THE RICH YOUNG RULER
By Dr. David Jeremiah
Mark 10:17-25
In this lesson we meet a man who chose to serve money instead of God.
Sometimes, just when we think we've discovered a foolproof way to live with one foot in the kingdom of God and one foot in the world, our toes get stepped on. God has a way of revealing our double-mindedness in a way that forces us to make a decision
In this lesson we meet a young man who, in the prime of his life, comes to Jesus expectantly but leaves disappointed. He comes with a smiling face and leaves with a fallen countenance. He comes with a joyful heart and leaves full of sorrow. What makes this such a sad scenario is that money blocked his path to eternal life. Nicodemus seemed too religious to be saved. The Samaritan woman seemed too immoral to be saved. And now this young man appears to be too wealthy to be saved. What makes it doubly sad is that the rich young ruler had a number of things going for him until the end of his conversation with Jesus:
-He came at the right time. He came when he was young and full of energy. He didn't waste his whole life, as many do, before coming to Jesus.
-He came to the right person. There was only one person who could have answered the question he had.
-He asked the right question. There was no more important question he could have addressed than the question of his eternal life.
-He got the right answer. Sadly, in spite of getting the right answer, he did the wrong thing.
A young man searching for eternal life in Jesus meets Jesus who is searching for truth in the young man. One searching for life, the other searching for truth. Tragically, because Jesus did not find truth in the young man, the young man did not find eternal life in Jesus.
The first thing you notice about this young man who comes to Jesus is his emptiness.
THE RICH YOUNG RULER'S EMPTINESS
Why was the young man empty? Looking at all the facets of his life will explain what he was lacking.
He Was Young.
Ecclesiastes 12:1 says, "Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth." And that is exactly what this young man was doing. Something about Jesus drew the man toward the things of God; specifically, his search for eternal life. He had not been so distracted by the affairs of his young, privileged life that he had forgotten his Creator.
He Was a Ruler.
As mentioned, Luke 18-18 designates this young man as some sort of ruler. He was a person of prominence, in other words, like Nicodemus. Perhaps he was a member of the Sanhedrin. If not, he was undoubtedly the head or leader of something that brought him recognition in the community. It makes his public, daytime inquiry of Jesus all the more significant. For a religious or civil leader to kneel before Jesus (verse l7) denoted a measure of humility not found in many rulers.
He Was Rich.
Verse 22 says "he had great possessions." He went away from Jesus sorrowing because Jesus had touched the place where his heart beat strongest�his wealth. It is interesting that Jesus never comments on his possession of great wealth, an important fact to note. The Scriptures never condemn the possession of wealth, but they do condemn what was true in the rich young man's life: He didn't possess great wealth; great wealth possessed him. His money was apparently a much bigger issue in his life than he realized.
He Was Religious.
Not only was he rich, but he was very religious. In verse 20, he responds to Jesus by saying that he had kept all the commandments since the time of his youth�and Jesus doesn't challenge his statement. Had I been in Jesus' place, l probably would have wanted to look into that further, to see if he was telling the truth. But Jesus accepted his words at face value. The young man apparently saw himself as very religious.
He Was Sincere.
Finally, he was sincere. The Bible savs he was running after Jesus along the road, and when he got to the Lord he knelt down before Him and called Him, "Good Teacher" (verse 17). He didn't mind the risk of his prestigious friends seeing him running after Jesus and kneeling down before him! It didn't bother him at all because he sincerely wanted to know the answer to his question.
If this young man had all of these things going for him, why was he empty? Because all of these things are not things of the spirit. He could not fill the God-shaped void in his life with energy, prestige, wealth, religion, or sincerity. None of these things can produce peace, love, hope, contentment, or purpose in life. Someone has said that money can buy a bed, but it can't buy sleep; it can buy food, but it can't buy an appetite, it can buy medicine, but it can't buy health; it can buy a house, but it can't buy a home; and it can buy diamonds, but it can't buy love.
I remember when the story of the Christian conversion of a famous professional athlete hit the news, I was a bit skeptical. But as the months and years passed, it became pretty obvious that this individual had indeed experienced a profound transformation in his life. He had participated in both professional baseball and football�at the same time!�and was being paid millions of dollars a year. His life was a constant story of wine, women, and song, yet his life was so filled with despair that he eventually tried to take his own life. In his Christian testimony, he recounts how, though he had everything he could possibly want, he was still completely empty inside.
Perhaps that's how the rich young ruler felt. He had everything money and fame could provide, and yet he knew he was missing the most important thing of all�eternal life (verse 17). So we have to give him credit for at least thinking of the ultimate question. Though he lived in the temporal worlds he was thinking of the eternal, which is more than many people ever do. We have experts on almost every subject known to man from whom we can get answers to almost any question we could possibly dream up. But the answer to the most important question in life is one that no one knows the answer to�except for Jesus. Perhaps he had taken his question to his fellow Jewish leaders, or perhaps he hadn't even bothered. But he took it to Jesus because he sensed he would find the answer in Him.
His question revealed a great deal about his mindset: "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?" His focus was on "doing," which was how he had gotten everything else he had. He had apparently worked hard and achieved much; his wealth and recognition were evidence of that fact. So he assumed eternal life could be attained the same way�by "doing" something. l find that so common today. When I discuss eternal life with non-believers, they immediately want to begin telling me about what thev have "done" in the religious area of their life. Church, charities, family activities, civic involvement, good deeds, absence of bad deeds�it's all about "doing" for the religious person. But eternal life is not gained by what we do for God- it is gained on the basis of what God has done for us. This is what the rich young ruler was saddened to discover.
Once when Jesus was asked, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" He responded with an answer that should have put to rest forever the issue of our works being a way to God: "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (John 6:28-29). The work of God is to believe. What any person needs to "do" to gain eternal life is not a matter of doing at all. It is a matter of believing in Christ. But the young man wanted to do some kind of work to gain eternal life.
In answering his question, Jesus follows His normal pattern of deflecting the question onto another topic which will reveal something totally different to the young man. In doing so, He begins by questioning the young man, beginning an exploration of his beiief's about three critical issues.
THE RICH YOUNG RULER'S BELIEF ABOUT CHRIST
First, Jesus wants to discover whether the young man realizes who he is talking to. He questions why the young man addresses Him as "good". The rabbis in Jesus' day would never refer to a person as good since goodness is one of the attributes of God. To assign goodness to a person is to insult God who is completely good in every respect. In essence, Jesus was saying, "Don't call me good unless you are prepared to call me God." We don't know exactly what the young man understood about the person of Christ, but he was at least prepared enough to risk finding out the truth.
THE RICH YOUNG RULER'S BELIEF ABOUT THE COMMANDMENTS
Jesus' question to him about, "Why do you call me good?" apparently didn't scare the young man away. Jesus took advantage of his willingness and began to examine his heart about the commandments. He tells the young man if he wants to enter into life, he will have to keep the commandments (Matthew 19:17), to which the young man replied, "Which ones?" (Matthew 19:1S). Jesus recites six of the 10 commandments, and interestingly, they are the last six�those having to do with our relationships with other people: Don't commit adultery, don't murder, steal, bear false witness, defraud, or dishonor your parents. Jesus mentions those having to do with our relationship with others instead of the four having to do with our relationship with God because they are measurable. It's possible that the young man could say, "I haven't committed adultery; I haven't stolen; I haven't borne false witness, and so on." And in doing so, he would be filled with pride because of his external goodness and self-respect for being such a good person.
But it is safe to say that the rich young ruler would not have fared as well if Jesus had questioned him about the first four commandments. When the Bible says "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3), he would have had to confess that he did have another god�gold. He had made gold his god, and the reason Jesus asked him about the commandments was to show him that his real need was to be forgiven for his idolatry. The commandments were not given so we could become Christians and receive eternal life. The commandments were given so we could see that we could never inherit eternal life if it depended on out own righteousness. All the commandments do is bring us to the place of seeing our need for forgiveness and the grace and mercy of God.
The rich young ruler had cruised through life thinking he had everything going for him, but he was in the process of discovering that all of his good works were not going to be sufficient to secure eternal life. Even if we have broken one of God's commandments, the Scripture says, we are guilty of breaking them all (James 2:10). And because this man had other gods before him beside the true God of Israel, he was guilty of violating all of God's commands.
It's a religious trap to think that goodness can get us into heaven, when just the opposite is true. It is our so-called human goodness that can keep us out of heaven! The only goodness good enough to get us into heaven is Christ's goodness. If we become deceived about the value of our good works and think that by them we have earned God's favor and therefore eternal life, we have never been more deceived. That's where the rich young ruler was�and Christ was about to prove it to him. This time, having searched the man's understanding of who He was, and his understanding of the commandments, Jesus was about to search out the condition of his heart.
THE RICH YOUNG RULER'S BELIEF ABOUT THE CONDITION OF HIS HEART
Since the young man seems convinced he has kept all of the commands from his youth Jesus, tests the condition of his heart by giving him an additional command to keep.
Jesus' Compassion
Jesus doesn't search and test the young man's heart harshly or with cynicism about his supposed record or righteous commandment-keeping. He does so out of compassion for him. He wants him to inherit eternal life, but He also wants him to see the bankrupt nature of his self-evaluation�that he really hasn't done all that God would require.
Jesus looked at the young man and "loved him" with agape, the selfless and sacrificial love with which God loves sinners. Jesus wasn't searching the man's heart for anybody's benefit except the young man's. God cares about people who think they have it all together with their achievements and accolades. He knows such people can still be empty. It is His compassion that causes Him to reveal our emptiness to us.
Jesus' Criticism
Jesus critiqued the man's spiritual posture by telling him he still lacked something. "Lack" is the same word as "fall short" in Romans 3:23, and the young man had definitely fallen short of the glory of God. This came, no doubt, as a rude awakening to him. Fortunately, Jesus was prepared to tell him what he lacked but it was not what he wanted to hear.
Jesus' Command
The command Jesus gives the young ruler appears contradictory, as if Jesus is saying that by keeping just one more command the young man can gain eternal life. Just sell all you have and give it to the poor and eternal life will be yours. We know that is not true since we are saved by grace, not by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). so what is the purpose of Jesus' command to the young man? He is challenging the young man right at the root of his problem�his wealth. Jesus probably wouldn't have said the same thing to a different individual. But this man needed to see that his heart had been captured not by God but by his "great possessions" (verse 22). Money is a wonderful thing when it is the servant. But when it becomes the master, it is a bad thing.
The young man went away sad, because he was unwilling to admit that money had a vise grip on his heart. He had put the things of mammon above the things of God in his life. And as a result, he did not inherit eternal life. Hopefully, he thought it over later and decided to follow Jesus, but we never hear from him again as far as we know.
Don't let anything stand in the way of inheriting eternal life. Whatever God commands of you, follow through. Not as a means of gaining eternal life, but as a means of understanding the condition of your own heart. Don't walk away from Jesus "sad at this word . . . [and] sorrowful." Rather, follow Him wherever He leads. His path is the only way to life.
Did you know...?
Some measure of confusion about money probably started with the original King James Version's use of the word "mammon" (Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13) as a translation of "riches". "Mammon" is an English rendering of the Greek word "mamonas" (riches), which was a Greek rendering of the Aramaic word "mamona" (riches). In other words, the original Aramaic word, probably the word that Christ used, was simply brought into English without translating it. The word "mammon" simply means riches, money, or wealth (see any of the modern Bible translations). And Jesus' Point was not that it is sin to possess mammon, but it is sin to serve mammon. This was the rich young ruler's problem. He was unwilling to stop serving mammon in order to serve God.
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