Finding Lasting Joy

Luke 18:18-30

St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
April 6, 2025
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes

We’re blessed to have a beautiful facility, one we can share with others including Ebenezer Church, CPR Certification Training, Weddings, Funerals, Family gatherings, and Conventions.

A few years ago, a family from our community asked if they could use our sanctuary and fellowship hall for a funeral. Obviously, we said yes. I believe I was invited to take part in the celebration of life service and a few of our church members were here to assist the family and guests.

Before the service started one of the elders said, “Pastor, do you know there is a Rolls Royce car on the church parking lot?” I said, “Cool, I’d like to see it; I’ve never seen a Rolls Royce.” I was so impressed with the shiny car; it seems it was just driven out of the factory.” Rolls Royce cars cost $325-650,000.

Picture an individual walking into this church to worship. He has all the appearances of wealth. Lucchese boots, Italian custom-fit suit, Rolex watch, Montblanc pen in his shirt pocket, leather belt from Morocco. This person comes to St. John’s and he encounters Jesus.

Today we’re looking at the story of the rich young ruler. Today’s character is the most American person in the Bible. If we preach this message right, it is a hard message to preach. It is challenging because when we encounter Jesus, we cannot be indifferent. We are either offended, saddened or surrendered.

Many people say that money can’t buy happiness, but I would like to be the person who proves that. The fact is that money can buy temporary happiness.

Money gives us access to good healthcare, food, travel, buying things, etc. Money can also do a lot of good in our communities.

Yet, better than money is to find ourselves in the flow of God’s presence where we find joy through it all.

C.S. Lewis reflected, “Joy is the serious business of heaven, joy is what God is after, joy is what we need.”

Looking at this passage in context, Christ talks about the three rejects of society: the lepers, Kids (they teach us to be dependent, humble, innocent), and tax collectors.

Then in the middle of the stories, he talks about the rich young ruler.

Last Sunday we heard a sermon on healing and we learned that if faith is based on our deliverance, then it is not faith in God. It is faith in circumstances. So, how are you today? You can say, “I’m happy, I got a raise at work!” or “I’m happy, I’ll be traveling next week!” Happy feelings come from good things that happen around us, circumstantial.

I. What is the counterfeit joy?

Consider God’s word:

And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must 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 commit adultery,

Do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”

This sounds like a random list of the commandments, but it is not. These are the last half of the commandments. The first half of the commandments have to do with our relationship to God, our vertical relationship. The latter half has to do with our horizontal relationship with one another. Clearly, love God and love others (the sign of the cross).

And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack.

Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Mark adds this, “Looking at him, he loved him.” Christ is looking at his soul.

Jesus is focused on what the rich man is going to gain, not on what he is going to give up. This man has experienced happiness, momentary happiness, and Jesus says, “I want you to experience joy, not based on your circumstances, but ongoing joy.” Stop living like this: based on your performance, the approval of others, how much money you have today, I am liked today, I am not liked today, I don’t have a job, I don’t know what to do, I don’t have good health today.” That is life and Jesus says, “I want you to experience joy through it all!”

That’s want we all want, real joy. Look what happens, verse 23:

But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

The words, “very sad” are the same words that Jesus experience the night before he was crucified. It means “deeply troubled.” He was grieving. Notice, the rich man was not confused or angry, he was sad. He is sad because he experiences Jesus and he said, “I can’t do this.”

Imagine someone has a terminal illness and they get a remedy for their illness, medicine or a procedure that can save their lives and they reject this. Would this be nuts? Of course, if you have an illness and you have a prescription for healing, you’ll take it. Jesus wants us to have abundant life, something that is much larger than the things of this world.

Why is he sad? Because he knows he still has a problem.

II. What leads us to false joy?

The quick answer is: the pursuit of happiness, temporary happiness is the way and not real joy.

Life is hard, life is cruel, we have dark nights in life and that’s when we need Jesus.

Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

For 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.”

The camel is the largest animal in Palestine and the needle has the smallest hole. People asked, “This is hard, who can be saved?”

Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Jesus says, “Salvation from start to finish is not a human achievement.” God alone. That is why it demands surrender.

Jesus said it this way: ”Wherever your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be.” (Matthew 6:21). What ever occupies our time, fills our calendar, what ever is our obsession, such is our treasure and that’s where our heart is.

John Calvin gave voice to the human condition: the heart is an idol-making factory.

This man’s wealth was his substitute God, what is yours? What is keeping you from experiencing joy in life?

C.S. Lewis put things in perspective for us: “prosperity knits a man to this world, he feels like he’s finding himself in it, while really it is finding its place in him.”

Earthly things start to drive us; it starts to lead us in everything we do and Christ is crowded out. All the other Gods that we are chasing, they are all false, they are not real.

III. How can we find true joy?

Jesus is asking more of us than we can ever imagine in order to gain more than we can ever fathom. Do you trust him?

This man thought, “I’ll just add Jesus to, like it’s an addition problem.” No, it is by surrendering.

We must smash our substitute idols by realizing that in Jesus we have found our greater affection.

Some of us wonder, “What is in it for me if I surrender to God?”

Peter thought the same thing.

Then Peter said in reply, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”

Jesus replied:

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

Many who would be first, will be last and the last will be first: the lepers, the kids, the tax collectors. It is flipped.

Here is a fascinating reality: the paradox of hedonism states “you’ll never experience happiness by pursuing happiness, you only achieve happiness by pursuing something else.” It ensues, it comes along, not by pursing something, but it comes along. When we choose to pursue God, happiness will ensue.

Philippians 2 remind us that Christ experienced a criminal’s death for us. You will never experience true joy, until you pursue someone else: Jesus. We pursue good things that can become God things and they defeat us.

Choose well today and this week. This is the word of the Lord.