Matthew 19:20

Matthew 19:20

"What lack I yet?" This question is asked by various distinct classes of men.

I. The first class ask the question, but they understand it wrongly. Do we not all ask, What lack I yet? Who does not feel that something is lacking to him? All that makes our earthly life lovely and pleasant, the joys and possessions of life these are what we lack. But is this an answer worthy of a human soul? No, the question must be taken in a moral sense. What lack I yet in my moral character? What is wanting to make my life truly worthy of a man? Thus the question gains a serious meaning which at first was absent from it.

II. There are others who know well where to look for the true standard for humanity; they seek in God, in whose image we are created, in Him alone, the holy, pure, and just. What was it that was lacking to this youth and to all who ask his question? The answer is not hard to find; a Redeemer is what humanity needs, such a Redeemer as has come into the world. Well for him who bends the knee before Him, and surrenders himself into the gracious hands of the Redeemer; for him the question is answered, he has what man requires, even eternal life.

III. Yet even this is not a full and perfect answer. Even those who believe Christ have a great and decisive step to take. "Sell that thou hast,... and come, follow Me." Deny thyself and thy worldly lusts, and believe in Jesus. Despise and cast away from thee all that is not Jesus, and that strives against Him. "Come, follow Me." What is this but a following to thorns and to the cross? What but a self-surrender in self-sacrificing, self-denying love? This is the goal to which Christ would have us attain; to be free altogether from self, to forget self altogether in love.

R. Rothe, Nachgelassene Predigten, p. 24.

References: Matthew 19:20 . H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 291; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 102; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 184.Matthew 19:21 . Expositor, 1st series, vol. vi., p. 229; G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, 2nd series, p, 1; W. T. Keay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 269; J. W. Thew, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 257.