May 1, 2005, Lesson: Matthew 19.16-22

Sermon Title: What must I Do to Have Eternal Life?

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INTRODUCTION

  1. Pastor Joel Osteen, Lakewood Central Church, Houston Texas, likes to begin his sermons with a humorous story.

    1. The service becomes serious as Pastor Joel then leads the congregation in the following confession:

This is my Bible.
I am what it says I am.
I have what it says I have.
I can do what it says I can do.
Today I will be taught the Word of God.
I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive.
I will never be the same.
I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of the Word of God.
I will never be the same.
Never, never, never.
I will never be the same. In Jesus name.
Amen.

    1. The humor, I have noticed often has little to do with the message of the time.

  1. I also like to use humor, but I attempt to tie it in with the message of the morning.

    1. The sermon title this morning is "What must I Do to Have Eternal Life?"

    2. The description in the newsletter and in this morning's bulletin reads: "It's all about orientation. It takes a compass and the right bearing. The direction you choose may lead to life or disaster."

      1. This is true.

      2. I now wish that after a bit of study, that I had written a different description. The one that this sermon ought to have is reflected in a rock and roll song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones: I Can't Get No Satisfaction."

    3. The basic meaning and message of the lesson is about satisfaction.

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MAIN BODY

  1. There are ways in which there is no satisfaction.

    1. You cannot achieve satisfaction from a critic.

Art Interpretation (1)

Liz goes to her first show at an art gallery and is looking at the paintings.

One is a huge canvas that has black with yellow blobs of paint splattered all over it.

The next painting is a murky gray color that has drips of purple paint streaked across it.

Liz walks over to the artist and says, "I don't understand your paintings."

"I paint what I feel inside me," explains the artist.

"Have you ever tried Alka-Seltzer?"

      1. You cannot paint to please people.

      2. The artist continues to paint by what he sees and feels inside.

      3. You can only hope that your paintings are pleasing to people.

      4. Otherwise, you can't get no satisfaction.

    1. You cannot get satisfaction when you attempt, at your own expense, to satisfy other people or organizations.

Food Confusion (2)

There was a farmer who had many pigs. One day someone went to the farm and asked the farmer: "What do you use to feed your pigs?"

"Well, I give them acorn, corn, and things like that. Why?"

"Because I am from the Animals Protection Association and I think you don't feed them like you should, they shouldn't eat wastes." Then he fined the farmer.

Some days later, another person arrived and asked the same question. The farmer answered: "Well, I feed them very well. I give them salmon, caviar, shrimp, steak... why?"

"Because I am from the United Nations Organization and I think it's unfair that you feed your pigs like that when there are people dying with nothing to eat." And he fined the farmer.

Finally, another man came in and asked just the same question. The hesitant farmer answered after a few minutes: "Well, I give five dollars to each pig so they can buy whatever they want."

      1. Talk about confusion.

      2. The pig farmer needs to establish the criteria.

      3. He needs to stand up for his rights.

      4. He can't get no satisfaction.

    1. You cannot get satisfaction by crying over missteps.

Stupidest Thing I've Ever Done (3)

Tiring of the inconvenience of the drive from airport to country cottage, a man equipped his small plane with pontoons so he could land on the lake directly in front of his cottage.

On his next trip, he made his approach down the airport runway as usual. Alarmed, his wife cried out, "Are you crazy? You can't land this plane here without wheels!"

The startled husband abruptly yanked the nose up, narrowly averting certain disaster. Continuing, he landed the plane on the lake without mishap. As he sat there, visibly shaken he said to his wife, "I don't know what got into me. That's the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life!"

And with that, he opened the door and stepped out, falling into the water.

      1. He has no one to blame but his wife.

      2. Its his own fault.

      3. You can only laugh and change into some dry clothes.

      4. This is the only way to get satisfaction.

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  1. Satisfaction is developed by having an understandable and acceptable understanding of yourself.

    1. In the 60's the United Methodist Church developed an adult Bible study curriculum that I found very satisfying and rewarding.

      1. The first series is titled, "Man's Search for A Meaningful Faith," written by Robert C. Leslie, a pastor and psychologist.

      2. He uses to pieces of illustration to help us explore and understand the meaning of satisfaction.

    2. The first is a poem:

Richard Cory (4)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him;
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king--
And admirably schooled in every grace;
In fine, we thought that he was every thing
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

      1. Richard Cory had everything except satisfaction.

        1. He dressed nicely.

        2. He was gracious and well-mannered.

        3. He had acquired wealth.

        4. He was someone to be envied.

        5. The last stanza of the poem is so important and significant.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

      1. He is not according to the poem a religious person.

      2. So, he had enough, but not enough.

    1. The second illustration is another poem:

"Rich Young Ruler" (5)

"What must I do, master, to gain
eternal life?
From my youth I have kept the Commandments,
Honoured my parents;
Theft, murder, lying, adultery--
All these
By God's mercy have passed me by.
What then must I do, master?
What more must I do?"
"Sell all," he replied, "And follow me."
An easy saying.
He, a carpenter, a carpenter's son,
Sacrificed nothing.
And his man Peter--smirking, self-righteous--
What did he lose
But some worn nets, a boat-share,
And trade in the market?
It wasn't myself I was thinking of--
Ease and possessions--
But the responsibility of wealth
Towards its dependents.
What of them, if I had obeyed him--
What of my servants?
That's what I tell myself, now--
But do I believe it?
Then--silent--I walked away,
Watching my sandals,
While his voice, the voice of my heart,
Followed me homeward.
In misery, I stopped by the lake.
Hid by the crowd-wall,
I heard him speak of the Kingdom of God,
The camel, the needle.

      1. He has come to be identified as the "rich, young ruler."

      2. He is a religious person, but he is dissatisfied.

      3. There is an empty place in his life.

      4. It is an empty place that can be filled if he is willing.

    1. To search for satisfaction is nothing new.

      1. The rich young man comes to Jesus and asks, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

        1. This is a story of a man who had nearly everything--but found no satisfaction in what he had.

        2. If he were to ask his question today, it would more likely be:

          1. "What must I do to find meaning in daily life?

          2. How can I get out of the rut in which nothing really seems to satisfy me?

          3. How can I live the kind of life that would be worth living forever?"

      2. If you read closely the conversation between the man and Jesus, you will see that Jesus offers him an answer to his longing.

        1. Jesus speaks in the context and understanding of the man's life and religious experience.

        2. This is why there is reference to the commandments rather than to the sermon on the mount.

        3. If we were to ask this question today, we would get a different response.

      3. What is Jesus really asking this man to do?

        1. Jesus is not really asking the man to give up he wealth, but to give up his dependance on his wealth.

        2. Jesus is not asking him to sell off his servants, he is asking him to see them in a different way.

        3. Jesus is not asking him to give up his seat in the board of directors of the temple, he is asking him to change the orientation of his life from things to people.

      4. For the rich young ruler, the drastic change from a thing-orientated world to a person-orientated world was more than he was willing to attempt. "His face fell and he went away with a heavy heart," (Mark 10.22, NEB).

      5. Part of the tragedy in the life of the rich young ruler was that he couldn't accept the invitation of Jesus to become one of the disciples.

        1. In that choice company he would have been supported in his search for a new pattern of life.

        2. Jesus did more than just challenge him to get rid of the things that stood in the way of personal relationships.

        3. He offered the opportunity of fellowship: "Come, follow me."

        4. But the rich young man couldn't risk a break with the patterns that had brought such financial security.

        5. Having sought meaning through the acquiring of things, he could not risk seeking meaning in persons.

        6. His faith is not strong enough to accept such a radical change.

    2. It is this radical change in life to which Jesus calls each of us.

    3. Jesus knows that we cannot find satisfaction with part of the gospel, we must have it all.

Debbi Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields Cookies, wrote in her book One Smart Cookie that she walked into one of her stores unannounced (a common practice of hers) and noticed "a very unhappy-looking batch of cookies laid out for her customers." (6)

"They were flat and over-baked. A perfect Mrs. Fields Cookie is one-half inch in thickness, and these were one-quarter inch. A perfect Mrs. Fields cookie is three inches in diameter, and these appeared to measure three and one-quarter inches. They were also a little more golden-brown than they should have been."

The cookies were only off by one- quarter inch in each direction - a quarter of an inch! But what really hammered home the importance of detail, and reinforced the underlying Mrs. Fields philosophy, was the way she handled the situation.

She could have fired the store manager on the spot, which she didn't do. She could have sent out a corporate memo reemphasizing proper cookie size and color, but she didn't do that either. She did something much more powerful and symbolic:

"I turned to the young man standing next to me and said, 'Tell me, what do you think of these cookies?'

"'Aw,' he said, 'they're good enough.'

"I nodded. I had my answer. One tray at a time, I took the cookies - five or six hundred dollars' worth - and slid them gently into the garbage can. 'You know,' I said to him, 'good enough never is.'"

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  1. Having it all is to have in the words of Joseph Conrad both the plates and the rivets.

Joseph Conrad has a short novel called Heart of Darkness which is an account of a journey into the dark depth of a man's life.

In this story a river boat breaks down far up a river in the Congo and needs some major repairs.

Marlowe, the hero of the book, is trying to make the repairs.

He is terrible frustrated. Although he has the plates that are needed to repair the body of the ship, he has no rivets at all.

He discovers that the plates, by themselves, are worthless.

    1. Religion can be thought of as being that force in life that takes individual experiences and rivets them together into a meaningful whole.

    2. Jesus, if I may use this metaphor is the rivets.

      1. The rivets are the basic and fundamental building blocks.

      2. Paul writes in Galatians 5.22-24

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

      1. We are in Galatians 6.7-9

        1. To recognize that we reap what we sow.

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.

        1. We will become tired.

        2. We are not to become weary.

        3. We are to take time to rest.

        4. We are not to give up.

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CONCLUSION

  1. Jesus provides for our ever spiritual necessity.

    1. We may not always see the way.

    2. We take to heart the words that were written in "The Gate of the Year by M. Louise Haskins

And I said to the man who stood by the gate of the year:
"Give me a light, that I might tread safely into
the unknown."
And he replied:
"Go out into the darkness and put
your hand in the Hand of God.
That shall be to
you better than light, and safer than a known way." (7)

1. Thanks to Pastor Tim for this joke! You Make Me Laugh [You_Make_Me_Laugh@crosswalkmail.com]

2. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

3. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

4. "Richard Cory," from The Children of Night, by Edwin Arlington Robinson (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897) p. 124

5. "The Rich Young Ruler," in Witness and Other Poems, by Clive Sansom (London: Methuen and Company, 1956) pp. 29-30.

6. Debbi Fields and Alan Furst, One Smart Cookie: How a Housewife's Chocolate Chip Cookie Turned into a Multimillion-Dollar Business: The Story of Mrs. Fields Cookies (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 132.

7. From "The Gate of the Year by M. Louise Haskins in Masterpieces of Religious Verse, edited by James Dalton Morrison (Harper and Row, 1948), page 92.

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