How is a Man Made Right With God?

How is a man made right with God?

This is a fundamental question that most religions attempt to answer.

Our authority is God’s Word, the Bible. How does Scripture answer the question?

There is some debate.

One answer many have given over the years: “Keep the commandments.”

Another answer is similar, with a twist: “Depend on God’s power to enable you to keep the commandments.”

We will see that both of those answers are wrong. Keeping the commandments – by God’s power – is important. But that never saves us. That never puts us right with God.

The biblical answer is: Look away from yourself, admit you are in desperate need of a Savior, and look to our crucified and risen Savior with childlike faith.

Luke shows us in chapter 18 of His gospel that the first two answers are wrong and the last answer is right. Let’s delve into that passage.

 

Made Right with God by Keeping Commandments? Luke 18:18-27

A ruler asks Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

There are two assumptions behind this question: “I don’t have eternal life now” and “There’s something I can do to inherit it.”

Most likely this man had been taught that a man is made right with God by keeping the commandments. But something has shaken his confidence – perhaps even something Jesus has said.

Jesus responds in Luke 18:19: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”

Jesus is questioning his standard of good. Is this ruler comparing himself to other men? It’s possible to look good by that comparison. But if instead we compare ourselves to God – we can never call ourselves good! So realize, Jesus is not saying He Himself falls short of the standard. Instead, he is helping the man to get his standard right.

Jesus then lists several biblical commandments the ruler knows – and he responds that he has kept them all.

Now, realize: These listed commandments all reflect God’s character directly. Implicitly Jesus says, “To inherit eternal life, you must be credited with Godlike character.” In that light, the man’s claim to have obeyed them all is audacious. He is saying He has acted like God!

Rather than simply telling him he is wrong, or detailing the implications of the Law as He does in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus goes directly to the way to eternal life: “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Luke 18:22).

What is that “one thing”? “Follow me!” Jesus says, “I’m not just a good teacher who gives advice. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). You are not going to earn eternal life by living up to a set of rules, trying to become like God via your efforts. That’s hopeless! The only way to eternal life is by following Me! And your wealth is keeping you from doing that.”

Luke then tells us the ruler “became very sad, for he was extremely rich” (Luke 18:23). Note: He goes away sad – because he was rich!

Thus Jesus says to His disciples, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:24-25).

Those of us who have wealth frequently think we are accomplished, we are important, we are blessed – and so think we deserve or can achieve or can buy eternal life. Jesus says: “Not so!”

The disciples, thinking of riches as a sign of God’s favor, are astounded, asking, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus says, “What is impossible with men is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). That is: God saves us. We can never save ourselves. For God’s standard is perfect righteousness. We fall short of that standard before we are born (Romans 5:18-19), and every day we live we fall further short.

We can never be right with God by keeping commandments.

But what if we depend on God to keep those commandments? Will that save us?

 

Made Right by Keeping Commandments by God’s Power?

Luke answers that question in the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Luke 18:9-14. The Pharisee prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11-12).

We need to see how good this man is. Like the ruler, he avoids obvious sins, he prays, he fasts, and he gives tithes. But there is one difference with the ruler: He thanks God for this, rather than claiming that he has done this on his own. Effectively he says, “Thank you, God, for working in me the desire and ability to keep Your commands. I could not have done it otherwise.”

That’s a very good statement. I hope you make similar statements.

So he’s a good, moral, religious man who recognizes that there is nothing he can do on his own to inherit eternal life.

What then is the problem?

Jesus contrasts him with the tax collector in Luke 18:13:

The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

And Jesus then says, “This man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).

The tax collector is not a good, moral man; he probably hasn’t been fasting or tithing. Those differences obviously don’t lead to his salvation.

What does?

He admits he is a sinner. And he asks God for mercy.

The Pharisee says, “God, enable me to do righteous deeds, and then declare me righteous on basis of those God-enabled righteous deeds.” The tax collector says, “I am a sinner. I am without hope. Have mercy on me!”

All the good the Pharisee does not earn eternal life. Instead, they can be a trap, making him think he is right with God when he is not.

The Pharisee thinks he knows the answer to our question: How is man made right with God? His answer: “By God enabling him to keep the commandments.” Jesus says that never works.

The tax collector points us in the right direction; other vignettes in this passage clarify the answer further.

Made Right by Childlike Faith in the Crucified and Risen Savior

When people bring infants to Jesus, He says, “To such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Luke 18:16-17).

Elsewhere, Scripture wans us not to be like children in some ways (for example, Ephesians 4:14). How are we to imitate children?

We are to trust God the way a child trusts his parents. He frequently will not understand how his parents lead him, or what his parents tell him to do. But a good child will follow his parents, knowing he is helpless without them.

Return, then, to the ruler. His fundamental issues is that he does not trust Jesus. He did not believe in Him like a child looking to his parents. He did not believe that in following Jesus he would gain – even if that meant giving away all his possessions.

And that type of faith is necessary if one is to be made right with God.

Jesus expands on the object of such saving faith in Luke 18:31-33, as He prophesies about his death and resurrection. But the disciples understand nothing (Luke 18:34). Why not?

They surely understand the words themselves. But they don’t understand how this can happen to the long-promised Messiah. Thus, they don’t understand saving faith! They don’t understand how their sins can be paid for, or how they can be righteous!

We must understand what they do not.

Above, we paraphrased Jesus’ words to the ruler as: “To inherit eternal life, you must be credited with Godlike character.”

How does this happen?

Tax collector simply calls out: “Have mercy on me, a sinner!”

Why does this man go down justified, declared righteous? How is he credited with Godlike character? Only on the basis of the perfect life, the atoning death, and the glorious resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ.

As the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV): “God made [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins, all our transgressions; Jesus fulfilled the Law, perfectly displaying the character of God. Through childlike faith in Him, God places all our sins on Him; He unites us with Him, and credits us with His righteous life. He therefore declares us righteous before Him – not on the basis of our efforts at obedience, nor on the basis of God-enabled obedience, but only on the basis of the death and resurrection of His Son.

 

So where are you?

Do you believe in Jesus? That is, do you believe that you are without hope apart from Him? Do you believe that even God-wrought obedience will never save you? Do you believe that humbly following Jesus with childlike faith is the only path to eternal life – indeed, the only path to fulfillment and joy?

Give up everything that hinders your following Him. Humble yourself before Him. Come, follow Him. And then know: You are right with God.

[This devotion is based on a sermon preached November 12, 2006 on Luke 18:9-34. You can listen to that sermon via this link.]

Come to the King!

God is King!

Yet Psalm 95 emphasizes something unusual about this king. Who can approach a king?

In the book of Esther, recall that no one was allowed to enter the kings presence without his explicit invitation. If you did come in, you would die – unless the king leaned his scepter towards you.

In contrast, three times in Psalm 95 we read: Come!

  • Come to the king
  • Let’s come into His presence
  • Come let us worship

Jesus issues similar invitations to all:

  • “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28)
  • “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37)
  • “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst…. Whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:35, 37)

Despite these extensive invitations, many do not come. Jesus says to some of them: “You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40).

Thus, nothing is more important than coming to God, than coming to Jesus.

So let’s examine this psalm that exhorts us to come to God again and again, and listen to its explanation of why we should come.

We’ll examine this psalm under three headings:

  • Come to Him!
  • Why?
  • Oh That You Would Hear His Voice!

Along the way we’ll see three different ways we are to come to Him.

Come to Him!

The psalmist commands us to come in Psalm 95:1-2 and again in verse 6. At first reading, these may appear to be similar commands. But both in ancient Israel and today, these commands refer to two distinct purposes behind our coming to God. The first:

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! (Psalm 95:1-2)

We come to do what? To sing, to make a joyful noise, to thank Him, to praise Him. But note: we are doing all this while coming into His presence.  The picture is of procession approaching the tabernacle or temple, praising Him along the way.

These verses describe a rambunctious, joyful, noisy procession, praising God for being the “rock of our

So this is first of the three ways we are to come to Him: Come with joyful praise.

Psalm 95:6 is rather different:

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!

Now the procession has entered the tabernacle or temple. The joyful praise changes to awe at His presence. So the worshipers now come to bow and kneel rather than to make a joyful noise.

This second type of coming expresses similar sentiments to Habakkuk 2:20:  “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

So Psalm 95 commands us, first, to come to God with joyful, loud worship, and, second, to come to Him with quiet, reflective, contemplative worship.

Although we today don’t come into the tabernacle or temple, both ideas still hold. In worship, we express joy in Christ. There is a place expressing that joy in noise, in loud singing, in celebration. And there is a place for expressing that joy in quiet contemplation, as we consider our sinfulness and His great grace, the judgment we deserve and the cost to Jesus of taking that judgment on Himself.

The great King calls you to come to Him, into His very presence, in both ways. So come to God in joyful praise! Come to God in quiet confession, considering how you deserve His judgment.

Both are important. Do you love both? Do you respond to both?

We still must consider the third way to come to God. But first let’s see why we should come to Him.

Why?

Why should we come in both ways? The psalmist gives three reasons Psalm 95:3-7.

First: He is a great king above all gods:

For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods (Psalm 95:3)

He is the greatest king, the greatest god – there is no comparison.

But most of us are not tempted to worship Baal or Molech or a block of wood. So replace “gods” with “idols.” Aren’t you tempted to idolatry? That is: Aren’t you tempted to look to something other than God for identity, for security, for joy? This verse tells us that God is far greater than all these alternatives:

  • Nothing else can satisfy us and give us true joy
  • Nothing else can protect us
  • Nothing else can tell us who we really are
  • Nothing else endures

The second reason we should come to Him: He created and controls all.

In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:4-5)

The psalmist uses extremes to communicate how extensive God’s work is: He controls the depths and the heights, the sea and the dry land.

To show God’s intimate involvement, the psalm uses the metaphor of God’s hand thrice (two times here and again in verse 7). He made everything by His hand – and all things remain in His hand. God thus controls all.

The third reason we should come to Him: He is our Maker, and we are His sheep

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand (Psalm 95:6-7a).

What does the psalmist mean by saying that God is our Maker?

Surely that God creates us, as He creates the seas and  mountains.

Surely that He controls us, we are in His hand, as is the case with the dry land and the depths of the earth.

But there’s a third level to God’s relationship with us that does not hold for inanimate creation: We are not only made by His hand, we not only are in His hand, we are sheep of His hand; we are people of His pasture. So He not only created us, He made us to be in relationship with Him. He is our God.

Throughout history God has been working to create, protect, and complete His faithful remnant, His perfected people, Christ’s spotless bride. As Romans 8:28-30 tell us, God works all things together for good of His people, so that the very ones He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son; these very same ones He then calls at specific points in time – calls them to come to Him; these very same ones He justifies, He declares righteous by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross; and these very same ones He glorifies, making them like Himself. Furthermore, all this is so certain that it is as good as done.

That’s what it means to be the sheep of His hand. The good, all-powerful shepherd loves you. Amidst all the apparent threats to the flock – the roaring lion of Satan, the wolves of disease and danger, the foolishness and stupidity and wandering that we sheep are prone to – His hand guides us and holds us, lifting us up on His shoulders to bring us back when we wander, fighting off attackers, hindering and ultimately destroying the lion, Satan. By His hand, He brings His entire flock into the fold. And we remain His for all eternity.

Indeed, by His hand He brought you here to read or listen to this sermon.

So come to Him:

  • He is the great king who offers you what no idol can ever grant
  • He created and controls all – including all that happens in your life
  • He can be your You can be His sheep, guided and protected by His hand.

Join that flock. For Jesus says: “Come to me – however weary and burdened you may be. Come to Me – and I will give you rest.”

O That You Would Hear His Voice!

In the second have of verse 7, the tone of the psalm changes dramatically. Indeed, it changes so much that some have wondered if this should be considered a different psalm. But this change of tone is a powerful way to communicate the third command to come. To help us see that, let’s consider briefly a New Testament passage in which Jesus commands a man to come.

In Mark 10:17-22, a man runs up to Jesus – he comes. This man kneels before Him – as Psalm 95:6 tells us to do before God. The man praises Jesus, calling Him “Good teacher.” He then asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus tells him that he already knows the commandments, and then lists several. The man replies, saying he has always kept them.

Now – when we consider the way that Jesus understands the commandments, we know that statement is false (see Matthew 5:17-48). But instead of quibbling with the man’s statement and explaining what obedience to the commandments really means,    Jesus goes directly to the root of the man’s problem. Our Savior looks at him, loves him, and tells him he lacks one thing. Then Jesus gives him five commands:

“Go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)

Five commands. What is the one thing he lacks?

  • He has come to Jesus physically.
  • He has fallen before Him and acknowledged His goodness – thus he has worshiped Jesus in some sense.

But He is not following Jesus. He has not come to obey Jesus in all of His life. Indeed, he disobeys Jesus’ explicit command. So he walks away sorrowful.

He has not come to Jesus in obedience. He has not come to hear and obey.

It’s that sense of coming that Psalm 95 refers to in verses 7 to the end.

“Today, if you hear his voice” (Psalm 95:7b ESV)

Or “Today, if only you would hear His voice!” (Psalm 95:7b NIV)

Understand: In Scripture, hearing God implies obedience to Him. Thus Jesus repeatedly says, “He who has ears to ear, let him hear!” (for example, in Mark 4:9, 23). Jesus means: “Don’t just let the words go in one ear and out the other! Take them to heart! Obey them!”

So the NET renders Psalm 95:7b, “Today, if you would only obey Him!”

The psalmist is not saying, “Maybe you’ll hear His voice, maybe you won’t.” Rather, he says: “He has made Himself clear. Listen to Him! Come to Him and obey Him! Follow Him!”

This is thus the third sense in which we are to come to God – the same sense Jesus uses in the story in Mark 10:

  • Come in joyful praise
  • Come in quiet contemplation and worship
  • Come and obey. Come and follow

Verses 8-9 then state this negatively:

Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. (Psalm 95:8-9)

This refers to an incident recorded in Exodus 17. Consider what the people of Israel have experienced:

  • They have seen the ten plagues in Egypt that God used to orchestrate their release
  • They have walked through the Red Sea as if on dry land, while Pharaoh’s army was drowned
  • They have worshiped God joyfully as a result (Exodus 15)

God has proven Himself mighty; He has proven Himself faithful.

But now they are in place with no water. They grumble. They complain, saying to Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us… with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3)

God tells Moses to strike a rock with his staff – and water miraculously flows out of that rock. God does provide for them.

But they had hardened their hearts.

In what sense?

They had plenty of revelation concerning God’s character and love in both word and deed. Now was the time for faith – a time to remember who God is, to trust that He would once again work for them. This was not a time for demanding further proof that God was for them.

Aren’t we tempted to have similar hard hearts?

  • Hasn’t he given us everything pertaining to life and godliness in His Word?
  • Hasn’t He shown Himself faithful to us, His people over the centuries?
  • Don’t we have thousands and thousands of witnesses to His power, grace, and mercy among people we know and among those who have told their stories?

In 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Paul refers to Exodus 17 and experiences of the people of Israel in the wilderness, saying they are examples for us, written for our instruction, so that we would not be idolators like them, or engage in sexual immorality like them, or put Christ to the test like them, or grumble like them.

Friends, don’t harden your heart against God. Soften it instead. He has told you who He is. He has told you how to be among His people. He has told you the path to life. He has commanded you to come to Him and to follow Him joyfully.

As Proverbs 28:14 tells us: “Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.”

The great majority of the Israelites kept hardening their hearts, kept going astray, and thus never knew God. So Psalm 95 concludes:

For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

The very people He had brought out of Egypt and spoken to at Mt Sinai are under His wrath. They cannot come to Him (the Hebrew word translated “enter” in verse 11 is translated “come” in verse 6).

As Hebrew 4 tells us when the author comments on Psalm 95, we must make every effort to enter, to come to His rest. We must quit depending on our own resources; we must quit depending on other, alternate resources. We must come to Jesus for grace, for help, for joy, for fulfillment. We must follow Him in joyful obedience by His Holy Spirit. He provides us with the way to resist temptation. His hand leads us in His ways

Conclusion

“Oh that you would hear his voice!”

Friends: We preach the way we do – opening up passages, sticking closely to the text – so that the voice you hear is God’s, not the preacher’s. You have ears to hear. The sounds of His voice have gone out. Now: You must obey.

Come, then: Follow Him. Obey Him.

  • Don’t be like the Israelites, demanding signs when they have plenty of evidence, plenty of revelation of Who God is.
  • Don’t be like the rich young ruler, saying nice things about Jesus, but rejecting His command and walking away from the only possible Savior.
  • Don’t make excuses for your sin, claiming that God couldn’t expect you to overcome it.

Admit that you are at best the stupid sheep of His hand: Prone to wander – but guided by Him, loved by Him, protected by Him.

Come into His rest.

  • Come! Praise Him with thanksgiving, with lots of noise.
  • Come! Kneel, worship quietly before Him, confessing your sins and accepting His grace in Jesus.
  • Come! Delight to follow Him in obedience, delight to be His sheep – now and forever.

[This is a shortened write up of a sermon preached April 18, 2021. You can listen to the audio at this link.]

 

 

 

Strive to Enter God’s Rest

“Let us therefore strive to enter [God’s] rest” – Hebrews 4:11.

What does the author mean by this command?

There is an eternal rest God promises His people in which:

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:4).

And God calls all people everywhere to repentance and faith in Jesus so that they might enter that eternal rest (Acts 17:30).

But there is an important sense in which we enter God’s rest today, getting a taste today of that eternal rest.

How do we strive to enter today’s rest?

Striving to enter God’s rest today is working hard to look away from ourselves, to look to Jesus, to trust in God’s promises, every minute of every day.

Or think of it this way: Striving to enter God’s rest is working hard to live out Psalm 23 every minute of every day:

God is your shepherd; you lack nothing in Christ. He leads you in His paths – and they are good and restful, even if they pass through frightening and dangerous valleys. He delights in you and honors you as His own – and those who try to harm you, those who hate you and abuse you, will have to acknowledge that. His goodness and love will pursue you your entire life – and He will in the end bring you into His eternal rest as part of His beloved family.

We initially come to faith in Jesus in this way, trusting in the promise of the Gospel: that God created us for His glory; that we all reject that purpose and rebel against Him; that He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of all who would believe in Him hereafter; that the benefits of that sacrifice, including becoming part of the intimate family of God, accrue to everyone who will repent and believe this Good News.

Subsequent to salvation, Hebrews 4:11 calls us to continue to trust daily in the Gospel and in all of God’s promises. Because in this life we are always tempted to lean on our own resources, to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). We must acknowledge that we cannot save ourselves, nor can we make ourselves into the type of person we desire to be, nor can we accomplish anything for God through our natural resources.

We can never merit salvation through good deeds, nor can we ever merit God’s commendation through acts we do in our power.

So when we strive to enter God’s rest, we confess to God every day:

“I am a sinner; You are the Savior. In my natural self there is no good thing, only darkness – You are all goodness and light. I can only become what I really want, I can only become what You desire, through Christ in me: changing me, working out His purposes in me. So may my work apart from Your power cease. May your power take over.”

As Ray Stedman says:

We do not have what it takes, and we never did. The only one who can live the Christian life is Jesus Christ. He proposes to reproduce his life in us. Our part is to expose every situation to his life in us, and, by that means, depending upon him and not upon us, we are to meet every situation, enter into every circumstance, and perform every activity. We cease from our own labors.

But this is not easy. That’s why the author of Hebrews tells us we must strive to enter God’s rest, we must make every effort to depend continually on God.

Jesus doesn’t want your self-powered effort. He doesn’t need your toiling. He, after all, has all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18)! He wants your trust.

What happens when we ignore this command and step out in our own power?

When those who don’t have faith in Christ strive to live up to some standard and fail, they respond in one of three ways:

  1. They fool themselves into thinking they actually did live up to the standard, or will beginning tomorrow.
  2. They justify their failures, saying something like: “I’m only human – no one could really live that The real standard is to do better than most others, and surely I’m accomplishing that!”
  3. Or they feel like failures, overwhelmed, condemned – they can never become what they wanted, even by their own standards.

What about Christians? What happens when we strive apart from God’s power?

We too become burdened. We are so busy, we are working so hard, we are toiling and striving – and all the joy of the Christian life has left us. We get caught in a fog of unbelief, through which we can’t see God – so we go through the motions, saying all the right things, doing all the right things, but we’re not really trusting God. We are not striving with His power; we are flailing away with our own energy. And so we are weary, burdened, feeling like we can’t continue, but wondering how in the world God’s work can go on without our hard efforts.

To such people, Christians and non-Christians, Jesus calls out:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

So – when faced with a task that must be accomplished, we are not to grit our teeth, saying, “Yes, I can! I can do it.”

We must admit: “I cannot do this! I am unable! In my natural self, I will fail!”

And turn to Him. He is our yokemate. It is His yoke. We are paired with Him. And He pulls. So when we pull – it’s really by his power.

What does it look like when we live out such active dependence on God?

Consider the difference between the Apostle Paul and the rich young ruler.

There is no doubt that Paul works hard. He details in his letters many of the obstacles he had to overcome: Beatings, imprisonments, shipwrecks, death threats, rejection, betrayals, exposure to the elements – and eventually execution.

So Paul works his tail off.

What about the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-22)? He too has been working hard; he tells Jesus he has kept all of God’s commandments from his youth! We might be tempted to laugh at that – but he is sincere and, undoubtedly, those looking at his life would conclude that he was an upright, honorable man.

But he has a nagging feeling that all that obedience isn’t good enough. He feels that he needs to do something more.

So he asks Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You see: He wants to toil for God! He says, “Give me some task to do, even a great one – I’ll do it! I’m able!”

How does Jesus reply? Jesus does not tell him to go do some great feat requiring perseverance, danger, or hardship. Instead, He tells him to do the easiest thing in world. Indeed, all he has to do is to give one command to a servant, and it’s done.

And yet this easiest task in the world is exceptionally hard. To do it, he has to trust in the promises of God.

Jesus says, “Get rid of everything that you think shows that you are important. Give it away.” And Jesus does not say next, “Then you’ll have earned status as My disciple.” Instead He simply says, “Then follow Me.”

This man could strive in His own power to prove his capabilities, but he did not trust God. He saw Jesus face to face – and Jesus looked at him with love! – yet he turned away. His confidence was in himself and in his riches – not in God. So he holds on to his riches, and walks away from Jesus sorrowful.

In contrast, in all his difficult labors, the Apostle Paul strives “with all [God’s] energy that He powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29). He served “by the strength that God supplies– in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11).

That’s how we too must serve, how we too must live. Not by that fruitless striving of the rich young ruler, always trying to prove ourselves, striving to show to God and to others and to ourselves that we’re good enough, we’re strong enough, we’re faithful enough to deserve honor and friendship and commendation. But leaning on Him and on His Word, praying without ceasing, turning to Him in active dependence, trusting in His promises, we live and love and worship and serve, confident in our status because of Christ’s work, delighting in the gifts God gives, thankful for the tokens of His love strewn across our paths.

This is His rest. May we strive to enter it – in complete dependence on Him.

[This devotion follows up on the April 19, 2020 sermon, “Brothers and Sisters, Strive to Enter God’s Rest!” (video). This content draws from a 2008 sermon, “Work Hard Yet Relax During the Race of Faith” (audio, text).]

 

How to Have Riches and Joy

People long for riches and joy in their lives. They study. They work hard. They save and invest. They try to marry well. They buy good houses, nice cars. They try to overcome bad habits.

They also fall for get-rich-quick schemes, quack medical cures, and government lottery advertisements.

Jesus turns all this on its head – and then tells us how to find true riches and true joy. Let’s delve into what He says in chapter 10 of Mark’s gospel.

A rich young man has just approached Jesus, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to obey the commandments, which he claims to have done. Jesus looks at him, loves him, and tells him to go, sell all he has, give the proceeds to the poor, and to come and follow Him. But the man goes away sorrowful, because he has great possessions (Mark 10:17-22).

Material riches were not the way to joy for this young man. Indeed, they were not even true riches.

Jesus then says, “How hard it will be for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23).

In virtually every culture, the rich are looked up to, are seen as lucky or blessed by God, and most people desire to be rich. But Jesus says we are to pity them, for it is impossible for them to enter the kingdom of God.

Why do riches make entering the kingdom of God so difficult?

The most important barrier for entering the kingdom is the illusion of control provided by wealth. Poor people in poor countries (including all countries in the ancient world) acknowledge that they are at the mercy of the elements. Illness, natural disasters, even a bad rainy season can mean suffering or death for members of the family. Today in the poorest countries about one child in five dies before age five; in the ancient world, those numbers were undoubtedly higher. So the poor know that they cannot control these powers that determine their fate.

On the other hand, the rich tend to think that they can protect themselves, that they can use their money and influence to make sure that they do not suffer. As Jesus relates in Luke 12:19, the rich fool says to himself, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ He thought he was in control; he thought he was now safe from the influence of random events. But that very night God took his life.

And who can fall prey to such an illusion of control? The great majority of Americans – including you and me. Put yourself in the position of those who are listening to Jesus say these words. How would they label someone who:

  • Lives in a house with central heating and indoor plumbing;
  • Has clean cold and hot water flowing through taps;
  • Is in no danger of going hungry;
  • Has more than 2 sets of clothes;
  • Has access to cures for all of the most common diseases.

Imagine! Wouldn’t such a person be considered rich indeed? So in comparison to those listening to Jesus, we all undoubtedly are incredibly rich.

So Jesus’ warning is for us: How hard it is for us to enter the kingdom of God – because of our supposed self-sufficiency, our security.

Furthermore, possessions enslave us. We become used to our possessions; we start calling our desires “needs” – and then we won’t even consider following Jesus in a way that would lead to:

  • A less prestigious job, or no job
  • A lower salary, or no salary
  • A smaller house, or no place at all to call home

We begin to require God to support us in the manner to which we have become accustomed.

Sometimes we justify this attitude by referring to our children: “I can’t do that; what would become of my children?” But what do our children need more than a parent who follows Jesus, wherever He may lead?

Ray Stedman uses an apt phrase to describe our condition, saying we are “addicted to comfort and ease.”

So if we are addicted to comfort and ease, if we depend on riches, if we find our security there instead of in our relationship to God – mightn’t Jesus be saying to us what He said to the rich young man: “Give up what you are addicted to! Come, follow Me!”

What happens if you hear that, and do it? Do you lose security? Do you lose out on joy? This brings us to Mark 10:28-31:

Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. “But many who are first, will be last; and the last, first.” (NASB)

Focus on these profound statements. Meditate on them. Pore over them. Let them sink into you.

  • No one.
  • Who has left anything, anything material or relational.
  • For what reason? Not to make oneself look good, or to win applause, but for Jesus’ sake and for the gospel.
  • Who will not have how much? One hundred times as much! Listen, this isn’t the 25% annual return you might get for a few years in a booming stock market: the promise is that you will get one hundred times as much.
  • When? When will we get this? In heaven, after we die? No! We will get one hundred times as much NOW! In the present age!
  • Is that all? No, plus you will have eternal life, what the rich young man wanted all along.

Jesus says in effect, “Whatever you give up for me now, you will receive one hundred times as much now – and billions times as much in the age to come.”

I think we expect Jesus to make the eschatological promise, the promise of future joy in eternity with Him. We don’t comprehend all that entails, we certainly can’t grasp what that will be like, but we know that promise.

We know, furthermore, that we are better off risen with Christ than we can ever be in this life; as Paul says, “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

The promise of eternal joy is great and precious. But Jesus promises more than that here. He says that whatever we give up, we will receive one hundred times more in the present age. What could He possibly mean by that?

Does He mean that if I give the church $4,000, I’ll get back $400,000? Some health, wealth, and prosperity preachers use these verses as a proof text for that idea. But clearly if that’s what Jesus meant, there was no reason for the rich young man to walk away. Jesus could simply have said, “Look, give all this away, and within a few years you’ll have one hundred times as much money, wealth, and prestige. That’s quite an investment!” Such a promise would appeal to his greed – the very problem he faced.

Part of the promise surely is that we have eternal life right now. We have “joy unspeakable” (1 Peter 1:8) because of our relationship to God; we have the love, joy, and peace the world longs for because the Spirit dwells in us. We have a true intimacy, a true fellowship with one another because He has made us brothers and sisters in Him. All this is much more valuable than anything we may give up.

But Jesus’ statement can’t mean only that our brothers and sisters multiply in the family of God, for He includes material goods in His promise: farms and houses.

This is what Jesus is saying; this is the key truth we need to take to heart: If you give all you have to the Lord, you will receive one hundred times more joy and pleasure from the material possessions you have than you would have received from the entire hoard if you had given nothing away.

Think about that statement. Some of you might be thinking, “Oh, is that all He means? I thought by giving I was going to get more!”

You are going to get more – more of what you really want! Why do we want possessions anyway? Because of the joy, pleasure, and security they give us, right? God promises us complete security; nothing can harm us until we have completed His calling on us in this world, and then we will be received by Him with great rejoicing. And in this life, He promises us the joy and pleasure we really want, that we try to get from hoarding possessions.

Why will we get more joy and pleasure from a few possessions when we follow Jesus, than we would get from vast hoards of possessions if we don’t follow Him? Consider these reasons:

(1) Our possessions can easily become our master. We worry about losing them, we devote time and energy to amassing them, and, in the end, they can make us miserable. Many wealthy men have been among the most miserable who ever lived.

(2) Even more importantly, we now enjoy what we have because we know it is all a gift from someone who loves us dearly. Think, now: What possessions do you value most? For many of us, we value most not the expensive item we bought for ourselves, but some little trifle that was given to us by a loved one. Perhaps a picture drawn by a three-year-old, perhaps a ring, or necklace, or a letter from your husband; perhaps the gift your parents gave you when you left home. These may not be worth much monetarily, but they are most valuable because they represent the love of another.

The Christian knows that everything we own is a gift from the One who loves us more than we can imagine. So even a few possessions can generate in our hearts unspeakable joy, because they all represent His love. So instead of considering these possessions as things we’ve earned, as things we deserve, we consider everything a special gift of love from the King of the Universe. We deserve nothing – rather, we deserve eternal punishment in hell — yet look what He gives us! Air to breath, warmth at night, food to eat, covering for our bodies! Every minute we live, then, we can thank God for His great mercy, for the love He shows us in everything that we used to take for granted.

Everything around us tempts us to pursue a type of life that, in the end, will never satisfy. Jesus calls us to give up that false life so that we might find true life, true joy, true love in a relationship with Him. And when we do that, we find that we now have all the love, joy, peace, and security that we used to seek through the ways of the world – at least 100 times as much as we had before. And our hearts are overflowing in thanks and praise to the One who gives us so much that we don’t deserve.

There is one note of discord in Jesus’ statement, however. He says this gift of 100 times as much as we give up will be accompanied by persecutions. Why does He say this? How is it consistent with a life of love, joy, and peace?

Paul writes 2nd Timothy shortly before his death. In chapter 4 he writes: ‘I am already being poured out as a drink offering” – an apt figure for one who would be beheaded. But then later in the chapter he writes, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack” (2 Timothy 4:18). Paul writes this even though he knows he will be executed. The inescapable conclusion: His execution is not an evil attack.

Just so with us:

  • When it is for our good and His glory, he lavishes safety and relationships and possessions and worldly success on us.
  • When it is for our good and His glory, he lavishes persecutions and trials and troubles on us.
  • When it is for our good and His glory he lavishes physical death on us.

God constantly uses what men intend for evil for His own good purposes. Whatever happens, He is in control; His purposes are beyond us, but He is always good, and always wise.

So this is Jesus’ command to us: Lose your false life; give it up. Yield all your plans, all your earthly desires, all your security to Him. Lose your life for Jesus, for the gospel. Then step forward – knowing that God will be with you. You will face trial, troubles, and tribulations. But amidst all that, He will give you a joy beyond measure even in this life, as you overflow with thanksgiving for the uncountable good gifts, the true riches, He gives you daily. So follow Him – and find true riches and joy.

[This devotion is an edited version of part of this sermon preached in 1999.]