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THE RULE OF GOD CONFIRMS GOD IS THE SOURCE OF SALVATION Matthew 19: 13-30INTRODUCTION A number of years ago, while I was serving with Campus Crusade for Christ, I had a conversation with a younger staff member. We were talking about how to share the gospel with college students. In particular we were talking about the nature of saving faith and how we should describe it to students. I proposed this situation. Imagine that you arrange to meet a student at his apartment for the purpose of sharing the gospel. When you arrive, a beautiful young female student greets you. As you enter she is leaving. She gives the young man you are meeting a kiss and tells him she’ll be back around suppertime. After she leaves, as you exchange pleasantries, he tells you that this young woman is his girlfriend and they are living together. You spend the next hour discussing the good news that God sent his son into the world to die for sin and to rise from the dead and that all who trust in him will have their sins forgiven and be given eternal life. When you ask him if he wants to trust in Christ he, with a tear in his eye, nods his head yes. I asked my friend, "At that point, do you have an obligation to explain to him that he cannot have Christ and keep living with his girlfriend or do you just ignore this obvious sin?" My friend vehemently argued that you could not tell this young man that the only way he could be a Christian is to stop living with and having sex with his girlfriend. He argued that to do so would be to tell the young man that he could earn his salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith he told me and not by works and so we cannot tell people that they must do anything but believe in order to be saved. I informed him, based upon this text before us today and others like it, that if we didn’t tell this young man he could not have Christ and his current relationship with his girlfriend that we would be lying to him and misleading him as to how a person gains eternal life. My friend suffered from a very common misunderstanding of what grace and faith are. He and many like him would argue that you cannot tell people that they must stop doing anything or start doing anything except to believe in the gospel. The moment you add anything but faith, you are telling people that they are saved by works and not by grace. I am convinced that the Bible teaches the exact opposite. In fact, it is precisely because salvation is a work of grace that we participate in through faith that we must tell people that they cannot have Christ’s salvation and sin. That is the point that Matthew is trying to drive home as he describes these events in Jesus’ life. MAIN POINT Salvation from beginning to end is a gracious work of God because… I. Only those with nothing to offer are saved (vv. 13-15) The disciples and Jesus are in the midst of a serious discussion about the nature of marriage and the place of celibacy in God’s kingdom when a mob of parents bring their snotty nosed kids to have Jesus lay his hands on them and pray for them. Actually, they don’t reach Jesus because some of the disciples intercept this unruly mass of parents and children and angrily tell them to go away. Jesus has far too many important people to talk with, like the disciples, to be bothered with a bunch of little kids. Don’t these parents know that they and Jesus are getting ready to set up God’s kingdom on earth? They’re looking for people who can help them conquer the world, not a bunch of toddlers who only know how to make messes. There are people to be healed and sermons to be delivered and corrupt and canny religious leaders to outwit. There is no time for troublesome tots with their incessant noise and constant disorder. Jesus hears and then sees the commotion and comes over to see what is happening. You can just imagine one of the disciples saying, "Jesus, no need to trouble yourself. We’ve got things under control. We’re just sending all these noisy families away so we can get back to business. Why don’t you go sit down over by that well and we’ll get rid of these parents with their children and then we can get on with the important discussion we were having. After that we can go to the next town and you can heal the people there." Jesus will have none of this sort of reasoning. He sternly commands his disciples to permit the children to come to him and to stop hindering them from doing so. Then he tells them the reason that they should let the little children come to him. He says, "For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." The reason Jesus wants to put his hands on the children and pray for them and bless them is because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people that are like these children. He is not saying that the kingdom of heaven automatically belongs to children but he is saying what he said back in Matthew 18: 2-4, the only people who are going to heaven are those who are humble in the way little children are humble. He is referring to an objective reality, not some natural virtue that all children possess. Children are just as self-centered as adults and demand their own way sometimes more than adults. Children are humble in this sense; they are never consulted about the plans of adults. They have no say in politics. Others run their lives. They have nothing to offer for the solution of human problems or the governance of civilization. It is a fact of their existence, not a virtue in them. In the broader society, they are nobodies and they have nothing to offer. The only people who are going to heaven are people who become nobodies on purpose and don’t care they are nobodies. Jesus is reminding the disciples that it isn’t the strong that go to heaven, but the weak, those who have nothing to offer God. But why does Jesus want to have children come to him? Does he just want children around as walking object lessons? What do his sharp rebuke of the disciples and his warm reception of these children tell us? First, we have here a picture of what helpless, humble people do. Those who know they have nothing to offer God and no way to gain God’s favor go to God and humbly ask him to help them. Prayerful dependence upon God for all things is a chief mark of the humble that are inheriting the kingdom of God. The second thing we learn from this is that if the king of the kingdom to which we belong deals so kindly with the weak ones of this world, then we ought to be like him. The church is for the underdog. We ought always to be on the lookout for how we can bless, be of assistance to, those who are "last" in our society. We ought to be a friend to those in trouble, to those who are of no consequence in the world. Jesus is exhibiting that God gives grace to the humble and so we ought to be characterized by also giving grace to the needy and helpless in our culture. The disciples are exhibiting how society normally views children and all categories of people who cannot "contribute". Jesus shows that the church is to be a place where the insignificant in society can come and be helped. Salvation from beginning to end is a gracious work of God because…
II. Humans, by nature, refuse to love and trust God (vv. 16-22) The contrast between those who have humbled themselves like little children and this young man who comes to Jesus seeking eternal life is quite stark. This is perfect example of how Matthew has arranged his material in order to make a theological point. God only saves people who have nothing to offer and this man is absolutely sure he has a lot to offer. Quite frankly this is a very troubling encounter because while Jesus exposes the hardhearted pride in this man, he, on the surface, appears to be a person who is a very likely candidate for gaining heaven. Just think about all the apparently positive things this man has going for him spiritually. First, he wants to know how gain heaven. He is at some level troubled about the state of his eternal soul. He is not sure that he has eternal life. He cares about where he stands with God. This is an unusual thing in any human being but especially in a young, wealthy, religious, morally upright human being. Second, he knows that Jesus can help him. He knew that Jesus was a teacher of divine truth and could be trusted to give a straight and true answer to his question. He was not like the Pharisees, full of anger and skepticism regarding Jesus. He had faith in Jesus. He comes to the right person and he comes with the right question. Third, he is a man who has knowledge of the OT Scriptures and believes they are true descriptions of God and of God’s will for humanity. Fourth, he not only believes the Bible but he has, at some level, made an attempt to obey it. When we see all these positive things about this man the response of Jesus to him becomes quite puzzling. Right from the beginning of their conversation Jesus is confrontational. He does not compliment him on asking such a good question. He does not tell him he made a good choice in coming to see him. Rather he begins by challenging him. In his opening question Jesus challenges him at three points. First, he asks him why are you asking me what God requires to gain eternal life? You have the Scriptures. Are they not clear? Or are the Scriptures not enough for you? Are you requiring that God give you some special revelation? Are you testing God, requiring him to do something more than he has already done? Second, he is challenging how he thinks about himself. He presumes that he can do a good thing. He believes that he has the inherent goodness to perform a good deed. All he needs is to know what is required, and then he will be more than able to perform it. He doesn’t see himself as a sinner, he sees himself as basically good. He is able to gain eternal life by his own effort. Third, he has a very deficient view of God. God is the only one who is good. By saying that he is able to do a good deed, he is placing himself on a par with God. He is not aware of how awful and vast is the distance between he and the God who made him. He, like most humans, thinks of God merely as a bigger version of himself. But God is alone in his being. He is unique. There is no one like him in his goodness. He is the definition of goodness. How will Jesus help this earnest young man come to terms with reality? Where do you begin if you are trying to help someone understand how to gain eternal life? Where would you start? Jesus says something that confounds most professing Christians in the United States. He tells the young man, in answer to the question, "what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?"—"Keep the commandments." Isn’t that shocking to you? Wouldn’t you have said, "You can’t do anything to gain eternal life. You have to trust in God’s gracious provision for sin in the death and resurrection of his Son." What is Jesus doing? He is using God’s law for the purpose it was given. God did not give the 10 commandments so that you could obey them in order to gain eternal life. He gave them to prove to you and to me that we are wicked and deserve to go to hell. This is one of the main messages of the OT. God keeps giving his law to his people and they keep breaking it. They never obey it. That’s the point. Paul summarizes this fact in Romans 3:19, "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law, rather through the law we become conscious of sin." Jesus is using the law to help this young man gain eternal life by showing him how desperate his condition truly is. Notice how the young man responds. He asks, "Which ones?" We begin to see his problem. The OT repeatedly says things like what Moses says in Deut. 6, "These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you…" Asking which commands God means for us to obey is a bad question. He means everything he says. You are obligated to obey all his commands. If you say to your child, "I want you to make your bed, fold and put away your clothes and vacuum your room. Afterwards, I’ll take you shopping for a new pair of shoes." What would you do if she said, "Which of these commands do you want me to keep in order to get the new shoes?" Isn’t that a foolish and in fact rebellious question? It shows a heart that does not respect you. Your child is not thinking about how to love you or how to obey you but how to get what she wants in the easiest way possible. Jesus continues to graciously work with this man. Rather than rebuking his wicked question, he gives him a list of some of the commandments. He lists five of the Ten Commandments and what is called the "golden rule"—"love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus tells this young man if he has obeyed these commandments then he will gain eternal life. Look at what the young man says, "All these I have kept, what do I still lack?" This man has several problems; but I’ll mention only two. First, if he has indeed kept the commands, then he does have eternal life. So he should not be asking what he still lacks. He proves by asking this that he doesn’t truly believe the Bible or Jesus. He reveals by this arrogant question, that he is not looking for God’s answer, he is looking for an answer that he wants. He is constructing a god and a religion that suits his preferences. He is not submissive to what the true God says. However, even worse than that he is completely out of touch with the reality of who he is. He is claiming to be without sin. If he were truly seeking God he would have responded to this list of commands like this: "Don’t you see Jesus, this is exactly my problem? I cannot keep these commands. I try to keep them but I never do. I know that I should love my neighbor, but I don’t. I find myself always looking out for my own interests and only caring for my neighbor when it is convenient to me and when I will be benefited. I am full of anger with others and insult people when they offend me. I am full of criticism and judgment. I lie in order to protect myself. My heart is full of lust and impurity. I only love my wife when she is cooperating with me. Jesus this is just my problem, I don’t keep God’s laws." In other words, if he were responding to the law as God intends, he would be on his face weeping over his sin and cowering in fear that God would strike him dead at that moment for his wickedness. Listen to how C.H. Spurgeon, the famous Christian preacher said about his response to the law of God, "For five years as a child there was nothing before my eyes but my guilt… Wherever I went, the law had a demand upon my thoughts, upon my words, upon my rising, upon my resting. What I did and what I did not do, all came under the condemnation of the law. I seemed as if I was a sinner, and nothing else but a sinner… Was there ever a bond-slave who had more bitterness of soul than I, five years a captive in the dungeons of the law, till my youth seemed as if it would turn into premature old age?" This kind of language sounds strange to our ears but this is the language of humility. This is what Jesus is trying to get this young man to feel. This is what God the Holy Spirit is trying to get you to feel. Only those who know their failure to obey and feel the weight of God’s righteous condemnation will ever gain eternal life. There will be no one in heaven who, when given a list of God’s commandments says, "All these I have kept, what do I still lack?" Look at the patient grace of God revealed in the Son of God. This self-righteous, arrogant man ought not to be permitted to talk like this. He deserves wrath and condemnation. King Jesus ought to laugh in his face and say, "What are you talking about? Get out of my presence. I have no time for fools like you." But look at what Jesus says. First he says, "If you want to be perfect…" This word "perfect" does not mean sinless. Rather it is an OT word that describes a person who has met God’s conditions, who has received God’s favor. In Genesis 6:8-9 we are told that Noah found favor in God’s eyes, being a righteous man and blameless or perfect. In numerous places in 1 Kings we are told this about various kings in Israel, "He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not perfect toward the Lord his God as was the heart of his father David." David had a perfect heart toward God. David himself tells us in 2 Samuel 22:23, "I have been blameless (perfect) before him." The OT tells us that these men were not sinless but it repeatedly affirms they were blameless or had perfect hearts toward God. Jesus is telling this young man how a sinner like him can be blameless before God. He is going to tell him what the entire OT says. He is going to tell him how it was that Noah and David were "perfect". Again, what Jesus says to this young man is shocking to most modern evangelical ears. It does not sound like unmerited favor. It sounds like Jesus is telling this man he will be saved by his works. You can buy your way into heaven by giving to the poor. Jesus tells him, if you want to be blameless, like Noah, then sell your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor and come follow me. What in the world is Jesus doing here? He is showing this young man how God’s saving grace works. He is telling him what faith is. He is merely applying to a particular person the principal he has taught throughout his ministry. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." (You can put anything else in place of money and it will hold true.) "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." Jesus is merely describing what faith is and what happens when God is gracious. This man’s problem is that he doesn’t want God, he wants money and what money provides and he wants to enjoy a prosperous life forever. His concern is not with finding God but with not losing the "good life." He doesn’t want the pleasures he enjoys in this world to end. He is looking for immortality, not God. He doesn’t want to go to hell but he doesn’t really want to live with God. You’ve heard me say this dozens of times but I’m going to say it again because it is the point of what Jesus says here. Faith is not merely assenting to the facts about Jesus. Faith is not simply asserting that you are going to heaven because Jesus died for your sins. As John Piper says in "Desiring God", "Faith is not only believing that Jesus will do what he promises to do but that what Jesus promises is better than everything else in the world." The person who has faith in Jesus has died to their demand to find happiness in this world. Christ is their life, not their children, not their hobby, not their house, not their job, not their spouse, not their career. This young man trusts in and loves the pleasures and security that money can buy and he doesn’t want to lose that life. He does not trust that knowing God and resting in his sovereign pleasure will yield a life more pleasing than the life that money will provide. Imagine that a young man tells the young woman he’s been courting, "I can’t live without you. I want you to marry me. I cannot be happy without you. I want to live the rest of my life with you. You’re everything to me." Then he goes on to inform her that he has a mistress. He plans to continue having a relationship with her as well. We all know that this guy is a jerk. He’s a liar. He doesn’t love this woman, he only loves sex or companionship or something else. He does not love the woman or really believe she is all he needs to be happy. It would be a great dishonor to her if she married him under these conditions. The young man cannot have a wife and a mistress. So, in the same way, we cannot truly love and trust Christ and be depending on other things for our happiness. In v. 22, the word that is translated "sad" in the NIV is much stronger and broader. It can mean sorrowful but it also can mean angry. It is the word for "distressed." This young man was distressed with Jesus’ answer. He could not believe that not having his money and having only Jesus was a good thing. He was not distressed over his sin. He was not distressed over the prospect of God’s judgment. He was not distressed about his unwillingness and inability to obey God. He was not horrified that he loves money more than he loves Jesus. He was distressed at the thought of losing his money and having only Jesus. He does not believe that his greatest problem is his own sinfulness. He does not believe the greatest good that could come to him is to be forgiven, loved by God and eternally united to Jesus. The only people who are going to heaven are those who are distressed over their sinfulness and the certainty of God’s judgment against their sin. The only people who are going to heaven are those who will give up everything and anything in order to know, love and obey Jesus. Salvation from beginning to end is a gracious work of God because…
III. God gives humans what they cannot give themselves (vv. 23-26) Now Jesus turns to his disciples, who have been standing there listening to this entire conversation and tells them that it is impossible for a rich man to enter into heaven. Why does Jesus tell his disciples this? He tells them this because he is trying to get them to understand how it is that God saves people and they, like the young man, do not get it. If you were to take a poll in the hometown of the young, rich, religious man asking who was most likely to go to heaven, he would have been at the top of the list. The disciples presume that religious people who are living a prosperous life on planet earth are the recipients of divine favor and therefore on their way to heaven. As far as they are concerned, it is not difficult to spot those who are going to heaven. They, like most humans, believe that if things are going well in your life, then you must be doing something right. How do I know this is what the disciples think? Because of how they respond to what Jesus says. They are greatly astonished, shocked by his claim that it is more possible for a camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle than it is for a rich man to go to heaven. Then they ask, "If rich, religious people like this young man are not going to heaven than who can go to heaven? If this young man is not on his way to heaven, then nobody is." Jesus looks at them and says, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." To what does the "this" refer? What is impossible with men? Salvation is impossible for men. Jesus is saying that human beings can do nothing to be saved. It’s not just impossible for rich people to be saved; it is impossible for anyone to be saved. What Jesus is trying to get his disciples and us to see is the depth of our problem. Sin is not simply that we do bad things and fail to do good things. Sin is the condition of our hearts. We commit acts of sin because we are by nature sinners. We love sin and therefore cannot love God who is the opposite of sin. You cannot love what you hate, that is what the word impossible means. Our inability is a moral inability. We love the things of this world and therefore we cannot love the things of God. This young man believed that his problem was simply that he did not know what to do. If he knew what to do, then he would want to and be able to do it. Jesus wants us to know and feel the depth of our wickedness. He wants us to be horrified by who we are so that we will fear and flee to him. This statement by Jesus creates a huge problem. I’m not going to take the time to deal with it now but some of you see the issue and I want you to know that I see it as well. Jesus commanded this young man to get rid of his money and follow him in order to have eternal life. The obvious implication of the text is that the man did not obey Jesus and therefore he does not have eternal life and is headed for hell. However, Jesus just said that what he commanded the young man to do he was not able to do. How can God command people to do things they are not able to do and yet hold them accountable for not doing what he commands? It would take several sermons to answer that question, so I can’t deal with it here. However, it is important that we see that how the Bible talks about human freedom is not what we would naturally think. When we describe what it means for humans to be free our description must take into account this language. If the first half of what he says is the most horrible thing that you and I could possibly hear, the second half is the best possible news you could hear. God is able to do what you cannot do. He is able to give you a new heart. He is able to overcome your resistance to him. He is able to save you. So you should be like a little child and flee to this Father who has loved us by giving his son for us and beg him for a new heart. Do not presume that you can do anything to contribute to your salvation. Do not cling to your delusions of goodness or of your ability to trust God. Ask him to save you. Ask him to give you faith and then exercise your faith by fleeing from the pleasures of this world and pursuing Christ. Stop loving the world and love God. Do not continue to live in the delusion that you can pursue your happiness on planet earth and in heaven at the same time. Salvation from beginning to end is a gracious work of God because…
IV. The gifts of grace far outweigh the costs of faith (vv. 27-30) Peter responds to these amazing statements by Jesus by making an assertion and asking a question. He is struggling with what Jesus has said here. His question shows that he is still thinking that people gain heaven by their own work. He hears Jesus’ words to the young man, "Sell your possessions and follow me" and draws the conclusion that because he and the other disciples have left everything then they have earned a reward. He’s still thinking about his relationship to God as if it is like an employer/employee relationship. I do the work of leaving all and following and then God pays me what I deserve for doing my work. Jesus corrects Peter by showing how overwhelming God is in giving his benefits to his people. He shows Peter that God is not paying him what he is due but God is dealing with him as he does not deserve. The benefits that God bestows on those who trust in Christ are infinitely greater than all that humans lose of earthly pleasure by trusting in Christ. Peter thinks his sacrifice is great and therefore his reward will be great. Jesus shows him that the reward is out of all proportion to the cost and therefore shows that all of salvation is by God’s free gift. The first benefit is specifically for the twelve apostles. I actually started laughing as I thought about what Jesus says in v. 28. These petty, dull, slow-witted, argumentative men are going to be put in charge of all God’s people when he comes in his power at the end of time and makes a new heaven and a new earth? It’s astonishing how much kindness God is going to give to those who follow Christ. Then in v. 29 he expands the promise to include us. This is not a promise of material prosperity on planet earth for those who follow Jesus but is just like the numerous passages in the OT that use earthly language to describe the abundance and joy of heaven. Jesus is simply saying what all the prophets have said, that the joy of heaven is greater than anything you can possibly imagine. He is saying what Paul says in Romans 8:18, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory to be revealed among us." There is no suffering, no loss that a Christian endures in this life that will not be abundantly compensated in heaven. Salvation is entirely a work of God’s grace as will be made evident in the abundance of heaven. The joy and reward of heaven will be completely out of proportion to the suffering endured here. We get hints of the abundance of God’s grace while we live here but the fullness will not be known until heaven. On occasion we are aware that we are experiencing far more kindness than we deserve. I have often felt that way in relation to this congregation. So many of you have been so kind to us far beyond anything I would have ever expected. God gives us a taste of the joy to come so that we will be more willing to suffer more for Christ because we are more aware of how much joy is coming. Joy out of all proportion to the grief we have endured for the sake of Christ while here will be ours in heaven because salvation is a work of God’s free grace, not a reward in proportion to our labor.
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