In there, we'll be spending most of our time in Luke 18 and the passages before that.
At this time in the book of Luke, Jesus is coming to the end of his ministry.
He is definitely faced towards Jerusalem.
Him and the disciples are headed that way.
And he has some urgent things still that he wants the disciples to know,
particularly concerning salvation and how men are to be saved.
And so today in our passage in Luke 18, starting in verse 18, we have a narrative account.
Something that actually happened.
This is not a parable, but something that happened.
And Jesus uses this again to teach his disciples about salvation.
Starting in verse 18, it says,
A certain ruler asked him,
Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
Why do you call me good? Jesus answered.
No one is good except God alone.
You know the commandments.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not give false testimony.
Honor your father and mother.
All these I have kept since I was a boy, he said.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him,
You still lack one thing.
Sell everything you have and give to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come follow me.
When he heard this, he became very sad because he was a man of great wealth.
Jesus looked at him and said,
How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Those who heard him asked,
Who then can be saved?
Jesus replied,
What is impossible with men is possible with God.
Peter said to him,
We have left all we had to follow you.
I tell you the truth, Jesus said to them.
No one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children
for the sake of the kingdom of God
will fail to receive many times as much in this age
and in the age to come eternal life.
So this is a pretty intriguing passage,
and it's one that's found in all three of what we call the synoptic gospels.
It's found in Matthew 19 and also in Mark 10.
And this guy comes, he has a good question.
It's one that's, you know, if we had one question to ask Jesus
and knew that we would get the truth,
this is probably as good a question as you could ask of Jesus.
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
It's not the first time we've heard this question.
You guys remember a few months back,
Samir preached out of Luke chapter 10
when a lawyer came up trying to trap Jesus,
and he asked the same question,
What must I do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus asked him, and he gave the commandments,
and then Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.
This young man seems to be coming with a different agenda on his mind.
By looking at all three passages,
we've learned a little bit about who this young man is.
First, in Matthew, we learn that he's young.
It doesn't mention that in Luke here,
but in Matthew, it talks about a young man coming to Jesus.
Here in Luke, we see that he's a ruler,
and therefore, we get that part from the Gospel of Luke.
And then all three of them talk about the man's wealth.
In the interchange there, it says that he went away sad
because he was very wealthy.
So we take all that together and we put it together,
and we have the rich young ruler.
Even though he's not called that in any of the passages,
he's known as that because of the three passages put together.
We also know a few other things about this young man.
He comes in Mark.
It talks about him running up to Jesus and kneeling before him.
So we know that he has this question.
He's very eager to know the answer.
He has a question that has to be answered.
Again, Jesus has been ministering in this area for a few years,
and perhaps this man has heard Jesus' teaching,
and he's finally come to the conclusion
that if anybody knows the answer to this question,
it's got to be Jesus.
And so I have to have this question answered.
And so we would say he's an eager young man.
We also would say that he's reverent.
In Mark, it also talks about him running up to Jesus
and kneeling before him to ask this question.
And so he's acknowledging that Jesus has some authority
and he has some weight to him.
I mean, even in his address to Jesus,
he calls him good teacher.
That's not something that was normally called of the teachers at that time.
The rabbis certainly were people that were asked questions,
but they generally wouldn't call them good teacher.
It would be like teacher or rabbi or something like that.
And like I said, he seems to have a very different agenda.
When some of these rulers and people from the area,
like the Pharisees and the scribes who come to question Jesus,
they came trying to trap him.
This man has a different purpose.
He needs to know the answer to this question.
And so we see him coming up and asking Jesus this question,
and we immediately think to ourselves,
if any of us have done any evangelism,
this looks like a pretty good prospect.
He's a hot lead.
He wants to know right away.
And so we have to ask ourselves then why he asked this question.
Out of all the questions, again, that he could ask Jesus,
he chose this one.
And like I said, I think it's a good question
and an important question.
But apparently there was something in him
that was needing an answer to this question.
I mean, apparently he was looking for some type of peace or joy
or just assurance, assured hope in something.
But definitely something was missing in him.
You know, he had the wealth.
He was a man of position.
We don't know exactly what it means to be a ruler, that Luke calls him,
but very possibly he was a ruler in the local synagogue
or possibly part of the Sanhedrin or something like that.
We tend to think he was part of the Jewish community there, probably not a Roman.
Just in his familiarity with Jesus and in the way he asks his questions,
he seems to be familiar with the commandments.
So he's probably a local Jewish ruler,
and that would kind of limit things in that time
since they were under the rule of Rome.
So he's looking for something.
And like I said, he seems to be familiar with Jesus
and also with the Old Testament.
It kind of brings to mind, perhaps you've heard some quotes.
St. Augustine, he talked about men being restless
until they find their rest in God.
And Blaise Pascal, he talked about men having a God-shaped hole in their heart
and that only God could fill that.
And so this man seemed to have that sense about him.
He had all these things.
There was money in the position.
He even seemed to have an upright moral character about him.
And yet all this did not satisfy him.
There was still something missing.
And so he asked this question about inheriting eternal life.
And so what is he asking for there?
What is this eternal life?
To understand that, we really need to, again,
Jesus talks much about eternal life,
and he talks about the kingdom of God.
And these two terms are used interchangeably,
even in these passages that we're looking at.
And so it's talking about something that is more of a quality
than a quantity of life.
Oftentimes we think of eternal life,
and we think of that time after we die that we are going to live forever.
And it's either going to be eternal life,
or it's going to be eternal death.
And that's what this young man seems to understand, that difference.
He understands that there's something missing,
and he wants that eternal life.
But again, it's more of a quality thing.
Before the fall of Adam,
when Adam and Eve sinned and were banished from the Garden of Eden,
men had perfect fellowship with God.
They were able to commune with him and enjoy his presence,
have joy in his presence,
just to talk to him and walk with him,
and just fellowship and commune with God.
After the fall, we are no longer able to do that.
The Bible says that we are spiritually dead,
so we don't have this ability to commune and fellowship with God
and to seek after him.
And so the Jews, they understood this,
and they believed that God was eventually going to restore all things,
as he promised.
And they begin to think of that as the age to come.
They were looking back to that age before the fall,
and now they're in this period where because of our sin and our deadness,
we are no longer able to fellowship and commune with God.
And so they're looking for the time when God would restore things
and bring about that age to come when we would have, again,
that fellowship and communion with God.
And so they even talked about it as being that divine life,
that they could participate in God's life,
that life free from sin.
It's free from just the bindings of sin
and free from the bindings of time even.
And it's an eternal life that God possesses,
and yet he's going to impart that with us as well.
And this is what the Jews became to think of.
Jesus even tells us it's something more than just living forever.
He talked in John 3,
Nicodemus came and Jesus began to talk to him about the kingdom of God
and how one had to be born again to be a part of this kingdom of God.
So he's talking about a different life than we currently are living.
And so he's showing that, and this is what they believed,
it's much more than living for a long time.
And it's about living in a world like God dwells in
and being able to communicate and commune and fellowship with him
and just experience life the way God intended us to.
So that is behind what his question is.
When he says, you know, how do I inherit this eternal life?
He's asking for more than something, just life after death.
He's looking for something much greater than that.
And so then Jesus begins to answer him in kind of a strange way.
He asks the man a question right off the bat.
Why do you call me good?
Jesus answers.
He doesn't give him a chance to respond to this,
but Jesus is doing something here.
Again, he's not just answering the man's question directly,
but he's trying to show him something.
And I also would encourage you to remember that the disciples are watching this very closely.
And so Jesus is showing them something as well,
as the way he goes about dialoguing with this young man and answering his questions.
And so Jesus is, first off, he's saying, why do you call me good?
Only, no one is good except God alone.
And he's trying to show him that this young man, that he has a, in a sense, a wrong perception of what good is.
He, like most of us, tend to think of good as a relative term.
You know, we keep most of the commandments.
We only break a few.
We tend to think of that as good.
Or, you know, we're better than that person who, you know, has murdered five people or five million people or whatever.
We're better than them.
Therefore, we can call ourselves good.
But Jesus is saying that this is not how God views good.
When we talk about God being good, it's something totally different than that.
Only God is good.
All the rest of us, because we have sinned, because we have fallen short of God's standard,
have fallen short of giving him glory, we are not good.
We are evil in all that we do.
And that's what Jesus is trying to, first and foremost, get to, because he knows where this is going.
And he knows that this man is not seeing this rightly.
And probably thinks of himself as good.
And he wants, right off the bat, to communicate to this young man that you're not good.
And he's beginning to systematically kind of take apart this man's foundation for why he perhaps believes that he's very close to eternal life.
So he begins by talking about that.
Why do you call me good?
And like I say, he doesn't give him a chance to respond, because he's just trying to make a point there.
But then he goes right into, in a sense, answering this man's question.
And again, he does it in a way that perhaps we would not think to do.
Again, if you've done any evangelism, somebody comes up and asks you this question, you're going to have, you know, you've got a ready answer.
You know, oh man, he's wanting eternal life, he's wanting salvation.
He just needs to believe in Jesus and be saved.
And we tend to oversimplify it.
But again, Jesus knows this man's heart, and he knows that this man is not actually seeking what he seems to be seeking.
He's seeking something different.
And so Jesus doesn't say any of the things that we would say.
He doesn't say, whosoever calls on the Lord shall be saved.
He doesn't say what Paul said to the Philippian jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
Jesus could have quoted Isaiah 55, 6 through 7.
It says, seek the Lord while he may be found.
Call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.
And let him return to the Lord, and he will have compassion on him.
And to our Lord, to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
So we have all these things he could draw on.
And we've seen Jesus already in the Gospels.
He talks about if anyone thirsts, come to me, and I will satisfy.
He says things like, I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
And so when he comes to this answer and he tells the man, you know the commandments.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not give false testimony.
Honor your father and mother.
That doesn't seem like Jesus is preaching a gospel.
It sounds like he's preaching law here.
That somehow this man could be saved by keeping the commandments perfectly.
Again, that's not something where we would go.
We tend to emphasize, oh, no, salvation is a free gift.
You don't have to do anything to earn salvation.
You have to just believe.
And, you know, we want to emphasize that free gift so often because, you know, that'll hook them.
That'll draw them in.
Everybody wants something free.
And eternal life, that sounds like something really good.
So we offer them that and think that, wow, you know, they want that.
Surprise, surprise.
Who doesn't want something free?
And then so we just kind of lead them through a prayer and, well, you know, kind of pronounce them as saved.
But Jesus is saying that it's not always as it appears.
He's going to dig a little deeper into this man's heart and show these things, show us some things about so-called seekers.
And we say, you know, Jesus believes all those things that I just said.
You know, those are all perfectly true.
And like I said, Jesus pronounced some of these things himself in that it's just believe and you will be saved.
But, and he's believing those things.
And at the same time, we can say that just because he tells this man, you know, do these commandments, keep these and you'll be saved.
He's not distorting the gospel.
Again, he's using the law in a different way.
He's not using the law to show this man how to be saved.
But in a sense, he's using the law as the way Paul describes it in Galatians 3.24 as a tutor to teach us that we need to be saved.
He's using the law for that purpose.
Romans 7 through 13 says,
The law is good.
It is holy.
And the law helps us to know what sin is.
So, again, he's telling these to this man so that he can see the incredibly high standard that is required by God and also see the impossibility for any man to keep that standard.
Jesus wants this man to see that he had broken God's laws and was a sinner.
This man was not coming with that posture to Jesus.
He's coming with, see what I have, see all the good things that I have done.
What else do I need to do to have eternal life?
And Jesus is saying this is not the right posture to come to God in.
And we'll look at that a little bit more.
But Jesus knows that this is not going to save this man.
But what he wants to do, again, is to show this man that he has broken God's law and is a sinner.
Paul says the same thing in Galatians 3.10 through 14.
He says,
In fact, anyone who does try to keep the law actually is under a curse.
And only Jesus can redeem us from that curse.
And it's by faith that we gain that eternal life.
So Jesus shares God's law with this ruler.
And the young ruler says, at first, he says, he has kept the law.
So in his mind, again, he's not thinking that he's guilty.
And I'm probably looking at these externals of the five that Jesus mentioned in this passage.
He probably thinks, I have been faithful to my wife if he's married.
I haven't committed adultery.
I haven't murdered anybody.
I've never stolen.
He's a very rich man.
Why would he need to steal?
Perhaps he has honored his father and mother.
Perhaps he hasn't given false testimony.
And externally, all these things he probably has kept.
If he had been at the Sermon on the Mount, he might have heard Jesus talk more about how these things come from the heart.
And begin to have a take place in the heart that we break these commandments.
When Jesus says, you have heard it said, thou shalt not murder.
But I tell you, if you hate your brother, you have murdered him already.
And he would say things like, if you lust after a woman, you have already committed adultery.
And so Jesus gets much more internal.
And we might expect him to do that here.
To kind of like, okay, we've got to bring this down so that we can see that this is at a heart level.
But he lets the man just give his response.
I've kept all these commandments since I was a boy.
In verse 21 it says that.
All these I have kept since I was a boy.
But I suspect that if he knows about Jesus' teachings, he probably knows there's something more there.
And he still is waiting for the answer from Jesus.
Because this hasn't satisfied him.
He hasn't received this assurance that, oh, I've kept all these, therefore I must be inheriting eternal life.
There's still something missing in his heart.
So he needs more.
And then Jesus kind of goes right for the kill on this one.
And he says to the man, you still lack one thing.
Sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.
Then come follow me.
So Jesus doesn't deal with whether he had actually faithfully kept those five commandments or not.
He now goes for the most foundational commandment that there is in the first commandment in the Ten Commandments.
He knew that this man was not convinced that he was a sinner here.
And he knew the heart of this young man.
And so instead of going over these, he goes right to it and basically is showing this man that his possessions are a god to him.
We see his response says, when he heard this, he became very sad because he was a man of great wealth.
And it talks about in the other passages about him walking away with sadness.
So Jesus says, in a sense, successfully demonstrated to him that he had a different god.
He was not ready to serve God the way the first commandment said to have no other gods before the one true god.
He had this god of possessions.
And so Jesus, by giving him this requirement, knowing that he will not do it,
he shows that he has this one basic commandment that he has broken.
Essentially the first commandment, as the lawyer had talked about in Luke chapter 10,
love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.
This man was not doing that.
And I think it's interesting that he went away sad.
There was a sense in that he knew Jesus had the authority to command that and to say, to follow me.
And he went away sad.
You've got to think that if he just disagreed with Jesus that this wasn't the right thing to do,
he would get mad and just kind of dismiss Jesus.
But the fact that he went away sad gives us a sense that he knows that that's true,
and yet he can't do it.
He's not going to be able to sell his possessions and follow Jesus.
And that's what Jesus begins to tell to the disciples.
First of all, we see this command of Jesus telling this man,
you need to sell all you have and give to the poor and then follow me.
And we see from Scripture that that's not a requirement to be saved.
I mean, there's plenty of other people, accounts in the Scriptures where Jesus pronounced people saved on the basis of their faith.
If you look just over in Luke 19, we're not going to read through that passage,
or perhaps you're familiar with the passage where Zacchaeus, the tax collector,
he has Jesus over to his house.
And Jesus just coming to his house causes this man to have such joy that he wants to, in a sense,
make up for the sins that he committed.
He's going to repay all the money that he had stolen.
He's going to begin to do things to help the poor.
It says that he sold half his possessions.
And Jesus declares that salvation has come to this house.
He didn't sell all his possessions.
He hasn't sold anything yet.
He's just saying, I'm going to sell half my possessions.
I'm going to repay what I've taken.
But Jesus says salvation has come to this house today based on the change that he saw in this man's life.
He was turning from what he had formerly done as a wicked tax collector
and defrauding people and lying to people and stealing from people.
And now he's turned into a person that wants to do what Jesus wants him to do
in repaying that and following after him.
And so it's not a requirement that he do all this,
but it's definitely a demonstration that there has been repentance in the heart of Zacchaeus.
And Jesus is able to say salvation has come to this house.
And there's other people that come to Jesus and demonstrate faith in various ways,
like the centurion who demonstrates a knowledge of authority.
And Jesus says, this is such great faith I haven't seen in the whole country of Israel.
And we get a sense that this man is saved and others are saved on the basis of their faith.
They didn't have to sell all their possessions.
But at the same time, there are times where Jesus requires some people.
You need to, he'll say things, you need to deny yourself.
You have to take up your cross and follow me.
You know, he gives an example of where some people come up with excuses as to why they can't follow Jesus.
And he basically says, you know, depart from me.
You're not ready to follow me if you're not ready to give up your family and your possessions and all these things.
And he's not saying that those things are requirements,
but those would definitely be demonstrations of repentance.
And that's what he's asking from this rich young ruler.
So I just want to make sure that you understand that this is not what was required.
What's required is that we worship God first and put him first,
that all these other things become secondary, lesser priorities.
None of us, to my knowledge here, have been asked to give up our family in order to be saved.
But there are countries in this world where that's, in a sense, what these people are being asked to do.
For Muslims to become Christians in some nations, they're going to have to give up their families.
Some of them are going to have to give up their jobs.
It's going to cost them a lot to become Christians.
It might cost them everything.
It might cost them their lives.
But that is certainly not the requirement in order to be saved.
It might be something that will happen to these people.
And that will be an opportunity for them to demonstrate repentance
and that they're willing to pay this cost.
And so we see that though this is not a requirement,
it's certainly within Jesus' right to demand everything that we have.
If we are going to follow him and confess him as Lord and King,
everything we have is his.
Our lives, our possessions, our reputations, everything belongs to him.
And so this is part of what this man understands,
is that Jesus has this right to demand this,
and he leaves with sadness.
Again, showing two things.
I think showing that he understands what Jesus is saying,
but also showing that he has an idol in his heart.
There's something that he is worshiping before the true and living God.
They're, like I said, violating the first commandment,
to have no other gods before God.
And so he leaves in sadness and walks away.
And Jesus can see the sadness on him.
Oop, I'm going to turn the page and lost my spot.
Okay.
So Jesus, in verse 24 now,
this is where Jesus really is turning his attention to the disciples
and teaching them and trying to explain to them
what has just happened and what they should be taking away from this.
And Jesus looked at him and said,
How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.
Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle
than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
So he has this great illustration just showing how hard it is.
And in fact, it's impossible for men to be saved,
for these rich men to be saved.
And it's actually impossible for men to be saved.
And so he's trying to teach this to the disciples.
And he has this illustration of trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle.
It's impossible.
It's just not going to happen.
And the same way, a rich man in and of himself is not going to enter the kingdom of God.
And you'll see that.
That's kind of where he uses that interchangeably.
The young man asked, How do I inherit eternal life?
And Jesus now is talking about entering the kingdom of God,
just showing that those two things are the same.
When Jesus is talking about these, he's meeting the same things.
And so this prompts a question to be asked.
Who then can be saved?
And Jesus hears this question.
These people hear this, and they ask perhaps amongst themselves,
perhaps to Jesus directly, Who can be saved?
You know, they looked at this young man.
He's rich, wealthy.
He's got the position.
He's a ruler, you know, perhaps in the local synagogue.
He has everything going for him.
You know, they just heard, in a sense, how he testified to being morally upright,
that he's kept all the commandments.
And again, they're looking at this young man and just thinking,
if he can't be saved, who can be saved?
You know, in that culture, wealth especially, was viewed as a blessing from God.
If you were wealthy, you were blessed by God.
And so they're looking at someone, and they're thinking,
man, he's got extreme blessing from God,
and yet he's not going to enter the kingdom of God.
Who can be saved if he can't?
And so Jesus takes this opportunity again to teach,
and he just makes this statement.
Verse 27, Jesus replied,
What is impossible with men is possible with God.
And so we've got to understand, why is this so hard?
Why is it impossible for men to enter the kingdom of God?
And we have to understand, again, what Jesus was showing,
is that there is a heart there that has a defect.
It's dead.
It cannot worship the one true God.
And Jesus, in his teachings throughout the Gospels,
he talks about men needing new hearts.
He's saying out of the heart is where the sin comes from.
So that's where it comes out,
and that's what causes us to be dead
and are unable to come to God.
That's why he talked about, again, to Nicodemus in John 3,
you have to be born again.
You have to have this new life, this new heart
that can follow after God,
that can worship God as he ought.
And so we see over and over again in Scripture,
way back in the Old Testament,
it was prophesied even in Ezekiel
that God is going to come,
and he's going to sprinkle with water
and cleanse people's lives
and give them new hearts,
hearts that can serve God and follow after him.
And so Jesus is building on this
and just showing them that, again,
the disciples is like,
salvation is all of God.
This is not anything that man can accomplish on his own.
He needs a new heart.
He needs something done in his life
so that he can come to God
and repent of these things
and follow after Jesus.
And so we see this
and then Peter says to him,
kind of a strange statement.
He says,
we have left all we had to follow you.
I'm not really sure what Peter's getting at.
He's saying,
well, are you sure about that, Jesus?
Because we came to you
and, you know,
I'm not sure if he's just trying to get some
pat on the head,
like, yeah, you did a good thing, Peter.
But Jesus just keeps going
and showing him that, again,
salvation is all of God.
He says,
I tell you the truth,
Jesus said to them,
no one who has left home,
or wife,
or brothers,
or parents,
or children for the sake of the kingdom of God
will fail to receive many times as much
in this age
and in the age to come,
eternal life.
So in a sense,
he's saying to Peter,
you know,
God has given you all these things.
You've brought,
yeah, you've brought what you have
and you've given it to God,
but it's like,
you know,
complaining about spending a dollar
and hitting 500 million on the lottery.
Look what I had to spend
in order to win this 500 million dollars.
It's nothing in comparison
to what God has done
and what God is doing
in this life
and in the life to come.
Again,
that eternal life
encompasses all of that
from that moment
that we come to Jesus
and in faith.
He gives us that new heart
and at the same time,
a new life
that is able to fellowship with God
and commune with him
and follow after Jesus in that.
And so we see that
he's just,
all through this passage,
just trying to show these disciples
and the people who are listening
that salvation is a work of God.
You have to come to him
knowing that we are unable
to follow him
apart from the work of God
and all the blessings that follow
are God just pouring out
goodness
and multitudes of things
into our life.
Again,
not in response,
not because of anything
we have done,
but because of what God
has done in our lives.
So how do we respond
in this
if we're unable?
Jesus gives us some teaching.
Again,
this is right in the middle
of a section,
right before Jesus
is going to Jerusalem
to be crucified.
And so he's got some
intense teaching going on here
that he's doing
with these disciples.
And right before this
in Luke chapter 18,
we have a couple
of passages
that help to demonstrate
a little more
of the proper response
to God.
Right after this,
we see,
I talked about the passage
with Zacchaeus
where, again,
Jesus is showing
this is the way people
are to respond to God.
There's going to be a change.
There's going to be repentance.
But here,
and before this
in Luke 18,
he has a couple
little parables
and another little
narrative passage
that kind of show
of what coming
to God
is going to look like.
So if you want to
just back up a little bit
there in Luke 18
to verse 9,
it says,
Jesus is directing
this parable
to some who are
confident
in their own righteousness.
It says,
to some who are
confident in their own
righteousness
and look down
on everybody else,
Jesus told this parable.
Two men went up
to the temple
to pray.
One a Pharisee
and the other
a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up
and prayed about himself.
God, I thank you
that I am not
like other men,
robbers,
evildoers,
adulterers,
or even like
this tax collector.
I fast twice a week
and I give a tenth
of all I get.
Then we also have
this tax collector
who's there.
He's in the distance
and he says,
the tax collector
stood at a distance.
He would not even
look up to heaven
but beat his breast
and said,
God have mercy
on me,
a sinner.
I tell you
that this man
rather than the other
went home justified
before God.
For everyone
who exalts himself
will be humbled
and he who humbles himself
will be exalted.
And so we're seeing
kind of a contrast
here already.
We saw the passage
where that rich young ruler
came and we can see
that he came
more like the Pharisees.
He came talking
about himself
of what he had done.
or at least
we sense
that he's thinking
I have done
these things.
I have great wealth.
I have this position.
I think I'm pretty close
to eternal life.
I just need one more thing.
What good thing
do I need to do
to get eternal life?
And then we have
this tax collector
and he's more
of a demonstration
of how this man
should have come.
He should have come
just knowing
I'm an idolater.
I love my possessions.
I love my position.
I love the power
I have, the prestige.
And I know
this is an offense
to God.
These are keeping me
from him.
I need God's mercy.
And so this tax collector
these were the
these were kind of
considered the lowest
in society.
These were men
who were considered
traitors to the Jews
in that they served
the Roman occupying
government there.
They would collect
the taxes
and the Romans
really didn't care
how they went about it
and so they would
they could do it
in the most wicked
ways possible
of collecting
way more taxes
than they needed to
of defrauding
the people
in any way they could
but basically
they were considered
the worst sinners
of the people
at that time.
So when Jesus
talked about
a tax collector
that's what the people
would think
oh he's a bad guy.
He's just full of sin
and wickedness.
There's no hope
for him
but the way
he came to God
the posture
that he had
of beating
beating his breast
and just saying
God have mercy
on me
a sinner
I'm a wicked sinner
and I am totally
in need of God's mercy.
Jesus is in that
Richard Young Ruler
passage showing
this is the posture
that that man
should have come to.
He's just basically
again telling me
he told this parable
to people who were
trusting in their
righteousness
and he's just
showing them
that being righteous
and their righteousness
was according
to their own standards
not to God's standards.
He's not talking
about people
who are righteous
according to God's standards
but their own righteousness.
They thought themselves
righteous
because of the way
they conducted
their lives.
Perhaps they thought
well we go to the temple
every week
we pay our tithe
you know like
they said
I fast twice a week
I give a tenth
of all I get.
There's so many
religious things
that we do these days.
We give our offerings
who come to the worship service
there's many that
believe that's enough
that's the good works
that they are doing
and they believe themselves
to be righteous.
Some people just
because they're not involved
in certain types of sins
you know I don't do drugs
I don't get drunk
I'm not immoral
I'm not cheating on my taxes
so therefore I'm righteous
I'm doing things
the right way.
Also maybe some
just because of the type
of church they go to
you know I go to
a Lutheran church
or a Baptist church
or you know
a Buddhist church
whatever
just belong to a
Bible believing church
whatever it is
they equate that
with righteousness
and think I do these things
therefore I'm righteous
but understand
these are all
man's standards
this is their own righteousness
they've declared
themselves righteous
God has not
declared them righteous
according to their standards
his standards
none of them are righteous.
we do these good deeds
to make ourselves
look righteous
but they come from
a sinful heart
and they're offensive
to God
they have selfish motives
involved in trying
to make ourselves
righteous
and that is just
compounding
the wickedness
that we have.
If we get into
this conundrum
of trying to do
enough good works
to please God
you never know
when you have enough
there is nowhere
in scripture
that says
this is how many
good works you must do
to enter the kingdom
of heaven.
I mean Jesus set
that standard
pretty high
you have to keep
all the commandments
perfectly.
A few years ago
I had some
Jehovah's Witnesses
come to the door
and the first
I didn't want to talk to them
Jasmine had been
they had been coming
during the week
and having talks
with Jasmine
and so this was like
I think it was a holiday
like Labor Day
and of course
they don't like
celebrating holidays
so they go out
and do some door to door
and you know
they came to our door
and I was like
I don't want to deal
with them
I was busy
doing something
but Jasmine invited them
and she had
been regularly
talking to them
and somehow
they drew me
into the story
into the conversation
and they told me
I needed to do
good works
to be saved
and I asked the lady
I said
well how many
because I don't want
to do more
than I have to
and she's just
kind of like
what
I'm like
I understand
I've got to do
some good works
to be saved
but how many
do I have to do
you know
can you show me
in scripture
you know
just where the line is
I just want to
kind of ease
over the line
and you know
be saved that way
and she just
didn't know
what to do
with me really
but she took me
to another passage
in Matthew
where Jesus talks
about good trees
producing good fruit
and bad trees
producing bad fruit
and she said
here don't you see
you need to produce
good fruit
and I said
okay
so you're saying
I'm a bad tree
and she's like
yeah
I said
so how do I
produce good fruit
and she's just like
I'm like
how do I become
a good tree
and she goes
well you do good
you produce good fruit
I said
but I'm a bad tree
I produce bad fruit
how can I produce
good fruit
and when you get
into that works
righteousness
there's no assurance
you don't know
where the line is
you don't know
have I done
enough good works
have I done
too many bad works
and you realize
there's nothing
in scripture
that will show you
where that line is
because the line
is way high
only Jesus has kept it
and everybody else
falls short
whether you've done
one sin
or a billion sins
you still fall short
you're a sinner
condemned by God
and that's his standard
and so we are all
in need of mercy
just like that tax collector
he's no more wicked
than we are
apart from God
we are all
fall way short
of God's standard
then Jesus has
another story
there
right after that
in Luke
starting in verse
18 verse 15
it says
people were also
bringing babies
to Jesus
to have him touch
them
when the disciples
saw this
they rebuked them
but Jesus called
the children to him
and said
let the little children
come to me
and do not hinder them
for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these
I tell you the truth
anyone who will not
receive the kingdom of God
like a little child
will never enter it
and so we hear
again we're seeing
an aspect of
how do we come
to Jesus
and this one's
kind of troublesome
because we don't
really know exactly
what Jesus is saying
and he's come
as a little child
you know some people
have suggested
well maybe
you know children
are pretty humble
maybe we gotta go
in humility
and I'm like
I don't know
I have a two year old
and there's nothing
humble about him
as
you know at times
if he doesn't get
what he wants
he would kill you
if he could
he gets that angry
he wants his way
so bad
so I'm not sure
that there's a humility
there that we want
to emulate
in children
and same thing
you know people
will say like
well children
have such pure faith
and the reality
is children
will believe anything
they are very gullible
it's not a faith
based on knowledge
it's just
you know
it's one of the
conundrums of doing
Sunday school
and evangelism
with children
is that it's very easy
to get them to pray a prayer
if that's what you're aiming for
if you can
you know
there's so many
vacation bible schools
and things like that
where their whole goal
is to get that child
to pray a prayer
and then kind of like
pat them on the head
and oh good
you've inherited
eternal life
and these kids
can grow up
thinking that
and they're
believing a lie
because they haven't
repented of their sin
and followed
after Jesus
so
but one thing
that we do see
in here
is that people
were bringing
the babies
to Jesus
there was a common
Jewish practice
for the parents
to bring
their one year olds
usually
to the local rabbis
or to a local official
to receive blessings
and these parents
were bringing
these helpless
children
to Jesus
and wanting
blessings from him
and I think
that's more the aspect
of what Jesus
is going after here
that these are
helpless
children
they're coming
to God
helplessly
they're actually
being brought
to God
they're being brought
to Jesus
in much the same way
we have to be brought
to Jesus
we are helpless
to go there
we won't seek
after him
apart from
a work being done
and so
we see
these two aspects
of how these people
came
the tax collector
he comes
just in search
of mercy
and coming
like a baby
is just coming
with helplessness
God I cannot
change myself
only you can do that
and we come
to him
looking for
that eternal life
and so as we
close today
I just want to pray
that some of you
are feeling
restless
perhaps
maybe you know
that you don't yet
have eternal life
and like this rich
young ruler
you need to have
that question answered
what do I have
to do to have it
I just want to say
I know you're in need
of God's mercy
all of us
are in need
of God's mercy
and all of us
are helpless
to do anything
about it
but I believe
that today
like those
helpless infants
that the parents
were bringing
to Jesus
God has brought
you here today
he has brought
you here
to hear
from his son
and I'm just
telling you
that Jesus
today
he's asking
the same thing
he's asking
to repent
and believe
and I'm telling
you too
he's asking
you to do
something
that's impossible
for you to do
but with God
all things
are possible
and so even
as Jesus
would tell
there's a passage
in Mark
where Jesus
tells a paralytic
this man's
never walked
before
his friends
had to come
and lower him
down through
a hole in the roof
and Jesus
tells the man
rise up
take your pad
and leave
he asked the man
to do the impossible
but the man
immediately
rose up
rolled up his pad
and left
the same time
that Jesus
asks you
to do the impossible
he gives you
the ability
to do the impossible
he will give
you a heart
that can
repent of your
sins
and follow
after him
he will help
you to turn
from those
false gods
of possessions
and power
and pleasure
and to follow
him
and so he's
asking you
to do the impossible
but let me tell you
it's possible
with him
perhaps there's
also some
here today
that think
they believe
but are really
trusting in
themselves
they're like
the Pharisees
they have this
pile of good
works
that that's
what they're
trusting in
and I just
ask you today
to ask these
questions
where is your
hope
when you ask
why do I
have eternal
life
do you immediately
start listing off
a list of things
that you have
done
or do you
think immediately
of what God
has done
for you
in your life
do you know
God's peace
and rest
are you looking
for that one
more thing
to help me
have assurance
that I have
eternal life
I know that God
will not let you
have that rest
if you are not
fully trusting
in him
so if you're
having that
lack of peace
and lack
of rest
about that
please ask
God to
what is it
that is keeping
me from
Christ
and come to him
again helpless
to change
but knowing
that we are
in need of
change
we are great
sinners
in need of
salvation
I know there's
some of you
that are already
following Jesus
and we just
give praise to God
and rejoice
that he did
the impossible
for us
that he has
made us a
disciple
and yet
at the same
time he calls
us to make
more disciples
so we need
to spend
a lot of
time like
those disciples
just meditating
on those passages
of how a person
is saved
and what a
right way
to come to
God is
we need to be
finding those
lost and
bringing to
Jesus
just the way
that the
parents brought
their helpless
children to
Jesus
and then we
just kind of
like Jesus
to try to
help them
understand their
need for a
savior and
point them to
Jesus who is
the way the
truth and the
life
so let me
pray for us
now
dear heavenly
father again I
just do give you
thanks that you
do save sinners
father that
as we follow
after Jesus
and see the
way he lived
his life
father and as
we follow him
all the way to
the cross
and we see that
place where
where Jesus was
crucified and
died for our
sins
father and then
we continue to
follow and we
see him raised
from the dead
with victory
over sin and
death
father and we
see that he
is who he
says he is
the lord Jesus
Christ and the
one whom we
should follow
and worship
father we just
thank you for
making that
known to us
father I also
just pray for
those this
morning who
who you have
caused to hear
the gospel
preached
father as they
you cause them
to see your
son as the
one who calls
people to
repentance and
belief
father I
pray that you
help them
now help
give them
hearts that
they might
come and
repent of
their sins and
turn to
Jesus
father again we
just thank you
for this time
pray to you
continue as we
sing in worship
to help just
empower our
worship to you
as it is due
father I thank
you that
just pray that
you would
again by your
spirit cause
your words
that they're
here in the
scriptures to
have power in
people's lives
to change
them power
to just cause
your disciples
to do the
work that you
have called us
to in making
disciples
father but in
all these things
we rejoice that
you are great
that you love
us and that you
are full of
mercy towards
sinners
let's pray these
things in Jesus
name
amen