Amen, and please be seated. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 19, this morning, verses 16 through 22. This is a very domestic chapter. I mean, chapter 18 was about life in the church, the mercy from God we need, and the mercy we need to show one another, if we're not gonna destroy one another.
And then chapter 19 follows very naturally about life in the home, but how we treat one another in marriage, who doesn't need mercy, and forgiveness in the heart to live well together. And not only how we live together in marriage, but how we welcome children. That's what we heard two weeks ago before I was gone for the week. And now here, in the rest of the chapter, the domestic life is continuing, not only marriage and children, but money, possessions, and inheritance as the rest of the chapter will show.
And so we'll be thinking about these themes, and remember that as the children were brought to Christ, Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. And now today we come to the story of the rich young ruler, and we see a contrast, because instead of humility and dependence, we find a man who is self-reliant and self-righteous. And here, Jesus reminds us that no one is able to enter the kingdom of God without acknowledging their absolute spiritual poverty and need. So let me invite you to consider Matthew chapter 19 verses 16 through 22.
This is the holy and inspired word of God. And behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good.
If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, all these I have kept.
What do I still lack? Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go. Sell what you possess, give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.
When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. Amen. This is God's word. Me, cut our hearts with it, let's pray.
Father in heaven, what we know not teach us, and what we have not give to us, and what we are not truly make us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You know in the New Testament, we read of many who came to Jesus sad and went away from Jesus glad. But this man who comes to Jesus, he went away sad.
He's the rich young ruler. Now Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell us that he had riches, great possessions. Matthew calls him a young man. It's Luke that calls him a ruler.
So he's got money and possessions and abundance. He's got the energy and time of youthfulness. He's not looking for healing. And he's got the power and authority of one who rules.
And yet he wants more. And he wants the right thing. He wants, he says eternal life. He wants the life not merely of this world, but the life of the world which is to come.
Do you? Do you want the life of the age to come in the day of the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the new heavens and the new earth, the life of happiness and holiness in a remade world where only love and righteousness abound. I mean, the life of the kingdom of heaven, in the consummation of its glory going on forever and ever. Not the life of this world and all its sin and misery.
Not merely a short life here with its pain and sorrow, injury and illness, frustration and decay with a few toys to entertain along the way. But a life that goes on ever forever in wholeness and in health, in holiness and in happiness, in friendship with God face to face and in the great reunion with all those on that greater shore. Do you want that life? This man says, how can I get that life?
What good thing must I do? Now, there are three exchanges in the passage between this man and Jesus. And we come to this first one in verses 16 and 17. Behold, a man came up to him saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?
Now, we have to say on the one hand, he wants the right thing, but he's off to a bad start and how he thinks he can get it. He wants to know what good deed he must do to get it. He assumes that there is something he can do in order to have it. He wants to accomplish whatever is needed to secure his place in it.
And he thinks he just needs to know more. Surely Jesus knows what I need. And do more, tell me what it is and I'll do it. And then I'll have it.
Yet Jesus, of course, has been teaching in these chapters that well, even little children, even babies, can be part of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these, Jesus says. And he'll say, and you and I, we must turn and become like little children if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. This guy hasn't heard a word.
It hasn't come home to his heart, right? The chief thing about being a child is that others do for you what you can't do for yourself. I mean, your mom, a nurse is you, your parents spoon feed you, somebody carries you around or pushes you in a stroller. Well, frankly, somebody wipes you clean for a number of years at least.
They give you a bath, they change your clothes, they buy your food and cook it. What do you do? You receive it. I mean, you're provided for, you're taken care of.
It's a picture, isn't it? Of dependency, of neediness, a picture of humility. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. And you must become like one of them, Jesus says, but this guy, he's accustomed to taking care of all of his own business.
I mean, if he doesn't have something, he can buy it. If he wants something changed, he can command people to make that change. So he's thinking, of course, I'll take care of myself spiritually. Just tell me what to do, Jesus, and I'll do it.
And Jesus pushes back. And his evangelism technique here is intriguing, right? Verse 17, he says, why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good.
I think many of us would have said to the man, oh, you want eternal life? All right, believe on the Lord, Jesus, and you shall be saved. And I think we've probably expected Jesus to say to him, just believe in me and you shall be saved. But Jesus instead engages first in a discussion about goodness.
Now, the man brought it up. But why does he do so? Well, on the one hand, because as Ralph Davis says, Jesus doesn't just like shooting Bible bullets at people. One verse smacking the face, this will do it.
Jesus wants this man to get and feel his need. And if you listen to more of the exchange, through what Mark 10 and Luke 18 record, the man had said to Jesus, good teacher, what good thing must I do. And you can hear his perspective. Jesus, you're a good teacher.
Jesus, I'm a good man. Just tell me the good stuff, and I'll get going on it. And Jesus says, why do you ask me about what's good? Why are you so interested in what's good?
OK, let's talk about good. Only God is good. Now that teaches us something wonderful. Only God is good.
Therefore, all goodness in the world is without exception, on loan from God. Goodness is the overflow of God. Now, some people ignorantly think that Jesus is confessing here to some kind of personal sinfulness, or confessing his own lack of deity. That he's somehow saying, I'm just a man and a sinful man at that.
God is good, and you're not it, but I'm not it either. But that's a weak-minded view. It's Knox Jamble in my Old New Testament Professor Plutid. It betrays an appalling ignorance of the portrait of Jesus in the gospel.
So I mean, you can't really read anything in the gospels anywhere else and hear Jesus confessing to any sinfulness, because he professes to be God, and God is pure goodness. But this guy, of course, doesn't see all that yet about Jesus. Apparently, he doesn't see Jesus as God and Lord, just a good teacher. He thinks too little of Jesus.
And notice what Jesus does. In a few moments, of course, the man himself is going to claim to be God. I mean, claim to be good, not God. But good.
I mean, he's going to say, I keep all the commandments. I do everything that's good. I've done it. And so what Jesus asks of here on the front end and says to a guy he knows is going to say, yeah, I've done all that, Jesus is ahead of him on it and says, you know, no one is good, but God alone.
And so what is Jesus doing? He's like a great physician. He is diagnosing the spiritual condition of this man in front of him. In order to be helpful to the man, and he's saying to him, your basic problem is that you think you're good.
You think you're spiritually wealthy before the Lord, and you don't recognize your own poverty before the Lord. So Jesus has an answer to self-righteous people. And notice his answer after engaging him in a conversation about what's good, his answer might surprise you then. He says unto verse 17, all right, if you would have life, keep the commandments.
Now, what's he doing? I mean, we might have said, I mean, look, we just agree God is good, and God's the only one who's good. So that makes you and me sinners. And don't you realize you need to be forgiven.
And so let me tell you what Jesus is going to do for you, and Jesus did for you. But Jesus says, no, not that. He says, OK, Mr. I can do it.
Let me tell you what you need to do. Keep the commandments. If you think you're so able and so good, there's nothing better than God's good commands. Go do those.
Now, don't misunderstand Jesus here. He's not giving the man an alternate way of salvation by his works, as if salvation is earned by keeping it. Jesus knows the man hasn't kept the commandments, and doesn't keep the commandments, and won't perfectly keep the commandments. And there's no hope for him in that.
But the man doesn't know that. Jesus is setting up a spiritual diagnostic tool, like a mirror in front of the man's face, to say, do you understand who you are? Do you know what God is like? Have you looked at the commandments lately and your own heart?
The man says, what commands? The Pharisees had scoured the Old Testament and decided upon calculation that there were 613 commands that people had to do. And of course, the Pharisees, they love to lay that law in people's backs to burden them. That's not what Jesus is doing here.
But the guy says, which ones? And Jesus says, all right, the second interaction here, verses 18 to 19, let me boil it down for you. He says to verse 18, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Jesus quotes from the 10 commandments in Exodus 20 and starts with the sixth commandment, and then goes to the seventh and the eighth and the ninth. And just when you think he'll do the tenth note, he goes back to the fifth, out of your father and your mother, and then leaps ahead to Leviticus, or leaps elsewhere, to Leviticus 19, verse 18, quoting the Old Testament, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So Jesus takes him to the commandments, and the commandments are summarized by love. The first four love for God, but these last, five through 10, love your neighbor.
Now, did you hear that the Louisiana legislature just passed a law that public schools and universities need to post the 10 commandments in every classroom? It's the first time, as I understand it, any state in the nation has created such a law since the Supreme Court ruled against the posting of the 10 commandments way back in the, I think, the 1940s, I forget my history on that. Well, of course, as you can imagine, some people are strongly opposed to this notion. MSNBC calls it a grave threat to civic morality, a first step in a sinister vision for the country.
Others say, you know, if the legislature understood and wanted to promote Christianity, they should require the Beatitudes to be posted from the Sermon on the Mount. But whatever your take, and I don't know what your take is on this, the benefit of posting them publicly and requiring it, surely upon a light reflection, we can agree on the overall goodness of the 10 commandments and the benefit of people in society if we all follow them. What do I mean by that? Well, just consider the ones Jesus mentions here.
Aren't these good? I mean, isn't it good when you don't murder other people or when other people aren't murdered? Can we agree on that? Isn't it good when people who marry one another, aim and foster fidelity and others don't seek to tempt them out of that fidelity?
Can we agree on that? Can we agree it's good to live in a world where people have things that are their own and don't steal the things that belong to others? Or where people tell the truth of the court of law, they don't lie either to get somebody locked up or failed to tell the truth and to get somebody off the hook? Can we agree that would be a good world to live in?
You're in a court of law. The judge is looking at you, please tell the truth. Can we agree that? Even should respect their parents and not despise them, even if they disagree with them.
So don't you agree with Jesus and Leviticus 19, that it's good when we love others as we love ourselves, that it's good to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What's Jesus doing then? He's reminding this man that goodness requires loving others. And to be good, you really need to love others as the Ten Commandments tell you to.
And so what's Jesus doing? He's seeking to expose to this man his lack of love. His failure to be really good. Why?
To cut him off at the knees. To humble him. For as Jesus elsewhere said, blessed are the poor in spirit for the kingdom of heaven and wands to them. But this guy's so full of himself, he doesn't have the poverty, and so he doesn't have the kingdom.
Now what's the man's reply to this, verses 20 and 21? Well, the young man said to Jesus, all these I have kept. What do I still lack? Now think about what seems like such a sincere self-righteousness.
I mean, the other lack of self-awareness required for somebody to say, I have kept all the commandments of God. I have loved others always, like I wanna be loved. He's blind to his own spiritual poverty. He's full of himself.
He has a seriously deficient view of the righteous requirements of the law and a massively inflated view of his own moral goodness and performance. I mean, his view of the law must be deficient because the law is not just about our external actions. I mean, it might be, the man had never physically murdered somebody. He may be married and faithful to his spouse sexually.
He may have never lied in a court of law. He may be saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I did all that stuff. What else? But he doesn't understand what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, that the law is not merely about external things that you do, like not killing others in cold blood, sleeping around or robbing banks and so on.
But Jesus taught that the law is about our internal thoughts and desires, as well as our words and our actions. This guy seems ignorant of that. I'd not have you be likewise. When Jesus says, an unjustly angry person has murdered somebody in their heart, and Jesus is interpreting the law correctly.
It is murder of the heart to be unjustly angry at another person. It is murder of the heart to wish they were dead, wish they were gone. I mean, it is murder in the mouth to tear them down. And haven't you ever been so mad at somebody you thought I could just kill them?
I wish they were dead. Or with your mouth, you said some really nasty cutting thing. It's murder with the mouth and the heart, not just with the hand or the seventh commandment. I mean, if you lust after another, Jesus says you've already committed adultery with them in your heart.
Is there an adult man in the room who can claim complete purity of heart? What about you women? Have you never desired somebody else's spouse even for a moment? Or if you break the eighth commandment against stealing.
When you don't work to provide for yourself, when you live off of others unnecessarily, and when you aren't generous with what you have. I mean, doesn't this man realize that the eighth commandment requires honesty and industry and generosity? Not just about not Robin Banks. Well, the ninth commandment requires you to tell the truth.
The Bible says all men are liars. Have you ever shaded the truth to your own advantage? What about the fifth commandment? To honor your father and your mother?
I mean, who of us haven't rolled our eyes at them as children or teenagers? Who among us haven't cursed them in our heart, somewhere along the way? Got so crossed with one another, we thought, or we spoke nasty things to them. And who of us can truly say that we have never failed to do everything they asked us to do?
Well, then you haven't honored your father and your mother, not at that point. But this guy, he thinks he's doing right. He thinks he's a good keeper of the law, because he doesn't understand the laws, demands, about our hearts and our affections and our desires, about our thoughts as well as our words, not just our actions. None of us conform to perfect goodness.
So he's a deficient view of the law, and correspondingly then, a very high view of himself. And he will not be saved in that condition. You cannot be saved in that condition, because he doesn't yet want what Jesus can give to him, and you won't want it either. And what Jesus then says next to him is meant to show this man his true self.
So verse 21, Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect. I mean, the guy has just said, you know, I do all that. Give me something more. Okay, if he would be complete, Jesus says to him, if you would be mature in this, then well, go sell what you possess, give to the poor, and he will have treasure, and heaven can follow me.
Now this is brilliant. Jesus put his finger on the man's weakness. And it's a wonderful thing when God does. I have to tell you, many of you have heard the story of the last weeks of my dad's life, and gone a little while now.
I was able to spend lots of time with him, thanks to this church. And one evening my brother-in-law was over, and we got into a discussion about Christianity, and our view of ourselves, and how to get to heaven. And mostly my brother-in-law and I talked, and debated, and my dad listened. And my brother-in-law said, you know, like a lot of people would, that he was basically good.
And if there is a judgment, and he wasn't saying that he agreed that there was a judgment, but if there was a judgment, well, then the good he had done, would outweigh the bad he'd ever done, and that would be enough for him to get into heaven. Very common view of things. It's the rich young rulers' view of things. You know, the rich young ruler just wants to make sure he's done enough good things, the right good things.
Well, I try to explain to my family the Bible's view of things that we all fall short of the glory of God, and his goodness, and we need to be forgiven. That our hopes can't be in our achievements, because they're all tainted by our sinfulness, and selfishness, and when we're proud of them, and trusting in them, well, that's the definition of self-righteousness, which, well, no, is no righteousness at all before God. Our righteousness, I said, you know, must come from Christ. Our pardon for our sins, too.
I mean, we need what Jesus has done. We need him to bear the penalty that our sins deserve, that we could be forgiven, and we need him to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law by his perfect obedience, that we could be accepted as righteous in him. Well, afterwards, my dad privately told me something, and this is where it's going. Privately told me something really interesting.
He said, you know, I agree with some of what you said, and some of what my brother-in-law said, but then he said, you know, I used to think I was the perfect kid. And then, and he looks to his adult life, and he says, and then, you know, out in business, I'm at the sleaziest of people. And then I began to read the Bible. And I realized I'm not as good as I think I am.
You have to understand the heart of this minister to leap for joy, because I had known to that point, the thing keeping my dad from Jesus was my dad's own, outwardly good, moral, upstanding, salt of the earth kind of life to the eyes of man. But my dad began to see with the eyes of the heart that he was just not nearly as good as he thought he was. And that's a good thing to see. That's the point of the law of God to be a window for us to gaze into the heaven itself at the goodness of God and see what it is.
Love, perfect love. And then for that law to be like a mirror shining in our face showing us our own sinful hearts by the law comes the knowledge of sin. And then that law is a kind of hammer to beat back our pride. And it's a tutor to take us by the hand, to lead us to Christ for pardon and for righteousness in Christ.
Did you catch how this man and being so confident in himself, actually, did you catch this? How he actually lacks certainty and lacks assurance about his eternal future? Oh, he's quite sure of himself, but he's not quite sure of what is to come. His question, what do I still lack betrays that it haunts him and it haunts everyone who is trusting in themselves, that they are righteous based on their good works.
Oh, that it would haunt you. Because the question is, is what you have done enough? Have you done enough? What if there is something more for you to do?
Something you've overlooked? You can never be certain of God's love for you and his acceptance of you in that condition. Like the rich young ruler, you're always lack assurance. There's always more to do.
And so Jesus seeks to shake this guy's self-confidence when in verse 20 says, if you would be perfect or complete or mature, if you would do what needs doing, well, then here's what you need to do. Go sell what you possess, give to the poor, and you'll have treasure in heaven. You claim to love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus says, I want you to prove it. You talk a big game.
Let's see it, Jesus says to him, touching the man's weak spot, for he what? He loves his money. He loves his stuff. And he loves them more than his poor neighbors.
He won't help them. And he loves them more than God, for he won't give them up in exchange for eternal life with God. And he loves his stuff and money more than Jesus, because he won't give them up to follow Jesus. So what Jesus has exposed is actually this man's idolatry.
He has another deity. It's called money, possessions, the things of this world. And he has exposed his covetousness. He wants to accumulate to himself and keep to himself whatever he gets his hands on.
So he's broken, the commandments Jesus doesn't mention to him specifically, but Jesus has brought us all to see this. He's broken the 10th commandment, the commandment you shall not covet, which the Bible also calls idolatry, or a breaking of the first commandment, not to have any other gods before the Lord himself. And so what this man needs then is not his own good doing, he needs the gift of God's grace. He needs the finished work of Christ on his behalf.
God must save this man or this man cannot be saved, because he's too in love with himself and his things in this world. It turns out since J.C. Ryle, that with all his wishes and desires after eternal life, there was one thing he loved better than his soul. And that was his money.
And he was weighed in the balance and found wanting. Yet did you see the amazing promise Jesus makes to him? Do what I tell you, Jesus says, and you will have treasure in heaven. Repent of your idolatry, turn to me, trust in me, follow me, and you will not lose, he says to the man, in the language the man gets.
He's piled up his treasures on earth. And Jesus says, you know what you follow me, you do what I say, you will not lose, you will gain treasure in heaven. It's like the council Jesus gives in Matthew six, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And so Jesus says, you know what, you will have the best of heaven.
And the best of heaven, the treasure, the treasure of treasures of heaven is what? You'll have me. Come follow me, Jesus says, you'll be mine, I'll be yours. So Jesus calls him to repentance for his idolatry, he calls him to trust in Jesus, and he calls him to discipleship.
And the consummation under that is the glory of being face to face with Jesus forever. And how does the man respond? Verse 22, when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions, offered eternal life, he renews his allegiance to the world. We don't know what ultimately becomes of this man, the Bible is silent on it.
Does he repent later on? Does his sadness drive him to the kind of sorrow that brings true repentance? You know when you hear words like this from Jesus, and you think about your own love for the things of this world, your own attachment to stuff and money, if it makes you sad, it's not bad, if it drives you to Jesus and not away from Jesus. But this man, at least initially, appears to fulfill Matthew 1322, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
So I wanna ask you about yourself. Don't be thinking about other people you know. You ask about yourself, I'll ask about myself, are we slaves to money and wealth? Do we have our stuff, or does our stuff have us?
Do we own our things, or do our things own us? Do we love God, and receive the good things of this world as a gift and give him thanks? Or do we love the things cling to them and seek to use God to get them? We should also ask a different question.
Does Jesus here require every disciple to sell everything they have, give to the poor, and only then can they follow him? In other words, is the command of Jesus to this particular man, the command of Jesus to everyone everywhere? No, it is not. Why do I say that so definitively?
Lots of reasons, we'll cover some next week. But when Jesus commands the man to give his money to the poor, he shows that absolute poverty is not his goal. If it were, giving the poor money would be hurting them, spiritually, and not helping them. But money can be helpful, and it's not wrong inherently to have money.
But money was this man's idol, and Jesus exposed it. For some of you, that is your idol too. For others of you, it's different. Maybe something else.
Hopes of worldly honor and fame, a lust of various appetites, the comfort of ease, the ambition for success, the longing for perfect parents, or the longing for perfect children, the hunger for personal justice unmoderated by mercy. And what is the idol of your heart? Do you know it? Has God put his finger on it for you?
Has he shown you your sinful band, your self-reliance, your self-righteousness? And has it made you sad, then just own it and confess it? Turn from your idol and turn to Christ to be saved. He alone can give you pardon.
He alone can make you righteous. Follow me, says Jesus. You get so much better than you ever give up. Let's pray.
Father, thank you that you spared not your son, that you might spare us. Thank you, Jesus, that you loved us and gave yourself for us. Oh, root out of us, our arrogant self-righteousness. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.