Open Handed Living: Lifelong Discipleship (Mark 10.13-31)

This sermon was preached on September 7th, 2025

Today we’re looking at our church’s core value of Lifelong Discipleship: that we are called to value what Jesus values and follow him together through all the ages and stages of life. And we’re looking at this through the lens of Mark 10: a passage of Scripture that is central to understanding Jesus and what his kingdom is about.

And what I want to propose is that this value isn’t a program, it isn’t a competition, but it’s a process of us becoming more childlike: people who are more and more enabled to live open-handed: ready to receive all God has for us, and ready to give in his name. 

23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 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.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” 28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 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 lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

In this passage Jesus interacts with three different groups of people: 1) children, 2) a rich and powerful man, 3) his disciples.

Jesus and the Children:

Let’s set the scene. Jesus is teaching about big, grown up type stuff: marriage and divorce. People are listening. V13 tells us that in the middle of all of this, parents started bringing their children to Jesus. And you can imagine all their delight and rambunctiousness. All their distractions, “outside voices”, running away, playing. 

The disciples are horrified. They rebuke the parents who are bringing their children—how dare they bring children in the middle of Jesus teaching? What could the children add to the discussion? 

Jesus would have none of it. V14 tells us that when he saw this, he became indignant. Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Children who are perhaps the most vulnerable members of our society. Helpless, small, dependent. They are small. But it’s to them that the kingdom of Jesus belongs. 

To quote the pastor Will Willimon: “It is as if Jesus wanted to say, “You want to get into my kingdom? The only way to get into my kingdom is to be very small, very little, and very needy. There will be no ‘adults’ in my kingdom. No self-sufficient, liberated, autonomous, independent adults. There will only be children. Here is a kingdom with a very small door.” 

Jesus is saying that all church is children’s church. 

Jesus and The Rich Man

Let’s say you’re like Jesus, starting a movement. And you’re recruiting the people who are going to be on your side. Who do you pick? You start looking for someone who is resourceful. Respected. Connected. Great Reputation. Wealthy. Able-bodied.

This kind of person is in our passage. A rich man who does everything right and knows how to act. And if Jesus is trying to build a following that will truly make an impact, you’d think that Jesus would leap at this chance to get him on the team. After all, if Jesus got this man to be a follower, he’d never have to think about money again. If Jesus got this man as a follower, Jesus could get connected to so many important people. 

Their conversation starts in v17, when the man runs up to Jesus and kneels in front of him, then calls him an honorific title: “Good Teacher.” He didn’t have some wiggling child in his arm asking Jesus to bless her. He didn’t come up in the middle of Jesus’ teaching. This is a man of propriety.

But Jesus realizes what he’s doing, and refuses to play the game. V18: “why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus is not saying here that he isn’t God. Jesus is refusing to engage him the way the man wants to. He’s telling him—“You call me good. I don’t think you realize what you’re saying.” Because if the man really thought that Jesus was the “Good” Teacher…and if no one is truly “good” except God alone, then the man’s approaching Jesus and asking Jesus in v17 “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” makes no sense.

Why doesn’t that question make sense? Because Jesus had just answered it. The man was present for what Jesus had just said about receiving the kingdom as children, but he didn’t like the answer.

Jesus had shattered this man’s thoughts about who he was and how he related to God and to the world. He was wealthy and young. He had made a name for himself. He had spent a lot of time and a lot of energy—in fact he had spent his whole life—building this respectable identity. 

How could Jesus say that he had to receive his kingdom like a little child? 

So Jesus engages him in v.19: “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.’”

Jesus lists the commandments from the last half of the Ten Commandments—the ones that have to do with relationships with other people. And you’d expect that an honest encounter with the beautiful commandments of God will make this man recoil: “you know what Jesus, you’re right—I can only come as a child, because there’s no way I’ve fulfilled all of that!”

But he will not be denied his self-importance. Look at his response in v20: “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” He is apparently convinced that he has lived his life without mistake. Without sinning against anyone, ever. Without messing up at all. He is directly challenging Jesus here. Here this man is saying “I’ve done a lot since I was a child. And I need you to recognize that. I deserve to be in your kingdom. I’ve earned my way in.”

V.21 tells us something baffling—Jesus looks at this man with his pride and self-sufficiency and loves him. And he tells him one final thing, getting to the very heart of the matter…“You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Strip yourself of these things that you look for for identity and security. Toss off your wealth. You cannot come to me and receive the kingdom loaded down with all of this. Become weak. Become vulnerable. Become dependent. Become small. 

This respectable, successful man cannot come to Jesus and receive the gift of his salvation and cling to this idol as well. It’s one or the other. He cannot open his hands to receive what Jesus is doing when his hands are still closed trying to hold onto his stuff, his reputation, his respectability.

The man is once again disappointed. Your wealth, your possessions, your status is weighing you down and will kill you. Cast it off to receive life. These words proved too hard for the man. Look at v22: “Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”

Jesus and the Disciples

Jesus then turns to his disciples, who have been listening in and says something that shocked them. V.23: “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” To make his point Jesus says it again, but this time even stronger: “Children, how difficult 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 person to enter the kingdom of God.” 

A camel through the eye of a needle is absurd. Impossible. And the disciples that were amazed by Jesus’ words because if anyone could get into the kingdom it was the man who just walked away sorrowfully. He was a good, moral man. So the disciples respond: “Then who can be saved?” If not this kind of man, what hope is there for any of us?!! Jesus says: “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

Jesus is saying that with God it is possible that we might be stripped of all the things we build up around ourselves. That we might be made vulnerable and poor. All things are possible with God—even the impossibility that we might set down our respectability and good deeds and come to him, receiving salvation from Him the only way that it can be received—as a gift. God will make us like children. God will squeeze us, like a camel through the eye of a needle, through that very small door.

This doesn’t come easily. We like being large. We like our stuff. We like being well thought of and being important. But Jesus will have none of it because he knows what it does to our souls. That stuff kills us. And the eternal life he is giving to us has to push our importance and self-sufficiency out. The kind of grace that God gives will not leave us the way we are. It’s a grace that forgives AND cleanses to uttermost. 

In v28, Peter speaks up and says: “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Peter and the disciples have been floored by what Jesus has said. And if this man had walked away and made the opposite decision as them? Had they made the right decision?

In v29, Jesus gives his disciples a great promise: “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”

Jesus is saying: ‘Yes, you’ve received the kingdom like children. You’ve left those basic things that are the basis of survival and existence—family and property. You’ve left the safety of home. You’ve lost family members who think you’re crazy for following me. You’ve left the economic stability of owning and working your land. But I promise you—you’ve only given these things up in order to gain so much more.’

You have to go through a very small door. So small that only a child, ready to receive the kingdom as a gift, can get through. It may seem impossible, but this impossibility is a possible with God. Through faith in Christ, you can reach out with open hands to receive all God has for you. And though riches and respectability will run out or waste away, he will never leave you or forsake you. 

We find it difficult to live with open hands because we’re holding onto too much stuff, and think if we open our hands we’ll lose it all. But the call to us our whole lives long is to keep our hands open—for it is open hands that are ready to release that which is holding us down…and open hands to receive all that Jesus has for us. Open hands that do not grasp ahold of things as if they’ll be stripped from us—but open hands that receive all as grace. 

And this is what lifelong discipleship is. The reality that all church is children’s church, that we are forever those who are loved and provided for by our Father, and our encouragement to one another is to not shy away from this but to embrace it whole-heartedly. Whether we are actual children or people who are chronologically gifted.