MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

0:00 You braved the elements to be in church today. Why don't you give yourselves a round of applause for being here? And would you join me in prayer as we get ready to dive into the teaching of the Word of God? Jesus, I thank you for who you are. Thank you that you're in our midst. And because of that, our lives can be changed and transformed. And that's what we desire today. We want to leave differently. We want to leave more like you. Got areas in our lives that need to be challenged. I pray that you would challenge them and our hearts would be open and receptive to what you want to do in our lives today. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody set. Everybody set. Okay, I've got to start by getting something off my chest this morning. And that is that there is a phrase that everybody uses and absolutely nobody means. You've said it. I've said it. We don't mean it. Here's the phrase.

0:52 Make yourself at home. mi casa, su casa. Now I understand the sentiment. It sounds warm, sounds hospitable, even sounds Christian, but we don't mean it. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants a guest that is coming over to their house. Nobody wants them to actually treat it like it's their house. Case in point, if the Kelly family did that at your house, within 13.4 seconds, my two boys would be doing jujitsu with your dog in the living room, like choking it out. My three-year-old daughter would be in your pantry eating every snack you've ever owned. And my wife would be baking sourdough bread on your kitchen counters, singing rather loudly to worship music and flour would be everywhere. And most importantly, I would take full authority and dominion over the thermostat. I would not be asking I would be adjusting because in the Kelly house the thermostat is not a decoration it is my ministry So we say it, but we don't really mean it.

2:06 What we mean is be comfortable within certain boundaries. Like there are certain spaces and places that are off limits. Like that one closet in the guest room where everything just ends up. You know, I don't want you going in there. Maybe don't go up to the attic or the garage. There's some stuff that I don't want you to see. And again, I get it. We don't mean harm by it. We just want to be nice. but we say it in theory and not in reality. And I have this concern that there are many people that do the exact same thing in their relationship with Jesus Christ. We say, make yourself at home in my heart, Lord, but do not act like you own the place. Lord, you've got it all. Oh, but that entertainment choice, that relationship that doesn't honor you, my finances, now don't touch that. So you can come in. But do not try to redecorate, renovate, or recalibrate this space. We want God on our terms.

3:08 And so it looks like, hey, God, you can comfort me, but you cannot correct me. You can forgive me, but you can't form me. And we get to a very dangerous place where we want a savior without any surrender. And it's actually what I believe is the most dangerous place you could ever be in your faith. It's not far from God. It's actually close to him without ever fully surrendering to him, because you'll find yourself in a position in life where you start to admire Jesus rather than truly follow Jesus. Why? Because the cost of following him is too high. So I'm going to watch from a distance and admire because again, following him means he calls the shots. He takes the lead. He doesn't just get an invite to the house. He gets the keys to the house. There's an obvious problem with that. And that is when Jesus came to earth, he didn't say, come and admire me. He said, come and follow me.

4:18 my wife and I have been married for 10 and a half years. We've got a decade under our belt. That feels weird to say. We don't do it for the applause. Sam, stop it. 10 and a half years, December 30th, 2015 is the day that we got married. I want you to imagine for a moment with me that when we got married, the only thing that changed was my wife's last name, Laurie Young Kelly. We didn't build a house together. We didn't build a family together. We didn't join bank accounts. Some of you guys are like, are you supposed to do that? That's another message. We'll talk about that at another time. But imagine, imagine if the elect sincerely, the only thing that changed was her last name. That, that wouldn't just be weird. I'd be missing out on the best parts of marriage. And yet I am concerned that for many Christians, when they become a Christian, the only thing that's changed in their life is the title. The fact that they call themselves a Christian. That's not just weird. You're missing out on the best part of a relationship with Jesus. Because in our marriage, while I look back to December 30th, 2015, with great and fond memories, the best part of our marriage wasn't just the wedding day.

5:31 It's doing life alongside of the woman that I cherish every single day. The same is true with your relationship with Jesus. It's not just the day you prayed the prayer. It's the reality that you get to walk in step in communion with the God that created you and his spirit dwells with inside of you and is a help and an advocate for your life. And so again, I just have this concern that maybe there's this version of Christianity that has been made that you can show up, sit in a seat, sing some songs, say you believe in something and still stay in full control of your life. that's not Christianity and what it turns into is this self-centered view of a relationship with God where you walk into rooms and as worship starts you're like I didn't really feel it today it's like the goal of worship is not for you to feel something it's for him to get absolutely everything and what I'm trying to help us understand this morning is that following Jesus is an all of life way of life.

6:40 It's the old preacher cliche. He's either Lord of all or not Lord at all. And I'm not saying that you surrender perfectly. Obviously, we are choosing progress over perfection. But what I am saying is that you have a heart posture that says, God, you have access to every room of my life. Here's why. Because I trust, I know that what you will build with my life is far better than what I would build on my own. Which is why Jesus, when essentially summing up what it looks like to be a follower of him, in Mark chapter 12, 30 and 31, says this. Love the Lord your God with all. Somebody say all. All your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this.

7:32 Love your neighbor as yourself. there is no greater commandment than these. Now, I don't know about you, but there's one word in there that makes this rather challenging, and it's that word all. Like, wouldn't it be great if he was like some or most? I can crush some. I can even crush most. But it's all. The call to Christ is all. And so I believe one of the greatest battles of our Christian faith is the gap between some and all. The call is all to Christ. and we are all growing on this journey of giving him every room, but I'm here to tell you, if you're not stepping into this reality of going, God, you've got it all, you will find yourself in a place you don't wanna be. I think a practical way to see this is if you were to think of a pie chart of your life, it might look something like this. So you've got your faith, you've got family, friendships, hobbies, work, finances, marriage, relationships, you could put some other things in there, but I think sometimes we get it twisted.

8:31 I think sometimes we think the goal of Christianity is like, I'm going to fight to make the faith slice, the biggest slice of my life. Like, what if I got it to 50%? Like, people would look at me and be like, wow, he prays a lot and he reads his Bible and faith is such a big part of his life. It's like, I don't know, it's 51%. It's the majority of his life. That's not the goal because nowhere in scripture does it teach us that our faith should be severed and separated from other aspects of our life. I think the real picture looks something like this, where faith becomes the crust of the pie that holds the whole thing together. So my faith informs my finances. My faith informs my family. My faith informs the friendships that I do and don't have. My faith informs my hobbies. My faith informs the way that I work. In other words, he has every room and piece of your life. He gets the whole house.

9:28 There's this amazing story in John chapter six for time's sake. We're not going to change. We're not going to go there, but it's the story. Many of you have heard of where Jesus feeds 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish, pretty wild stuff. And there's this, there's this section of scripture. Obviously, like after that happens, people are like, I'm following that guy. That was awesome. And then off the heels of that, Jesus starts to teach some harder teachings. and scripture literally says they started leaving by the multitudes and Jesus turns to his disciples looks at him and says what about you? you're going to leave as well? and Peter, classic Peter, looks at him and goes where are we going to go?

10:13 we've essentially left it all we really hope you're the guy we're staying here so think about this for a moment 5,000 people hanging out for the miracle. Then he starts teaching and they start leaving by the multitudes. He's got 12 disciples. How many go with him into the garden of Gethsemane? Three. By the time he's hanging on the cross, scripture records there's one disciple present. What does that teach us? The closer you get to the cross, the smaller the crowd becomes. why because the higher surrender is required which brings us to today's encounter we are in week two of a three-week series called encounters the tagline is the power of a divine interruption we're looking at different characters that have encountered Jesus Christ and we're seeing that these divine interruptions aren't just interruptions they're actually divine invitations. And the goal is, as we look at these different stories, the goal is that we would have an encounter with Christ on our own, that we would see divine interruptions take place and we would see them as a divine invitation and we would accept the divine invitation. So last week we talked about Mary and Martha, the fact that it's possibly around Jesus, but not actually be with him. And today we're going to look at one of the saddest encounters, I think that is in all of the gospels. It is the one person to my understanding that comes to Jesus and leaves worse off than he came known as the rich young ruler. We know that he's young because Matthew's gospel records that.

11:58 We know that he's a ruler because Luke's gospel record that and Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that he's rich. So if you've got your Bibles, turn with me to Mark chapter 10. we're going to read verse 17 to 27 11 verses so those of you with short attention spans I believe in you so much here we go 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 why do you call me good jesus answered no one is good except god alone it's important to note here jesus is not denying his divinity He's pressing his definition of good. We'll come back to that. You know the commandments.

12:52 Shall not murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't give false testimony. Don't fraud. Honor your father and mother. He's reciting six of the 10 commandments. Teacher, he declared, all of these I have kept since I was a boy. Verse 21. Jesus looked at him and loved him and then said, one thing you lack. Go sell everything you have and give to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. Don't worry, the point of this sermon is not for you to sell everything. You can exhale.

13:32 The nervous laugh. I'll keep going. At this, the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around, listened to this sentence, said to his disciples, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Here's what I find funny. We read that sentence and everybody thinks of someone richer than themselves. but here's what we need to know this morning. If you've got a roof over your head, a phone in your pocket, and you know where you're eating lunch today, you're in the top 1% of wealth globally. That sentence is speaking to you and it's speaking to me. Ouch. Verse 24. The disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said it again. Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

14:31 Jesus is on purpose speaking to the largest animal in the Middle East, and he is making a point. It's impossible for this to happen by yourself. We keep reading in verse 26. The disciples were even more amazed, I love this, and said to each other, well, then who then can be saved? Like, who gets in? Because in this context, wealth was a picture of the favor of God. And so they're looking at this guy like, I don't, he's like, he's a good person. He's got the favor of God. Like if he doesn't get in, who does? And I think they're kind of thinking like, what about us? And then Jesus continues. He said, with man, this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. I love this text because I think most people first read this and they're like, okay, Jesus wants us to be poor and broke noted. And that's not the goal of the text at all. There are so many areas and avenues that we could dive into, but for time's sake, we're just going to take a look at three. But before we dive into those observations, one very important thing should be noted.

15:40 This man ran to Jesus and now why does that matter in that culture and context, a man of that stature and status would never run. It would be a form of embarrassment to do so, which tells you and I that he is sincere and desperate. He's aware enough to know I've got a lot of stuff, but I don't know if I have life. And so he comes to the right person and almost asks the right question. But I think that resonates with a lot of people because you can have a lot and still know something's missing. I think it was Jim Carrey that said, I wish everyone could get rich and famous so that they could find out it's not the answer.

16:25 And now some of us think, yeah, but at least you got to try, you know. But we all know it to be true. And here's how. Because right now, someone in the world is convinced that if they had what you had, they'd be fully satisfied. And you know something they don't. It doesn't do it, does it? it doesn't even promise happiness let alone full satisfaction so this man runs he's desperate and he kneels and he says this what do I have to do to get eternal life this guy's life has worked this way his entire life tell me what lever to pull I'll pull it and I get the outcome I want and Jesus is like, okay, look at the 10 commandments. Essentially what he's saying is be perfect.

17:21 The guy's like, I've done those things, which is why the start of the text, Jesus presses back on his definition of good. This is what we have to hear this morning. Jesus is saying to you and to the rich young ruler, your good isn't good enough. Observation number one, you can be morally impressive and still spiritually bankrupt. this is one of the most shocking pieces of the text. He's not a bad guy. He's a good guy. Like he's not a prodigal. He's not a thief. He's not a moral. He's the kind of guy you'd want your daughter to date. Like rich, young ruler, good person. Yeah, sign her up.

18:04 Externally, he's winning in every metric, but internally he knows something is missing. And Jesus brings a vital truth to us all. here today. Your good is not good enough. There is none good, but God. Why does that matter? Because the vast majority of Americans think that heaven is where the good people go and hell is where the bad people go. And what they are carrying along with those assumptions are I'm good. And so is everybody I love. And the easiest way to dismantle that reality is to ask them questions like this. Okay, well, how good is good enough? Who's the judge? Who determines? And does it sound like a good and loving God to leave your eternal state up into a guessing game, crossing your fingers at the end of your life? I hope I did enough. No, the Bible comes to burst your bubble today. You're not good. No one is good, but God. Jesus says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven. What's he saying? It's impossible for you to do it by yourself. Verse 26, impossible with man, but possible with God. He's pointing to the cross of Christ that is to come because good people don't go to heaven. God's people do. Those who trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, where he bore your sin and my sin, and we get to receive the life he deserved. Those are the people who inherit eternal life. Second observation. Jesus didn't ask him to give up his money.

20:00 he asked him to give up his God. the problem isn't that he had possessions. The problem was his possessions possessed him. Hear me today so clearly. He was convinced what money offered was better than what Jesus offers because he was looking through the lens of the temporary, the now and not the eternal. Imagine for a moment, you're traveling somewhere and you go pick up a rental car. Maybe it's a Toyota 4Runner. Some of you guys are like, I only rent Suburbans. Okay, have it your way.

20:51 You get the Suburban. So you're driving this thing and you're driving it and you've got to do some work stuff. But before you do, you've got some time to kill and you're driving the car and you're like, man, I feel like this car could be a little cooler. So you take it to the auto shop and you pull up and you're like, Hey, find the owner. I want to talk to him. The owner comes out and you're like, Hey, here's the deal. Um, I want my car to be cooler. In fact, can you, I just, can you pin my ride? Like I want it. I want it matte black wrapped. I want 22s. I want them black. I want it murdered out. I want it tinted. I want the sound system and I want the AC in the seats. That's blowing cool air at your back. I want it all. Now I'm sure the owner of the auto shop would take your money, but chances are he'd probably look out and be like, hey, dude, there's a Hertz logo on that thing. Like you really want to spend that much money on something that's temporary. and hear me today, we live in a world that is obsessed with treating temporary things as if they're eternal and treating eternal things as if they're irrelevant. Don't make that mistake. I'm not here to tell you, you can't enjoy your stuff. I'm just telling you to keep it in the proper perspective that it is a temporary and be a gift from God. So the question we have to answer today is what have you convinced yourself is better than what Jesus offers?

22:21 Take a moment to sincerely answer the question. What room in the house of your life have you yet to give to Christ. For some of you, it may be money. That may be it. It's become a God, lowercase g in your life. And the easiest way to stop that and break that is begin to tithe, bringing the first 10% of what you earn. Why? Because it tells God, I understand this is a gift. It is not my God. For others, it may be sex on your terms, not on God's terms. came across a statistic this week. 65 to 70% of young adult Christians move in together before getting married. It's almost the exact same statistic for people who aren't Christians. And I love all of the, the, the, the excuses that get lobbed at this idea. Like, well, we're not going to sleep together. It's like, okay, well you got two options. Either a, you're not attracted to each other or be you're lying. Neither of those are good options.

23:24 and hear me so clearly today. If you're, you thought, if you find yourself in that situation, I'm not here to lob shame on you. I'm here to tell you there's a better way. The problem isn't that we don't know what scripture says. The problem is that many are convinced that God's way isn't better. And I'm here to tell you it is easier. No better. You better believe it. every heart has a throne one of the best things you can do with your life is decipher who or what is sitting on that throne and I'm sure in a room here at fellowship church and our various locations all of us would be like God is but if we took an honest assessment do our lives actually reflect it here are four questions that I think if you answer honestly before the Lord, you can start to assess what those things that might creep up and try to sit on your throne is. Question number one, what do I think about the most when I'm not doing anything?

24:31 Question number two, what am I most afraid of losing? Question number three, what do I sacrifice the most for? Question number four, who or what gets the final say in my decisions? last observation.

24:53 Jesus loved him enough to challenge him. Jesus loved him. So he challenged him. Verse 21, Jesus looked at him and loved him and then challenged him. And that order matters because maybe here this morning, some toes feel stepped on minded in preparation for this message. you have to understand that correction is not the absence of love. It's the evidence of love. We live in a world that says, if you love me, you'll affirm me. Jesus says, no, no, no, no. If I love you, I'll correct you. And, and parents know this coaches know this and God knows this. here's the tragedy of the text the rich young ruler walks Jesus didn't chase him he didn't lower the standard oh just 50% of it he let him walk C.S. Lewis says in the end there are two types of people those who say Lord thy will be done and those to whom God says, okay, have it your way.

26:16 Don't let your story end in sadness. Don't let it, because I'm here to tell you, Jesus will not settle for being a guest in a house that he died to own. and I had a moment this week where I was thinking about this rich young ruler and this sounds weird probably is weird but I like prayed I was like I hope this young man heard that the guy he walked away from died for him so that he could do what he couldn't do with his money with his influence and with his morality and I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Scripture doesn't tell us, but I stand on this stage today to say, don't make the same mistake. Don't walk away. Will it cost you something? You better believe it. Is it worth it? You better believe it.

27:32 so what's the divine invitation this morning here it is can we all be people who say to Christ make yourself at home and actually mean it if you do you won't regret it let's pray maybe you're here and you have yet to submit your life to Jesus Christ, to receive the free gift that he offers and to not just make him savior, but to make him Lord. I'd love to lead you in a prayer to do exactly that. You don't have to say it out loud. Just say it in the confines of your heart. Say, Jesus, today I admit the obvious. I'm not good. And you are, I believe you are who you said you are. She died on the cross for my sin. Three days later, rose again from the grave.

28:26 Today I choose to follow you and I choose to say, make yourself at home. I give you access to every aspect of my life. Lord, I pray for every single person sitting under the sound of my voice this morning. I pray that our stories wouldn't end in sadness. I pray that our stories would end in surrender because your way is better. Lord, make yourself at home in our lives. We ask all these things in your son's name. Everybody set.