"Follow Jesus, and you’ll lose some things—but you’ll gain everything" Wednesday of Trinity 16 2025

08. October 2025
Wednesday of Trinity 16
Matthew 19:16-21

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

A man came to Jesus and said, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” But Jesus doesn’t play along. He doesn’t stroke the man’s ego or pat him on the back for asking the right questions. He cuts straight to the truth. “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.” That’s the brutal truth. Only One is good. Not you. Not me. Not even the rich young man who looked the part—clean, respectable, moral, polite, and prosperous.

We spend our lives trying to prove otherwise. We believe that doing good things, speaking kind words, and hanging out with good people will earn us God's approval, and maybe He will look at us and say, “Good job.” But the reality is, there’s no such thing as a “good deed” that guarantees salvation. There is only a good God who saves sinners. The man standing before Jesus didn’t understand this. He was young, wealthy, successful, and respectable—exactly the kind of man everyone admires and says, “He’s doing everything right.” But that’s the problem — when you think you’re doing everything right, you don’t see your need for mercy. And if you don’t see your need for mercy, you don’t see your need for Jesus.

The man believed he was close. He thought eternal life was simply one more thing to check off. “I’ve kept the commandments,” he said. “What do I still lack?” And Jesus hits him where it hurts: “If you want to be perfect, sell what you have, give to the poor, and follow me.” But the man went away sorrowful because he had many possessions.

Jesus doesn’t want the man’s money; He wants his heart. And that’s what the man refuses to give. That’s when the truth hits home: You can’t follow Jesus if your heart is tied to your possessions. You can’t hold onto Christ and cling to your comfort. You can’t say “Jesus is Lord” and still worship mammon.

It’s the same lie we buy every day. We think we’re doing fine because the bills are paid, the car starts, the kids are in school, the fridge is full. We think God must be happy with us because we’re not murderers or adulterers. But when Jesus says, “Sell it all, give it away, follow me”—we hesitate. We flinch. We clutch our wallets and whisper, “He can’t mean that literally.”

That’s how the idol mammon works. It makes you reasonable about sin. It makes you practical about faith. It convinces you that you’re good enough already. We don’t worship idols carved out of stone anymore; we worship portfolios, brands, screens, and comfort. We don’t bow to golden statues; we bow to golden parachutes. We spend our lives in service to a master who promises freedom but delivers slavery.

We try to disprove Jesus every day. We claim to believe in God, but we gauge our worth by dollars and likes. We pray for daily bread, but we panic about the stock market. We pay lip service to heaven while chasing every shiny thing that catches our eye on earth.

That illusion is powerful. We live in the richest, safest, most comfortable time in human history — and yet we are miserable. We have everything and still feel like we’re missing something. We scroll endlessly, buy continuously, work ourselves to exhaustion, and for what? To prove that we matter? To feel alive for five minutes? To convince ourselves that we’re good enough?

We love the idea of “the good teacher.” We just don’t want to be taught. We want Jesus’ wisdom without his wounds, his comfort without his cross. But the God’s honest truth is: if you want eternal life, you have to die first. Die to your idols. Die to your illusions. Die to your wealth, your pride, your self-made religion.

There’s only One who is good—and you’re not Him. That’s when we start to squirm because we’ve built our entire sense of worth on what we have, what we’ve done, and what people think about us. We’ve made peace with prosperity, calling it a blessing. But if the Lord hid His face, if the markets crashed, if the house burned down—what then? Would we still say, “I shall never be moved”?

The psalmist says, “When you hid your face, I was dismayed.” That’s the truth. We are fragile, temporary, disposable dust pretending to be gods. But there is one who stands firm—the Lord who is good, and whose mercy endures forever. Jesus is not afraid to take away your idols so that you can finally see your Savior. That’s what he did to the rich man. He put his finger on the one thing that man could not live without, and said, “Give it up.” And the man couldn’t do it.

Neither can we — not on our own. Because the love of money, the lust for comfort, the addiction to approval — it runs too deep. We are enslaved to it. That’s why Jesus doesn’t just tell us to give it up. He gives it up for us. He leaves behind heaven’s glory to walk our dusty streets. He gives up the riches of eternity to become poor for our sake. He sells everything — even his own life — and gives it away to those who could never pay him back. He does the one thing the rich man could not do. He follows the Father’s will perfectly.

He is the One who is good. And because He is good, you are forgiven. Because He is good, you are free. Because He is good, you can lose everything in this world and still have everything in Him.

That’s the paradox of the cross. To gain life, you must lose it. To be rich, you give it away. To be filled, you have to be emptied. That’s why we gather—to have our illusions shattered. To hear what’s true, even when it’s painful. Because Jesus isn’t trying to ruin your life; he’s saving it. He’s freeing you from the grip of mammon, from the illusion that you can save yourself, and from the lie that you can be good without God.

Follow him, and you’ll lose some things—your pride, your self-importance, your false security. But you’ll gain everything. Because when you have Jesus, even with nothing at all, you are complete. The rich man walked away sad. But you don’t have to. You can walk away free—free to give, free to love, free to live like someone who already owns heaven. Because Christ, the only One who is good, has called you his own.

So let’s be honest with ourselves: No, Lord, it’s not enough to be good. It’s not enough to have wealth or reputation. What we need is you. You alone are good. You alone make us whole. You alone will never be moved. And if you are at our right hand, neither shall we.

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin