Spiritual Gifts part 215: 'Hurry, for today I must stay at your house.'
Pastor-Teacher
John Farley Sunday, January 15, 2012 Spiritual Gifts Part 215: “Hurry, for today I must stay at your house.”
Mat 19:16
Joh 15:5
“Follow Me”. That is discipleship.
Mat 19:20-21
Mat 19:21 Jesus spoke to jar him from his misplaced confidence in himself. Instead He gave the young man an impossible assignment that would make the point far more powerfully. Our Lord purposely set out the challenge to reveal the deceitfulness and self-centered nature of the human heart. Stop here and this encounter with the Rich Young Man looks an awful lot like the basis for a moral injunction. At that moment, in my inner chaos, I recognize that I am the rich young man. But rather than stay in that fit of moral crisis, this story invites us to go somewhere else. This story invites us to go into the death of the cross. And as they walk, Jesus begins to tell them about His death and His rising again.
I am the rich young man. The cross is a burden to us in the same way that wings are a burden to an eagle, or sails to a ship. This time it is a man by the name of Zaccheus. He is also rich. He is the rich older man.
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