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Face to Face With GRACE Phil Van Auken

Explore why the rich young man in the gospel story walked away from Jesus despite encountering grace. Delve into themes of wealth, exploitation, and the transformative power of grace in this reflective piece by Phil Van Auken.

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Face to Face With GRACE Phil Van Auken

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  1. Face to Face With GRACE Phil Van Auken

  2. When the rich young man in today’s gospel story met Jesus, he was face to face with grace. So why did he walk away?

  3. Well, perhaps we should first ask: Why was this young man so anxious to see Jesus in the first place? Do you think it was because he realized…

  4. He couldn’t take his $ to heaven

  5. Or maybe…

  6. His conscience hurt like a toothache every time he thought about how he made his money.

  7. Jesus helped this young man to see some unpleasant things about himself.

  8. Jesus let him know that… “You’re not as rich as you think” And…

  9. “There’s something you love more than me”

  10. But then Jesus wore out his welcome… when he told the young man to give his money to the poor. Was this maybe because Jesus suspected the rich young man made his money off the backs of the poor?

  11. It does seems pretty clear that this rich young man had a problem with wealth —he was too rich!

  12. But how can someone be too wealthy?

  13. Well, first of all, we’re too rich when we make money by exploiting others.

  14. And we may not even be aware of when we exploit others… because the world’s economic system sometimes abuses powerless people in invisible ways that we don’t even know about. But Jesus knew about it.

  15. There’s a second way to know when we’re too rich: when we never feel rich enough, no matter how much we have.

  16. And we’re definitely too rich when we want money more than we want a relationship with God’s own son… and walk away from him.

  17. The rich young man knew what that was like— He turned his back on Jesus.

  18. I’d say this young man was kind of hard-headed, wouldn’t you? He didn’t listen very well—not even to Jesus!

  19. So do you think he would listen to what the prophet Amos had to say in our Old Testament lesson this morning?

  20. Amos makes it plain that we should hate evil, do good, & establish justice. I’m not so sure the rich young man would have liked this message either.

  21. Well, do you think he would have been open to this morning’s New Testament reading from Hebrews, which implores us to…

  22. Boldly approach God’s throne of grace

  23. I don’t think our young man would have even understood what grace is, much less why he needed it.

  24. In our gospel passage this morning, Mark had something surprising to tell this young man:

  25. Jesus loves you

  26. But after coming face to face with grace, the young man still clung to his money. That’s because deep down inside he knew that…

  27. “Money is my identity & my happiness.”

  28. Well, do you think this hard-headed young man might listen to us hard-headed Lutherans? What could we tell him? Very simple, we can tell him about God’s GRACE

  29. God Release A new start Christ Everyone

  30. God loves us; His grace Releases us from sin; Grace gives us Anew start in life; Grace brings Christ into our life; God’s grace is there for Everyone

  31. Say, do you believe in happy endings?

  32. We can— when God’s GRACE is involved!

  33. I feel there just might be a happy ending to our gospel story… You know what I think this young man did a short while after he met grace face to face? I think he came back to Jesus with a new heart transformed by grace.

  34. He became a new man with a new mission… reaching out to those who are exploited

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