Charles Stanley - Is Something Missing in Your Life?
When you think about your life, what would you change if you had the privilege of changing anything, what would you change? Would you change your income? Your health? Your job, your profession? Would you change where you live, what you drive? Would you change who you're married to? That would be dangerous. Would you change where you live? Would you change some areas of your life that are personal and private? What would you change in your life, if you could just change something, or if you feel the need to change something because something's missing? Maybe you don't know what it is, but deep down inside something's missing. Because you have a good job, maybe. You have a good income. You like where you live. You've got good health; happily married maybe. And so on and on you go but there's something hanging out there that you can't put your finger on. Something's missing.
Well, that's what our passage of scripture's all about, somebody who had it all, and yet something was missing. So I want to encourage you to listen carefully and to turn in your Bible to Mark, chapter ten. And I want us to read these verses. And I want to give you a little something right of front. Sometimes people read this passage of scripture and they say, Well that doesn't apply to me because I'm not a rich person. Well, you don't know whether that applies to you or not till you listen. And so, I want to encourage you to listen carefully because there are messages from this passage of scripture maybe you've never seen.
And I can tell you one thing: there is a message here for everybody, everybody. And it just may be that you're one of those persons who wants a change in your life and you can't figure out what it is. It just might be that you figure out what it is in this particular passage. So, let's begin and let me say right up front, in your Bible in this passage there's probably in dark, a little bit larger print a title called the Rich Young Ruler. But if you read that passage, you say, Well, where is that in here? And in Matthew, he's called a young man. In Mark, this fellow's called a man. And in Luke, he's called a certain ruler. So we have a certain, or a rich young ruler. That's however they get that title.
So let's begin in this tenth, seventeenth verse of the tenth chapter, "As He was setting out on a journey," Jesus that is, "a man ran up to Him and knelt down before Him, and asked Him, 'Good Teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, "Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother".' And he said to Him, 'Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.' Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and He said to him, 'One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.' But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieved, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, 'How hard it is, and how hard it will be for those who are wealthy to inherit the kingdom of God!' The disciples were amazed at these words but Jesus answered again and said to them, '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 a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' They were even more astonished and said to Him, 'Then who can be saved?' Looking at them, Jesus said, 'With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.'"
Now, you look at that passage and you say, Well, you know, I'm not rich. I don't know what in the world that has to do with me. Well, let me just say right up front you can have everything the world has to offer. You can have it all and yet something missing in your life. And this is where many people are. They have it all; and yet there's something out there that sort of gnaws at them. It just sort of hangs in there. It won't go away, some need that they have. And so, when you think about this young man, the scripture says he was rich, he was young, and let's say he was healthy and he was a ruler. So think about this. Isn't this what most people, this generation, younger folks coming along, what do they want? They want riches. They want some authority, some power, some position. And they want to be able to get along in life and they want it usually pretty fast and they want it to come their way while they're young. And there's nothing wrong with having desires for your life. But what do those desires do in your life when they become fruition?
And so, the scripture says he was a rich young ruler and he had all that you'd think he would possibly need, all he thought he needed, rich, young and authority; position in life. And so, it sounds like he lived in the twenty-first century. So if I were to ask you, Would you like to be rich, young and have position? If you were honest, most of you would raise your hand. Well, is there anything wrong with being rich, young and having position? No, there's not. You see, the truth is we are not thinking properly about life, and we're short-sighted, if we think gold, money and so forth's going to satisfy us, position and good health and opportunities are going to satisfy us, there's still going to be something missing. It was true in this young man's life in the scripture and it's true in life.
And this is why people go from one marriage to the next. That's why they drink and drink and drink, trying to satisfy something they can't fulfill. This is why they get on drugs; and we could just go right down the list of all the things that people do to do what? To get that missing thing and to get that fulfilled somehow. And what they do is they get in deep trouble trying to fill up an area of their life that only Jesus can fill up, only He can do it, because God made us for Himself. And He made every single human being for a place, or for Jesus to be in their life. And the fool thinks in his or her heart, I'm going to get it filled up without Him. And they spend their life accumulating, spending their energy and their time and their efforts and their knowledge and understanding, doing their best to accumulate these things in order to have this feeling of being complete.
So turn to First John, if you will, And listen to these words of John in the second chapter of this first epistle, the fifteenth verse, he says, "Do not love the world," that is, somebody says, What does he mean by the world? The world system. For example, the world system in which you and I live, look at it. It's all about material things. It isn't about love. It isn't about helping each other. It isn't about building up one another. It's not about forgiving each other. It's get, get, get, get, get; me, myself and I. What can I get? What can I acquire in life? He says, "Do not love the world system nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him". Now that doesn't mean that you can't have things, but we're not to love things. We're to be grateful for whatever God gives us, but our love must not be directed toward things that we could lose in a moment.
And you see, when people spend their life accumulating things they can't keep, that cannot satisfy them, they end up being disappointed. And this is why they go from one situation, another situation, 'nother situation in life, whether it's marriage or job or whatever it might be, trying to fill up something that cannot be filled. The second lesson I want us to notice is this. That our love and desire for material things can cause us to miss the most important thing in life. People don't realize that money is dangerous. Somebody says, Well, what could be dangerous about money? It's what it does. It's the attitude people have, that if I have enough money, I can go where I want to go, do what I want to do, marry who I want to marry, wear what I want to wear, drive what I want to drive, live where I want to live, eat where I want to eat, and on, and on, and on it goes. That may be some of the things that money can do, but that doesn't satisfy you.
But think about this. You can have all the money in the world you want; if you don't have good health, you can't buy it. If you're not, listen. If you don't have anybody to love, you can't buy it. If you don't have anyone who loves you, you can't buy it. In other words, you can't buy peace, joy, happiness, contentment; and you certainly cannot buy eternal life. Money can do some things; it can do many good things in the right hands. But it can't satisfy the longing of your soul. It can't satisfy the longing of your heart. It can't satisfy that which God has placed in you that only He can fill; and that is a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus. You may be one of those very, very wealthy persons. You have it all. You have the prestige and the prominence and the popularity and the position, the power. You have the money, you can buy anything you want, go anywhere you want to go. But deep down inside there's something missing. And that something that's missing is a personal relationship with the Son of God.
And this young man had all of it. You could say, Well, what is it that you need? He didn't need anything. He had everything. But if you'll notice, he'd become so desperate when he heard about Jesus, the Bible says this young man ran to him and fell on his knees. Somebody told him, Here's the man who can satisfy the longing of your heart. Here's the man who can give you eternal life. And he ran to Jesus. And in those days, running in public was sort of a, if you had any dignity at all, you didn't run in public. He's running to Jesus, falling down before Him and what's happening? He simply says to Him, "He asked Him, 'Good Teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'"
So, that in spite of all he had and all he was and all his relationships he finally discovered that what he didn't have was the one thing his money couldn't buy. His popularity couldn't provide for him. And none of his efforts seemed to make any difference. He desired eternal life. So he comes running to Jesus and, and says to Him, you know, "What can I do to inherit eternal life"? And I would say to you, The gift of eternal life is not the result of our good works. In other words, you don't get there by good conduct. And if you'll notice how Jesus approached this. So, He didn't condemn him, when He said to him, He said, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life"?
And look what Jesus does. He begins with the commandments. He skips the first four about loving God and so forth; and the Sabbath, He skips those. And then He skips the last one. And then He says to him, He says, "You know the commandments". He starts out with, "Do not murder". See, He's just talked about how he lived. He says, "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.' And he said to Him, 'Well teacher, I have done all these things all of my life, ugh!'" Well, then if that's it, why don't I have any peace and joy and why am I running to You and kneeling down before You and asking, "What can I do to inherit eternal life"? Because I've done all these things.
Well, notice Jesus didn't say, Thou shall not covet at the end. He skipped the first four and the last one, because Jesus knew what his problem was. He was very wealthy. And so he says, "I have kept all these things from my youth up". Then what he was expecting Jesus to say, well, if you've done all those things, you can have the gift of eternal life. But Jesus didn't tell him that. And so the scripture says that "Jesus looked at him and felt a love for him and said to him, 'One thing you lack: There's something missing in your life. Go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.'" Watch this, He didn't condemn him; He loved him because He knew he was totally deceived. He thought that all this he'd accumulated and all the good reputation he had would get him into heaven.
And when Jesus gave him the Commandments and was bringing him to the point to realize there was sin in his life, he just, watch what happens. The Scripture says, "Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, 'One thing you lacked: go and sell all your possessions, give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.'" Now let's clarify one thing. That's not the way you get saved. In other words, he's not saying if you give all this, you'll get saved. What he was dealing with here is this fact the sin in his life, this covetousness that he was depending on all of this to save him. And he's simply saying here's what you do.
Now does that mean in order to be saved, or that Jesus meant in order to be saved, sell everything you got, give to the poor? No, because, watch this, this was an incident. This was one occasion in which what he needed to deal with his covetousness and his sin, and his understanding was that the thing that stood between him and salvation was his greed, his covetous spirit, his dependence on material things rather than upon God. So in this given occasion for him, salvation meant look you're not going to get there by earning it. You've got to get there by surrendering everything to Me and trusting Me as your Savior. And so, what did he do? He absolutely turned down eternal life. Listen, he tried to hold onto something he couldn't keep, when he could have had something he couldn't lose.
And so, people don't realize if they spend their time trying to accumulate this that and the other to get peace and happiness and satisfaction, they'll end up missing the very thing that they spent their life trying to receive. Because you just see, to some people it's a prideful issue, you mean to tell me, and I've had people tell me, You mean to tell me that all I have to do is accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior? What else am I supposed to do? I said nothing. No, no, no. They can't accept it. You know why they can't accept it? It's pride and here's the pride, listen, I must do something in order to be saved. You see that's absolute pride. They want to do something that they think to take credit for in order to be saved.
No, when I was twelve years of age, I didn't have anything to take credit for. And no matter who you are whenever you were saved, you and I came as sinners and asked the Lord Jesus Christ to save us by His grace and love and mercy, not on the basis of anything we'd done, going to do, had, going to give, have given, nothing. And that's the wonderful thing about salvation. It is a gift of God, it is not something that you and I own. So, Jesus loves us even when we make the wrong choices. The Bible says that Jesus looked at him and loved him for he said, "Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, 'One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess, give it to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven; come, follow Me.'
These words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, 'How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!'" He says it's hard. Why? Because what they own becomes their security and the truth is they don't think beyond this life. Death, when death comes, listen, it doesn't make any difference how old you are or how long you've lived, how much you own. Life is very insecure. Everything around us is changing but one thing, our personal relationship with Jesus Christ has settled once and for all when we die, we will be with Him. And then if you'll notice in this passage, Jesus acknowledges that it's very difficult for wealthy people to get to heaven. He makes it, listen, he makes it very clear. Listen to what He says. He said in verse twenty-four; "Well, Jesus, looking around Him," in verse twenty-three, "looking around Him, He said to His disciples, 'How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!'"
You know what? Listen. That's a warning. How difficult it is for very wealthy people to get to heaven, "The disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, '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 a rich man enter the kingdom of God.' They were even more astonished and said, 'Then who can be saved?'" Listen to what Jesus said, "Looking at them, Jesus said, 'With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.'"
And so, you think about this. If you're one of those persons who's very, very, very wealthy, it doesn't mean that you've sinned to get that way. And you've trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, He's blessed you. But remember this. You are very, very, very blessed. You are saved because God saved you. God worked in your life in such a fashion to open your eyes and your heart, and to get you to confess your sins and receive Him as your personal Savior. He says, Only God can get a rich man into heaven. That's how hard it is. But what does wealth do? It gives people a sense of false security. I have this much and that much and that much and that much. And I give this much and I give that much and I give the other, but listen. Whatever it may be, you're still betting on the fact that what you're giving to God and what you're giving to the church, and what you're giving, giving, giving is going to atone for your sin. The only thing that'll atone for your sin is the blood of Jesus.
When He went to the cross, He went to the cross because that was the only way that a person can be saved. Jesus shed His blood for the sin of all mankind, which makes it possible for anybody and everybody, rich and poor, whoever it might be, to go to heaven. It just so happens that those who are the blessed, so to speak, with the most, or whom God allows to accumulate the most, have the most difficult time getting to heaven. He says it's like putting a camel through the eye of a needle. So all of you who have just been saying, I gotta have, gotta have, gotta have, gotta have, you ought to lay that down. You don't gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta have anything. What you've got to have is Jesus, and everything else is superfluous to that.
So, I would ask you once last question. Is there anything missing in your life? Well, the one ultimate question is, can you look back in your life and point to a time when you said I know that this time in my life I made a commitment, I trusted Jesus, I believed in Him, that is, I accepted Him as my personal Savior? I know that I've trusted Him as my Savior, now I remember Dr. Graham's wife said, I couldn't tell you the time, but I know at some point I gave my life to Christ. You may not be able to know the time, but you know for sure that at some point in your life you made the most important decision in your life; the decision that determined your eternal destiny, the decision that nobody can change, the decision that nobody can steal from you under any condition. You're saved by the grace of God. Amen?
Father, we thank You that You made it simple and plain, placing our trust in You. Thank You that You warn us in Your Word not to be betrayed or deceived or accept the lies of the world that we can be good enough within ourselves. For all of us are sinners, all of us have sinned against You, all of us come to the same Cross and all of us are washed in the same blood of Jesus. We love You and we praise You dear Father and we ask You this morning if there's anybody here who is not certain of their salvation, that'll settle that right now. And that they can settle it by simply asking You to forgive them of their sins and making this commitment to You, I commit my life to You, Lord Jesus, as my Savior and my Lord. And make that full surrender to You. And I pray Father for those who maybe are uncertain that whatever's necessary that they will take time alone on their face before You on their knees and settle that issue. To know that from that moment on, their security is not based on who they are and what they have, but on who You are and what You've promised. In Jesus' name, amen.