THE ONE THING YOU LACK

Religion

Luke 18:18-30

There are special passages of scripture that we associate with pivotal points in our lives. This text from Luke 18 is special for me. It was 1952. I was one of about thirty youth from First Baptist Church in Quitman, Georgia who traveled by bus to Ridgecrest, North Carolina to our national conference center for a week of inspiration and teaching. We would begin the day with “Morning Watch” which was a time of devotions. One morning, we hiked to Rattlesnake Mountain to watch the sun come up and pray at the break of dawn. There were morning classes and a worship service each morning. At the mealtimes the lines would gather and we would sing until the doors opened. The afternoons were for recreation. Some of our group would go to the prayer garden each evening before the evening service. For a teenager of fourteen who had just been baptized the preceding January, this was opening a whole new world of spiritual understanding. But the highlight of the week came on Sunday afternoon. Billy Graham spoke on the scripture passage that we are considering today. At the conclusion of his sermon he gave the invitation for us to commit our futures to the Lord. He said, “If you will commit your life to whatever the Lord calls you to do just stand where you are.” I was in the balcony on the top row. It was a tremendous surge of spiritual power in my mind and heart and I slowly stood to my feet and once and for all I said, “Lord Jesus, my life is yours. Do whatever you will with me.” When I arrived back home I asked the family to gather in the living room for scripture and prayer. I then announced to them that I felt a profound sense of call to serve the Lord as a minister. My mother said, “I have known that for years.” And they gave me their blessings to pursue my calling.

That was the one thing that I lacked in my relationship to the Lord. Although I had trusted him for salvation, I had not consciously committed my future to him. There may be one thing you lack that you still have to commit to the Lord to make your life deeply fulfilling. It could be something about your family, your work, a theological belief, a resistance in some area of your life, or something you know the Lord wants you to do and you have not been willing to do it. Your situation may be different from the rich young ruler in that he weighed the cost of entering the Kingdom against the Lord’s requirements. Yours may be weighing the cost of true discipleship. Let’s look at some characteristics of the man in our text.

HE WANTED MORE THAN HE HAD. “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him, and fell on his knees before him. ‘Good teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life.’” ( Mark 10:17) Matthew tells us that he was young and Mark tells us that he was passionately wanting an answer. So he saw Jesus and came running up to him and fell on his knees before him and asked the question of the ages. He uses the word “inherit” referring to eternal life. He had likely inherited his wealth, but what he wanted was something that his parents could not give him. He was right in thinking that what he wanted would come at the death of another as is included in the meaning of “inherit.” But one cannot inherit eternal life. He did not realize it, but what he was asking was, “What must I do to get the most out of life and really live?”

That is the question that people are asking today. The years of youth pass by quickly. You cannot get the most out of life even if you have it all unless the ultimate question of eternal life is answered. You can’t live to the fullest now until you settle the matter of the “then.” The young man was wise in trying to get an answer in the “now.” He called Jesus, “Good Teacher.” Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but God.” Jesus was not saying that he was not good, but was asking if the young man saw him as Messiah, as God. If he did, that would make all the difference in how he would respond. If he saw Jesus just as a good teacher he could disagree readily with what he said. People today who see Jesus just as a teacher or philosopher there is no real mandate to do what he says. But those of us who see him as God incarnate, what he says is absolute.

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“It was great, Dad.”
“Did you see how poor people live?” the father asked.
“Oh yeah,” said the son.

“So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?” asked the father. The son answered: “I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around us but they live open in nature. I think they are the rich ones.

HE HAD IT ALL BUT ONE THING. “What do I still lack?” (Matthew 19:20). Jesus brought him back to the Ten Commandments and cited the five which have to do with our duty to our fellowman: do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false witness, honor your father and mother. “I have kept all these since I was a boy.” Jesus did not mention the five commandments that have to do with our relationship to God. He was pointing out to the young man that he was living a selfish, self- indulgent life. Jesus told him that his mindset of wealth and living for himself was prohibiting him from having a meaningful life. Life’s truest meaning is found in serving others. The thing that was imprisoning him in his own life was his attitude that his wealth could meet his deepest need and he based his future security on that. The truth is that we need others to make our lives worthwhile. Jesus told him that he would have to eliminate the obstacle before him. Nothing but a drastic measure would prove that he really wanted eternal life. “Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22). To be sure, this is not the requirement for everyone, but it was for this one. Jesus might say something just as drastic to you depending on whatever is preventing you from being his true disciple. Whatever is blocking your way to a total commitment must be removed.

John G. Wendel and his sisters were some of the most miserly people of all time. Although they had received a huge inheritance from their parents, they spent very little of it and did all they could to keep their wealth for themselves.

John was able to influence five of his six sisters never to marry, and they lived in the same house in New York City for 50 years. When the last sister died in 1931, her estate was valued at more than $100 million. Her only dress was one that she had made herself, and she had worn it for 25 years.
The Wendels had such a compulsion to hold on to their possessions that they lived like paupers. Even worse, they were like the kind of person Jesus referred to “who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).

HE DID NOT LIKE THE ANSWER. “When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.” (Luke 18:23). He thought he could have everything on his own terms. But as Jesus watched him walk away from him he said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:24-25).

I can imagine that as he walked away from Jesus, he thought to himself, “I didn’t want it that bad. I wanted a mild comforting religion, but that requirement is radical. I don’t want to have anything to do with a radical faith.” I can also imagine that Jesus thought to himself, “How much I could have fulfilled that young man. I could have given him a real purpose in living and could have showed him how he could use his wealth for the kingdom, but he was not willing. If he had been willing, life would have been so different for him. I would have made him richer than he has ever been.”

A little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on Broadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, “My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?” “I was asking God to give me a pair of
shoes,” was the boys reply. The lady took him by the hand and went into the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel, and he replied: “Certainly,” and quickly brought them to her.

She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet and dried them with a towel. By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy’s feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes, and tying up the remaining pairs of socks, gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, “No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?”

As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears in his eyes, answered the question with these words, “Are you God’s Wife?”

What is the one thing that is keeping you from knowing the Lord deeply and serving him devotedly? If you want the Lord’s favor that one thing must be dealt with. If you want a comfortable faith that does not take you out of your comfort zone and allows you to dictate your own terms, Christianity is not for you.

THE GOD OF THE IMPOSSIBLE. “Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved? Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” (Luke 18:26-27). The disciples thought that riches were a sign of God’s favor and blessing. It can be, but evidently not in this case. This young man’s riches had made him greedy and his love for riches was greater than his desire for eternal life. But what he didn’t realize was that Jesus could turn his love for gold into a true love for God. This is the miracle of a changed heart.

YOU CAN’T OUT GIVE GOD. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30). Jesus said this to Peter’s statement that “We have left all to follow you!” Isn’t it great that whatever is sacrificed the Lord finds a way to bless us even more in this life as well in the life beyond. The heart satisfaction is his way of enriching our lives when we fulfill his purpose for us.

A mother wanted to teach her daughter a moral lesson. She gave the little girl a quarter and a dollar for church “Put whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other for yourself,” she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. “Well,” said the little girl, “I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I’d be a lot more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did.”

Patrick Henry said, “I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them and that is faith in Jesus Christ. If they had that and I had not given them a single shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor indeed.”

The greatest decision in life is “What will I do with Jesus?” What will you do with him today? What is the one thing you Lack? What if that one thing was removed – what would your life be like in the future? It can be great! Praise be to his name!

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