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Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. You may be seated. For those of you who are parents, this young man would be the kind of young man, if he were your son, that the buttons on your shirt would pop off because of pride. What a fantastic young man was he. You young single ladies, you would eye him quickly because of his steady, faithful, loving personality. That was the kind of young man he was. If he was a member of our congregation, we would all point to him in unanimity and say, there is a great young man of God.
The problem was, everybody else could view him that way, but he didn’t view himself that way. Why would there be such a disconnect? If everyone else would look upon him and say he had all of these attributes and traits, and yet he himself would look at himself and say there’s something missing. That’s exactly what the young man in our text felt. By all outward appearance, he was that which any parent would be proud. He was the great catch that a lady could find. He would be the young man we would all point to, and yet this young man, whose outward appearance was all of that, lacked one thing. He was so eager for that one thing. He was so desirous of life eternal. He was so strongly attracted to Jesus, and yet this man was so far from the narrow road that leads to eternal life.
This young man viewed Jesus as a teacher, and that’s all. A lot of folks in our nation view Jesus as a teacher, and that’s all. A moralist. And for them, such a Jesus gives only a deathless and resurrectionless faith. For your and my faith has a dead Jesus who rises again. And this young man didn’t. This young man does hit upon a very important question that we should ask ourselves if it hasn’t already been asked to us. Is man basically good? Is he basically good? And the only biblically true answer that God gives us is no, he’s not.
The next to last verse in the hymn we just sang talks about the law being there to show us that we do have sin within us, that our life isn’t polished by our own endeavors, that our frayed edges haven’t been hemmed up by our efforts, and that there are a lot of spots and wrinkles that no matter how much we’ve laundered still seem to stay. Jesus affirms this young man because this young man knows the commandments. And this young man even thinks that he’s observed them. So that there is no miscommunication, Jesus then quotes to him all of the second table of the law. That’s commandments 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Love toward neighbor. That really bites you and me, doesn’t it? We can say we love God. That’s abstract. To love God by loving our neighbor, that’s where the rubber hits the road, and that’s where we get bit more often than we care to admit.
And yet this man thinks that he’s also obeyed them. In fact, he shows by his response, all these I have kept since my youth, and by not blinking an eye when Jesus relays to him the second table of the law, this man shows he has a dead heart. What? It’s clear that he has a dead, cold, hardened heart. And you know what Jesus does when he sees this man with a dead, cold, hardened heart? He looks at him and he loves him.
You and I have in our mind’s eye a memory of when our parent or someone whom we love dearly died. Turn their face from us because they could not look upon us for anger, disappointment, shame, or embarrassment. And it cut you and it cut me deeply. And here is God in the flesh looking at this young man who is as ugly as can be with his self-righteous point of view, who is searching as earnestly as can be and yet is blind and dead to the truth. And Jesus doesn’t turn away. He looks at him and he loves him.
This man hasn’t cleaned up his life one bit, and Jesus loves him. This man hasn’t done anything to make himself better, and Jesus loves him. Do you believe that about yourself? Me too. Thank you. Jesus is not ashamed to look upon him and love him. But what he did to the young man, which is what he’s done to us many times, is he has revealed to us what we really are on the inside. Why did that young man go away despondently? Because he could see what he really was and he realized, you know what, Jesus, you’re right. I do lack the one thing. I do have sin within me, and it has manifested itself in my life in the love of my possessions.
You don’t like it either when God points out your sins and foibles. And when we’re confronted with what we really are on the inside, we’re not basically good; we’re evil. And it is God who alone is good. And it is God with whom we must have a relationship because if he is truly good, and Christ is God who is truly good, he alone is the one who can bestow salvation.
It is interesting, isn’t it? Jesus never demanded any other person with whom he was in interaction to sell all of their possessions, except this young man. Jesus was around a lot of wealthy people. Let’s take two examples. Zacchaeus, that guy was loaded. He had embezzled and got all kinds of money from his misappropriation of dues owed to his master by the people. And when Jesus comes to his house, it was out of his heart that he says, I’m going to give back this much and this much. But he didn’t give all of it back. And Jesus did not say to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus, that’s not enough. You’ve got to give it all.
Interesting. Where was our Lord laid when he died? Because he didn’t have a tomb of his own. Oh, that’s right. He was laid in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, who was a believer in Christ and obviously had to be wealthy or he could not have afforded his own tomb. Jesus is never recorded speaking to him, telling him to deny his wealth. No. The problem is, that’s where a lot of us go, see, see, we don’t have to give it all up. Yeah, see, there’s examples.
It’s never possessions that are the problem. Neither is it money that’s the problem. The root of all evil is not money. Paul made it very clear, the root of all evil is the love of money, the love of possessions. Growing up in your household, you heard your mother and father argue or discuss with great stress and anxiety more often than any other subject, the subject of finances. As a married man or a married woman, your marriage has been adorned with one subject that causes you both anxiety and stress and causes you disagreements and disgruntlements, and that is the love of your possessions and income. None of us are immune. All of us struggle with it.
Jesus looked at this man and loved him with his struggle. And did you hear what he said? We love to only look at that, give away all your possessions. He also said two more things that were a promise and an invitation. The promise was, as he looked at him and loved him, I will bless you. The second was an invitation. Come, follow me. Jesus did not demand that that man clean up his life before he followed him. Jesus took that man and invited him to follow him as he was, struggling within himself.
He looks at you and loves you as you struggle with yourself and tells you to follow him. And you haven’t cleaned up your life either. Remember? You still have your Achilles heels. You still have your peccadilloes. You still have the things that cause anxiety in your life because you don’t seem, and I don’t seem to lose a lot of sleep over our faith, but let it be finances, and we sure do. Let it be possessions, and we question and wonder. All Jesus does is look at you and love you and says, come, follow me.
Yes, when he said, go sell all you have and give to the poor, he was in essence saying to this young man, repent. Repent of your love for possessions. Repent of the things that keep you from me that you may then believe that I have forgiven you. Now this didn’t just upset the young man. Let’s look a little closer. This upset the 12 apostles because as the text went on, the apostles heard this and were thinking, wow, and then Jesus adds this: children, how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of heaven. Easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
They all shout out the obvious question that you should ask and I ask, then who can be saved if that’s it? If we’ve got to get ourselves straightened out and fixed? I’m lost, and so are you. Jesus said so lovingly, you’re right. Who can be saved? With man, it is impossible, but not with God. With God, all things are possible. With God, I can save even rich men and women. I can save even those who struggle with possessions and income because I love you and I don’t turn my face away from you. I look at you and I love you, and I’ve given you the one thing.
This young man was invited to believe, and we never know whether this young man believes or not. The story is kind of open-ended. It’s open-ended so that you and I continue in this life of a baptized child of God so that we realize our life is never completed in this world. We’re always struggling. Daily we repent. Daily we receive His forgiveness. When the disciples heard this, Peter, good old Peter, had to add this little disclaimer, we’ve left everything and followed you. See how much I’ve given up, Lord, for you?
So Jesus then tells them about giving up everything, not for himself, but for you. That’s when Jesus teaches his apostles again. I will show you what good looks like. Good doesn’t look like what this young man was. Good doesn’t look like what you’ve been doing following me. Good looks like this. Good looks like me being delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. For you. Good looks like this: me being condemned to death. For you. Good looks like me being delivered over into the hands of the Gentiles, being mocked, spat upon, flogged, and killed. For you. Good looks like me rising from the dead on the third day. For you. Giving you a clean, new heart. That only he can do.
That is the life that you and I live in this world as a baptized believer in Christ. We have the one thing. It’s been given to us at our baptism. It will be fed to us in just a moment. It has been planted in our ears. It has been proclaimed over us: I forgive you all your sins. Believe those words of Jesus. You have that faith. That’s the one thing that he alone gave you. He’s not ashamed to look at you, and he’s not ashamed to love you. He invites you, come, follow me.
In the name of Jesus, Amen. Sing with me the words of King David as he prayed for a clean heart, so may we. Create in me a clean heart, O God. The right spirit within me, ask me not. The peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus, to life everlasting. Amen.