Amen, and please be seated. Now we have a Bible living in my children's eternal with me, the Matthew chapter 19, this morning where verses 23 to 26, last week in verse 16, beginning there, we met a man who walked away from Jesus because he had great riches, and the rejection of Jesus by this rich, young ruler, props Jesus to warn us all of the spiritual danger of earthly riches, the danger of being a self-reliant person, the danger of any idolatry that captivates our heart. In the passage we hear that God's grace is greater than all our hopes. God's grace is greater than human sin that God is able to do for sinners, what we cannot do for ourselves.
We're gonna pick up the reading of verse 16 to catch the occasion for this teaching, but before I do so, you all hear what I'm hearing? Is it kind of an echo or something weird with the mind? Is it? The mind just catches that.
Y'all get? Give me thumbs up if it's okay. Okay, then just bother me. Matthew chapter 19, beginning of verse 16, you're not the word of God.
I mean, hold the 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 is 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 to go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and calm, all of me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished saying, who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, with man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. Amen.
This is God's word. He write it on our hearts. Let's look to him in prayer. Father in heaven, we pray that you would bless this word to our hearts.
The way that only you can do by the work of the spirit and because of Christ, Lord have mercy upon us and teach us your word. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Thank you, brother.
It is generally true. It's generally true that things are easier for the wealthy. You know, money makes the world go around as they say. Or well, certainly access to education or health care or travel or leisure is opened by money and often closed without it.
But here in this story, we see one door that is not open to the wealthy because on the issue of seeking eternal life of entering the kingdom of God of salvation, these expressions are interchangeable in the passage. This man's wealth proved not to be a benefit but a barrier. And he went away sad from Jesus. We saw that last week because he had great possessions.
His heart was captive to the things of this world. He was in bondage to the love of stuff. He was an idolater who wouldn't give up his God called money for the sake of following Jesus as the true God. Before you say yourself, well, I'm not wealthy.
You know, this story is nothing to say to me. Don't miss the point. Ritches was his substitute deity. But it could be something else for you, for others.
Jesus in the passage exposes to the man his idolatry and his covetousness. He thinks he's doing great keeping all the commandments of God. And then Jesus reaches out and puts his finger on his sore spot on his weakness. You won't give it up to follow me.
So you have to ask the question, I suppose we might anyway. Does Jesus really hate rich people? You'll hear that in some circles. Let's ask the question.
I mean, some people do hate rich people. Some people despise them. Some think the fact that they're rich is proof that they're corrupt. Some people actually think that because you have more than others, somehow you have what belongs to those others.
Others hate rich people because they envy them and they long to trade places with them. And in fact, the rich people that they envy may not even love their own riches, but those who envy them love the riches they themselves don't have and the rich person does. So let's just ask the question, what's Jesus' attitude to rich people here? Well, we don't actually have to guess.
The Gospel of Mark in the parallel passage, same situation, tells us. It tells us in Mark chapter 10 verse 21, Jesus, looking at him, loved him and then said, go and sell and give and come follow me. Jesus loved him and because he loved him, he kept on inviting the man to see his own sinfulness, to repent of his idolatry, to trust in Jesus and become his disciple. So it's not a lack of love in the heart of Jesus, but a lack of love in the heart of the man that keeps him from Jesus.
Or we might say it is love in the heart of man, but love for the things of the world instead of Jesus that keeps him from Jesus. And so last week we saw in verse 22, the young man went away sorrowful. He went away sad because he great possessions and then Jesus makes this a teaching opportunity for his disciples. And he turns to his disciples and he says, I want you to think about what just happened.
I want you to think about that man and that wealth and he's walking away. I want you to think about these things as Jesus. I want you to understand something about rich people, he says, and something about God's richest blessings and something about man's inability but God's capability. So we're gonna look at three big things here.
In verses 23 to 24, what I want us to see is we look at this rich man that Jesus says it's dangerous to be rich in this world. And then in verse 25, I want us to see that the possession of rich is not necessarily a sign of God's favor. And then at verse 26, it is impossible for any of us to save ourselves, but God can save any of us. So I want you to think about these three things.
In the first place, this lesson Jesus is teaching in verse 23 and 4, that it's dangerous to be rich in this world because it's difficult for rich people to be saved. I mean look at the language verse 23, truly I say to you, only with difficulty, will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven? Now why is this? Well for those with great wealth, it's easy to put your hope in this world and it's wealth.
To think I can take care of myself. To think I don't really have any significant needs. I don't really have any spiritual needs. I can enjoy the good things of this life and well get so distracted by them, not even consider the the good things of the life which is to come.
And that's dangerous. Now for others of course, and again don't tell yourself well I'm not rich so only other people have to listen to what Jesus is saying here. I don't have to worry about this. I mean you don't have to be rich to be in the same danger as those who are rich.
At first, 76 pointedly says, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. Why? For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
It's not money. It's not even having money, access to money, but the love of money. Jesus says, the apostle says, that is the root of all kinds of evil. You don't have to have money to have this problem.
But then notice, not only does Jesus say that with great difficulty, a rich personal life to the Kingdom of Heaven, but then he illustrates it by something that's impossible. Verse 24, again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Now Jesus here picks the largest animal known in Palestine. I mean they didn't have elephants and hippos and rhinos, but most of them had seen camels.
And he picks the smallest pole, a little sowing needle loop through which only a tiny little piece of straggen could pass. Contrary to some commentaries and many probably thousands of sermons that have been preached, Jesus is not describing a tiny passageway in Jerusalem called the eye of the needle. He's not describing some small secret gate that can only be entered at night if a man bent down low with nothing on his back. There is no evidence anywhere that's such a thing ever existed.
And Jesus here is not saying a camel can't get through it. It depends down low. Jesus is saying it's easier for a camel to pass through the whole of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus is not saying that all poor people and no rich person ever enters the Kingdom of Heaven, but he is saying what?
It will take a miracle. It will take a miracle for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And it will take a miracle for a poor person too. But certainly your riches will never get you there.
And often having riches is a source of spiritual danger because wealthy people often think they already have what they need or if they don't have it, they can get it. The poor can't eat steak every night. The rich can if they want to. The poor can't travel to Italy or Fiji.
The rich can if they want to. And the rich need to be shaken out of the I can if I want to disposition because you can't buy salvation. You can't earn it. You can't merit it.
You can't purchase it. You don't deserve it. It must be given to you as a gift from God. And Jesus said in the first beat of the first beat of the blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
And that poverty of spirit, that sense that I am a spiritual beggar, that I am destitute of anything that would commend me to God, that I am in need of being given to, of being provided for, of being taken care of by God. That's the mark of a genuine Christian, the mark of one in whom the Kingdom of Heaven belongs in whom the Kingdom of Heaven has come. And the danger of material riches is the illusion that you have no need for God to rescue you from yourself. You have no need for God to give you a gift.
And the danger of material riches is the illusion that you already have, all the blessing of God that you need. And so it's easier, Jesus says, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. And so it's dangerous spiritually to be rich, or to set your heart on the riches of this world. That's the first thing.
Well, the disciples hear this and they're greatly astonished for 25. Who then can be saved they ask? Notice here it's subtle, but the possession of riches is not necessarily a sign of God's favor, is what Jesus is teaching. And they're astonished by this, not just astonished, greatly astonished.
Why? Because of their view of material prosperity, because because in Jewish society it was generally believed, and if you read the Old Testament, you can certainly get this impression that wealth is an indication of blessing and the wealthier you are, the more blessed by God you are. And certainly wealth was a blessing from God in the Old Testament. I mean, think of Abraham, who was exceedingly wealthy and blessed by God as was his son, Isaac, and his son Jacob.
Joe was fabulously rich. Joe, one verse three notes, he possessed 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female doggies, and very many servants. So this man was the greatest of all the people of the East. And yet, verse one says he was playing with an upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil.
King David, of course, was rich. He was just told moments ago Solomon was rich. He asked for wisdom, and God made him wise and wealthy. As a cayo was rich.
Many had the mindset that when God blesses you, your wealth grows, and therefore lots of wealth is the proof that you're really especially blessed by God, and that disciples have been thinking that way, and Jesus throws up their misconception. I mean, he blows it up in their faces. And he's saying, don't think that way about this issue. For the greatest blessing isn't financial wealth.
It is, in fact, spiritual riches. It's the stuff money can't buy. The greatest blessing of God is not that you'll get stuff in this world which is going to fade away, but it is that you belong to the kingdom that lasts forever. It is the greatest blessing of all to be united to Christ.
And so to be blessed by God with every spiritual blessing in Christ. The apostle Paul enumerates them in Ephesians chapter 1. We sang of them, but if you want to turn there for a moment briefly, I just want you to see how the apostle talks about God's blessing. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 3.
He says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now what are these spiritual blessings that every believer has every one of in Christ? Well, notice verse 4, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. Before we ever chose God or were even born or the world was even made, he says.
God had already chosen his people to stand faultless in his presence. And you've been chosen in Christ for that. And verse 5, in love, here's the second blessing, in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons for Jesus Christ according to the purposes of his will. He says, we have been loved by God and God in his love, planned our adoption into his family, and God actually came through with it.
And he made us his son or his daughter. That's how you've been blessed into the family of God and why, verse 6, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. Christ is the beloved and in union with Christ you are beloved, he says, to the praise of God's grace. And he goes on to verse 7, in him, in the beloved, we have redemption through his blood.
That is Christ paid the debt of our sin and bought us out of bondage to sin into freedom, out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light, out of hell and in the heaven as it were. He redeemed us and fifth blessing and we have the forgiveness of our trespasses. We have been set free from the penalty we deserve. We've been pardoned by God, loosed from the change that bound us to what our sin deserves, he says.
And this also is why, well it's according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. We've been graced, he says, and not just put a little bit of grace, we've been lavished with grace. And so in the seventh place in all wisdom and insight, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to do what, to unite all things in him. Things in heaven and things on earth.
He says, God gave us wisdom and insight to see. He has let us end on what was once his secret but has now been revealed that in Christ God and man are united. And he goes on verse 11, the eighth thing, and we've obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be the praise of his glory. We have an inheritance, he says, from God.
We have hope, he says, for the future, God pre planned and pre purposed this according to his own sovereign will. And verse 13 in him, you also, he says, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. This also is one of the blessings that you have in union with Christ. It's one of the every spiritual blessings you have in Christ, you have been sealed.
You have been made securely safe by the Holy Spirit of God, for God sealed for the day of resurrection. And verse 14, that Holy Spirit is the what the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. The Spirit, he says, has come, he has entered into you. God has given the Holy Spirit as a kind of down payment in your life, guaranteeing the future fullness of that earnest money.
God has given you the Holy Spirit as a deposit. And God is never going to walk away from that. He's never going to walk away from you. Why?
Again, all to the praise of God's glory is grace and the praise of his glory. And money can't buy that. Jesus bought it for us in union with Jesus through faith in him. God gives it to us.
We simply receive it with empty, outstretched hands, spiritual beggars that we are, with nothing to give to God, but the sin that makes the salvation necessary. What do we have? We've got the sin that makes it necessary for God to save us. What does God have every spiritual and gives them all to every one of his people?
They belong to the poorest believer, as well as the richest, the youngest, as well as the oldest, the weakest, as well as the strongest, the dumbest, as well as the brightest, the most immature, as well as the most mature, and the saints on earth, as well as saints in heaven. But the disciples at this point assume that material wealth is really the sign of God's favor. And so they're thinking if the rich, who are rich with the blessing of God, can't enter the kingdom of heaven, what hope is there for anybody? And part of the answer to that is none.
I mean, one way to think of that is there is no hope for anybody, at least not in ourselves, as Jesus will go on to say, with man it is impossible, impossible, but with God all things are possible. And so Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. And so this is the last thing to note. It's impossible for any of us to save ourselves.
But God can save any of us. Omnipotence overwhelms impossibility for his God who saves. No person is too difficult, is too difficult for him to save. Not the rich, not the poor.
We just can't save ourselves. Let me think about this way, and this is throughout the scripture. And Jeremiah asked the question, can a leopard change its spots? And the answer of course is no, I mean a leopard can't become a zebra.
It can't just decide I'll wake up one morning and as a spot you leopard and then I'm going to be a zebra the rest of the day. I mean that's impossible. Leopards are leopards and zebras are zebras. Then we might ask, can a person who's stuck on themselves bent in on themselves with little interest in God all of a sudden one morning just wake up and say, oh I think I'll become a follower of Jesus today.
And the answer is no, a leopard can't change its spots. You can't change yourself. But if salvation is a human achievement, of course you could. But it's not.
In fact, Paul and Romans 8 will say this, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. We are in fact by nature bent in on ourselves and hostile to God, and nothing can change our mind, certainly not ourselves.
Our minds won't naturally submit to God nor can they do so. Unless God works and he does. He's so gracious. Ephesians chapter 2, this is why we sing that song, right on the other page next to Ephesians 1 which we just read.
Ephesians 2 says that you were dead. He's talking to Christians. You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and mind and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. He says we were dead.
We were dead. If you're not a Christian, this is your present condition. I know you're alive physically, but spiritually you're dead. And he says if you are a Christian, this is what you were.
You were dead in your transgressions and sins. You were a corpse, he says. And what's that like? Well, corpse doesn't hear the conversations going around it.
It has no appetite for food or drink. And that's how it was for you. You didn't hear God, you didn't hunger for God, you didn't even realize you needed God. And until we admit that about ourselves, we won't fully appreciate what a great thing it is that God has done for us.
And forgive the illustration if you've heard it a dozen times for me by now, but imagine for a moment humanity as a water skier and we're water skiing now in a fallen world that is on a cesspool. Some people think man is skiing behind the boat in the cesspool, but they're above the water. And occasionally they might get a little bit splashed or sprayed, but as long as I stay on the ski and stay upright, I'm going to be swimming in it. I mean, the wind might dry off the splatter.
Sin is, after all, on the outside of me. And when I get down here, I can clean myself up. Some people think that's kind of what humanity is. The world of crazy place, I might get touched by it a little bit, but the problem isn't in here.
Other people say, no, no, no, you need to think of that water skier. He has taken a nasty tumble. And he is now swimming in the cesspool alive, but choking on the sea of sin. Let's say it.
Sick with sin covered in it, maybe drowning, but alive, treading water. But the Bible says we're what? We're not sin touched. We're not sinned.
We are dead by nature in our trespasses and sins. We're at the bottom of the cesspool. Our lungs are full of the yuck. We're incapable of breath and life with no heartbeat and no brain waves.
And that's the picture. And dead people can't do anything for themselves. But what did God do? We were dead and disobedient, and by nature children of wrath and Ephesians 2, 4 says, but God, being rich in mercy.
Because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ, my grace you have been saved. We needed what? Down at the bottom of that cesspool dead, we needed somebody to dive down into the cesspool, push the water out of our lungs, breathe into us, life giving breath, jumpstart our heart, give us new life. And Jesus does that.
And when he opens our eyes and we're there with Jesus in the bottom of the cesspool, we realize we're in a desperate situation and we say, Jesus, save me. Rescue me. And he does. Having made us alive, giving a spiritual resurrection, having brought us to life, he takes us all the way home to the glory and cleanliness of heaven.
You know, one thing you will never see happen in an emergency room is a limp body with no pulse. Reach up, grab the paddles, and give himself a jolt of electricity to start his heart beating again. Dead people don't do that. A doctor has to do that.
A nurse has to do that. But because of the love with which God loved us by grace, we have been saved. We have been made alive. So what is impossible for us is possible with God.
Now, no matter how apparently moral or apparently divine favor, we may be, no matter how much money we may have, there is no man or woman, no boy or girl, who can earn the favor of God or give themselves spiritual life. It is only received by grace. But if you think that you already have what you need, perhaps because you're already materially rich, or because you're rich in human pride, then you won't cast yourself on the mercy of God and ask him to rescue you. And what you need to do is cry out for God to do what you cannot do for yourself.
Salvation is not in our weak, empty hands with the hands of omnipotence, and God can say anybody rich or poor. So if you're a Christian, if you are alive in Christ, then take heart. Whatever your material, wealth or poverty or circumstance, take heart. First Corinthians 1 says this about us.
For considering your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God shows what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God shows what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God shows what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of God, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. And then let me say this as we close.
If you are both spiritually rich in Christ and also wealthy in worldly possessions, remember the Council of Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6. As for the rich in this present age, he says, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are, he says, to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. And the stuff you got in your house and the car you got in your garage, that isn't truly life.
But Jesus is, and heaven is, put your hope in Him. Let's pray. Father, grants it humble the proud because you oppose the proud, but are gracious to the humble. And grant that our trust would be not in ourselves, but in our Savior, in His name I pray.
Amen. Amen. Let's stand together and say.