If my garage is any indication, I am not great at letting go. There are pieces of scrap lumber, tools that I haven’t used, a door that I took from the garbage heap when the East Campus lobby was remodeled a couple of years ago, all my kids outside toys, half completed projects and any number of other miscellaneous items. I always have some idea or project in mind and will certainly need all this junk that litters my garage to help me complete it. I am not a hoarder (at least not yet) but there are some clues to that fact that I have problems “letting go”.
Last week we studied the call to “Go” from Matthew 19. This passage recorded the conversation that took place between Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler. Take a look at the passage once again:
Matthew 19: 16-22:
16 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
This passage says a lot about what we value, about what is most important to us and about what matters most. We know nothing about this person or what he thought about after Jesus told him to sell everything that he had. We only know that he went away sad. I have often wondered if he got home and had a change of heart, if perhaps he decided that Jesus’s offer to him was in fact of greater value than all that he possessed. I guess I have hoped for that because otherwise this text carries such a sense of tragedy and that does in fact seem to be the reality. I wish that he had come to his senses but in the end he seems blinded by what he values most, his wealth.
Here is the penetrating question that Jesus ultimately confronts the rich young ruler with and subsequently confronts us with as well…what do we value most? What do we cling to tighter than all else? Jesus certainly could have challenged this man’s claim to have kept the law perfectly, but that was not the conclusion that Jesus desired him to arrive at. The issue that Jesus confronts is not one of external obedience. Jesus chooses instead to direct him inward, to that central place of his heart. He takes him to the place where his values are formed and at the end of the day forces him to answer the question of “what is ultimately the ruling God in his life?”
Even as Christ followers, even if in the past we have loosened the grip on that which occupied the central place in our heart in order to invite Christ to rule our lives, the truth is that we can find ourselves taking hold of old gods. There are many things that war for that place in our lives and yet it can only be held by one. You see, I believe that the “call to go” that we have been studying all summer long begins by choosing to obey the call to let go. We struggle at times because our tendency , like the Rich Young Ruler, is to consider that cost to high of a price. The reality is that what we have in Jesus, the invitation that He extends to follow Him, to be found in Him and to join Him in His kingdom is of greatest value. It is when that truth is rightly understood and penetrates our heart that we loosen our grip, let go of our gods and place Him in His rightful spot on the throne of our hearts.
My prayer today is that we would allow this week to be a time where we can evaluate what rules our own hearts and invite Christ to remain our greatest value.
Pastor Sterling Moore
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