'Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”'
Mark 10:21
‘Anyone’, Jesus said in verse 15 of this chapter, ‘who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it’.
Children were the lowest of all in the society Jesus and his disciples were moving through. And so now we are confronted, by Mark, with the opposite kind of person that.
We have in this passage a man who had everything this world can offer. Mark says in verse 22 ‘he had great wealth’.
He’s also a moral man. He testifies to his own keeping of the commandments in verse 20: ‘all these I have kept since I was a boy’ he says.
He is the kind of person the Jewish teachers would have regarded as excellent. They would have drawn a straight line between his righteousness and his riches. And said: this man is surely a good man!
And yet, for all his righteousness and all his riches, his behaviour here seems to be telling a different story. It is not the behaviour of a fulfilled man or an assured man.
Perhaps he had heard of Jesus’ teaching and wondered why it sounded so different to those of the religious rulers. Whatever it was, I sense some desperation here. See if you agree.
Verse 17: ‘As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”’
He’s running. He’s falling. He’s kneeling. And he’s pleading. For all of the things that he’s got going for him in his life, he seems so very earnest about eternal life. He doesn’t seem to have assurance of it, in spite of all his commandment keeping.
Paul the Apostle gives us the reason why he might be feeling unassured of eternal life. It is this: The Apostle Paul says, ‘No one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith”’.
Paul says, a person can’t have the hope of eternal life by relying on keeping the law of God. Rather, he says, a person can only have the hope of heaven by relying on God to make them righteous.
This man seems to be a bit hopeless as he comes to Jesus earnestly and with all his good deeds.
But the way he comes is very hopeful. It’s the way we must all come to Jesus. First, he lowers himself by falling on his knees before Jesus.
Second, he calls Jesus ‘good teacher’; which, even though he doesn’t perhaps know what he is saying, is, nonetheless, a recognition of Jesus’ righteousness.
He probably does fail to recognise that Jesus is God. And that’s why Jesus says to him in verse 18: ‘why do you call me good?…No one is good except God alone’.
And third, the all-important question: ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’
So, he’s humble; he’s attentive to Jesus; and he’s earnest. These are very hopeful qualities. I would suggest that they are qualities necessary for anyone who wants to inherit eternal life.
Jesus responds to his earnest question – and to one particular word inhis question - with what he says in verse 19. The word he responds to is the word ‘do’. ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’.
Jesus starts to list out the commandments. And the man says, ‘all these I have kept since I was boy’. The problem with that is, there is no room for failure when you rely on commandment-keeping for a righteous standing with God.
Deep down in his heart he knows, I think, that he is cursed. We all know it. We know that the standard is perfection and even if we can say that we have been good since childhood, none of us can say we have been faultless.
‘Cursed’ Deuteronomy 27 says, ‘is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law’.
And Leviticus 18 says, ‘the person who does these things will live by them’.
He knew in his heart of hearts, I think, that he wasn’t as righteous as he looked. And the thing is, you’ve got be perfectly righteous for God - there’s no place in God’s kingdom for half righteous people.
He’s a holy God - one hundred percent righteous is what he will have; and what he will have alone.
This man wasn’t that. But I think Jesus is gracious to him - he doesn’t quibble with his reckoning.
Like Paul said, ‘the righteous will live by faith’. Jesus then is going to move this man from the mindset that says, ‘what must I do’ to the mindset that says, ‘what must I value’ because that’s where faith is at.
He’s going to move him from outward performance to an acknowledgement of inward reliance. And this is what the hope of eternal life absolutely rides on – inward reliance on Jesus.
Watch how Jesus moves this man to understand what the matter with him is. And don’t miss for one second that this is founded on Jesus’ lovefor the man. ‘He loved him’, verse 21 says, and that’s why Jesus says what he says next: ‘“One thing you lack” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.”’
Let’s notice a couple of things about this. First of all, the man, when he came to Jesus, asked what he must do to ‘inherit eternal life’. And Jesus translates that into different language here and calls it ‘treasure in heaven’.
Second, there is no talk here of faith, or repentance, or sin. There is only action. Go, sell. Go, give it all to the poor. Come, follow me.
And third, this is the one thing that this man lacks.
What should we say about each of these things? First of all, Jesus turns the man’s ‘eternal life’ into ‘treasure in heaven’ to make a point. To say that true riches are not found on this earth, they are found in heaven! And they look like eternal life. Oh, how we have to grasp this truth.
Second, there is no mention of sin, or repentance, or faith because what Jesus is telling him to do here will require all of those things.
To go and sell everything, give it all to the poor and come and follow Jesus will require the recognition that his heart has been fixed on his wealth in this world and not on God.
It will require recognition that his heart has been fixed on wealth in this world for himself and not for others.
And it will require recognition that those heart attitudes were sinful.
It will also require sorrow for those attitudes and recognition of their God-belittling qualities.
And lastly it will require faith that, to do as Jesus has said - namely give it all away - and to follow where Jesus goes - namely to his death - will result in what he is looking for.
And thirdly, the man who has everything, lacks the one thing he needs to make all the difference! How sad is that? And how true of us all before we are saved.
Do we lack the one thing we need that would give us eternal life? A heart that loves Jesus more than anything else!
So, the question is, where is this man’s treasure going to be? On earth or in heaven?
Jesus isn’t saying you can’t have riches on earth and have eternal life. He’s saying ‘you can’t love riches on earth so much that if I say “you’ve got to choose between following me and following riches” you’ll choose the riches’. You can’t have that heart attitude and have eternal life.
Verse 22: ‘At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth’. How heart breaking is this! Sadness is part of life for sure, but this sadness is more. It’s eternal sadness.
Without Jesus, his heart will never be glad! His treasure was well and truly rooted on earth. He loved his wealth more than he loved Jesus. And he recognised that he could not have what he came to Jesus for – he could not have, eternal life – and he went away sad!
You may not remember, but back in Mark 4, Jesus said that one of the places the good seed falls is among thorns where the ‘deceitfulness of wealth and desire for other things come in and choke the word making it unfruitful’.
Wealth seems to have deceitful super-power about it – it can trick the heart into thinking it holds the key to happiness but really, it’s like a bramble that grows up around our hearts and chokes it so it can’t prizeJesus and let it glut itself on Jesus, like it must if we are going to inherit eternal life.
And when we think of ourselves, we are so rich! We have great wealth! And so, Jesus’ words stand as a sentinel to us, to beware the love of riches. ‘You cannot serve both God and money. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other’.
Jesus looked around at his disciples and said, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God’. Notice he transitioned again - from ‘eternal life’ to ‘treasure in heaven’, and now to ‘kingdom of God’.
And it ties this passage to the one before, about how it takes ‘becoming like a little child’ to enter the kingdom of God.
Because the child was most inferior in that culture, he means becoming least.
‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom because in their hearts they have to become least, when all the world regards them as greatbecause of their earthly riches’.
Three times Jesus says this. Verse 23, ‘how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God’. Verse 24, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God’. Verse 25, ‘it is easier for the impossible to happen than for the rich to enter the kingdom of God’. ‘Easier for the largest land-dwelling animal in that region - the camel with its hump - to pass through the tiny eye of a needle, than for the rich to enter into the kingdom of God’.
And the disciples are stunned! And then even more stunned by Jesus’ teaching (v.26). And they say, ‘who then can be saved?’
And there it is, another transition! ‘Eternal life’, ‘treasure in heaven’, ‘entering the kingdom of God’, and now ‘being saved’, they are all synonymous terms.
Saved from what exactly? In this context, saved from the deceitfuleffects of the love of money.
Who then can be saved? And the answer comes back ‘anyone’! Anyone can be saved because God is the God of the impossible. The deceitfulness of the money; the love of wealth; the overwhelming assurance of earthly happiness that money promises can be overturned in any heart that God works on, because nothing is impossible for him!
And this is what must happen in the heart of anybody who is to be saved; in anybody who is to inherit eternal life; in anybody who is to obtain treasure in heaven; in anybody who is to enter into the kingdom of heaven!
God is so powerful, Jesus is saying, that if he said to Elon Musk, ‘go sell everything and give it to the poor and then go, follow Jesus’, that he could make the miracle of a humpy camel passing through the pin-prick eye of a needle happen in Elon Musk’s heart. And Elon would go and give $314 billion dollars away in a heartbeat and follow Jesus. That would not be hard for God to do!
What makes a transformation like that possible?
It is only possible by a deliverance - from a heart of sinful preference. That deliverance came through the death of Jesus. He was delivered by a man who loved money more than him, on to a cross. And there, he died to justify all God’s people by giving them his own perfectrighteousness.
Take a look at verse 33. Jesus told his disciples - now for a third time - that he was going to Jerusalem to be delivered to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.
That delivery of Jesus was by the kiss of his very own disciple Judas. Who was keeper of the money bag. John tells us, he used to help himself to what was put in that bag. And when the time came, Judas was happy to sell Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver.
Jesus was condemned to death for thirty pieces of silver. At the hands of the gentiles, he was mocked, and spit upon, and flogged, and killed for thirty pieces of silver.
In atoning for sin this way, he became the very lowest - the very last - so that we might be counted rich.
Frank Haughton wrote in his famous hymn: ‘Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, all for loves sake becamest poor…Stooping so low but sinners raising’. That’s what happened at the cross for the likes of us!
The act of ‘faith in Jesus’ is a dying to self in the pattern of Jesus’ own death. And the act of ‘faith in Jesus’ results in life from the dead in the pattern of Jesus’ resurrection. Which he also testified to when he said to his disciples in verse 34: ‘Three days later the Son of Man will rise again’.
Dying to self is not just a one-time event though. The rest of the life of the follower of Jesus is characterised by both joyful interaction with Jesus and suffering for Jesus. And we see this truth three times in this passage.
The first time is when Jesus says to the rich man to sell everything and give to the poor and then follow him. The second time is when Peter says in verse 28, ‘We have left everything to follow you!’
And the third time is when Mark tells us in verse 32, that as Jesus was leading the way to Jerusalem, the disciples were ‘astonished’ and those who followed were ‘afraid’.
The first instance speaks to the cost of following Jesus. There is always a cost associated with following Jesus. Jesus says, ‘whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple’. So, there is a cost for Jesus.
For the man in our passage, Jesus got to the heart of the cost for him, by exposing his love of money. For others Jesus will expose those things that contend for their hearts, and we will feel the cost in that way - different, maybe, from the way the man felt it, but cost, nonetheless. Ultimately, the man couldn’t stand the cost, and he went away sad. Let it not be so for us!
But for Peter and the other disciples, they had ‘left everything to follow Jesus’. They had felt the cost.
And I think Peter is saying to Jesus, ‘hang on a minute, you said to that guy that he would inherit eternal life if he left everything and followed you.
We’ve done that, so what does eternal life look for us who have left homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, children and fields for you?’
I think Peter is asking for clarification having observed Jesus’ interaction with the rich man.
And Jesus gives two answers to the question: ‘what does it look like to inherit after giving up everything to follow Jesus?’ The first answer is, what it looks like in this life - or this ‘age’ as Jesus calls it. And the second answer is, what it looks like in the age to come.
In the current age, receiving the blessing of God looks like a hundred times more than what they had left behind. Multiple homes, and multiple brothers, and sisters; mothers, children and fields. What does that mean?
It means: what you are to me, and what we all are to each other aschildren of God. When we came to Christ we became part of the familyof God. Baby Christians got mature, nurturing, caring parental Christians. Homeless christians got homes when their brothers and sisters loved them enough to share their homes and their fields with them. Brothers got sisters and brothers. Sisters got brothers and sisters.
In Christ we grow up into the household of God. Here’s Hebrews 2:11,one of my favourite verses, ‘Both the one who makes people holy [Jesus] and the those who are made holy [us] are of the same family. So, Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters’. Amazing! Jesus, not ashamed to call me a brother!
Jesus says, ‘in this age, Peter, you have a family greater than any family you have left behind to follow me’. But that’s not all he says about this age. He says all of that, ‘along with [plus] persecutions’.
‘There are kingdom benefits in this age Peter, but there is kingdom costtoo. That’s how it works this side of heaven’.
Then there’s his second answer which is what things look like in the age to come. ‘In the age to come Peter, no more persecutions but the fullness of eternal life. So don’t over realise heaven, Peter. Don’t get ahead of the game here’.
In this age intense joy with Jesus and all his family, mingled with persecution and cost. And in the age to come, eternal life - that’s the pattern of life when someone comes into the kingdom for God.
But then there is this third way that we see the cost of the kingdom. Verse 32, ‘they were on their way up to Jerusalem’. And Jesus was ‘leading the way’. Purposeful, direct, determined – that was Jesus. And this leads to two responses.
One from the disciples and one from the followers of Jesus. They look on at Jesus, leading the way resolutely to Jerusalem, and the disciples are ‘astonished’ and the followers are ‘afraid’. Why?
The answer seems to be that they all know that for Jesus to walk into Jerusalem is for Jesus to walk into the lion’s den of trouble.
John records the words of Thomas when Jesus is keen to go to Lazarus and the disciples remind Jesus that the Jews there tried to stone him before.
Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, ‘Let us also go that we may diewith him’.
There was an expectation that if Jesus went to where the Jewish leaders were, that he would likely-as-not die. And if they followed him, theywould likely-as-not die also.
That’s why the disciples were ‘astonished’ that Jesus was so strident towards Jerusalem and why the followers were ‘afraid’. Afraid for Jesus, and afraid for themselves no doubt. But Jesus took the twelve aside and explained again that he must go and be handed over and be put to death.
By leading in this manner, he showed them the path that they must follow for their association with him. And he shows us also.
People may not be stoning us, or flogging us, or hanging us on crosses, but cost looks like lots of different things for the follower of Jesus. And we are called to embrace that cost along with the blessings that are ours in Jesus - in this age, our church family; and in the age to come, eternal life.
Jesus said this, ‘store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’.
I pray that our treasure be Jesus, and that our hearts be for him all the days of lives - above all others. I pray that the cost of being a follower of Jesus never, so grip our heart, as to be counted too great for him.
And that all of us would be given the strength to endure in hardship, supported and helped by the family of Christ.
And that we arrive, at the end of this race, trusting in Jesus as our all in all. And that we finally inherit eternal life.
‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The answer comes back, ‘Love me above all others and come, follow me’.
Perhaps, later on the man reflected on what Jesus had said and what Jesus was like, and he did sell everything and follow him. I’d like to think so. Because what is impossible with man is possible with God!