And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” | Matthew 19:23–26
In the sermon on Sunday, Jesus taught a lesson on faith through the healing of the boy with a mute spirit. Though He performed a miracle, the main point was not to show His strength and authority, but to show His care. The father asked if Jesus could heal, if He was compassionate, and if He would help. The answer was YES. Jesus added to this, saying:
All things are possible for one who believes. | Mark 9:23b
Faith makes everything possible. This is often taken to mean that if you possess strong faith that it will manifest itself in power. You will be able to do anything. This is not what Jesus is saying. His point is that because your trust and hope is in the power of God, nothing is greater. There is not one thing that God does not have authority over, thus your faith has been placed in His unlimited hands. To have faith is to submit yourself entirely to the sovereignty of God.
From this, we said that the ingredients that make up this faith are doubt and trust. Trust in the power of God, manifested in Jesus Christ, and applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit. The thing we must learn to doubt is ourselves. Our human nature leads us to believe that we are better, smarter, and more in control than we actually are. This leads us to continually think that we are the answer to our problems; that fulfillment will be found through our success. In the sermon, I presented a challenge to this assumption, which was the question: how is that working out for you? Are things working out the way you thought they would? If not, you need to doubt your trust in yourself. You need something greater to put your trust in.
After the sermon, I realized that there are people who may answer that question in the affirmative. There are people who are successful and have many of the good things this life offers, and are experiencing a general sense of temporal delight. Their answer to the question: how is that working out for you? Would be: quite well, thank you. When life is going extremely well, you don’t feel the need to shift or trust anything but yourself.
Which is why Jesus made the declaration that:
it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
He makes this statement after the rich young ruler rejects His direction to sell all that he has to follow Jesus. What the man is doing is saying: my trust is in myself and my possessions; that is what will protect and save me. There is no room for faith. He refuses to doubt himself.
This is quite a challenge to us in our modern age, where we are all rich (by international and chronological standards). Jesus is warning us that we can have so much good that we can’t see our lack. We can paper over our sin and brokenness with houses, cars, and vacations, pretending that our way is working. Our flourishing works as a lure, giving us just enough hope to keep us from being willing to trust God. A rich person is at a disadvantage, because they cannot properly see their own lack.
This is a very myopic perspective, because death comes for every person, and it is usually preceded by the body and mind breaking down (no matter how much money you have). The window of feeling like you have it all together is only open for a very short period of time. Even if you somehow reach the level of worldly success that satisfies, it will only exist for a moment, as you try desperately to maintain it, or rediscover that time when everything was great.
What is interesting to me in this dialogue is that the response of the disciples is shock, and they ask: Who then can be saved? From their viewpoint, the rich young ruler was as close as one can come to making it. As they compare him to others, they see people who are much further from achieving the sort of faith that they would deem powerful. They still see faith as something that you possess; that you ascend to through some sort of achievement. Jesus answer to them is similar to what He said to the father of the boy with the mute spirit:
With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
What the rich man needs is the same thing the possessed boy needs: Jesus. It is only by turning away from our own strength to Him that we will gain the faith that makes everything possible.