The Village Church Encounters with Jesus: The Rich Young Ruler
Mark 10:17-31
Michael Cousineau
2-20-22
The Rich Young Ruler
If you want to talk about this passage in the usual way, listen to the podcast from 2019 evening. I think it was a good sermon! I listened to and I said, “this guy is really on point!”
However, today we will do things differently. Let’s go back to kindergarten…put on your imagination hat. Pick our someone you know well, the way the move and talk. Imagine them walking through the door right over there and wave happily and walk over to you and they sit down next to you and say hello. Could you accomplish this? Good.
Encounters with Jesus. Rather than talk about an encounter with Jesus, I want to provoke one that happens to you this morning. There are two ways to read the Bible (at least two). Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster: a book about 12 disciplines (information and application). He kicks off the book with meditation. Another one is study. This not bad and it’s what I usually do. I’m not trying to bad-mouth this: you SHOUILD study scripture often! But another way of looking at the Bible is meditation.
“...Whereas the study of scripture is exegesis by contrast the meditation centers on…Bonhoeffer says to spend a week on one text…taste the salt in the air…. touch the hem…rather than dissecting it, we are gathered into his peace…the self is forgotten…. we are attending to the impartation of peace within our hearts
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The Village Church’s sermon podcast is more than just a weekly message. It is an invitation into the great and ongoing story of God’s work in the world. Pastors Eric, Mark, Susan, Daniel, and other leaders open the Scriptures not as a collection of abstract ideas but as the living, breathing witness to God’s kingdom breaking into our midst. Each episode is a call—not merely to listen, but to take part, to step forward into the life of faith with renewed vision and purpose.
Week by week, the pastors and leaders explore the deep rhythms of Christian discipleship—prayer, fasting, generosity—not as isolated duties but as part of a larger, richer, and more beautiful whole. They unpack these ancient practices in light of Jesus himself, the one in whom heaven and earth have come together. But they also turn their attention to the realities of everyday life—relationships, finances, the struggles and joys of being human—demonstrating how the gospel is not merely about what we believe but about how we live as God's renewed people in the present age.
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