this world. And because so many people are attempting to retain ownership in the world and yet live in God’s Kingdom at the same time, hearts remain divided and confused.

We didn’t love these people like Jesus loves people because we didn’t help them to understand that you cannot really enter God’s kingdom, as long as you are still retaining ownership of the world.

Having things in your life is not wrong. But things having you is absolutely wrong.

God hasn’t called us into poverty. In fact, the opposite is true. We cannot advance the Kingdom of God effectively if we don’t have the financial wherewithal to accomplish this.

But we aren’t loving people if we invite them into the Kingdom without helping them understand that they cannot retain ownership in their current kingdom. To be truly invested in the new Kingdom of their life, they must renounce the ownership of their previous kingdom.

But when this doesn’t happen, hearts are divided. Christians hold onto terrible things that no longer belong to them. They have retained ownership in a kingdom that they were supposed to move out of. We didn’t love them enough to teach them the truth about their possessions.