WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.700 Now, we're going to turn in our Bibles to that passage that we've just read from Luke 18, 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:21.699 from verse 18 to 27. That's on page 1052. We're going to, as a church through the summer, 00:00:22.280 --> 00:00:27.879 think about some of the questions that Jesus asked during His ministry. 00:00:27.879 --> 00:00:35.859 I imagine we all know the power of a good question when we think about the conversations that we find 00:00:35.859 --> 00:00:41.879 ourselves in. When someone asks that really good question that invites personal reflection, 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:49.799 that allows us to reveal more of ourselves, that builds our relationship, and we understand that. 00:00:50.379 --> 00:00:56.920 Jesus is someone who knew the power of a good question. Randy Newman, 00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:05.400 who died this year, wrote a really helpful book called Questioning Evangelism, recognizing that 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:14.760 Jesus drew on a standard practice of the rabbis in asking lots of questions as He interacted with 00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:21.960 people, often doing something that we never usually permit, answering a question with a question of 00:01:21.959 --> 00:01:28.119 His own, and we're going to see one of those this evening. The questions of Jesus are so helpful 00:01:28.119 --> 00:01:37.459 for us, because as He meets with different people and He asks those questions, He's inviting people to 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:43.919 reflect, to think about what's going on in their hearts, and by extension, what's going on in our 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:52.420 hearts, to probe some of those assumptions that people have, to encourage personal exploration 00:01:52.420 --> 00:02:00.879 of beliefs, sometimes to prepare the ground for faith in Jesus. So each week what we're going to do is 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:05.520 we're going to choose a different question, and we're going to think about how and why Jesus used 00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:12.460 this question, think about what does it ask of us, and also hopefully draw some lessons from Jesus' method 00:02:12.460 --> 00:02:20.680 and mission for our own mission. So this week we come to the goodness question. It's there in verse 19, 00:02:20.800 --> 00:02:27.340 why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. So we're going to begin with the goodness 00:02:27.340 --> 00:02:32.740 question, and then move on and think about the goodness challenge, and then think about the goodness 00:02:32.740 --> 00:02:41.860 of grace at the end. So verses 18 to 20. Now let's think together about the goodness question. Before 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:48.040 we get to Jesus' question, there's a question that is asked of Him. Who asks the first question? 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:57.060 Luke tells us a certain ruler asked Him. So when we hear ruler in the Gospels, we're thinking of a 00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:06.500 religious ruler, so one of the leading teachers, perhaps in a synagogue, a key religious figure. 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:11.479 We discover some other things about him. We discovered in verse 23 that he's a very wealthy man. 00:03:11.920 --> 00:03:20.560 He's clearly successful and prospering. When Mark records the story in his Gospel, Mark chapter 10, 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:28.300 we discover that he is a young ruler. He is someone who comes running to Jesus. So he's in the prime of 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:35.180 life. He's fit. He's healthy. He's eager to meet Jesus. All that to say he is a man to admire. He is 00:03:35.180 --> 00:03:39.980 somebody people would look at him and think, there's a guy who's made it. He's got health. He's got wealth. 00:03:40.099 --> 00:03:48.539 He's got honor and status. He's got religious learning. He's got sincerity of faith. A man to admire. 00:03:48.539 --> 00:03:53.979 And he asks a great question, doesn't he? He asks a question in verse 18, good teacher, 00:03:54.680 --> 00:04:02.599 what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, sometimes when the religious leaders came and 00:04:02.599 --> 00:04:10.079 they asked questions of Jesus, they did it because they had an agenda. They wanted to trap or trick 00:04:10.079 --> 00:04:17.779 Jesus. Not so with this man. We don't get any sense of that. We sense sincerity. We sense eagerness. 00:04:17.779 --> 00:04:25.459 Here is a man who is deeply concerned and interested in eternal issues. And if we think about this as 00:04:25.459 --> 00:04:33.259 Christians, wouldn't we love to have someone ask us this question? When was the last time you were 00:04:33.259 --> 00:04:39.119 having a conversation with someone who wasn't a Christian and they asked this kind of a thing, 00:04:39.639 --> 00:04:44.939 with this kind of spiritual interest? We would love this. We probably find ourselves praying for our 00:04:44.939 --> 00:04:51.800 friends and neighbors to be asking just this kind of question. And when we think about that, 00:04:52.699 --> 00:05:02.019 perhaps it strikes us as unusual, surprising, that Jesus actually doesn't give a direct answer, 00:05:02.019 --> 00:05:09.319 does he? What must I do? Jesus replied, why do you call me good? 00:05:09.319 --> 00:05:18.459 Again, just to take a step back, for us, somebody asked, what must we do to inherit eternal life? We 00:05:18.459 --> 00:05:25.439 might well jump at that kind of question. There's lots of places we might go. We might quote John 3.16. 00:05:26.360 --> 00:05:30.659 We might remind people that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever 00:05:30.659 --> 00:05:37.139 believes might not perish but have everlasting life. So, we might encourage someone to believe 00:05:37.139 --> 00:05:44.519 in Jesus. And of course, that's a really good answer, isn't it? We might draw on Jesus' own message or the 00:05:44.519 --> 00:05:50.259 summary of Jesus' message, repent and believe the good news because the kingdom of God is near. 00:05:51.919 --> 00:05:56.259 Talk about Jesus, the one who brings good news because he is God's king and he's come to save. 00:05:57.539 --> 00:06:04.779 Perhaps we might talk about the ABCs of the gospel, helping someone to accept that they are a sinner, 00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:10.199 encouraging someone to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, 00:06:11.119 --> 00:06:18.979 impressing upon people the need to come to him in faith. That'd be absolutely valid and really helpful. 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:24.219 Maybe we'd give someone the big picture of the gospel, speak to them about the eternal God who is 00:06:24.219 --> 00:06:30.099 holy and the creator of all things, including us. To talk about people made in the image of God, 00:06:30.100 --> 00:06:36.540 made to worship God, to know God, but fallen into sin. To speak about Jesus, God's gift, 00:06:37.140 --> 00:06:43.200 the necessary substitute for sinful humanity, to talk about his sacrifice on the cross and his 00:06:43.200 --> 00:06:47.939 resurrection, and to encourage people to that response, to repent and believe. And again, 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:54.400 that'd be a really helpful thing to point people towards. But that's not where Jesus goes 00:06:54.399 --> 00:07:01.519 in the first instance. It's not what Jesus does. So we need to ask ourselves, why doesn't Jesus 00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:07.319 answer the question directly? Why does he answer the question with a question of his own? 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:13.579 We come to this goodness question. It's a really powerful question, actually, 00:07:14.319 --> 00:07:21.699 especially as we understand that Jesus knows this man's heart and understands what's necessary 00:07:21.699 --> 00:07:26.759 to bring lasting change. So we're going to think about the goodness question here to think about 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:35.839 the four levels that we can see within it. Here, I think, is the first level. Jesus is inviting the 00:07:35.839 --> 00:07:43.719 man to ask himself the question, what is true goodness? It's as if Jesus is saying, you're very 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:52.620 quick to call me good. Have you really thought about what goodness means? Sometimes we're quick to use 00:07:52.620 --> 00:08:01.560 good without necessarily thinking about what it means. Just by way of illustration, there are good 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:07.260 schoolboy footballers. Probably if you think back to your school days, or if you're in school, 00:08:07.340 --> 00:08:10.740 you can think about some footballers who are good. There's good schoolboy footballers, 00:08:10.740 --> 00:08:18.699 and then there's Laminya Mal. He just won the Euros, age 17, still doing his homework, 00:08:19.139 --> 00:08:26.540 and winning major medals. There are good meals, and then there's Michelin star fine dining. 00:08:27.280 --> 00:08:34.320 So we can be really quick to ascribe goodness, and sometimes that means we set the bar of goodness 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:41.140 too low. That can be true of football. It can be true of food. It can also be true when it comes to 00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:49.660 character and to our view of self. And so one thing Jesus certainly wants this man to do is to think about 00:08:49.660 --> 00:08:58.180 what is goodness truly. Another time Jesus does this is when he's teaching on the Sermon on the Mount, 00:08:58.179 --> 00:09:08.759 when Jesus begins to apply the Ten Commandments. He makes a really important shift. He moves away from 00:09:08.759 --> 00:09:16.179 merely external acts to consider that obedience of the commands involves the inner thoughts 00:09:16.179 --> 00:09:22.859 and motivations. And we'll think about that in a few minutes. But here what Jesus does is he takes 00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:31.980 the goodness question to the realm of ultimate goodness. Have you considered that only God is 00:09:31.980 --> 00:09:38.460 truly good? So that's the first level of this question. The second level, and it's related, is 00:09:38.460 --> 00:09:50.899 what are the consequences if only God is truly good? And this is where Jesus is really challenging the 00:09:50.899 --> 00:09:59.699 man's worldview. A worldview likely steeped in legalism. This challenge is a view that says, 00:10:00.059 --> 00:10:11.740 my religion, my moral performance can be good enough to please a holy God and to inherit eternal life. 00:10:12.939 --> 00:10:20.159 For us, it maybe has a different challenge. It challenges modern relativism. 00:10:20.899 --> 00:10:29.519 You know, the idea that there's no such thing as absolute truth. Nobody has the right to impose 00:10:29.519 --> 00:10:36.139 their morality on someone else. That's really challenged if we recognize that there is an absolute 00:10:36.139 --> 00:10:47.059 authority. He's the good God. Jesus, in asking this question, wants this very sincere religious man 00:10:47.059 --> 00:10:59.859 to understand. He cannot say, I am a good person worthy of eternal life unless he's willing to say, 00:10:59.939 --> 00:11:06.519 my goodness is as good as that of God. Unless we are ready to say that we are equal to God in goodness, 00:11:06.739 --> 00:11:13.779 holiness, and righteousness, there are significant consequences in affirming that only God is truly good. 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:25.220 good. Here's a third level to the question. What does it say about Jesus if he is truly good? 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:31.220 So sometimes people read at the beginning of verse 19 and say, well, here's Jesus 00:11:31.220 --> 00:11:39.259 saying he's not really God. You know, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 00:11:39.259 --> 00:11:45.580 But he's not saying that. He's not saying I'm not God. Rather, we can hear Jesus saying 00:11:45.580 --> 00:11:56.559 implicitly, since I am God, do you understand that I am goodness personified? If you want to see what 00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:01.679 goodness looks like, in other words, you need to look at me. That's what Jesus says. 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:09.259 If we are to borrow from the beginning of John's gospel, Jesus is the Word who came from God, who is 00:12:09.259 --> 00:12:15.699 God, who became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we have seen his glory, we have seen his 00:12:15.699 --> 00:12:26.879 goodness. The goodness of the one and only God is seen in Jesus. God's goodness is seen in all of the 00:12:26.879 --> 00:12:35.840 actions of Jesus. When we witness the compassion of Jesus that heals the sick, it's the goodness of God. 00:12:36.700 --> 00:12:44.539 When we discover his mercy that forgives, it's the goodness of God. When we go to the cross and see 00:12:44.539 --> 00:12:53.100 his love that sacrifices for sinners, it's the goodness of God. There's goodness in all of the words of Jesus. 00:12:53.100 --> 00:13:04.340 Jesus. Every word is true. Every word is a true and accurate reflection of the character of God and 00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:13.659 reveals the plan of salvation from God to us. And there is goodness in the words of Jesus, the goodness 00:13:13.659 --> 00:13:23.080 of God in the words of Jesus, as he calls people, as he invites us by grace to enter into relationship. 00:13:23.100 --> 00:13:31.060 with the living God. And not only in his words and actions, we discover there is goodness in the 00:13:31.060 --> 00:13:39.600 heart of Jesus, goodness in the desires of Jesus, because he makes plain in so many places that he 00:13:39.600 --> 00:13:49.160 always lives to seek the glory of his Father. He comes as a king, but he doesn't use his power for 00:13:49.159 --> 00:13:59.019 himself. Rather, he is a king who comes as a servant. He is a king who comes to serve, to suffer, to die, 00:13:59.159 --> 00:14:07.480 and all of that motivated by love for a broken world. Jesus is the goodness of God. 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:17.440 So, when we think about the goodness question for ourselves, if we are to understand what goodness 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:23.920 is, what goodness looks like, it becomes a matter of looking to Jesus, listening to Jesus, learning 00:14:23.920 --> 00:14:27.899 from him, and learning to love him as the goodness of God in the flesh. 00:14:27.899 --> 00:14:38.199 One last level to the question that Jesus asked the man, what response do we need to make if we 00:14:38.199 --> 00:14:45.679 understand true goodness? Like, here again is that the power of Jesus' question, there's this 00:14:45.679 --> 00:14:53.659 invitation to the rich ruler to reflect upon the character of God. When we think about the goodness 00:14:53.659 --> 00:15:00.299 of God, we're not thinking in relative terms, comparing somebody who's a bit like us, but maybe 00:15:00.299 --> 00:15:10.719 slightly better. He is absolute in his goodness. He is the gold standard by which everyone else is 00:15:10.719 --> 00:15:19.939 compared against, weighed up against. He is absolute. The goodness that we have is relative at best. 00:15:19.940 --> 00:15:26.180 It's always tainted. It's always impure compared to the perfect purity of God. 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:36.380 So, Jesus wants the man to take way more seriously the holy goodness of God, to understand he can never 00:15:36.380 --> 00:15:44.440 by himself hope to inherit eternal life. But he also wants him to reflect more deeply and honestly 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:52.040 about his own character and way of life. And that's why Jesus, in verse 20, begins to quote from table 00:15:52.040 --> 00:16:00.940 two of the Ten Commandments. He says to him, you know the commandments. And then he begins to list them. 00:16:00.980 --> 00:16:05.420 And remember that when Jesus teaches about the commandments, he's not just thinking about the act, 00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:12.260 he's thinking about the heart, the motive behind the act. You know the commandments, you shall not commit 00:16:12.259 --> 00:16:20.000 adultery. Not just the act, but the act, the thought of lust, to create an object of desire in someone else. 00:16:21.240 --> 00:16:27.639 You shall not murder. Again, not just the act, but the hatred that we find in our heart, the anger, 00:16:27.819 --> 00:16:36.419 the wishing someone harm. You shall not steal is about more than just financial theft. 00:16:36.419 --> 00:16:44.979 It's whenever we steal time. It's whenever we steal someone's good name. You shall not give false 00:16:44.979 --> 00:16:53.759 testimony. It extends beyond simply the testimony we give in a law court. It applies to those half-truths, 00:16:53.959 --> 00:17:00.059 to the gossip and slander, to the stories that we twist so that we always appear in the best possible 00:17:00.059 --> 00:17:09.359 light. Honor your father and your mother. It isn't just something for children. It's not just something 00:17:09.359 --> 00:17:16.879 while we live under our parents' roofs. It's respect, appreciation, thankfulness, always. 00:17:18.099 --> 00:17:27.079 And as Jesus asks this question, and as its power begins to work in the man, and hopefully in us as well, 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:34.379 it should always have that purpose of helping us to mind the gap. London train, mind the gap. Except here 00:17:34.379 --> 00:17:43.460 is this grand canyon-sized gulf between God's holy goodness and our best efforts at goodness. 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:50.299 Why does he answer the question with a question? Because he sees the man's heart. 00:17:50.299 --> 00:18:00.180 He knows that the man needs to be challenged. Because until he recognizes, and until we recognize 00:18:00.180 --> 00:18:08.720 our lack of true goodness, if we think ourselves basically good, then we will never see the need 00:18:08.720 --> 00:18:14.220 of forgiveness. We will never see salvation as something that's for us. We will never see the 00:18:14.220 --> 00:18:21.720 coming of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus as something that's a big deal. Just before we move on from the 00:18:21.720 --> 00:18:30.079 question, I think as Christians, I think as the church, we can learn from Jesus that we need to, 00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:39.940 with Jesus' help, help others to see that God is real, that there is an absolute standard, 00:18:39.940 --> 00:18:48.340 that there is an absolute authority. We can learn to develop the art of asking good questions, 00:18:49.100 --> 00:18:53.080 that probe motivations and attitudes, that probe the conscience. 00:18:55.120 --> 00:18:59.740 And also, as we want people to see that the difference between our goodness and true goodness, 00:19:00.080 --> 00:19:07.259 we want to introduce people to Jesus in the gospel, to really see what goodness looks like that people 00:19:07.259 --> 00:19:15.099 might be drawn to him. So, that's the goodness question. But the conversation continues, and so 00:19:15.099 --> 00:19:24.059 we need to think about the goodness challenge, verses 21 to 25. We understand that the man has a problem 00:19:24.059 --> 00:19:30.480 of legalism in the answer that he gives, all these I have kept since I was a boy. We can think of 00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:39.960 legalism functioning like a coat of armor in the olden days, or a bulletproof vest. It serves to stop 00:19:39.960 --> 00:19:46.980 the Word of God from penetrating. The law of God, the good news of the gospel of God, 00:19:47.539 --> 00:19:54.860 they just don't reach the heart. This is something I know from personal experience, perhaps. 00:19:54.859 --> 00:20:01.500 You have a similar experience. I grew up hearing God's Word, hearing the gospel, 00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:05.639 week by week in church, and in Sunday school, and in a Bible club. 00:20:07.939 --> 00:20:13.240 But for most of my childhood, it never reached my heart. And so, I found myself, rather than 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:17.859 comparing against God, I'd always be comparing against others, and feeling like I was doing pretty 00:20:17.859 --> 00:20:29.619 well morally, so tended very easily towards pride and being judgmental. Hearing the gospel of God's 00:20:29.619 --> 00:20:36.599 grace, but still imagining and acting in day-to-day life as if eternal life was something to earn, 00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:41.039 so that life became a roller coaster of pride and despair. 00:20:41.039 --> 00:20:52.240 That whereas grace invites us into joy, my understanding of religion was that it was about duty and 00:20:52.240 --> 00:21:04.799 performance, and it was really dull. I imagine that this young ruler could resonate with that. 00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:16.139 All these I have kept since I was a boy. The reality of God's holiness, the nature of human sinfulness, 00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:23.940 they have not reached this man's heart as yet. He can listen to Jesus say, no one is good except God 00:21:23.940 --> 00:21:31.960 alone, and he still thinks that he measures up. When it comes to the law, I am fine. 00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:42.180 In verse 22, Jesus is going to continue speaking. In Mark's gospel, again, we're introduced to the 00:21:42.180 --> 00:21:48.900 heart of Jesus. Now, we're told that Jesus looked at him and loved him, and that's why he speaks the way 00:21:48.900 --> 00:21:55.840 he does. It's something that love does. Love speaks hard things. We speak the truth in love. 00:21:55.839 --> 00:22:06.480 He challenges his idea of goodness because he loves him and because he wants him to change. 00:22:06.659 --> 00:22:12.459 He doesn't want to give easy answers. He needs a total change of heart. 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:21.899 So, the man's heart is the target in what Jesus is going to say next. Verse 22, you still lack 00:22:21.900 --> 00:22:29.680 one thing. What is the one thing that this man lacks? You still lack one thing. The one thing that 00:22:29.680 --> 00:22:37.040 this man lacks is true love. Jesus is about to show him through what he says next that he doesn't truly 00:22:37.040 --> 00:22:47.480 love God, and he doesn't truly love his neighbor. These are challenging words for this man here in verse 00:22:47.480 --> 00:22:54.900 22. So, let's hear them. So, he says, you still lack one thing. First thing he says to him next is then, 00:22:55.120 --> 00:23:03.519 sell everything you have. So, remember, Jesus knows this man's heart. This is a specific conversation. 00:23:04.079 --> 00:23:09.279 This isn't saying universally that every Christian has to take a vow of poverty and sell their possessions. 00:23:09.279 --> 00:23:16.660 But Jesus knows this man's heart. And for this man, wealth was his idol. 00:23:18.359 --> 00:23:24.859 While he claimed to be keeping all the commandments, Jesus knows his heart that he is breaking the first 00:23:24.859 --> 00:23:29.200 commandment because he is worshiping something other than the true and living God because he's 00:23:29.200 --> 00:23:38.619 worshiping his money. And Jesus recognized money as probably the dominant idol that can 00:23:38.619 --> 00:23:47.219 wreck people's hearts and lives. He said, you cannot serve God and money. And so, Jesus uses this 00:23:47.219 --> 00:23:56.439 conversation to expose to the man the reality that in truth, he loves his money more than he loves his God. 00:23:58.519 --> 00:24:07.059 Religiously, full of sincerity, recognized as a top quality Bible teacher, admired in the community, 00:24:07.059 --> 00:24:15.099 guilty, but he's guilty of idolatry. And he doesn't truly love God. Jesus probes deeper, 00:24:15.859 --> 00:24:24.139 sell everything you have. Secondly, give to the poor. So, not only is Jesus saying in this, 00:24:24.659 --> 00:24:34.019 you don't love God, you actually don't love your neighbor either. The God of heaven has given you 00:24:34.019 --> 00:24:40.420 your resources, but rather than steward them for the sake of others, you're hoarding them for yourself. 00:24:41.379 --> 00:24:46.259 You don't care for the poor out of your wealth. You don't love God. You don't love your neighbor. 00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:55.119 You're not keeping the commandments. The third part of what Jesus says comes with the promise, 00:24:55.119 --> 00:25:05.259 you will have treasure in heaven. Remember, he asked the question, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 00:25:06.719 --> 00:25:11.859 If you want eternal life, you must change your values. 00:25:14.219 --> 00:25:19.439 Jesus knows he'll never truly want eternal life when he's placing all his hope 00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:26.900 in riches now. Again, going back to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6, 19 and 20, Jesus said, 00:25:27.059 --> 00:25:31.360 don't store up for yourself treasure on earth. Why? Because it doesn't last. 00:25:32.700 --> 00:25:38.360 Rather, store up for yourself treasure in heaven, because where your treasure is, 00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:45.799 there your heart will be also. Jesus knows fine well his treasure is in his bank account. 00:25:45.799 --> 00:25:54.000 It's the money that he's stored up at home rather than seeking for eternity. 00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:57.700 And then the last thing that Jesus says to him 00:25:57.700 --> 00:26:09.879 is, then come follow me. And again, this is probing the man's heart because this is a call to 00:26:09.880 --> 00:26:19.120 loyalty towards Jesus, to become a disciple of Jesus, to acknowledge Jesus is Lord. 00:26:20.320 --> 00:26:30.580 So he says to this rich young ruler, will you serve me? Will you recognize me as good, 00:26:30.940 --> 00:26:39.200 as your Lord, and will you follow me? Will you have your identity shaped by Jesus, 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:46.759 not your performance, not your wealth, not your status, but by coming to trust in Jesus? 00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:57.019 And we see in verse 23 that Jesus' words have hit their target. When the man heard this, 00:26:57.019 --> 00:27:08.880 he became very sad because he was very wealthy. So now there is sorrow. Now he sees the gap 00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:13.820 now he's beginning to understand, I'm not the man I thought I was. My goodness, 00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:22.480 it is relative. It's not good enough for God. Now he's beginning to sense his need. Now he's hearing 00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:34.580 the challenge of discipleship. He's not yet ready to follow Jesus. But Jesus' words have hit their target. 00:27:34.579 --> 00:27:43.019 And it's really interesting, the early church, the early church identify this rich young ruler 00:27:43.019 --> 00:27:55.059 as Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph who cared for the body of Jesus, who identified himself at that moment 00:27:55.059 --> 00:28:01.599 as a follower of Jesus. So the early church evidence suggests that these words did in the end lead to 00:28:01.599 --> 00:28:13.819 lasting transformation, but not just yet. Verse 24, Jesus looked at the man and said, 00:28:13.939 --> 00:28:21.339 how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed, it's easier for a camel to go through 00:28:21.339 --> 00:28:28.199 the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. And Jesus in this 00:28:28.200 --> 00:28:35.759 word picture makes clear that the kind of change that is required to enter the kingdom, to receive 00:28:35.759 --> 00:28:51.039 eternal life, it's humanly impossible. Left to ourselves, we will, like this rich man, never be able to get rid 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:59.879 of our idols. Left to ourselves, this man would know what he needed to do, but he would be unable to get rid 00:28:59.879 --> 00:29:12.159 of his idol of wealth. And left to ourselves, neither would we. Left to ourselves, we would never turn to 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:20.779 trust in the one who is truly good. Rather, we would continue to imagine that somehow, some way, we could 00:29:20.779 --> 00:29:32.140 be good enough for a perfectly good and holy God. Without the work of God to transform our view of goodness, 00:29:32.140 --> 00:29:44.580 we would never get it. We would never enter the kingdom. YouTube is full of, my YouTube anyway, is 00:29:44.580 --> 00:29:52.700 full of these videos. Guys on a sports field who think they're pretty good at a particular sport, 00:29:54.000 --> 00:29:58.180 football, basketball, that kind of thing. And maybe they're playing in a local field, 00:29:58.180 --> 00:30:06.820 and an ex-professional turns up to play with them. Or sometimes in American sports, a professional will 00:30:06.820 --> 00:30:12.980 disguise himself and then show up to play with a group of guys. And what happens without fail is that 00:30:12.980 --> 00:30:20.100 within a matter of seconds, certainly by a matter of minutes, it becomes pretty obvious that their idea 00:30:20.100 --> 00:30:27.740 of being fairly good local players now has to be utterly redefined as they meet someone who is actually good. 00:30:28.180 --> 00:30:33.779 And the goodness of Jesus, it lies in that kind of challenge. 00:30:35.539 --> 00:30:42.840 It is good that Jesus redefines the rich ruler's definition of goodness. 00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:49.580 Because if Jesus hadn't challenged him, he would have gone away thinking, yeah, I'm a good guy. 00:30:49.740 --> 00:30:54.820 I keep the commandments, therefore God will be happy with me, therefore the kingdom of God will be mine. 00:30:54.819 --> 00:31:06.819 It is the goodness of Jesus when he uses God's law to cut to the heart of our heart problem. 00:31:08.179 --> 00:31:16.019 When he uses the law to show us that all is not well between us and God when we are without Jesus. 00:31:16.019 --> 00:31:24.859 Because it's the same as with our medical health. Knowing that we are sick is kind of stage one, 00:31:24.900 --> 00:31:31.700 isn't it, to receiving the cure that we need. So again, to think about what can we learn 00:31:31.700 --> 00:31:35.619 from Jesus when we speak about faith. 00:31:35.619 --> 00:31:43.059 Following the pattern of Jesus, we want to love people enough to speak the truth. 00:31:44.579 --> 00:31:47.939 Not just to give easy, comfortable answers. 00:31:49.139 --> 00:31:56.739 We want to be people who are used by God to redefine categories as we would bring the true goodness of God 00:31:56.740 --> 00:31:58.819 God before others. 00:32:01.380 --> 00:32:04.500 That leads us to our final thing, to think about the goodness of grace. 00:32:05.779 --> 00:32:11.140 This is really interesting having had this conversation. We then, it's like the camera pans back 00:32:11.700 --> 00:32:16.500 and we see there's people watching. Verse 26, those who heard this asked, 00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:27.140 who then can be saved? The crowd are stunned. In a moment their world view has been turned upside down 00:32:27.140 --> 00:32:34.259 by this goodness question. As they looked around their society with their understanding of how the 00:32:34.259 --> 00:32:42.900 world worked, if you had health and wealth and success and if you were sincere and if you were teaching 00:32:42.900 --> 00:32:47.620 the Bible and if you had a position of authority, then that was a clear sign of God's blessing. If 00:32:47.620 --> 00:32:53.780 anyone's in, it's this guy. So all of a sudden through this question, their whole idea is being 00:32:53.780 --> 00:32:58.180 shifted upside down. And again, it speaks, doesn't it, to the power of the goodness question. 00:32:59.780 --> 00:33:06.259 Because now it's revealing the truth of Romans 3, verse 23, that no one is righteous, not even one. 00:33:07.460 --> 00:33:12.660 Now the wider crowd are beginning to understand. A person's background or 00:33:12.660 --> 00:33:18.740 religious knowledge or practice or wealth or status, that has nothing to do with knowing God 00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:24.180 or inheriting eternal life. It's something entirely different because it's something outside of us. 00:33:29.300 --> 00:33:36.500 So are we left utterly hopeless? Are we left with a sickness with no cure? Are we left to know that 00:33:36.500 --> 00:33:45.539 we can't be good enough for God? So why even bother? No, Jesus continues, verse 27, with words that speak 00:33:45.539 --> 00:33:55.619 such hope and promise and comfort. Jesus replied, what is impossible with man is possible with God. 00:33:57.059 --> 00:34:04.420 Here is a good truth. The goodness of God's grace makes the impossible possible. 00:34:04.420 --> 00:34:14.099 How does it work? Think of who is speaking. This is Jesus, who is true goodness, because he is God. 00:34:14.900 --> 00:34:20.900 The one who is true goodness hasn't stayed at a distance. Rather, he's become one of us. And while 00:34:20.900 --> 00:34:28.820 he lived on this earth, he lived a life of perfect goodness. He and he alone earned the right to eternal 00:34:28.820 --> 00:34:41.940 life by his perfect righteousness. What Jesus did is so wonderful. He gave his life as that necessary substitute. 00:34:44.900 --> 00:34:52.580 And there is this great exchange that takes place where Jesus takes our sin and our law-breaking on 00:34:52.579 --> 00:35:03.460 himself. And in exchange, he credits to us his perfect righteousness. That he dies so that we might live. 00:35:05.219 --> 00:35:16.900 By grace, he dies for lawbreakers, for our pride, for our idolatry, for our lack of love. 00:35:16.900 --> 00:35:30.180 And by grace, he invites us to receive the kingdom of God, entry to life with God as a gift. Or as he's 00:35:30.180 --> 00:35:37.059 previously said in verse 17, I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child 00:35:37.059 --> 00:35:49.139 will never enter it. So we receive as a gift. But only when we learn to lay our deadly doing down, 00:35:50.340 --> 00:35:59.219 down at Jesus' feet, rest in him, in him alone, gloriously complete. 00:35:59.219 --> 00:36:09.459 The goodness of God is that he leaves us in no doubt that eternal life will never come on the basis of our own 00:36:09.459 --> 00:36:19.099 goodness. Jesus delivers a really realistic message when we take a moment to examine ourselves. But it 00:36:19.099 --> 00:36:28.239 becomes a hope-filled message because the one who speaks really is God, really is good, and his good work 00:36:28.239 --> 00:36:36.879 of salvation means we can inherit the gift of eternal life. His way of grace saves us from those cycles of 00:36:36.879 --> 00:36:46.239 pride and despair and trying to prove ourselves. And there is entry to life with God. We can receive 00:36:46.239 --> 00:36:55.279 eternal life when we see and believe that Jesus is our good God and Savior. Let's pray.