Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
Chris Brown, senior and teaching pastor of North Coast Church, unpacked the cautionary tale of the rich young ruler (Mark 10:17) at Grand Canyon University Chapel on Monday at Global Credit Union Arena.
Brown asked students to imagine how he might have lived, weaving an imagined image of the ruler, perhaps with RYR engraved in copper on the front of the large wooden gates of his palace, located at the end of a road, away from a village where a layer of smoke hovers over a valley occupied by the less fortunate.
The rich young ruler, who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, is in several books in the Bible. Matthew mentions his youthfulness, Luke describes him as a ruler, and Mark tells about his riches.
“Sometimes we take it for granted,” said Brown of the lessons of the story and the things we need to do to attain eternal life. “Sometimes, GCU, we haven’t applied it (Mark 10:17) to us a week after break with a month left in school to make sure you don’t walk out of here the same way he (the rich young ruler) walks out of this story – to make sure your life is going to be different.”
The key theme is sacrifice, Brown said.
“Why do you call Me good?” Jesus replies in the story. “No one is good but God alone.”
The young man responds by saying Jesus walks on water and can calm storms. The young man adds that he has followed the Ten Commandments all his life.
Brown added a personal touch by asking students to imagine the rich young man as a GCU student, raised in a Christian family before attending the university.
“You’re lacking only one thing,” Jesus tells the young man, who feels good about himself.
“Sell everything you have and give it to the poor,” Jesus says. “Then you will have treasure in heaven. Come follow Me. An eternity beyond anything you can maintain, anything you can muster here.”
The face of the young man sags as Jesus’ words take the wind out of his sails.
“It’s why there’s a God hoping you walk away from GCU and that you don’t walk away like this guy walked away,” Brown said.
Jesus, Brown added, told His disciples how hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God and that His disciples were amazed at His words.
“It’s easier for a two-hump camel to go through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God," Jesus says.
The disciples wonder to each other, “Then who can be saved?”
“With man, it’s impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God.
“GCU, in this story, you have to realize it’s you,” Brown said.
If you’re part of a family with at least three bedrooms with running water at all temperatures, electricity, a cooking area, at least one vehicle and one computer and one family member attending college, you’re in the top 9% wealth category in the world, Brown said.
During a trip to Haiti, Brown encountered a woman who lived in an 8-foot-by-6-foot bamboo shack with malnourished children.
The woman, who attended Brown’s sermon, wondered why God didn’t want the only two bowls she owned.
“When she heard surrender was the key to salvation, she was more than willing to give her two bowls,” Brown said. “She didn’t know where to take them.
“Lopes, we got a lot more than two bowls.”
Brown was disgusted by the belief that whenever you need Jesus, you merely need to call Him and He would make things OK.
“Jesus never walked from city to city and said all you had to do was say a prayer,” said Brown, who then made a convincing distinction between God and good.
“Get rid of everything and follow Me. If I’m God, you’re going to say yes. In fact, if you’re God, you’re going to stay here and send your servants back and say give it all away. I don’t need to go. ‘You’re God.’
“But if I’m just good, if I’m just supposed to bless your life, make your life better, then give you Heaven, that’s probably why your prayers don’t go any higher than the ceiling. And why you’re frustrated with the God that doesn’t pay off when you treat Him like a magic genie.”
In keeping with the 2024-25 theme connected to the Sermon on the Mount, Brown cites Matthew 7:21, in which it takes more than just calling Jesus “Lord” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
“But only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
“I know you want God to be good to you, GCU, but are you ready for Him to be Lord of you?” Brown said. “Everybody wants a savior. Jesus doesn’t mind you having stuff. This isn’t some guilt drive-by where you go back to your dorm and you have clothes in your closet and you’re going to hell.
“It isn’t what you have. It’s what you do with what you have.”
Next Chapel speaker: Alumni worship chapel, 11 a.m. March 24, Global Credit Union Arena
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at Mark.Gonzales@gcu.edu
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