Philippians 1:12-18

Introduction

Life in general has its fill of challenges, in everything from finances to relationships to health to every other aspect. Sometimes we would like to think that Christians are exempt from this. There are certain preachers that do claim this. We are supposed to be kids of the King and so our life should all be all about wealth, comfort and prosperity. But that is not the experience of most of us.

I have experience a certain amount of adversity. While my life has not been terrible bad, I have experienced challenges in most of the areas that people experience. I won’t go into the details but I will say that at times, responses from Christians often made things worse rather than better. People tried to explain away our suffering, always well meaning, but usually not very convincing.

This is the fear that I have in preaching this message. I don’t know the details of your challenges. I don’t know how you feel about your challenges. And I don’t know what God is doing through your experience.

Having said that, the Bible is not silent about faith in the midst of adversity. Our faith is one that is able to respond to adversity and that does not have to die in the face of suffering.

Paul and Adversity

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is one his most joy-filled letters. This is sometimes referred to as his epistle of joy. Certain letters of his show Paul getting a bit grumpy, but this letter gives us Paul’s best side.

The strange thing is that the story is written in the context of suffering. This is one of Paul’s prison epistles, a letter written while he was in prison. I have only spent one night in jail and I hated and over twenty-five years later I’m still complaining about it. Paul is spending a lot more time than that and he is completely innocent of all wrong doing. Paul has every reason to complain about his situation. But instead of focusing on the bad, he sees the positive. Being imprisoned gives Paul a captive audience with his guards to talk to them about Jesus. They can’t escape his evangelism because they are obligated to keep an eye on him.

Paul also reveals that he is experienced conflict within the church. There are preachers who are attacking Paul and who were preaching with wrong motives. They may have been ancient equivalents of televangelist, preaching to make money. This should make Paul angry but it doesn’t. The reason is that no matter why they are preaching, Jesus is being preached. God can use these preachers, even if they have the most selfish reasons and people are getting the message.

The lesson here is not to simply see every cloud having a silver lining. When we read all of Paul’s letters, he never ignores suffering, even in his own life. He has no problem in admitting that pain exists.

What Paul is really doing is demonstrating that his joy does not depend on how good or bad things are. There is a difference between happiness and joy. We are happy when things are going well. But we can have joy even in bad circumstances. Joy is not based on what is happening to us. Being in jail and hearing dishonest preachers didn’t make Paul happy, but he could rejoice because God was present and active in those circumstances.

Our Adversity

Each of us here represent a wide variety of experiences. Whether in our past or our present, we can identify with a certain amount of suffering.

I don’t want to try and wash away your pain with a Christian platitude. “Just turn that frown upside down.” “Remember Jesus loves you.” “Just try to pray more.”

It is important to understand the full biblical response to pain. The Bible confronts it head on and doesn’t try to hide it. The Bible acknowledges that it is real and that it hurts. And so should we.

The question is, Can our faith survive adversity? Honestly, there have been people who have walked away from God because of bad things that have happened.

To me, it all comes down to what we expect of God. Do we believe in a God that puts our comfort and p

Romans 5:6-11

Introduction

Have you ever heard the phrase “the crux of the matter”? What does that word crux mean? The dictionary definition is “the decisive or most important point at issue.” I took business as my major for my undergraduate degree. Many of the assignments and tests for my courses were case studies. These were not things you could really study for, it was really just a matter of determining the most important issue in the situation. You either got it or you didn’t.

One of the things that I find interesting about this concept of crux is that the word is also Latin for cross. What is interesting about this is that for Christians, the cross is the crux in both senses of the word. Crux means cross but the crux of Christianity is also Jesus on the cross. That is what we are going to be looking at.

It might seem more appropriate to look at one of the Gospels when it comes to Jesus on the cross. That would be good, but Paul had a talent for not just describing the cross but drawing out the theological implications for the cross on our life. Let’s take a look.

Not Deserved

I served for a number of years in the army reserves. One of the things that I observed was about the reward structure. Promotions and medals were given, not out of love or compassion but based on merit. People needed to develop certain skills, take specific courses, spend a certain amount of time serving and demonstrate leadership ability. Once you accomplished what was required, you were reward with a promotion or a medal.

That is not the way that it works in Christianity. We will get into it about what we receive as a result of the cross, but Paul starts off with what we deserved. And what did we deserve? Nothing. There was nothing about humanity that demonstrated that we deserved for God to send his Son. This may be hard for us to swallow as everything about our culture is merit-based. we reward hard work. But the cross was not about hard work. This is called grace. Unmerited favour. Paul thought this so important that he spends more time on this in this passage than any other topic.

This should prevent us from getting puffed up with pride. We cannot boast that we were so special that Jesus died for us. Nothing about us made us worthy. This should also help shape our relations with others. God demonstrated his love to us when we didn’t deserve it. How do we determine who receives our love?

God Loves Us

We need to remember what the cross is. It was a means of execution by the Romans. It was not meant just to kill but to humiliate and thus to warn any future offenders. It was slow and painful. It was one of the worst things that anyone could experience. In fact this was one of the reasons why some people were hesitant to follow Jesus in the early days of the church. Everything that the cross represented involved defeat and failure. Not only did the Christians acknowledge the cross, they rejoiced in it. Why is that?

The cross is proof of God’s love for us. God did not come up with a new ritual or religious practice. He sent his Son to die the worst kind of death. John 3:16 reminds us, For God so loved the world.” Everything about the cross from God’s perspective is about love. Think about the things that you give different people. You will give things of little value to almost anyone but you give things that are precious to those you love. Jesus Christ is the most precious thing and it is the clearest demonstration of God’s love. There are many things about God that we don’t understand but we should never doubt that God loves us.

The Cross Reconnects Us With God

What actually happened on the cross? Jesus died. But what happened on the spiritual realm? There are many complex theories about what Jesus did on the cross and the means by which God used this for our salvation. Despite being a theology nerd, I have no interest in entering these debates. What is clear in Scripture is that God used Jesus on the cross to reconcile us to him. Jesus died on t

1 Corinthians 12:4-6

Introduction

Some time ago, I encountered a poll on social media about the most difficult doctrine within Christian theology. To me, it was a simple answer. The Trinity. The belief that there is one God and that God consists of three persons: Father, Son and Spirit. If our children or grandchildren wrote down 1+1+1=1 on their math test, they probably would not get a good grade. It is a difficult concept to get our mind around.

A number of years ago, I read the Qur’an, the holy book for Muslims. It is good to seek to understand what others believe. but one of the things that I notices is the constant attack on the Christian idea of the Trinity. In fact believing in the Trinity, called Shirk, is the worst sin in Islam.

More recently, I got to know a Jewish rabbi. We got into a theological conversation and he admitted that he felt much more in common with Muslims than with Christians. Christianity is not just Judaism plus Jesus, with the Trinity it is a radically different concept of God.

The Trinity is a vital part of the Christian faith. It is what distinguishes orthodox forms of Christianity from unorthodox ones, such as Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is important and yet it is one of the least frequently discussed. Perhaps because it takes so much work to understand. We are going to take a look at the Trinity, what it is, and why it is important to us as Christians.

What is the Trinity?

When I talk to my Jehovah’s Witnesses friends, they like to remind me that the word “Trinity” never is mentioned in the Bible. I then remind them that the world “Bible” is not mentioned in the Bible either but that doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in the Bible. The word Trinity was first mentioned by an early church father named Tertullian. However, the question is not about the word but about the concept.

I can tell you what didn’t happen. The early church didn’t look at the simple unity of God and determine that it was too boring. They didn’t decide that the Father, Son and Spirit were all divine just to liven things up. Nor did they see the three as comprising just one God as a way to create headaches among theologians. Either belief in a simple unity or in three gods would have been easier than the Trinity. So where did it come from?

There are two reasons why Christians believe in the Trinity. The first reason is about two observations found within Scripture. The first is that the Bible, Old and New Testaments strongly affirm that there is just one true God. Not one main God and a couple of junior gods, but one God. At the same time, the Bible also affirms that the Father, Son and Spirit are all divine. While it may be obvious with the Father and Son, the Bible also affirms that the Spirit is personal and not just a force. So the Bible teaches that there is one God and that the Father, Son and Spirit are all God. The best explanation is the Trinity.

The second reason is that there are a number of passages that place all three persons in parallel, as if they are of the same kind. The passage may say Father, Son and Spirit or may say God, Lord and Spirit. These passages don’t make sense if we interpret them as the real God, a half-god and a force. The way they are used only make sense if all three references are speaking of the same one God. The passage from 1 Corinthians 12.

So what is the Trinity? The Trinity is the belief in one God, a God that is not a simple unity but rather a complex unity, a God who is comprised of three persons. Imagine tossing a chunk of ice into a red hot pan. Almost immediately, you would have the water in its solid, liquid and gas forms at the same time and yet it is all the same water. That is an imperfect illustration of the Trinity but it gives us an idea of how one thing could also be three things at the same time.

Why Does It Matter?

It is a fair question to ask why we should even care. Why not just leave this to the theologians and we can just focus on being the church. I would

Luke 19:45-48

Introduction

I grew up in the Anglican church. In addition to our worship services, an important part of our church rhythm was bake sales, yard sales, barbecue fundraisers, spaghetti dinners and so on. It seemed that every month there was some sort of fundraising event going on. I enjoyed it, not just because it often included food, but because it brought people not normally involved in church into our building. It was great community development.

Later on I became a Baptist and I thought I had pretty much got used to the change until I realized that I didn’t. I was pastoring a Baptist church and I suggested that we have a yard sale. I can still remember the look on people’s faces. It was as if I had suggested casino night with a cash bar. I was informed that “Baptists don’t do yard sales.” Instead of going with the flow, I asked why. I was told that the story of Jesus cleansing the temple was clear teaching that we are not supposed to sell things inside the church building. Together we looked at this story and I told them it was fine to hold the conviction to not sell things inside the church building but that this story is not the best support for it. It ended up that we found a nice compromise. Instead of using the proceeds to fund our church, we donated everything to another ministry. The people ended up having a great time visiting with people who stopped by the church for the great deals.

So if the story of the cleansing of the temple is not provided as a warning against yard sales, then why do we have it? Is there a message in this passage for us and how we do church? This story is one of the few passages that is found in all four Gospels and so I think it is both important and relevant. Let’s take a look at what was happening and what it means for us.

What Was Happening

Luke does not give us a lot of information of what exactly took place in the temple. But looking at the other Gospel accounts, as well as some historical background, we can piece together what took place. Luke simply tells us that people were “selling” in the temple. But what were they selling? I can tell you that it wasn’t a bake sale.

There were two things going on. The first was money changing. Only a certain kind of money was allowed for offerings in the temple and this was not the currency that was regularly used in Galilee or Judea. If people were going to give money at the temple, which was part of their worship, they would need to exchange their regular currency for the acceptable currency. It would be like if we made a decision here that we would stop accepting Canadian dollars in the offering plate and would only accept Israeli shekels. You would need some means of exchanging in order to give to the church. That was the role of the money changers.

The second activity was the selling of animals. Sacrificing animals was an important part of Jewish worship during the temple period. That was fine if you lived in the Jerusalem area, as you could just bring one of your animals to the temple. But what if you lived in Galilee or even farther away in the Roman empire? Would you really want to bring an animal with you all that way? It would be very convenient if you could just purchase an animal directly at the temple.

What I want you to see is that the activity of changing money or selling animals was not bad. In fact, it was good and it helped to facilitate the worship of the people. So why did Jesus get so angry? It was not the activity itself but it was about where and how it was done.

First the where. There was an area outside the temple that was designated for this activity. But this was eventually moved into the temple. There were three sections within the temple, one of these was set aside for the Gentiles or non-Jews. This was the only area in the temple that Gentiles were allowed. That was the space where the selling was moved. It was decided that the needs of the Gentiles didn’t matter, especially if it made things more conveni

Luke 19:11-27

Introduction

Does anyone here actually hope to be a failure? And if you achieve that, are you then a success? Everyone wants to be a success. Whether that is in work life, family life, or any other area of life.

But how do we measure success? How do we know if we have achieved what we attained to? It is not always so obvious. For example, how do we know if someone tells a good joke? People laugh, right? But not always. The other day, I told one of the children who live at our complex a joke. He really didn’t react because it was kind of bizarre for this strange man to tell a weird joke. So there wasn’t much laughter. But a few moments later, we heard that child telling that same joke to a bunch of his friends. That was the measure that the joke was funny.

The truth is we need ways to measure every aspect of our life. Imagine if there were no units of measurement. Police would stop you if they thought you were going to fast. Milk and meat would be in a different size package every day but cost the same. We need something to use as a measurement.

We want to be successful as individuals and as a church. We can agree on that. But how do we measure that? What are the warning signs if things are going wrong? What tells us if things are going well? The story we are looking at is going to help us through this. Even more, it is going to help us navigate the spirit of competition is so destructive to our mental health. Let’s take a look.

Success in the Story

The story is one that would have been familiar to the original audience. A ruler goes off leaves servants in charge of something. It is a universal story that finds itself repeated even today in popular entertainment. In this version of the story, the ruler summons ten servants. Each of the ten servants were give ten minas to invest. How much is a mina? One mina is about a fourth of a worker’s annual salary, so ten minas would be a significant sum. The fact that the ruler would trust his servants with this money says something about the expectations he had for them.

Although ten servants were given money, only three are mentioned in the employee review interviews. The first servant was able to produce ten more minas with the mount that came his way, a 100% return on investment. The second servant made five minas, a 50% return on investment. Notice that the second servant is not condemned for making only half the profit of the first servant? That is significant. What the ruler seemed to be looking for is that each servant would try their best to invest with what they had been given.

This brings us to the next servant. The final servant simply wrapped up the ten minas and handed it back to the ruler untouched. The least that he could have done was to put it in the bank and then the ruler would have at least made the basic interest. But the servant did no such thing. He even knew why the ruler had given his money to the servants and yet he didn’t do even one thing to make a profit. This is the servant that is condemned, the one who refused to try. The crime was not just that he didn’t make money, it was that he was not faithful with what had been entrusted to him. It all comes down to a matter of trust and this servant betrayed that trust.

To sum up, the principle for measuring success is not our return on investment or even how we compare with our people. The measure of success is about how faithful we are with what we have been given.

Success in Our Life

One of the areas that people hope for success is in their individual life experience. I will be turning fifty in the fall and it is a natural thing for me to be reflecting on this. I wouldn’t say that I’m having a midlife crisis, but it is a natural time to be considering where I am at and how that compares to my expectations. I am quite content right now, but such was not the case about four years. I was having significant health problems, was struggling financially and my second child was going into a group home. My

Luke 19:1-10

Introduction

I didn’t start wearing glasses until I was in my mid-teens. Not that I was able to see well before then. I remember my grade 9 English teacher making me stand up right in front of the screen to read some text because I couldn’t see it from my desk. Still, it was not until grade 12 that I actually got glasses. I was not completely convinced that I really needed glasses. Sure I had to sit fairly close to the TV, but in general, I had done quite fine without glasses for a decade and a half.

Then I put glasses on for the very first time. My first thought was, “Are you kidding me?” Is this what things really looked like? Everything was so crisp and clear. It was a joy to look at anything, as I was in many ways seeing these things for the first time. I had no idea what I was missing.

Even if you have never had such and experience, there is a basic principle of we don’t know what we don’t know. We all live with a certain amount of ignorance that is just waiting to be unveiled. We had a friend who was convinced that apple pie and vanilla ice cream would be disgusting. After finally convincing her to try it, she was ready to eat every day after that.

We make judgments based on the information that we have. Even though that information is often less than complete, we fill in the blanks and make our best guesses. That is fine as long as we are prepared to change our conclusions as new information comes in.

The story of Zacchaeus is one that illustrates this principle very nicely. For many people, it seemed clear the type of person he was based on his occupation. But Jesus could see something deeper. Let’s take a look at the story.

A Traditional Reading

For those who have been raised in the church, especially Sunday school, there is a danger to reading this story. We might think we know the story so well that it has nothing fresh to speak into our lives. Often the lesson we see from this story is based on a very shallow reading. What does the story say? That God loves short people? That Jesus will see us even if we climb in a tree? There is so much more to the story than that.

We need to read this story in the context of what came immediately before it. Just before this story, we have Jesus’ encounter with the blind beggar. Then we come to this encounter with a rich tax collector. Two people on opposite sides of the financial spectrum but both meeting Jesus in a powerful way. The mention of Jericho in both stories is a clue that we are to read the stories together. Jesus is not just for poor people, nor is he just for rich people. Jesus is for people.

Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. Not just a tax collector, but a chief tax collector. This meant that he had extra responsibility and likely extra wealth. What was a tax collector? The Romans had taken over the Jewish lands. The main concern for the Romans was that there be a steady stream of tax revenue. Instead of sending in Roman tax collectors who didn’t know the culture, they would hire local people. A tax collector was told by the Romans how much they were required to collect and anything over and above that they were able to keep for themselves. This made them unpopular in two ways, one that they were collecting for the Romans but also the system encouraged corruption. Tax collectors were not popular.

Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus was passing by and wanted to see him. No one needed to convince him to consider Jesus. The problem was that he was unable to see past the crowd. But necessity is the mother of invention and climbed a sycamore tree to see better. His goal was likely to just catch a better glimpse of Jesus. I doubt he considered that Jesus might use this as an opportunity to invite himself over for dinner. But that is what he did. Jesus saw Zacchaeus and didn’t ask but rather informed Zacchaeus that he was coming over for dinner.

It is easy for us to miss out the significance of this. Meals were not just ways to provide nutritional requirements

This message was preached by Dr. Gary Nelson for our 185th anniversary service.

Luke 18:35-43

Introduction

I almost didn’t preach on this passage. The reason for that is that it would be easy to give it a simple reading that Jesus heals the physically blind. We have a number of people in our congregation that are blind. To be honest, I don’t know what it is like to be blind and to hear passages such as this. I remember years ago as a youth pastor, hearing this passage read in church and looking over at a blind girl from our youth group. How did she hear this passage?

I need to say that I do believe that God does heal in certain cases. I am not one to say that all healing stopped after the writing of the Bible. But I believe that physical healing is not as common as we would like it and that when God does it, it is for a specific reason, and not because there is a blanket promise that we would never be sick or never have a disability.

So if this passage is not about all blind people having the hope of physical healing, what is it about? I believe that it is relevant to all of us, whether we are blind or not. I see in this passage important principles about how we are to interact with Jesus.

Curiosity

I have shared in the past my pet peeve about churches not welcoming questions. Too often, Christians have told people to not ask questions, and just to “have faith.” I won’t go too far in that direction, but I will say that an important part of the Christian experience should be curiosity. People have tried to shut down curiosity with such sayings as “curiosity killed the cat.” But every positive advancement in our society has begun with a curious person asking a question.

This is how the experience of how the blind man started. People with disabilities did not have a lot of options when it came to providing for themselves. Unless they had wealthy and generous families, they would have to rely on begging. And to be effective at begging, you need to put yourself in a prominent area with plenty of traffic. The road to Jericho was a good place for this. But even this relatively busy path began to get louder and louder. The blind man asked some people what was happening. He was curious and asked a question.

Think about how different this story would have been if the man was not curious, if he had never asked the question. We need to encourage curiosity. Ask questions. Think outside the box. Some of the greatest Christians in church history were the most curious. People like Martin Luther and John Wesley were not satisfied with the status quo. Their curiosity led to the church improving in significant ways. What questions do we need to be asking?

Faith

Questions are important but so is faith. But what exactly is faith? I have been a part of a few Christian traditions and each have come at it from a different angle. Some have seen faith as belief in theological content. Others have seen faith as an emotional experience. So which is it supposed to be? This story can help us understand.

The blind man called out to Jesus, but he didn’t just say, “Hey you!” The man referred to Jesus as “Son of David.” In doing this, he was not just parroting what the crowd was saying as they described him as Jesus of Nazareth. Why would the man call him Son of David, when we all know he was the son of Joseph? The man probably didn’t know about Joseph, but he recognized Jesus for who he was, the Messiah of God, the promised descendant of King David. There is irony here in that the blind man can see better than any of the people whose eyes worked properly. Calling Jesus the Son of David was demonstrating that there was theological content to his faith. But it didn’t end there.

The man called out to Jesus in such a way that the crowds tried to quiet him. There was emotion to his faith. He felt a sense of desperation and he was putting his hope into this action. This was not a calm theological reflection but a passionate calling out to Jesus.

We need both of these. When we call out to God or Jesus, we need to know who we are talking about.

What a privilege it is for me to be standing here and speaking to you, my church family. Today is a special day, it’s Baptist Women’s Sunday. I haven’t always been a Baptist, but I feel so at home now that I’ve been adopted into this beautiful family of believers. I feel honoured to be asked to share with you today and believe that God has something for all of us, myself included.

For the past couple of years the Canadian Baptist Women of Ontario and Quebec have had a slogan, a focus and its “Come Thirsty, Drink Deeply”. So I decided to talk about what that means to me, in my life and the way that God shows up and draws me to Him.

How many of us have experienced thirst in our lives? I’m pretty sure all of us have, at some point in time, and likely even today you’ve experienced it…maybe right now you’re thinking, I could really go for a nice cold glass of water.

As most of you know, earlier this year I had surgery. And one of the new realities in my life, that I really need to be mindful of, is making sure that I don’t get dehydrated. Water is essential for all living things, water is the largest component in the human body, the healthier you are, the more you have in your body, and the more you need.

Just after surgery I had got up to go for a walk and suddenly my mouth was dry and pasty. I felt lightheaded, dizzy. I had a headache. My mouth was so dry, I couldn’t even speak. No sound would form. I was severely dehydrated, even with my IV, my body needed water.  The only trouble was, that I was given a small medicine cup to drink. One just like this, 15 ml. That’s what I was required to drink on an interval that would increase my tolerance of what my stomach could hold. I can tell you this, it was not satisfying, nor was it getting the job done, which is why I needed the IV.

So there I was, I hadn’t even made it to the door of my room, I was standing at the sink wanting nothing more than a big gigantic drink of water. I was thirsty and I was feeling miserable. And the nurse had to say to me “Amanda, I know you’re thirsty, but if you just drink this small amount, every 15-30 minutes, I promise you, you’ll start to feel better.” In my head I’m thinking, “ya right. can I please just have the big glass. I don’t want it in regular intervals, I want it all and I want it now!” The problem was, I wouldn’t have been satisfied with that, in fact, I would have felt incredibly sick.

Before I became a Christian, I was thirsty. I felt sick from the troubles of this world. I was a very mean and sarcastic teenager. Ya, I grew up going to church, I knew the stories of bible. But it wasn’t real to me. It was something that we did on the weekend. I would be picked up on Sunday mornings by the church bus, they would bring me to Sunday school and then afterwards I would stay in church with my grandparents and I’d be tucked between them and during the service I played with my grandfather’s pocket watch. I went to Christian summer camps and attended youth group as I got older but my faith wasn’t real, because it wasn’t mine yet. I was coasting along on my grandparents faith.

But I was broken. I had suffered some terrible things in my childhood. There were happy times of course, it wasn’t all bad but enough happened that I became very jaded to the world. If you ask Steve about me back then, he would likely say I was the tough one. I didn’t let people in, I didn’t trust people and I didn’t love people. But one day, I finally allowed God in. I knew from the bible that God was waiting for me, it my choice to follow, my choice to believe. And one Sunday night, in the back pew of the church I was attending, God knocked and I finally listened.

There was an alter call after the service. If you are unfamiliar with that, it’s when the pastor calls people forward to be prayed for. And I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a whisper in my ear, felt the breath on my skin.  “it’s your time Amanda, go forward” and I turned around, honestly feeling a bit frust

Luke 18:18-30

Introduction

One of the most frustrating experiences is knowing that someone wants something from you but you don’t know what it is. Expectations without clarity can create tremendous anxiety.

I was once hired as an associate pastor at a church and was told that my job was to make sure that the senior pastor didn’t burnout. But what did that mean? What did they want me to do? How would I know if I was being successful? I was there a year before I could finally negotiate some sort of general job description and list of duties. It was a less than enjoyable time of ministry.

One of the most difficult aspects of being a parent of two children with autism is the communication barriers. Children with autism, like all people, have things that they want or need. However, for some it can be difficult to express what those needs are. Many of the meltdowns that they had were not because they were cranky children but were based on the frustration they experienced of wanting something and not being able to explain that need to us. We felt terrible knowing that they wanted something but we had no idea of what it was.

What does God want from us? Have you ever wondered about that? What if God had certain expectations of us? It would be a problem if we didn’t know exactly what that was. My story includes a period of moving from being an atheist to being a theist, but not yet being a Christian. I was convinced that God existed but I had no idea what he wanted from me. I knew that he wanted something and I was pretty sure I was not what he wanted but I didn’t know what that was. It was a terrible time in my life. I felt frustration about this disconnect between myself and God. If only there was a way to know what God wanted.

I would suggest that the Bible is our way to know what God wants. Of course the Bible is a long book and I’m not suggesting that you have to read every verse from Genesis to Revelation to know what God wants for us. It is in the ministry of Jesus, the one who is both God and human that we find the clearest description for what God wants for us. And we are going to focus on one particular story that nicely presents what God wants. But we might not like the answer.

Rich Young Ruler

Jesus was known for attracting the poor and the rejected of society. But that was not all that were interested in Jesus. People in every area of life, rich or poor, influential or marginal, have very real needs and are looking for answers. That is why the man, whom we have come to know as the rich young ruler. This is actually a combination of descriptions from the different accounts. Only Matthew’s version says that he was young, only Luke’s version says he was a ruler but Matthew, Mark and Luke all agree that he was rich. Notice that this description epitomizes what we value in a person: wealth, youth and influence. If ever there was a person who was coming from a position of strength, it was this man.

This man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. In other words, he wanted to know what God expected of him. Whatever criticism we may have of the rich young ruler, we have to acknowledge that he asked the right question. This is an important question that people have wrestled with for centuries and he was asking the right person. If anyone knew the answer to this question, it would be the Son of God.

We may or may not be surprised at Jesus’ answer. Jesus points toward the Ten Commandments, although he only names five of them. This could suggest that we can find eternal life simply be keeping the Ten Commandments, or at least half of them. However, if we look carefully at Jesus’ conversations with people, he rarely gives straightforward answers. Often Jesus answers a question with a question. So when Jesus mentions these commandments, we should suspect that he has more in mind than simple rule keeping.

The man was not just successful in his public life, he was someone who was successful in his religious l