Participants: Mike Leno
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000040
|
00:29 No one ever left the presence of Jesus feeling sad.
00:34 Now they went away feeling a variety of other things, 00:38 for example, some people left feeling ecstatic, 00:40 they'd just been healed, other people left feeling peaceful, 00:44 they had just been forgiven. 00:46 Some left Jesus' presence feeling challenged, they said: 00:50 "Never a man spoke like this man. " 00:53 Other people left feeling angry, they hated his influence 00:56 on the people. Some even felt murderous 01:00 and they plotted his death. 01:01 But no one ever left feeling sad, no one except a certain 01:07 young man we call the rich young ruler. 01:12 Why was he sad? Very simply because his best 01:17 was not good enough. Now this was not some low life 01:22 trash on the street kind of sinner. 01:26 This was not someone who had rebelliously 01:30 lived a life of debauchery and sin, 01:33 this was a person who did his best his entire life; 01:37 from the time he was a little child he learned the scriptures. 01:40 The Rabbinical schools had given him a wonderful education, 01:45 he had risen through the ranks. 01:46 He was now a leader in the synagogue, he was wealthy, 01:50 which is why we know him as the rich young ruler. 01:55 So why was he sad? Why was his best not good enough for Jesus? 02:01 Perhaps you remember the old Greek myth about Sisyphus. 02:05 Remember Sisyphus? Sisyphus made the gods angry 02:09 according to this ancient myth, and because he made the gods 02:13 angry, we won't go into all the details about that, it's much 02:16 too complicated, but he was, according to the myth, 02:20 doomed or sentenced to spend all the rest of eternity doing 02:24 a rather strange thing: he had to take a very large 02:28 boulder, so big that he couldn't possibly pick it up, but he had 02:34 to roll it up to the top of a mountain and just before 02:39 he reached the top of the mountain the boulder 02:42 would suddenly lurch and roll all the way down to the bottom, 02:46 and he had to keep repeating that over and over again. 02:50 Every time, just before he would get that boulder 02:53 up to the top of the mountain 02:55 it would roll all the way to the bottom again. 02:59 My friends, you may feel like that today, 03:02 you may have felt like that your whole life 03:05 when it came to Christian perfection. 03:07 You may have felt like the harder you tried and the closer 03:12 you felt like you were coming to the goal, 03:16 the more you kept rolling back down to the bottom again. 03:20 Well, if you feel that way 03:23 there's good news in our message today. 03:25 There's good news in this story of the rich young ruler, 03:28 because you see, the rich young ruler gave his best, 03:32 and yet it was not good enough for Jesus. 03:35 We need to turn to Matthew 19 to discuss this story. 03:40 According to the Bible the rich young ruler came to Jesus 03:43 and said: "What good thing must I do to attain eternal life?" 03:50 Jesus looked at the rich young ruler, according to Mark it says 03:54 He looked at him and loved him. 03:57 He looked at the rich young ruler and said: 04:00 "Well, have you kept the commandments?" 04:03 and Jesus listed off a number of the 10 commandments. 04:07 The rich young ruler started feeling all good about himself 04:10 and smiling, he looked back at Jesus and said: 04:13 "Why, I've kept those ever since I was a youth. " 04:17 "Well," Jesus said "if you want to be perfect" 04:22 "then go sell all of your possessions," 04:25 "give them to the poor and then come and follow Me. " 04:30 And that's when the Bible says that the rich young ruler 04:34 turned away and went away sad because he had great wealth. 04:42 In every Biblical passage, especially those 04:45 that might be a little bit hard to understand 04:48 there's a technique to understanding the passage 04:51 and that is: if there's a statement or story, 04:54 or something acted out, 04:57 as in this story of the rich young ruler, 04:59 one of the clues we can get to the meaning of the story with 05:02 is to look at the reaction of the people 05:04 who were the onlookers, 05:05 especially the disciples in this case. 05:08 If we go to Matthew 19:25,26, we find out 05:12 what their reaction was: [text on screen] 05:35 The disciples had just seen one of their young heroes, 05:42 it would be like watching a heavy weight boxing match 05:47 and your hero, whoever it might be, had just lost, 05:54 and then have someone turn to you and say: 05:56 "Okay, he just lost, now why don't you get in the ring" 05:59 "and see if you can fight the champion?" 06:02 And you would say the same thing the disciples said 06:05 as they watched this rich young ruler. 06:07 "If he can't make it, then what hope do the rest of us have?" 06:11 "Who else can be saved?" said the disciples. 06:15 What we have here is a clash of realities. 06:20 We could it call a clash of paradigms. 06:24 Back in the 70's a very interesting book 06:27 was published called 06:28 "The History of Scientific Revelations" by Kuhn. 06:32 What the author basically defined was 06:36 the role of paradigms 06:39 in the way thought changes, 06:41 especially in scientific circles. 06:43 For example: Newtonian Physics described reality 06:47 in a certain way, but once Einstein's theory of relativity 06:51 came along and became well known and accepted, 06:55 that paradigm completely replaced 06:58 the old Newtonian paradigm. 07:01 The idea of paradigm has been picked up 07:03 by various other disciplines, such as psychology, education 07:07 and even in the corporate world. 07:09 People who suddenly shift to a new paradigm see reality 07:13 in an entirely different way. Well, I'd like to suggest 07:17 that what we have going on here 07:20 is the rich young ruler's paradigm 07:22 was being challenged by the paradigm of grace. 07:27 The rich young ruler had operated 07:29 under the paradigm of merit, and Jesus 07:32 was challenging him with the paradigm 07:34 of the kingdom, which was not a paradigm of merit, 07:38 but a paradigm of grace. 07:40 You see, when Jesus confronted the rich young ruler, 07:45 He was confronting a person who had his act together. 07:49 I mean, he had lived the commandments 07:51 ever since he was a youth. And you might expect Jesus 07:54 to praise him for this, you might expect Jesus to say: 07:58 "Why you good boy you!" 08:00 "You're a wonderful rich young ruler. Enter my kingdom," 08:04 "I wish I had more people like you. " 08:06 But instead, Jesus challenged him using his own paradigm. 08:11 In fact, He required something so great and so impossible 08:17 that the rich young ruler had to admit 08:20 that his best was not good enough. 08:25 What did He ask him to do? 08:27 Basically, what He told the rich young ruler to do 08:31 was to take the results of his life's work, 08:35 all of that merit he had as illustrated by the wealth, 08:40 take everything that he had earned and give it to people 08:45 who hadn't earned it. 08:49 Ouch, no wonder he left feeling sorrowful. 08:52 The poor guy had just been knocked off his pedestal. 08:54 Everything he'd worked for his entire life 08:57 had just been blown away by Jesus. 08:59 And he couldn't handle the shift in paradigm, 09:04 that's why he left feeling sad. 09:07 Now some explain this passage by saying: 09:09 "Well, what Jesus really meant was not necessarily" 09:13 "give away your money. " 09:15 "What Jesus meant was to get rid of whatever comes" 09:18 "between you and God, whatever that is," 09:20 "it might be different for you than it is for me. " 09:22 "It might be money for you, but it might be 09:24 "something else for me. " Well, that is true, 09:26 that is absolutely true, we should get rid of whatever 09:30 comes between us and God, but that's not the whole truth. 09:35 You see, wealth and position and owning good things 09:40 are not bad in themselves. 09:43 You see, if Jesus had asked the rich young ruler 09:45 to give up smoking, gambling illicit sex, drugs, 09:48 rock and roll, why, the rich young ruler would have 09:50 given it up in a heartbeat; and added a few more merit badges 09:55 and trophies to his trophy case. You see, the rich young ruler 10:02 came to Jesus with his collection of merit badges, 10:06 with his trophy case full of trophies 10:08 of all of his wonderful works 10:10 that he had done his entire life. 10:13 Hoping to receive some commendation from Jesus, 10:19 that he was, after all, ahead of the game. 10:23 The disciples certainly looked at him that way. 10:25 They saw the rich young ruler as the rising star among them. 10:33 But the rich young ruler had to give up everything 10:35 he had earned; everything that was a sign 10:38 of his goodness and worthiness. You see, in those days, 10:42 physical wealth was a sign of spiritual wealth. 10:48 Now this notion of being perfect 10:51 is something that Jesus had already talked about. 10:54 We need to turn back to Matthew 5, 10:57 back to Jesus' sermon on the mount, 11:00 where He talked about perfection. 11:02 In Matthew 5, Jesus gives many wonderful statements. 11:10 In the midst of chapter 5, 11:12 in the midst of this sermon on the mount, He gives his famous 11:16 "You have heard, but I tell you" statements. 11:20 "You have heard not to murder, commit adultery" 11:25 "divorce, taking oaths, revenge and hating your enemies. " 11:28 And for each one of those categories, 11:30 Jesus had a higher standard for righteousness, 11:36 for what that really meant. 11:38 Finally Jesus comes down to the conclusion where He says: 11:43 "You should love your enemies. " 11:48 As an example of how you should love your enemies, 11:51 He sights God's practice of 11:54 causing His sun to rise on the evil and the good, 11:58 and sending rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 12:01 In other words, God loves his enemies. 12:05 In other words, God is not just good to those 12:08 who are good to Him, God is good to everybody. 12:11 In other words, God's idea of perfection is to be merciful. 12:18 To not just love those who love you, 12:21 but love those hate you too. God's idea of perfection 12:25 is not just to be merciful to those who, we say, deserve it, 12:30 but to be merciful to those who don't deserve it. 12:32 And then He makes his famous statement in Matthew 5:46-48 12:40 [text on screen] 13:06 What is perfection according to Jesus? 13:09 Is perfection a lifetime of obeying 13:13 the commandments perfectly? Well, that's a good thing. 13:17 Jesus said He did not come to do away with the law, 13:21 He fulfilled the law rather, but His idea of perfection went 13:26 far beyond that. His perfection had to do with mercy 13:30 and patience and love to those who were 13:34 not fulfilling the commandments as perfectly as they might. 13:40 He was telling the rich young ruler: 13:42 "You have heard that having all the advantages" 13:44 "of a good upbringing, having a thorough education in the law," 13:47 "and having faithfully kept each commandment from your youth up" 13:51 "gives you a spiritual advantage. " 13:54 "You have heard that receiving the blessings of God" 13:56 "in both spiritual and material things" 13:59 "makes you superior to others. " 14:02 "And that using your God given opportunities" 14:04 "to better yourself has made you almost perfect. " 14:08 "But I tell you, perfection does not have to do with" 14:13 "what you deserve, it has to do with love and mercy;" 14:18 "giving people what they don't deserve. " 14:22 "That's why you need to drop everything" 14:24 "and follow Me. " 14:26 "You do not yet lack just one thing," 14:29 "you lack everything. " said Jesus. 14:32 "You have heard that having material riches" 14:34 "is the same as having spiritual riches. " 14:36 "But I tell you, those who are poor and follow Me" 14:40 are rich in what really counts." 14:45 We still have a hard time today 14:48 understanding what Jesus meant to the rich young ruler. 14:52 And I think it's basically because we 14:56 in our natural human inclinations are stuck 14:59 in the old paradigm, the paradigm of merit. 15:03 How many of us would rather earn something 15:06 than have something given to us? Have you ever that old phrase 15:11 "I don't want any charity"? 15:13 That's because our natural human instinct is to make 15:17 ourselves superior, or at least think of ourselves as such. 15:21 We want to get something because we deserve it, 15:25 we want to get something because we earned it, 15:28 and that carries over into our spiritual life 15:31 in a very damaging way. 15:32 So we come to Jesus just like the rich young ruler, 15:35 with our collection of merit badges, and our trophy case 15:38 full of trophies of all the battles that we've won, 15:40 of all the commandments that we've kept 15:42 and all the progress we've made in developing our characters. 15:45 We say to Jesus "Certainly, doesn't this get us something?" 15:50 and when Jesus tells us to give it all away to those 15:52 who haven't earned a thing we're tempted 15:55 to walk away sorrowfully, just like that rich young ruler. 16:00 Not only that, it not only affects the way we relate to God 16:05 but it affects the way we relate to other people, other sinners. 16:11 Let me tell you the story of Luke, 16:13 and this is not Luke in the Bible, 16:15 this is Luke from Bozeman, Montana. 16:19 Luke had a rough life, in fact, he was born 16:24 to a single mother, an alcoholic, 16:29 who passed on to him 16:31 fetal alcohol syndrome. 16:33 So he had a rough upbringing. In school he was disruptive, 16:38 he was disobedient, he couldn't pay attention to his studies. 16:43 Generally, the only way he got through school 16:46 with any kind of success was through athletics. 16:50 Once he graduated from high school 16:54 Luke basically lived for sex and drugs, and that was about all. 17:01 By the time his pastor got to know him, he was just a drifter. 17:08 Oh, he was in love with a certain woman in town, 17:12 but his personality and his habits were such 17:17 that he had a hard time maintaining a relationship, 17:20 or commitment of any kind. His pastor only noticed him 17:24 because he was the guy with the long blond hair 17:27 parted down the middle that sat in the back of the church 17:31 with his feet propped up and how much he paid attention 17:34 to what happened in the church was anybody's guess. 17:39 Well, Luke kept coming to church however sporadically, 17:44 and in spite of the fact that the pastor and many other people 17:50 just couldn't understand why Luke 17:52 wouldn't get his act together. 17:55 Luke kept coming to the pastor, 17:58 even on one to one type of consultations to try to find 18:04 some kind of resolution to his feelings of emptiness. 18:09 He would tell his pastor: 18:10 "Look, all I want is to settle down" 18:13 "and to have a normal family and to feel" 18:16 "like I'm right with God. " 18:18 And then he would go out then next day 18:21 and go to bars and pick up girls and shoot drugs 18:24 and generally live a lifestyle that was totally against 18:29 the Christian lifestyle. His pastor felt, many times, 18:36 like he should walk in and 18:38 deliver some kind of ultimatum kind of speech: 18:41 "Luke, if you don't get your act together" 18:43 "then don't try to talk to me about how you want peace" 18:48 "with God and a normal family. " 18:49 "You're doing everything to undermine it. " 18:51 "So, don't even come talk to me if you're not going to get" 18:54 "your act together. " The pastor said later, fortunately 18:58 he never delivered any of those speeches. 19:01 Finally, one day, Luke called his pastor. 19:05 His pastor could tell there was something different 19:07 just in the sound of his voice. 19:10 When he came into his office he said, simply: 19:14 "I have AIDS." He had gone to another city 19:18 and shared needles and girls and came down with AIDS. 19:27 He was devastated. 19:29 His pastor, of course, promised to be with him 19:31 through his illness; to pray for him. 19:34 But Luke wanted God to heal him. 19:36 "Why couldn't God heal him?" he said. 19:41 Well, Luke kind of drifted in and out of the church life, 19:46 and in and out of the pastor's awareness. 19:49 He moved in with a family out on a ranch 19:54 and did odd jobs for them. On Sundays they would feed him, 19:59 in the afternoon they would spend hours 20:01 counseling with him. 20:04 No one, not the pastor, 20:07 not this couple who hired him, 20:08 no one could see any progress in Luke's life. 20:12 He was still the same slave to his old lifestyle 20:16 as he always was. 20:18 Even while he was going around the country 20:21 as part of an AIDS awareness program, 20:23 telling people how to protect themselves, 20:26 he was still living his old lifestyle. 20:29 But still he would come back to the pastor 20:31 and want some kind of resolution, 20:33 some kind of peace with God, 20:36 some kind of peace that he couldn't have. 20:43 And then one day the pastor got a call from the hospital. 20:49 It was actually Luke calling from a hospital room. 20:54 And he went in to see him. 20:57 He discovered that Luke was now in the later stages 21:01 of his disease. 21:05 Once again, Luke wanted to find 21:07 some kind of resolution, some kind of closure, 21:11 some kind of peace, to know that he was right with God. 21:18 The conversation was still as frustrating 21:21 as all of those other conversations that the pastor 21:24 had had with Luke. 21:26 Luke would ask those tough questions, like: 21:29 "Why can't I change my life?" 21:31 "Why can't I have a normal life?" 21:34 "Why can't I do this? Why can't I do that?" 21:37 "And why can't I find peace with God?" 21:39 "Why can't I just have a normal relationship with a woman?" 21:42 "Why can't I just settle down and have a family?" 21:45 All those tough questions that went straight to the heart 21:49 of his broken human condition 21:52 that he had lived with his whole life. 21:56 The pastor would fumble around for answers as best he could 22:00 then he would leave, both of them being frustrated. 22:04 Luke would be angry and the pastor would be disappointed 22:07 in himself for not having better answers. 22:11 It was Christmas Day. 22:14 The pastor decided he needed to go in and see Luke. 22:20 So on Christmas Day he went into the hospital room 22:22 and there was Luke lying in the bed. 22:25 Luke hardly even paid attention to him, 22:27 he was watching his Lakers play on television. 22:31 And so the pastor stayed and watched the game 22:34 for a little while and then just silently left 22:38 without saying goodbye. 22:41 A few days later 22:43 Luke called 22:45 The pastor went in, probably neither one of them knew 22:52 that this was the last time 22:56 Luke would ever enter the hospital. 23:00 It would be one of the last times 23:01 that he would ever talk to the pastor. 23:05 Lying there in the bed Luke looked up to the pastor 23:10 and there was new look on his face. 23:13 He said: "Pastor," 23:19 "I'm ready now. " 23:21 Pastor said: "What do you mean?" 23:23 "What do you mean you're ready?" He said: "I'm ready" 23:28 "to give my whole self to God. " 23:32 "I get it now. " he said. 23:38 Not really knowing what to expect, but rejoicing silently, 23:43 the pastor had a very special prayer with Luke at that moment. 23:48 He prayed with Luke and he invited Luke 23:51 to give his heart to God, to confess his sins completely, 23:55 to forsake his sins and to accept the complete forgiveness 24:00 and acceptance from God, knowing that from that moment 24:05 he was completely free of sin and completely accepted 24:09 and forgiven and loved by God. 24:13 When the pastor opened his eyes, 24:16 he saw Luke lying very still 24:19 and after a few moments Luke opened his eyes 24:23 and it was over. 24:27 His struggle against himself was over. 24:31 You see, his whole life he had been trying hard to do things, 24:37 whether it was illicit sex, or drugs or whatever it was, 24:42 he was trying to do things to make himself feel accepted. 24:48 He was trying to do things to make himself feel better 24:51 about himself. 24:53 And now, finally, on his death bed he had accepted 24:57 what he had been trying to do all along in different ways. 25:07 Let's turn to Isaiah 55:8,9. 25:15 God has been talking here 25:17 through the prophet Isaiah about how He is merciful 25:22 not just to his own people, Israel, 25:25 but to nations that didn't even know his name. 25:28 God has been talking in this chapter, 25:30 about He will summon nations that He knows not. 25:35 He's been talking here, about 25:36 how the wicked are free to forsake their way 25:40 and come to the Lord at any time, 25:42 and that God will accept them. 25:44 And then He says in Isaiah 55:8,9. [text on screen] 26:03 You know, we sometimes use this text to show how high God is, 26:08 how much superior He is to us, 26:11 and how much perfection we have to learn to get up to His level. 26:16 Actually, what this text is talking about 26:19 is how merciful God is. 26:21 How our human inclination is not to forgive people. 26:24 If they're not part of our group, 26:26 if they're not part of the people who are learning 26:28 the same things we are, and experiencing 26:30 the same things we are, we don't have too much mercy for them. 26:34 But God says: "My thoughts are not your thoughts. " 26:36 "I have mercy on everyone. I forgive them. " 26:39 And just like it was illustrated in the story of Luke, 26:43 God has far more patience, far more love, 26:46 far more mercy, than we every have. 26:50 And that's why we need to be perfect as God is perfect. 26:54 We need to have mercy as He has mercy. 26:57 Instead of asking ourselves 27:00 and others around us to come to God 27:01 with all of our trophy cases full of trophies, 27:04 and our merit badges of good works in order to be accepted, 27:07 we need to come as we are, and we need to teach other people 27:10 to come as they are. 27:13 Most of us are somewhere between Luke and the rich young ruler. 27:16 We struggle with our past, our habits, 27:18 but we also have the advantages of a good church 27:21 and we make progress in keeping the commandments. 27:24 But in reality, we're no better than either Luke, 27:28 or the rich young ruler. 27:31 But we don't know that until our hard effort 27:33 is ready to kill us. 27:35 It's not that what we're doing is the wrong thing, 27:37 it's why we're doing it that makes it wrong. 27:40 And when the effort almost kills us 27:42 we cry out: "My best will never be good enough. " 27:45 And at that moment we are closer to heaven 27:48 than we've ever been in our lives. 27:52 When we realize, as the rich young ruler did, 27:54 that the one thing we lack is everything, 27:56 we can find with great joy that Jesus is everything. 28:01 [Music for credits] |
Revised 2014-12-17