Separation Anxiety - Mark 10:17-27 Supplemental Notes Series

Why Perfection is Required

If you want to be justified by the law, you have to keep it perfectly. But why? We read the Sermon on the Mount and find out that if you get angry you’ve committed murder, if you so much as look in order to lust you’ve committed adultery, etc. And if you hear all that and think, Those examples are such minor infractions, you’re thinking exactly like the rich young ruler. What makes those examples minor? The only thing that could possibly make them minor is if your standard is set by the average sinful person. But Jesus already started this conversation by letting us know that we’re not talking about goodness compared to other people. We’re talking about goodness compared to God. James says if you keep the whole law but stumble at just one point, you’re guilty of breaking all of it. It’s not like bowling, where you can knock a few down and leave the rest standing. Breaking God’s law is more like putting a brick through a picture window. One brick breaks the whole thing.

Sin is Adultery

And that would be obvious to us if we understood what sin is. It’s adultery against God. It’s any time you love something in the world more than you love God. It’s a relational offense, not just a violation of a code. Imagine a wife is upset at her husband for committing adultery, and he says, “What are you so upset about? Sure, I slept with that woman, but not with that other woman. I didn’t sleep with her or her or her. I didn’t fall in love with hardly any of those other women—just two or three, that’s it!” Is the wife going to say, “Oh well, I guess 7 out of 10 aint bad”? No. You commit adultery with just one other woman and you shatter the covenant. Marriage exists to teach us what it’s like between us and God. And what have you and I done? Did we love something in this world more than God just two or three times? Just a handful of instances of adultery? No. It would be in the thousands just in recent months. We’re a lot closer to breaking all of God’s laws than breaking none of them.

Not Fair?

Someone says, “But it’s not fair! How can God require something of us that isn’t even possible?” Think of it this way. Suppose you have a 1 year old, and you want to take the child to MacDonald’s or to go out for ice cream or something. You’re more than willing to pick the child up, put him in a car seat, and take him to MacDonald’s. But the child wants to do it another way. He wants to go on his own. So he says, “Mom, what must I do to get to MacDonald’s.” “I’ll take you there.” “No! I want to do it on my own. What must I do?” “Well, you’d have to walk out the door, and—” “Mom! You know I can’t walk. Why are you making this impossible for me?” Is that mom being cruel? No. Is she making it impossible? No. The child is making it impossible by insisting that he get there some other way besides being carried. God says, “I’ll carry you to heaven if you want,” and we say, “No! I want to get there on my own.” Jesus says, “Ok, then, you’d have to keep the whole law, perfectly.” “Why are you making it impossible?” It’s only impossible if we insist on doing it in an impossible way. But if we will receive it like little children, then it’s very possible. But at this point in the conversation, you’re a little concerned that your child is a little confused about what he is—a child. So you put your hands on your hips and say, “Go to MacDonald’s.” He gives it a few tries, but can’t even stand on his feet, much less walk. So he starts crying and says, “I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a baby.”

“Ah, bingo. Now you understand.

So how are you going to get to MacDonald’s?”

“Mom, will you take me?”

Beware of Money

We Are Rich

The passage isn’t over when the man walks away because Jesus wants to debrief his disciples and warn them, and us, about ending up like that guy. He wants us to understand that the rich guy wasn’t some rare outlier. He represents the vast majority of people, and the threat that destroyed him could destroy us. Make no mistake—when Jesus talks about the rich in this passage, that’s us. Every person in this room, by the standards of those people in that time, by the standards of most people who have ever lived, by the standards of most people in the world today, we are fabulously wealthy. We live in luxury beyond what most people in the world could even imagine. The access we have to food, and shelter and clothes is unprecedented in human history. The #1 health problem for “poor” people in the United States is obesity. I doubt that’s ever happened in human history. So all that to say, when Jesus says, “rich,” that’s us. And it’s a real threat to our faith.