Pip: Pastor Goforth is preaching out of Luke 18, where Jesus meets a man who has done everything right and still walks away sad — which, honestly, is a mood.

Mara: This episode follows that encounter into some real territory: what it costs to follow Jesus, what it means to actually leave something behind, and why children might understand faith better than rulers do.

Pip: Let’s start with the wealth we carry and what Jesus asks us to do with it.

Where Is Your Wealth? Lay it Down

Mara: Luke 18 sets up a contrast that drives this whole post — children coming to Jesus with nothing, and then a wealthy young ruler arriving with a very specific question: what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Pip: And the post points out that “what must I do” is already the wrong question. Children don’t come with a to-do list. They come with excitement, expectation, faith, and humility.

Mara: Jesus meets the ruler where he is, runs through the law, and then in verse 22 delivers the line the post anchors everything on: “you still lack one thing — sell all you have… then come follow me.”

Pip: That word “lack” is leipo in the Greek — to fall short. The ruler had kept the law and still came up short, not because of what he hadn’t done, but because of what he wouldn’t release.

Mara: And the post broadens that out deliberately. Wealth here isn’t only money. It’s property, possessions, competence, confidence — anything we hold onto that makes it harder to come like a child. The post puts it plainly: it’s easier for the down-and-out to come than the up-and-out.

Pip: Which is a quietly uncomfortable observation, because most people reading a sermon blog are not the down-and-out.

Mara: The post then works through what leaving everything actually requires. Peter says, look, we left what we had — and the post notices he’s almost keeping score. As long as you’re tracking what you gave up, you haven’t really left it.

Pip: There’s a detail from John 21 here worth catching: after the resurrection, Peter and the disciples went back to their boats. Jesus showed up and gave them a fresh call — and that, the post argues, is when they truly left everything, all the way to death.

Mara: The post closes with a disarming move. The disciples didn’t understand where following Jesus would lead — the betrayal, the death, the rising. And the post imagines Jesus responding: “What did you understand?” “You said follow me.” “Then do that, and leave the rest to me.”

Pip: Excited, expectant, humble, faith-filled — coming like a child is the whole posture, not just a metaphor for the young.

Mara: The question underneath all of this is what we’re actually gripping when we say we’re following — and whether we’ve scored it or surrendered it.

Pip: Come back next time. There’s more Luke 18 ahead, and Jericho is just around the corner.