There is still too much trumpet
blowing in the church. But it is not to draw attention to God but rather to
man. Worship that is man-focused. Sermons filled with human wisdom. The Gospel
watered down to "reach the next generation" as if somehow Christ is no longer
sufficient! Too much braggadocios behavior on Facebook about how great our
actions are. How spiritual we are. We, me, you -- just enough "God" to make us
feel as if we are talking about Him. God is not fooled. He knows the difference
between, "I am great -- praise God" and "God is great -- I am nothing." Yet
despite our foolish pride, God is still a loving God:
Looking at the man, Jesus felt
genuine love for him. "There
is still one thing you haven't done," he told him. "Go and sell all your
possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven. Then come, follow me." -- Mark 10: 21 (NLT)
This rich young ruler runs up to
Jesus, filled with pride, claiming he has kept all the commandments, with a
flattering a deceitful tongue and yet still Jesus looks upon him with genuine
love. I love the usage of the word genuine here. The love God has for us is not
predicated upon what we do or do not do. It is not based upon our actions but
His character. No matter how far from God we have fallen or drifted, when He
looks upon us He does so with genuine love. If there is a promise we need to
hold onto today it is that. The devil will try and convince us that we have
somehow forfeited His love but I am here today to tell you the devil is a liar!
God looks upon you with a genuine love and like the rich young ruler here, God
will examine your heart and tell you what you need to sell in order to really
follow him.
For the rich young ruler his wealth
was the source of his pride. He probably fancied himself a self-made man. He probably
wrongly attributed his success as a sign that God approved of him yet gave Him
no direct credit for the success itself. As his wealth and power grew it became
an idol to him in that he placed it before God. So he went to Jesus that day --
ran to him -- to justify himself. His pride had already blinded him to sin in
his own life as he obviously is convinced that he was able to do what no other
man ever has except Jesus Himself! Jesus, the master surgeon, cuts right past
the blatant exhibition of pride and tells him to remove the root cause -- his wealth.
We are no better than this rich
young ruler. We can fall for the same fleshly traps. We can start to put things
ahead of God. It might be money or the pursuit of money. Maybe our career. I
have seen many parents turn their children into virtual idols in their lives. I
have seen ministry be morphed into an idol repeatedly. Church services and
programs. Listen beloved -- anything we place higher than God is by definition an
idol in our lives. You may not see how something like church can become and
idol but if you make sure you never miss church and your various ministry
responsibilities but always have excuses for why you cannot have any prayer
time with God alone -- ask yourself why that is? I speak from experience. My
Martha was always complaining about my Mary but what did Jesus teach us regarding
that?
But the Lord said to her, "My dear Martha, you
are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has
discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her." -- Luke 10: 41-42
(NLT)
There is only one thing being
concerned about. Sitting at the feet of Jesus. Your fantastic ministry? Nope.
Your growing church? Nope. Your work in the soup kitchen? Nope. Sitting at the
feet of Jesus. Why? Certainly our ministry, growing the body and helping the
poor are things to be "concerned with." But God has given us the proper order
of things:
Seek the Kingdom of God above all
else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. --
Matthew 6: 33 (NLT)
Now follow this closely beloved. When
we place God first as Mary did we are seeking the kingdom first. Then God
provides the increase in our ministry, provides the growth in our churches, and
provides the means for a soup kitchen. Most importantly, we correctly recognize
where the blessings come from protecting ourselves from pride. We do not seek
to work in the soup kitchen so we can be noticed. We do not see the success of
our ministries as having anything to do with us. We do not fall for heretical
theories of church growth because we know God will provide the increase that
God wants to provide. Our unyielding pride is checked.
Not so for the rich young ruler. The
interesting thing for me was that the Bible says he walked away sad. I would
have expected angry. I could have seen self-righteous. Perhaps the most frightening
part of this story might just be that he walked away sad because to me that
means that in the end he knew. In the end, the surgery of Christ upon his heart
worked enough that he finally saw the truth. He saw that he was indeed a sinner
who had not kept all the commandments. He saw that he was an idol worshipper
bowing down to the graven image of success, power and greed. Yet despite the
knowledge gained, he still chose the temporal rewards of this life over the
eternal rewards of heaven. How truly sad but it is a decision made every day by
people who refuse to drop their foolish pride. Let us always guard our hearts
against it lest we end up sadly walking away from the Lord too.
Reverend Anthony Wade -- July 19,
2012