The sermon, based on Mark 10:17-31, discusses the encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler, emphasizing the difficulty for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus teaches that eternal life requires sacrifice, exemplified by the rich young ruler's inability to give up his possessions. The sermon also references John Bunyan's 'The Pilgrim's Progress' to illustrate the cost of following Christ, highlighting the need to forsake worldly allegiances for eternal rewards. Peter's question to Jesus about what the disciples will receive for following Him is answered with the promise of a hundredfold return in this life and eternal life in the age to come. The sermon concludes by emphasizing the necessity of counting the cost of discipleship and the promise of unimaginable gain for those who follow Jesus, even amidst persecution and loss.

Beginning in verse 17 of Mark 10. As he, Jesus, was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him, and asked him, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments.

Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud.

Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up. Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, One thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.' But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus, looking around, said to His disciples, how hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.

The disciples were amazed at His words, but Jesus answered again and said to them, children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. They were even more astonished and said to him, then who can be saved? Looking at them, Jesus said, with people, it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.

Peter began to say to him, Behold, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and for the gospel's sake, but that He will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. And then if you will turn to verse 46, just to remind ourselves that really at the end of this story, there's another story that complements it, verse 46. Then they came to Jericho.

As he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a large crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many were sternly telling him to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, call him here. So they called the blind man, saying to him, take courage, stand up, he is calling for you.

Throwing aside his cloak, he jumped up and came to Jesus. And answering him, Jesus said, what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabboni, I want to regain my sight. And Jesus said to him, Go, your faith has made you well. Immediately he regained his sight and began following him, began following Jesus on the road.

This is the word of our Lord. Amen. Let's have a seat together. In John Bunyan's tale, The Pilgrim's Progress, I often quote from The Pilgrim's Progress. I'm reading it to my wife right now and it's glorious.

Fathers, husbands, if you are not reading, to your children or to your wife, if you've never read The Pilgrim's Progress, if you don't like Old English, find yourself a good contemporary English version or just go straight up old school. It's romantic. It is. And you will not, your labor will not be in vain. Go check it out.

We have several in our library. Please do so. But in his tale, The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan writes of Christian Pilgrim who pleads with his family and his friends to escape the city of destruction. This is the beginning of his tale. Christian had read in his book, the Bible, that fire and brimstone was all that awaited those who remained in the city of destruction.

God had set His wrath over the city of destruction. Wrath was coming, and He was pleading with His friends and His family, flee from the wrath to come. And yet, none of them would listen. None would follow Him as He followed Christ the King. Not even His own family.

Instead, His family and all of his neighbors, all of his acquaintances, did everything in their power to keep him in the city of destruction. And yet Christian, he could not stay. And so after much pleading with his family and friends, he turned, he made his way out of the city of destruction, and he journeyed to the celestial city, but as he went, the people of the town cried out to him, and they did Everything in their power, they threw out every possible temptation and enticement for him to stay. They would call out to him on his way to the celestial city, you are insane. You are crazy.

You are being unloving to your family. You are being unsettling to the peace. You are upsetting the peace. Just tone all of this rhetoric down. Let's just talk about it for a second.

Don't you realize what you're giving up here in the city of destruction? For what? And Christian Pilgrim, who knew the truth, and the truth had set him free, stopped up his ears, and he shouted as he ran, his eyes fixed on the hill called Calvary. Life, life, eternal life. And he would not listen to all the enticements of the world, and he ran to the hill.

There was true and lasting peace that could be His, that would make all that He left behind look as but rubbish in comparison, as long as he could get Jesus Christ the King. And so that day, forgetting what was behind and pressing on towards what was ahead, Christian Pilgrim escaped the city of destruction and followed Jesus. He had, like Martin Luther's hymn, let goods and kindred go for a better country. He had let all of His earthly props give way. All of his earthly trinkets left behind for a truer and lasting riches in Christ's kingdom.

He had lost his worldly reputation. He had lost the approval of others. They were calling Him crazy and unloving. They had called His King those things too. And the King to whom He ran, the Prince of Peace, that Prince promised better things, namely eternal life.

And so Christian ran out. Life, life, eternal life. You don't want to know what this passage in Mark 10 is about. Eternal life. It's about eternal life in the kingdom of God.

This whole section from verses 17 through 31 is about everlasting eternal life. Look there in verse 17 with me. Good teacher, look at the end there of verse 17. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? And then go all the way down to the bottom of the passage, verse 30.

Look at the final two words of that verse. What do you see there? Eternal life. Eternal life in the Kingdom of God is at stake in this passage. Will you count the cost?

Will you plug up your ears and run to Jesus Christ as a child, helpless and needy with empty hands, and go away happy. Or will you go away sad, having gained the whole world and all of its idols, but having lost your soul. Make no mistake, to follow Jesus Christ comes at a very great cost. Jesus has already said so in Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8 verse 34.

And He summoned the crowd with His disciples and said to them, if anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. Well, in chapter 10, the rich young ruler could not deny himself, and he went away sad. And now we see the disciple Peter.

He does not want to end up, it seems in this passage, like the rich young ruler. He doesn't want to end up like the friends of Christian pilgrim who did not heed the words of King Jesus. And so he looks at Jesus in Mark chapter 10 and Peter says in verse 28, Behold, we've left everything and followed you. We've done what the rich young ruler could not do. And Matthew's Gospel goes on to tell us that Peter then said, so what will be left to us?

If those who trust in riches won't get into the kingdom, and they'll experience loss, what about those of us who do trust in you? What has to become of us who give up their idols and follow Jesus? That's what Peter's asking. And this passage tells us the answer to that question. Eternal life.

That's what is given to you. Entrance into the kingdom, that's what becomes of those who follow Jesus. You get true riches that money can't buy. Things that won't fade away. Things that won't fail you.

You will have Jesus, the Prince of Peace Himself. You will have and belong to the Son of Righteousness. But following Jesus comes at a very great cost. You must deny yourself, take up your cross, perhaps even lose your life, and all that you possess. And in doing so, what you give up in following Jesus, in obeying Jesus, will be restored and much more besides.

That's the passage in a nutshell. That is the main point of our passage this morning what you give up and following Jesus will be restored to you and much more besides it's pretty simple but first you must count the cost You must count the cost of trusting and obeying Jesus because there will be loss now. It's promised to you. You will experience presently in this life loss in following Christ. Loss Now.

If you follow Jesus, you'll lose your idols. You'll lose what you hoped in. Jesus has already said as much in Mark Chapter 8, if you follow me, you have to deny yourself. You've got to die spiritually. The sin, the idols that you used to love, you now must hate.

And the righteousness that you used to hate, You now by the grace of God begin to love. And the righteousness is of great gain, and we'll get to that in just a second. But if you love Jesus, If you follow Jesus, things come at a cost. Following Jesus results in change, a giving up of what you once held dear often. I need you to see something.

When Jesus converts you, if you have any questions about this, You need to really hone in here. When Jesus converts you, it really is what we just saw here, the old Jew is crucified with Christ. His death is your death. And you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Everything changes.

If you're going this way, and Jesus saves you, you don't keep going this way. You follow a different path. When Jesus hits you, you can't possibly stay the same. You go a different direction. It's that illustration that Paul Washer uses all the time that I love to quote to you, and I'll quote it again.

If you get hit by a Mack truck on Interstate 80 and then moments later come walking in here saying, I just got ran over by a Mack truck. You're lying. Because getting hit by a Mack truck leaves you altered in a state where you can't come waltzing in here Celebrating how you got hit by a Mack truck. How much bigger is Jesus Christ than a Mack truck? And how much more then will Almighty God alter you when you get hit by Him?

You are altered. When Jesus converts you, you follow Him and everything changes. Your affections change. Your desires change. Your direction, Your loves, your peace, your hopes change.

Your allegiances change. Your navigation changes. You know, Jesus calls it being born again. And so Everything that was contrary to the will of God in your life, every idol, every wicked pleasure, every false savior is lost to you. It no longer holds the same place in your heart as it used to when Christ saves you and makes you a citizen of his kingdom.

To the one who's been converted, to the one whom God has done what was impossible for mankind to do. He just said that earlier on in the passage. To you whom God has done the impossible work that you could not do yourself, but only he could accomplish for you Namely making you born again When you suffer loss That loss will be to you as but nothing in comparison to what you have gained. I want you to see that this morning. But first, I need you to see that there is indeed a cost.

Listen to Jesus in verse 29. Here are the things you might have to give up in following Jesus. House, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, farms, for my sake, and for the Gospel's sake, Jesus says, what are all those things about? You see anything that unites all those things? I think one word sums it up.

All of those things are about allegiances. Allegiances. Homes, families, fields, farms, all tied together. Allegiances. Jesus is not saying, let me repeat that, He is not saying that a man who becomes a Christian or a woman who becomes a Christian should make it their aim to leave their spouse and their children.

It's not what he's saying. Far from it. Paul says elsewhere, and we've talked about it really recently in first Corinthians 7 that when a spouse is converted His or her his or her children become sanctified and he or she should remain married to his or her spouse unless the spouse leaves them. If the spouse allows them to be married to them, that marriage should be maintained. So Jesus is not saying that spouses should abandon marriages where there is no biblical ground to do so.

And, lest I be misunderstood, Jesus is not saying that children, children, Jesus is not saying that you should go off and completely disregard your parents for the sake of the gospel. No! Actually, you honor and you submit to your parents and you care for your parents for the sake of the gospel. This isn't. This is not a call from Jesus to abandon all relationships.

But it is a call to rightly order those relationships. It is a call not to abandon relationships, but it is a call to change allegiances. So you might lose a spouse when you repent and trust in Jesus Christ and you follow Him in a life of obedience. You might lose a spouse because your spouse might be committed to an allegiance, to darkness, and now that you belong to the kingdom of light, now you've got two completely different allegiances and they can't take it anymore. You just keep talking about light and they love the darkness.

And so according to 1 Corinthians 7, they leave you and the cost is great to you because you lost the one you loved. That might happen. You have to count the cost. I had a dear, dear friend who really, really, really liked a girl. And my friend was a Christian.

He professed to be one. And this girl that he was interested in was extremely beautiful on the outside, But unimaginably ugly on the inside. She had no love for Christ. She reveled in sin. She was truly death within.

And this friend of mine was told time and time again, don't pursue her. She will seduce you with her outward beauty. She will kill you when you are in her chambers." And he told me, she's so pretty though. She's so pretty. He kept saying that line.

And I would say to him, it's not true beauty. She will get wrinkles. Her skin will sag. And then what will you have? All you will have, friend, is a shriveled up body with an even more shriveled up heart.

Run away! Run away! Count the cost and count it gladly!" But he would not. Instead, he looked at me and he said to me, I don't want to lose her. I don't want to give her up.

And if I'm to follow Jesus, I have to give her up. I told him, yeah, You would lose her. That's a cost in following Jesus. And he went away sad, unwilling to follow Christ. Friends in not losing this wicked woman, my friend who I still speak to, he lost everything.

To this day, if you speak to him, that young man, he really is as if one dead inside and out. It is as if he just doesn't live anymore. Do you see what happened? He would not count the cost of following Christ, and He died. Young man, I need you to hear me.

You need to beware the deceit of outward beauty when it is not overshadowed by beauty that comes from within. You hear me? True beauty comes not from standing in front of a mirror and looking at yourself, but in kneeling before the mighty mirror of God's Word and repenting and confessing sin and being transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's true and lasting beauty. So do you have your eyes on a young lady, young men?

Which mirror does she spend more time looking into? How does she respond to her father when he disciplines her or corrects her? Does she listen patiently to her mother? Does she move the hair out of her face so that she can look them in the eyes when they speak to her. If she will not honor her parents now, she will not honor you.

And she lacks true, lasting beauty. Young men, you need to beware of the woman who will entice you with her physique but will lead you to the spiritual grave. Beware of her who will lead you to the slaughterhouse. Beware young men. Be alert.

Not just here. Put accountability software on all of your devices right now. There are young men in this congregation that I have talked to personally that you have not done that. And you flirt with being slaughtered. You need to listen to me dear sons.

Keep away from the adulterous woman. Do not go near the door of her house, or you will give your vigor to others, and your years will be wasted and given away to the cruel one, and you will experience loss that will be so very great. And you will groan at your final end." I did not write those words. God did. Sons, you can either lose the enticements of the wicked now, and follow Jesus and gain everything, or You can gain the wicked now and lose everything now and in eternity.

I get so sad when I consider that some of you children in here, that some of you young women and young men will look at all the trinkets in your life and you'll look at the approval of others and you'll look at the popularity of the world and you'll look with such admiration at those things which are not truly beautiful? I get so sad when I think about the way you esteem those things that ought not to be esteemed. And you think, well, surely nothing can be better than all of these things. Surely these things that I experience now apart from Jesus are worth living for and keeping, right? I mean how can anything be better than gaining the world?

Than having that hot boyfriend? Than living life without boundaries? How can anything be better than this? That's as foolish as if you said that you couldn't imagine anything to be more delicious and more flavorful than iceberg lettuce without any dressing on it. You've simply got no taste if that's you.

You ask him the question, how could anything be better than what the world can provide? You've got no taste. You've got no sense in what is good and great and satisfying. If you did, you would know right off that what you're ingesting of iceberg lettuce is rubbish. Whatever the world sells you is but tofu in comparison to the great Chipotle burrito of the kingdom.

You knew it was coming. I urge you, If you are this day not trusting Christ, to put down your foolish ways, and to taste and to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is good. And if you wonder what does that taste like, grab a hold of a member of this church and don't let go until they give you a taste. Won't take long. Pain and loss come with tasting and seeing that Jesus is good.

They do. But you will know peace. Christ will forgive you through His shed blood. You will be made right with God. You will have true lasting joy because He is joy itself.

You will have Jesus with you so that even though you might walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Joy will be yours in the midst of the greatest valleys of your life. He is there. He is yours. And you are His. And you will be satisfied and maximally happy now and forever.

And it will make the loss that you experience in following Christ as but nothing. Christian, you might lose a spouse because you follow Jesus. You might be met with resistance by unregenerate children. You might have to give up that possession because it causes you to stumble. You might have to rid yourself of things because you no longer can embrace that lifestyle that those things encourage.

And you willingly give up and count those things as loss. Because Christian, your allegiances have changed gladly. You might have to forsake the praise and approval of your friends and your family. And for the sake of Jesus, you might have to let go of your property if you are to have Christ's gospel. Jesus says you might have to be the outcast.

People might call you crazy. Well you know they did that to Jesus in Mark chapter 3. Do you remember? The Pharisees did just that to Jesus. They called Him names.

Remember what name they called Him? The Prince of Demons. They called Him crazy. You remember that in Mark chapter 3 of his gospel? His own family tried to come and take him away.

He's lost his mind. He's nutso. Do you think that Jesus doesn't understand what He's saying here to Peter and these disciples in calling them to discipleship? Do you think He's clueless to Joe Jackson? No.

Does Jesus understand? Of course He does. You have a great high priest who understands your frame, who has endured such hostilities and losses and persecutions, just as you have scratched that more than you have, To a degree that you and I will never experience, how? How did Jesus experience these things in ways that you and I will never experience? Sing the song.

He left His Father's home above, so free, so infinite, his grace he left his father's what home above that sound familiar to our passage emptied Himself and came in love. That's loss! And bled for Adam's helpless race. He emptied Himself, came in the form of a bond servant for you, Christian. He bled.

He suffered the unparalleled wrath of God on the tree. He died for you, Christian. Jesus experienced great loss. Your Savior knows loss. Do you know what happened as a result of all of the loss of your Savior?

Do you know what happened? Come on, you know what happened. Right? Gain! Gain happened.

Gain for you. Blessing for you. Because Jesus Christ gave His life as a ransom for you, a sinner, He came to seek and to save the lost. He saved you forever. In enduring loss, Jesus was exalted Himself.

High above all things, Ephesians 1 says, seated at the right hand of God as King and Lord over all. Jesus won the world to himself according to 1 John 2. He emptied himself and gave himself on the cross. That is loss for the biggest of all gains. Glory happened in Jesus' enduring loss for you, Christian.

Glory happened. Glory. If you follow Jesus, you really follow Him, you must expect that the world will hate you as it hated Him. That you will endure persecutions like the end of verse 30 says because the world persecuted you. The world persecuted him.

The world should persecute you. You'll experience loss because your Savior experienced loss, and your allegiance is now to Him. So I just don't want you to think that we can gloss over the cost of discipleship. The loss is real. But, the Lord Jesus here promises to you, disciples of Jesus, that anything that you lose in following Him, Anything that is lost for His sake and His Gospel's sake will be returned and replaced in your life.

How much? A little bit? A hundred-fold. That's quite a promise, isn't it? That's quite a promise.

And I want you to see how that is true right now and forever. Look at verse 30. For those who give up much for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, look at verse 30, they will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. Now, I don't know if you saw it. I think you did.

But I want to make sure. There are two realities that are presented there. Two glorious promises made by Jesus Christ. That for all that you lose in following Him as His disciple, He will personally replace a hundredfold. When?

In eternity? Yes. In the age to come, Jesus says. But is that all? I want you to see both parts of this promise.

In the age to come, eternal life. That's the end of the verse. But before that, Jesus says, look there in verse 30, you will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age. Beloved, this is a mighty promise. Jesus promises that in the midst of loss, He will bring about gain now and forever.

In Christ, you are forever made right with God. You are forever dressed in his robes of righteousness. Your sins, past, present, and future, have all been pardoned. They have been removed from you as far as the east is from the west. That is some serious eternal gain.

But these realities aren't just for eternity. They are very much for the here and now. I want you to think on that. Beloved, if you belong to Jesus Christ, He has made you a part of His church. You may be called nasty names by those outside, but in this host right here, in this church, you are called beloved.

You may have lost family. You may have been shunned by siblings for Jesus' sake. But in here, You are called brother and sister. Blood-bought brothers and sisters whose relationship is established on an unbreakable foundation named Jesus Christ. And not just here, but you have brothers and sisters around the globe.

Blood-bought brothers and sisters whom you've never met and they come here to give a missions update and you weep with, enjoy with them and you pray for them. That's receiving a hundredfold. This is the restoration that Jesus has promised to you, brothers and sisters in this congregation and brothers and sisters in every single country in the entire world. Whoa! I think it's cool.

You may have lost a father or a mother for the sake of the gospel. And God in exchange has given you pastors. And not just pastors, but sages in this congregation, sage after sage. I don't mean this in a mean way, but gray hair after gray hair with great wisdom. I want gray haired men in my life.

As fathers, my father's three and a half hours away, I need you. You need them. God has given you sage after sage and pastor after pastor who delight in taking you under their wings and teaching you how to be a man or a woman after God's own heart. In ways your earthly father might never have done. Even better you have God the Father as your Father right now.

Who loves you, cares for you, because by the work of his son you were adopted into his family. Look at the way he cares for the lilies of the fields. You should just go out this week, look at a field, and just marvel that every blade of grass and every flower stays upright. Who does that? God does that.

Look at the way He cares for the lilies of the field, and they are here one day and gone the next. But you, Christian, He sacrificed His Son for you. He purchased you with a price that you might glorify Him with your body. How much more then does He care for you who are blood-bought? You who are infinitely more valuable than the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, He cares for you now as your heavenly Father.

Right now. Did Jesus not say in Mark 3, Looking out over all those who were following Him, His family, His physical family, biological family, we're calling Him crazy. People calling Him names. Jesus looks out over His disciples, the people following Jesus. Those that have counted the cost.

And He says to them, here, these people following Me, these are My brothers and sisters and mother. Here are those who truly are My family. Those who belong to Christ. Those who obey Jesus. Those who follow Christ are His family.

So if you want to talk about a hundredfold, there it is. What you have given up and following Jesus Christ has been and is being and will continue to be restored and much more besides. It's not money. You lose money, He might not give you money. It's not worldly fame.

If you lose worldly fame, you might not be restored back to worldly fame. It's not the same thing you lost. It's infinitely better than what you lost that God replaces in your life. It's everlasting in the place of temporary. Christian, you've gained God as your Father now and forever.

You've gained brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ's body of the church now and forever. And for those of you who have lost possessions, For those of you who will go on from this day and will be forced out of homes or farms or material possessions will be lost to you. You who are suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ in His name and His gospel. You have gained an eternal home in His Kingdom, yes. And you have gained a home here, right now in the present, in this fellowship.

And at this table, You have a table, friends. You have a home, friends, with a table prepared for you with the body and the blood of Christ. You have a table that you never used to have. I just want you to think about the exchange that has happened in following Jesus. What a replacement God has given you for all that you've lost.

What a joyous, incalculable replacement to the possessions that you've lost in giving you this table. And you might say, big whoop. If you just said big whoop, check your heart. You used to eat and drink without hope and without God in the world. That was you.

And you joined others around the same hopeless, misery-filled table, eating and drinking without hope and without God. You join them around a table called condemnation day after day, week after week, year after year. But God did a miracle in your life if you're a Christian. He saved you from His wrath. He made you born again through the work of his son.

He converted you by work of his miraculous working. He justified and regenerated you and he says to you, right now he says every Lord's Day here at Crossroad Church, come, come to my table Christian where goodness and mercy always sit on either side of you. What a radical change in your affairs. You used to sit around a table called condemnation with misery and hopelessness as your companions. And now, you sit next to goodness and loving kindness all of the days of your life.

And you're reminded of that right here at this table. Jesus says to you, come, every Lord's day, welcome to my table, welcome to Jesus Christ. That is gain, beloved. That makes what you lose look as but rubbish in comparison to the hundred fold of Christ's kingdom gain. So I want you to do this for me.

Every time that you eat and drink from this table, I want you to consider the exchange that it symbolizes. I want you to think of the loss of worldly approval for the gain of God's approval here at this table. The loss of worldly approval in exchange for the approval of God through the merit of Christ. The loss of worldly allegiance to the gain of eternal allegiance which manifests itself right here and now in this church with those in these chairs who participate in this table together with you. You have an allegiance that you never used to have.

You have a family that you never used to have. When I was writing this sermon, I got hungry for this. I hope you do too. What's interesting in this passage is in verse 30, if you were to look there, Verse 30 is all about what? Verse 29, all the things that you give up.

But verse 30 is all the things that God will restore to you. Verse 30 is all about gain. What's interesting is that a verse that's all about gain, at the end of it, persecution is mentioned. And so when you read it, it might seem out of place to you. Okay, if you lose this, you gain, gain, gain, gain, gain, gain, gain.

Persecution? Gain persecution? It might seem out of place until you're reminded of Christ's Word in Matthew 5. Matthew 5 says this, Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you, even persecution is gained. Because in persecution, Christian, you find yourself identified with Jesus. Persecution has been so conquered by the Lord Jesus, that it actually is meant to result in present comfort. In present comfort. I share in His sufferings.

I'm His child. I belong to Jesus. You experience that kind of sweet gain now, and in eternity, your reward is even greater when you're persecuted. So are you suffering now? Are you experiencing loss now, Christian?

Are you wondering if your labors are worth it? Do you think perhaps you may be laboring in vain? Christian, you must remember this promise. Drink deeply from the words of Jesus Christ in verse 30. Your labor is not in vain.

Listen to these words from J.C. Ryle. Where is the saint who will dare to say in the face of these glorious promises in verse 30 that there is no encouragement to serve Christ? Where is the man or woman whose hands are beginning to hang down and whose knees are beginning to faint in the Christian race. Let all such people ponder this passage and take fresh courage.

The time is short, the end is sure, heaviness may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Let us wait patiently on the Lord, for His promises are sure. Amen. He will surely provide. He has promised in verse 30 to restore and replace in your life a hundredfold of what you've lost.

You know the sureness of His promise here at this table. You taste the fulfillment of those promises and the guarantee of those promises here in verse 30, here in this bread and the cup that we're about to participate in together. Gain now and forever. That's something that should be in your mind when you bring that cup to your lips. To be reminded of the promises of Christ, gain for me an unworthy sinner, declared saint.

All because of Jesus. Well our passage concludes with verse 31. You'll read it there, that many who are first will be last, and the last will be first. And it's a summary of this whole passage regarding the rich young ruler. The rich young ruler, he's come to Jesus as rich and self-righteous, first in his own heart and first among all men.

The disciples esteem him so. But Bartimaeus, the blind man, he came poor and needy, least among men like a child. So you see the contrast. We've gone over that before. And I'll have you remember the Pharisee in Luke chapter 18.

He came proud and boasted in his morality, the first of all men and the first in his own heart, versus the publican, the tax collector, who came helpless and needy. He came as the least, and he couldn't even raise his eyes up to heaven, but like Bartimaeus could simply only cry out for mercy. And Bartimaeus and his tax collector, those who were least and those who were last, those who came to Christ with empty hands, They were first in the kingdom. They went away happy. The man who was blind went away truly seeing.

And this rich young ruler and the Pharisee, the self-righteous ones, those who boast and trust in their own riches and their own righteousness, they will always go away sad and last. This morning, Trust in Christ. Rest in Christ. Obey Christ. Look away from yourselves this morning and look to Him.

And take comfort. Your Labor is not in vain when it is done for Christ. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what is done for Christ will last. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, thank you for this your word. May it achieve your intended purpose. May your people leave here looking outside of themselves, trusting in your precious and very magnificent promises. Remind us of the great hundredfold blessing You have given us in exchange for what we might have lost in following Jesus. You have given us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that we might be like trees of righteousness, a planting of the Lord, that you might be glorified now and forever.

In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. My prayer. Amen.