Easter 3 - Mark 10:17-22 - May 3, 2020

Dear friends in Christ Jesus – we pray: Lord, sanctify us by Your truth, Your word is truth. Amen.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” No, that’s not a Bible verse, but it probably is a saying you’ve heard before. This phrase stood out to me this week in something I read and it made me think of our text for today.

Before we get to that, though, what does this phrase mean to you? Although it is simple and short, I was surprised to find that there are several competing interpretations of it on the internet. For one thing, no one is quite sure where the phrase originally came from. Some suggest it’s an old English proverb, others believe it’s much more ancient. It’s hard to speak definitively on the meaning of something when you’re not even sure where it originated.

Regardless, it’s a striking statement because it blends good and evil. Even for the most unreligious person, the concept of hell stands as a symbol of evil. Many today use hell as a byword curse or insult thrown around at others. We Christians recognize hell as a reality and a true warning of the result of unbelief. And yet, here hell is paired with good intentions. How could the path to hell be paved with something good?

The prevailing opinion today is that this phrase refers to the unknown elements that arise from one’s actions. The idea is that even when someone does something good, there is an unexpected, unintentional fallout at times that turns bad. Essentially, we just can’t account for every outcome to something, and sometimes even the actions with the best of intentions have negative outcomes.

One example given is the introduction of the Asian carp into the North America eco-system. In the 1970's, catfish farmers introduced Asian Carp into their fisheries with the good intention of keeping the water clear of plankton and algae. The voracious and aggressive Asian Carp, which can reach over a hundred pounds, fly through the air, injuring boaters, and decimate native fish species. It has now overtaken the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and threaten to do the same to the Great Lakes.

However, as Christians, we see more than a mere spiritual lesson in this saying. When seen in the light of God’s Word, we recognize a clear division between truth and error, and therefore, good and evil. The road to hell is paved with good intentions because human nature wants to please God to get to heaven. It is common and natural for us to believe that the good we do in life gains spiritual favor before God – and the more we accrue the more we are blessed. Maybe mainstream society shuns this interpretation because it hits a little too close to home. Perhaps it pricks our stubborn hearts a bit more than we like and it forces us to come to grips with our sin and what God says about it.  

I can’t say for sure, but we shouldn’t find this kind of idea surprising. The desire to emphasize spiritual purity and righteousness by our own efforts has been present since the beginning of time and it’s hasn’t lost any momentum up to present day. We see another such example in our text for today, and most importantly, what Jesus has to say about this condition. We read from Mark 10:17-22:

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, one man ran up to him and knelt in front of him. He asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God. 19 You know the commandments. ‘You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not defraud. Honor your father and mother.’” 20 The man replied, “Teacher, I have kept all these since I was a child.”

21 Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 22 When he heard this, he looked sad and went away grieving, because he had great wealth.

Part 1 – What Jesus doesn’t say is telling (teaching)

We’ll divide the message today into two parts. The first is about what Jesus doesn’t say. It’s amazing how much we can learn from what isn’t discussed in this section. This becomes a very important thought because this section is so familiar. It’s a story we’ve heard again and again. Like the phrase of our theme, it’s also a story that is subject to various interpretations. It’s common for theologians and philosophers alike to put their own spin on the words of our Savior.

So, one thing Jesus doesn’t say is that the rich young ruler can get to heaven by depriving himself. We’re kind of starting from the end of the text here, but we begin at this point because this is one of the biggest misconceptions about this text. It’s a human assumption that because Jesus tells the man, “One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me,” that Jesus is now teaching that the man can actually get to heaven this way.  

Jesus is NOT teaching or implying that the man could get to heaven by depriving himself. Some have taught that approach and used religious terms like penance, confession, and repentance to do so. Jesus used that hypothetical example, one that happens to come naturally to humans, to reveal the man’s faulty and dangerous approach to getting to heaven. Jesus presents the scenario, not because it is possible, but to show the man how it is impossible. (Mark 10:27) We need to be aware of falling into shallow moralism where we turn our faith into a set a guiding principles that earn us favor before God rather than the message of salvation and life in Jesus Christ alone.

Another thing that Jesus doesn’t say is more about the initial question that started this conversation. What we see here is that Jesus sticks to the most important point, even though much more could be said. The rich young ruler initially asks, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answers him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except one—God. There is an abrupt shift between these first thoughts and the direction that the rest of the conversation takes. Jesus fleshes out more of an answer as the text goes on, by quoting some of the commandments, but He doesn’t really dig deeper into these initial points.

What we see here is that the rich young ruler really has a problem recognizing that Jesus is God. He calls Jesus a “Good Teacher” but Jesus’ response indicates that the young man is limiting what he means by this title. Jesus prods this a bit by questioning why the man would call Him good if only God was truly good, but it really is left there. Part of the reason behind this prodding by Jesus is that it provides the perfect segue to discussing what the man considers good – in spiritual terms, what it takes to get to heaven. Thus, the conversation naturally shifts into the 10 commandments.

In all fairness, Jesus could have launched into a discourse about His divine nature and further challenged the man on this point. But Jesus knew this would not be as beneficial to the man’s spiritual well-being, so Jesus chose to leave it as it was in that moment. What this teaches us is that in some conversations, you also may have to let some talking points rest in order to emphasize a greater point. There’s a time and a place for every topic of conversation from God’s Word, but it takes wisdom to discern the appropriate time.

What this also teaches us is that when taken to their end, all points of God’s truth are inter-connected. Jesus didn’t discuss His divine nature further, perhaps His prodding question was enough to get the young man to think more about it in the future. But, what we do see is that one of the reasons the young man tried to justify himself is because he didn’t fully know who Jesus was. Put more simply, we could conclude that the man’s belief about God shaped his stance on heaven, righteousness, and behavior toward others. When you say it like that, you see that what one believes, or in this case, doesn’t believe about Jesus has huge implications for life today and for eternity. The person of Jesus Christ and what He came to do is not some distant theological teaching far removed from behavior and morality today. Rather, it is the foundation of all good, just as Jesus described in the text. 

Part 2: When good intentions become bad (application)

So, now we move into application. How do these thoughts affect our faith? Well, to start, we return to the conclusion we learn from the rich young man. There was simply an absence of Jesus in his thoughts and beliefs. This absence was filled by the man’s own ideas about self-righteousness, namely, that he had done it all already. In thinking he was so close to God; he was actually pushing himself farther away.

Notice how this absence rears its ugly head in the text. The man’s initial question is entirely focused on himself, “what must I do to inherit eternal life.” The man was so full of himself, spiritually, that he couldn’t even see the logical fallacy in that question (an inheritance isn’t earned).

Second, notice anything about the commandments Jesus mentions? They all deal with human interaction – person to person. We call this the second table of the law, because it doesn’t address our relationship with God like commandments 1-3 do. Jesus didn’t list only commandments 4-10 because they were all that mattered. He did so because that’s where the young man’s thoughts were in that moment. Jesus brought these literal laws to the man, where he was at spiritually, to wake him up to repent, not to gloat inwardly of achievement. 

Do we see ourselves so clearly here in the man’s attitude? Talk about an application to our lives and to our current culture. So often we focus only on matters between us and someone else. We trick ourselves into thinking we’re better than others by how we act. But that kind of logic never considers one’s relationship with God. It ignores the person of Jesus – true God and true man. It overlooks the commands of God that point at my relationship with God, not my relationship with other people. The trend fits. The more you think only of yourself, the less you consider God – both in the warnings and admonishment that God offers but also in the blessings only He is able to extend. If you do this you’ll start to care only about the favor and approval of others. (Romans 12:1-2).

This is how good intentions become bad. We change the definition of good from what God says to what we say. Truly, the road of hell is paved, littered, and flooded with good intentions. Because if we don’t have Jesus, nothing else matters. That’s the whole point of this lesson. The young man didn’t care about having Jesus. He was content to live with that void in his life. To him, Jesus was simply a prop that could inflate his own ego. That’s why he refused to follow Jesus, and as the Savior saw with perfect wisdom, that one lingering sin tore open the veil covering the young man’s false sense of morality. By rendering one law useless, the man violated all of God’s commandments – much to the contrary of what he thought.

This effort by Jesus didn’t make the young man happy. The word for looking sad indicates a tone of anger in addition to disappointment. It might be tantamount to the modern-day idea of offending someone. You’ve triggered their moral proposition, sometimes this can happen today simply by offering a challenging idea. Jesus was not worried about people getting angry at Him, though He certainly didn’t go around looking for trouble either.

The truth is that Jesus loved this man enough to tell him what he needed to hear. Certainly, for that day, the young man would have been much happier with a pat on the back and a compliment that he was doing just fine. But, Jesus grated against the man’s sinful vanity because Jesus cared more for the man’s eternal happiness, rather than a fleeting feeling in the present.

The same Jesus serves you today. Do you resist this? Is there an absence of Jesus in our lives because we’d rather live in spiritual complacency? Are we worried about angering and offending the unbelieving world instead of boldly standing for what God says? These are the ways this story continues to be told in our lives. We may think we know more than the rich young ruler did, and perhaps we do in our heads. But, the end of the story is the same. Without Jesus, we have nothing.

He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the only path to heaven. He forgives when we are overburdened by sin. He guides us with patience when we are stubborn in our will. He teaches and instructs when we are obtuse with ignorance. He creates a thankful and generous heart that seeks to serve our neighbor in love, not in a vain attempt to prove anything. He raises in victory when we are overcome by death. Amen.