Let Go
of Your Treasures
Keith
McFarren
November
23, 2025
Mark 10:
17-27
    Do
you remember the comedian Flip Wilson?  He was most famous for portraying a cocky,
smart aleck woman by the name of Geraldine but he also played the role of a
minister who was called Brother Leroy.  
    Brother
Leroy was leading services one Sunday morning. When it came time to receive the
offering Brother Leroy passed the collection plates around and they came back
empty. So he passed them again and the same thing happened, they were empty.
    Brother
Leroy then went before the people and said, "Now,
I know that you all want this church to progress." No response from
the congregation.  
    So Brother
Leroy shouted a bit louder: "But
before this church can progress it has to crawl."  And the
congregation started getting excited and they yelled back, "Make it crawl, Reverend. Make it crawl!"
    Brother
Leroy continued, "After this church
has crawled, it's got to pick itself up and start to walk!"  And
the people yelled back at him, "Make
it walk, Reverend. Make it walk!"
    Brother
Leroy said "And after this church
has walked, this church has got to get up and run." And the people
were worked up into a terrible frenzy, and they hollered back: "Make it run, Reverend. Make it
run!"
    And
then Brother Leroy said, "Now,
brothers and sisters, in order for this church to run, it’s gonna need money,
it’s gonna take money for this church to run!"  And the people
yelled back, "Let it crawl,
Reverend. Let it crawl!"  (Wayne C. Dureck, PRCL, August 29,
2000)
   
Sometimes we want things in life very, very badly but sometimes we
aren’t willing to pay the price to get what we want.
    I
want you to picture a very rich young man; a man who has it all, a beautiful
home, a new car, a huge summer home of the Sea of Galilee, a man with more
money than he knows what to do with, a man who defines his own socioeconomic
class.  
    Then
I want you to picture this man throwing himself at the feet of Jesus, the
penniless prophet from Nazareth, who owns nothing more than what he has on his
back.
   
The man asked Jesus a legitimate question.  He’s done nothing wrong.  He has no hidden motive.  In fact, his question shows that he has a
great respect for Jesus and it shows that he’s very sincere in what he’s asked.

    His
idea is that, because of who he is and all that he has accomplished, he can
"inherit" eternal life.  It’s a question that reflects the
Jewish belief that eternal life was something that one inherited by being born
a Jew, by being born on the “right side of the tracks” so to speak and by
following all the commandments.  
    And
then imagine how excited he gets when Jesus rattles off some of the
commandments and he realizes that he has followed all of them, never once
violating any of them.  He already has everything
that the world has to offer, and now he is on the verge of having it all –
wealth and success and status in this world…and eternal life in the world to
come.
    But did
you notice the way Jesus presented the commandments?   Did
you notice that all but one of the commandments that Jesus mentioned were negative
commandments: “Don’t kill; Don’t commit
adultery; Don’t steal; Don’t bear false witness and Don’t defraud other people.”
    No
problem the guy says.  “I’ve walked the straight and narrow
line.  Never in my life have I done
anything to hurt anyone.”
    But being
a follower of Jesus and receiving eternal life is more than just being
respectable of the law.  Being a follower
of Jesus and receiving eternal life is more than just walking a straight and
narrow line making sure we don’t violate this rule or that rule or hurt someone’s
feelings.  To be a follower of Jesus and
receiving eternal life is more than just being passive…it’s more than just not
doing bad things.  
    To
follow Jesus is about being proactive…it’s about doing something…it’s about
doing things.  Discipleship is not
determined by what you have not done…discipleship is determined by what you
have done.  
    So the
question to the rich young man becomes, “With
all your possessions, with all your wealth, with all that you could give away,
what positive acts of kindness, of compassion and of mercy have you done for
others?”
    How
much have you gone out of your way to help and comfort and strengthen others
with what you have?  While respectability
is determined by what we haven’t done…our discipleship is based on all the
positive things that we have done.
    So
Jesus issues a challenge…stop looking at
goodness as not doing bad things.  Take
yourself and all that you have and do something good for others.  Take what you are hoarding and all that you
are saving and spend it on others…that is how you will find true happiness here
on earth and in eternity.
    But that’s
easier said than done.  The guy had accumulated
all these possessions but it never once entered his mind to use them to help
others; and when it was suggested that he do so, he couldn’t make himself do
it.  
    He lived
a respectable life, but in his mind his socioeconomic ties and his relationships
with the movers and shakers were more important than being generous and
compassionate and merciful to those who were less fortunate than he was.  Sometimes we really want something, but we
aren’t willing to pay the price to get it.

    Jesus
is confronting the man with a basic and simple question, “How badly do you want eternal life?
Do you really want to be my disciple?”  And in effect, all the man could say was, “I want it but I don’t want it that much.”
    You
can’t have it all.  You can’t have your
cake and eat it too, as they say.  You
have to choose between our world and God’s world.  
    If
you want to follow Jesus and receive eternal life you have to be willing to
give up what you value most.  Only when you
are willing to give up the stuff that you cherish most, including your love of
money and your insidious pride, are you free to seek eternal life.  
    To
follow Jesus is to follow the one who says, “My
kingdom is not of this world.”  To
follow Jesus is to follow the one who says, “I
am the Way.”  To follow Jesus is to follow the one who says, “No one comes to the Father, but through
me.”
    When
Jesus looks us in the eye and reaches out his hand and says, “Come and follow me,” well, that’s a
life changer.  Because when Jesus offers
his hand to us, we can’t help but begin to feel the tug and the pull of all the
things in this world that deep down inside mean so much to us.
    To
be a true follower of Jesus is to give it all up…to die to oneself and then be
reborn again in him…and sometimes that seems a little bit unfair…especially if we
are looking at all the important stuff we have to leave behind, instead of
looking at all the riches we stand to gain.
    The
prophet Amos was a shepherd who was chosen by God to be a prophet some 750
years before Christ.  He prophesied at a
time when the nation of Israel was divided into the northern half called Israel
(the good guys) and the southern half called Judah (we’ll call them the bad
guys).  
    Although
he was from the southern half (Judah) Amos started prophesying against his own
people who had turned their backs on God and decided to live their own way
because they didn’t need God anymore.  The
economy was great, business was booming and people were making money hand over
fist.  People were living very
comfortably and with all of this comfort came feelings of self-pride, self-sufficiency
and a false sense of security.  
    And as
always seems to happen, along with all this prosperity and luxury came
corruption.  And the only ones who were suffering
from all of this were the poor.  The poor
and the downtrodden were being taken advantage of; they were being sold as
slaves and they were being over taxed and through shifty legal maneuvers they were
losing their land to the rich.
   Speaking
for God, Amos condemned Judah for taking advantage of the poor, the helpless
and the defenseless.  And while all this
was happening, the people of the northern half (God’s people, the good guys)
thought it was hilarious because God finally caught up with the bad guys and they
were finally going to get what they deserved.
    But
suddenly Amos turned to Israel, who looked at themselves as being untouchable
because they were God’s favorite people, and pronounced God’s judgment on them
as well because they were doing the same thing as their neighbors to the south.

    You
see, God plays no favorites.  And God,
through the prophet Amos, condemned Israel for numerous sins including
complacency, oppressing the poor and practicing superficial religion even
though they believed they were subject to special treatment because of who they
were and where they came from.  
    But God
required truth and goodness, and justice and righteousness from all the people back
then and God requires the same thing from us today as well.  God says, “I
don’t want just some of your attention…I want all of your attention, “Because
you cannot serve two masters at the same time.”
    The rich
young man wasn’t very happy because he was incapable of letting go of all the
things of this world that were important to him.  This morning Jesus stands before us and holds
out his hand and says, “Come with me.”
    Can
you see him standing there or is your vision blocked by all the things that you
are unwilling to give up, all the things that you are unwilling to let go of, all
the things that are so important to you and your life and the lifestyle that
you live.  
    Can
you see him standing there with his hand reaching out to you or has your pride
gotten in the way?  Maybe you are too much
into yourself.  Maybe you’re more
concerned about your own personal comfort and your own personal security than you
are about justice and mercy and compassion to those who don’t have nearly as
much as you do.
    There
are too many people in today’s world that think they can inherit eternal life
by being someone special or by doing something special.  
    Some
people refuse to follow Jesus because of their intellectual pride.  They are far too intelligent to believe in this
guy named Jesus, who none of us have ever seen.
And then there are those who see the Christian lifestyle as being boring
and not very attractive in this day and age.

    But know
that we are all going to die and know that someday we will all have to come
face to face with God.  And if you have
denied him and if you have put yourself and your personal pride and all your
possessions ahead of him and if you have rejected the faith that he has offered
to you, you, like the young man in our story today, will be rejected by God.
   
Sometimes we get so caught up in ourselves, in pursuing our careers, or our
hopes and dreams or whatever it is that we want so badly that we fail to see
the trouble we’re in until it’s too late.
    We
can’t be perfect…none of us…and God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.  But he does ask that we “Come and follow him,” that we trust him and that we put our faith
in him…and not in ourselves or our possessions.
Let go…let go of whatever is holding you back because it is only through
Jesus that you will find true freedom.
It is only through Jesus that you will find life…life for today, life
for tomorrow and life eternal.