Childlike Faith vs Self Assurance

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to Mark chapter 10.
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We are continuing tonight in our study of the Gospel of Mark. We have been going verse by verse now for several months, taking larger sections, but not super large.
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We're going to look at somewhat of a larger section tonight. We're going to look at, we're going to read verse 13 down to verse 31.
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We may not get to it all, but at least trying to maintain a context. Hey, good evening. How are you guys?
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Come on in. And while we're turning in our
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Bibles, I want to remind you that next Wednesday night we are having our fellowship meal on Wednesday.
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We've moved every other month to a Wednesday night fellowship meal, and so the meal will be on Wednesday night, and it will be followed by a town hall style meeting with the elders where you can ask any
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Bible question you want or any church question you want or anything. If you want to ask about finances or building or anything like that, next week would be a good opportunity, and we're going to start doing that every other month.
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So to give people the opportunity to ask questions, to speak, you know, speak if they have things they want to see done or things like that, next
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Wednesday will be that time. So my encouragement to you is to please be here, but also nudge someone at church
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Sunday and say, cometh as well, come with, because, you know, we're going to have a meal prepared.
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I know it's harder to come out in the evening during the week, especially if you have small children, but if there's a meal, it might allow people to be here who couldn't ordinarily.
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So we'll see if, you know, if that brings out some extra folks. But again, we're in Mark chapter 10, and we are going to read beginning in verse 13.
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This is following up, Jesus has just given his exposition, his lesson on the subject of marriage and divorce.
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That was verses 1 through 12. We talked about that last time I taught. And tonight he is going to reference the children that are being brought to him.
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And I want to point out something as we read. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the synoptic gospels, which means that they all look from a similar perspective.
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That's what synopsis means, to look from the same perspective.
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And so oftentimes we will see the stories ordered in the same way in those three gospels, but not always.
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But this particular scenario is one of the times where we see this ordered in the exact same way.
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Jesus talks about marriage and divorce. Jesus talks about children. Jesus talks to the rich young ruler.
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And that happens in Matthew's gospel in that order. It happens in Mark's gospel in that order.
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And Luke, where Luke differs, is Luke doesn't have the portion about marriage and divorce in that section, but he does have the part about children and the part about the rich young ruler.
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So it's interesting that these stories are in that order, and I hope to show a little bit of why
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I think that is. But let's just read to begin.
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And beginning at verse 13, it says, And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them.
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But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to me.
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Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
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And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
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Verse 17, And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked,
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Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him,
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Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments.
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Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud.
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Honor your father and mother. And he said to him, Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.
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And Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing.
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Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.
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Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
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And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
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And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God.
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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.
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And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, Then who can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said,
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With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.
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Peter began to say to him, See, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus said,
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Truly I say to you, there is not one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.
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But many who are first will be last and the last will be first.
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Father, thank you for your word again. Now, as I seek to give an understanding of it, I pray that you keep me from error in Christ's name.
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I'm in this past week.
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I had the opportunity to go to a conference in Williamstown, Kentucky, which is where the
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Ark exhibit is. If you've never been, it is a life size model of Noah's Ark that you can go and walk through.
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Answers in Genesis is the one who is behind the construction of the Ark. It's a beautiful building, beautiful,
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I'd call it a boat, but it's attached to a building, so I don't think it would float. And so that's my one problem with it is
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I don't think this will float. But it was an interesting conference and one of my takeaways, and I'm going to talk about this
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Sunday because anytime I go to a conference, I try to always come back and say, here's here was one of my takeaways.
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One of the takeaways from the conference was. From the very beginning of the conference, the very first day, the very first person who spoke, it was made known.
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Children are welcome in this conference. And the speaker said that he said, he said, we understand children make noise and we understand that little feet pitter patter and and little mouths coo.
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And we understand that happens, but we want you here, we want your children here and therefore, unless your child is just being completely out of sorts, stay.
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And if they are out of sorts, I like what they said. They said, take them out and do what you have to do and then restore them to fellowship.
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I like to bring them back. And it reminded me of the fact that we many years ago.
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We committed ourselves to what is known as family integrated worship.
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Some of you may not know what that phrase means, but family integrated worship simply means that we do not provide a children's church for little ones, but rather we invite people to bring their children as young as possible into the sanctuary.
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We have a nursery for little, small, small babies, but as early as the child is able, we want them sitting with mom and dad, hearing the songs, participating in the singing, hearing the worship, hearing the word.
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And to some people, that is radical. Because in the last 50 years, what has happened is a new model has come out, and that is the youth group model and the children's church model.
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And it really is less than 100 years old. I would say really more like 50 years old, maybe a little bit more than that.
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But this model was not the model of the church for 2000 years. There was no children's church in the
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Middle Ages. They came to church. There was no children's church in the 17, 1800s.
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Kids came to church. They sat next to mom and dad. They did what mom and dad did, and they were expected to sit and be a part of what mom and dad were doing.
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And for some reason, in the last 100 years, we decided that wasn't good enough, and we had to do something different.
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So, we as a church, about 12 years ago, or more than that, it was around 2011, 2010, we just stopped doing children's church.
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And we had done children's church in the past. We had a person who ran it, and we had a little group, and we just decided we weren't going to do that anymore.
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And in general, it has been fairly successful. There have been times where it's a little loud.
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There have been times where it's a little coos and caws become hoots and hollers, and we've dealt with that.
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But in general, there is value in seeing children be part of worship.
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So, and it's valuable for them, and it's valuable for us, because it's valuable for them that they don't feel like they're not part of what we're doing, because what often has happened, and I, again, this isn't what the message is about tonight, but since I'm saying it,
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I'm going to say it anyway, what happened in many churches that produced these youth group models and children's church models is what happens is oftentimes the children never grow out of that.
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And what happens is you go from children's church to youth group, from youth group to young adult, from young adult to young singles, and then young singles to young marrieds.
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You never graduate to being an adult. You never get to be in church. And that's why we have 35 -year -old adolescents running around not being adults, because we have,
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Paul Washer said this, he said, he was talking about the fact that he goes overseas.
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You know Paul Washer, he's a pastor, he says he goes overseas, does missions work, he says overseas you got 14, 15, 16 -year -old men, and here we have 35 -year -old boys.
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He said his wife said that if a man eating crocodile got loose in America, he would starve because there are no men to eat.
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And there's, it may be a little harsh, but we have created this adolescent mindset.
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So again, that's not the point of tonight's lesson. It's just coming out of me because I'm thinking about my whole drive back and and my whole time up there.
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I was seeing people with their kids in a conference that lasted three days. Some of them brought the pack and play into the conference.
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And I thought, what a novel idea, bring the baby. But with that on our minds,
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I want us to consider what Jesus says here. And I want to say, I'm not saying that this passage is necessarily a statement about family integration.
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I don't, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is, there is something to be said about what Jesus says here about welcoming the children among us.
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Because the very first thing we see in this passage is what the apostles saying no. Notice what it says.
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It says, and they were bringing children to him that he might touch them. This was a common thing among Jewish people was to have their children blessed by the rabbi.
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And so people were bringing the children to the rabbi for blessing. Jesus was the rabbi. He was the rabbi of rabbis and they're bringing them, bringing the children to Jesus to be blessed.
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And the disciples rebuked them. Now it doesn't say why they rebuked them.
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We can consider some of the reasons why. And one of the reasons might be that they considered
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Jesus's time too valuable to deal with children. Now, isn't that often the case that we focus our attention so much on the valuable adults and we don't consider the value of the children.
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I remember, I think it was D .L. Moody who went and preached a revival and when he came back to his church after preaching the revival, they said, how did the revival go?
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And he said, well, we had, uh, how do you say it? He said two and a half salvations and they said two and a half.
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What do you mean? Two adults and a child. And he said, no, it was two children and an adult.
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He said, because the children have their whole lives to live for Christ and that adult only has a half a life left to live for Christ.
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That's powerful thought, right? Two and a half. Well, the half, his life's half gone.
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So just powerful thought there about the disciples possibly considering Jesus's time too valuable for this.
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But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant. Who was he indignant at?
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The disciples, I mean, it's quite clear from the text, he did not want them to rebuke the parents who were bringing their children.
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He was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me. Do not hinder them.
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For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Now, I have to address a topic that is very difficult at this point.
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Because. When Jesus says for two such belongs the kingdom of God, there is there is a lot to consider in that phrase, and it has to be brought out the question of, well, is
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Jesus saying that children are saved simply by virtue of being children?
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I mean, that may not be the question that comes out of your mind, but that's that is when he says of such is the kingdom of God, is he saying these children are by virtue of being a certain age automatically saved until such time as they become unsaved?
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And when is that time? How many of you grew up in a church where you were taught an age of accountability?
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And what was that age? Twelve. Twelve. And I say this,
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I remember being 12 years old, my mom, who goes to a different church, she was very concerned for my soul when
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I turned 12. Because there was this belief that in some form or fashion, when you turn 12 years old, you became responsible where you were not responsible before.
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And that was called the age of accountability. And it's interesting to consider that because it's it
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I've met 12 year olds that were very mature, met 12 year olds that were not very mature.
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But yet we we come to this very specific point. We say this is the age and and most most people realize it's probably based somewhat on the on the
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Jewish tradition of the bar mitzvah where bar mitzvah, the word bar means son of like bar
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Joseph or bar Jesus or whatever bar bar Abbas, those the word be a the B .A .R. prefix means son and mitzvah means law.
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And so a bar mitzvah means a son of the law responsible to the law.
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You are now no longer a boy. You are a man. You are responsible to the law.
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And so that tradition sort of made its way into Christianity, where at 12 years old, a boy becomes a man, a girl becomes a woman and is now responsible to the law.
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The only issue with that is there is no biblical precedent for saying that 12 years old is the magic age where someone becomes responsible.
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And when we consider the fact that the Bible clearly teaches. That we are sinful, not from 12 years old.
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But that we are sinful from when? From conception, the
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Bible says in sin, did my mother conceive me? Remember when David was writing the psalm of contrition,
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Psalm 51 in sin, my mother conceived me. So I was a sinner, not even from birth.
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I was a sinner from the point of existence. And so we have to ask the question, are our little babies sinners?
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Yes, I've had four of them and I'm happy to to report that not one of them has passed the bar of not being a sinner.
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In fact, we we have Theo is is he is very convinced that he is the ruler of our home and he rules by fiat, means by the word, because when he wants something he and he lets us know and now it's becoming more articulate that now and so he is very convinced in his own leadership and very convinced that he rules the house.
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And so, you know, as he ages, I'm going to have to apply the rod of discipline to the area of where discipline happens.
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It's the backside, the seat of understanding. Thank you. I couldn't think of what the phrase, the rod of correction to the seat of understanding.
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So but but it's because there is that seed of sin that was in Adam is in him and it's in all of us from the moment of birth.
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And therefore, when we consider children, we do not consider children to be sinless.
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That would be unwise and unbiblical. But if there is no biblical age of accountability where it's named accountability and there isn't.
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Is there any difference between a child who is an ignorance and and an adult,
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I would say, a very small child, an infant. And oftentimes we will talk about children being innocent and say, well, that child is innocent.
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Well, we have to ask the question, in what way do we mean that? Certainly they're not innocent of sin, as I was just expressing.
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Even my one year old can express his sinful nature. The nature is there. But there is a question of his understanding.
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And is there a difference between my one year old and his expression of his sin nature and my older children, specifically maybe my oldest son and his expression of his sinful nature at 25 years old, 24 years old?
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Obviously, there's a difference. And we understand the difference in cognizance, the difference. And so normally when somebody uses the phrase innocent, they're not saying the child doesn't have a sin nature, but they are saying there is a lack of understanding with the child.
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But this leads to the question, well, what happens to children who die in infancy?
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And there are several places in the Bible that people look to to try to develop a theology of what happens in infant mortality.
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And I am one who is a little less willing to say for certain what those passages mean.
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But I will say this, when it comes to God and his treatment of anyone,
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I know that Genesis 18 says that the judge of all the earth will do what is right. And so when
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I when I think of the mortality of an infant or a child, a small child, I know that God will do what is right.
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And so I trust in him for that. And I do seek to find comfort in that I have three children that I have lost through miscarriage.
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And I have had to comfort my wife through that each time. And so we trust that the
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God of all the earth will do what is right. We believe life begins at conception.
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Amen. So there are three children lost to miscarriage, not three embryos, but three children.
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And so we have to consider that God will do what is right. And there are hopeful things such as this passage where Jesus welcomes the little children and says of such is the kingdom of God.
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I think there's hope in that and I think we can hope in that. So that being said,
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I want to point out verse 15, because verse 15 is the passage that I think is more relevant to the issue of what
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Jesus is trying to get across to his disciples. If you notice verse 15, he says, truly,
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I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
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So you say, OK, now, wait a minute. Now, what's he talking about here? Jesus is now addressing the issue of childlike faith.
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So while we may spend all of our time wrestling over the question of infant mortality, wrestling over the question of children who die, that's a question we can talk about, and that's not unimportant.
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But what Jesus is doing here, he's picking up a child and he's saying this is how you are to enter the kingdom.
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And why is that the case? Why is this the focus? Well, we're going to see in a moment.
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That what happens right after this is a man is going to come to Jesus and he's going to say, what must
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I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus just gave the answer, trust like a child come by faith, right?
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Trust. And he's in that man's going to say that he had done all these good things. He kept the law.
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And Jesus says, no, you haven't. You haven't kept the one major law. You haven't put God first because your money's first in your heart.
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And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But the point of all this is there's something here about the faith that the believer is supposed to have.
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And I want to make a distinction, very important distinction. Jesus never calls us to childish faith.
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But he does call us to childlike faith. He said, well, what's the difference?
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Childish faith is faith that never matures. And so many people do not try to mature in their faith and they don't mature in their faith.
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That's childish faith, people who have no desire for the word, they have no desire to learn, they have no desire to grow, they have no desire to move from the milk to the meat.
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The scripture tells us we should desire those things. Amen. But there are people who don't.
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And that childish faith is what I was talking about earlier with the 35 year old adolescents who want church to be a clown show.
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I don't know how much you guys pay attention to what's going on in churches around the world, but it's an absolute mess.
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And there are things that are happening all the time where you take a step back and you say, I can't believe this is even happening.
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You know what the Dove Awards are? The Dove Awards are the Christian, like Christian Grammys, where they award music trophies to people who do well, awards, not trophies, but you know, the
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Dove Award. Well, a leader of a very famous group from the 90s, early 2000s, photograph came out just earlier today, he went to the
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Dove Awards in a dress. If I said the name of the band, you'd all know who it is.
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And he went with two transvestite transsexuals. One was a woman dressed as a man, one was a man dressed as a woman, because they were all on tap to receive awards.
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They were all nominated for these awards. It's a clown show.
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And people are eating it up. That's not even childish faith, that is pagan.
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But it's a result of the childishness of the last 25 years, where people don't want seriousness in their faith, they want childish faith.
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And so that is an issue. But the other side, when I said not childish, but childlike, what is childlike faith?
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I'll tell you what childlike faith is. My son, again, going back to Theo, he has no fear to stand up as the highest point he can and jump into my arms because he knows that I'm not going to drop him.
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He has no fear to run as fast as he can with his hands in the air because he knows
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I'm not going to let him fall. Theo trusts me. As his father, that's the trust that Jesus is talking about when he says that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child, he's talking about that type of trust.
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Do we trust God the way a child trusts his parent? That's the picture here.
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And that is a problem because. So often when we ask when we ask when we're asked the question, you know, what is it that why are you saved?
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The average Christian, not just the average worldly person, but the average Christian when you ask them if they die tonight and they go to heaven and they face the
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Lord and he says, why should I let you in heaven? The average Christian says, because I was a good person, because I went to church, because I gave tithe, because I did this, because I did that.
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They're just like the rich young ruler. I have done all these things from my youth rather than saying nothing in my hand,
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I bring only to the cross, I clean naked, come to thee for dress.
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Remember that's him. The idea that I don't contribute anything any more than my one year old could.
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You know, he don't contribute nothing to my house. Yes, he does.
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He contributes a mess. And therein.
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Is my picture. How am I to approach the God of the universe?
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I am to approach him as one who trusts like a child trusts his parent.
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And so Jesus gives us that model. And then he picks up the children and he blesses them, he lays his hands on them,
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I can't imagine a more beautiful picture in the life of Christ than of Jesus receiving the children.
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And blessing them. It's interesting, too, just just by way of comparison.
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In Mark and Matthew's gospel, the word here is it's child.
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Pidas, I think, is the word I may be wrong on that, but but the the word in Luke's gospel is more the word for an infant.
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So you can imagine Jesus picking up an infant, that's just in my mind, the thought of what's happening here.
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So therein is. This section, and like I said, it's followed up in all three gospels, followed up by the same narrative, it's the narrative of the rich young ruler, and I've already shown you in a way how
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I bring the two together, but I want to read on and I want to show you what we see in this young man. It says, and as he was setting out on his journey, this is talking about the
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Jesus, as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him. And asked him, good teacher, what must
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I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good?
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No one is good. Except God alone. Now, that is an important.
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Apologetic passage. Remember, apologetics is what? Defending the faith.
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Because this is one of the passages that is often used by those who do not believe
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Jesus is fully divine. They will use this passage because it seems as if Jesus is denying his own righteousness, and if Jesus is
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God, then he is completely righteous, right? I mean, that that is one of the very characteristics of God is righteousness.
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And Jesus says, why do you call me good? There is no one good except God. As if to say,
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I'm not him, and I don't know if you ever have conversations with those people who come to your door on Saturday morning, those
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Jehovah witnesses or Mormons or whatever, one of the main tenets of Jehovah witnesses that Jesus is not fully divine.
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He is not of one nature with Jehovah. And of course,
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Mormonism has such a strange view of the eternal regression of the gods, they believe
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God was once a man who lived on another planet, who became God because of his obedience to Mormon teachings.
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It is a it is a tremendously difficult thing even to understand.
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But Jesus is not here denying his own goodness. But what he is challenging is he's challenging that man's understanding of goodness.
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Because when that man came up to Jesus and said, good teacher, one thing he didn't know.
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He didn't know how right he was. He didn't know who he was talking to.
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And Jesus is why do you call me good? And this should lead us to a question.
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How do we understand goodness? Sunday, this Sunday, I'm preaching on three of the five solas by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
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And I'm going to begin my sermon by asking that very question. What do we what is goodness?
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Because you ask the average person, what do they say? Are you a good person? They say, absolutely.
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This young man thought he was good. If you don't believe me, just read on, as Jesus says to him, why do you call me good?
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No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. And Jesus begins to give him a portion of the
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Ten Commandments. And if you're familiar with the Ten Commandments, we talk about the first and second table.
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The first table is our responsibilities to God. Have no other gods for Lord, not before Lord, not make any idols, not use
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Lord's name in vain. That's the first table of the law. The second table of the law are those things which relate to others, not commit murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery.
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Those part of the second table. Well, Jesus limits his questions to the second part.
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He says, do you do you do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal. That's six, seven and eight.
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Of the commands, do not bear false witness, that's nine, do not defraud, which is a part of lying, bearing false witness on your father.
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Somebody goes back to five. So he lays out the commands and notice what the rich young ruler says.
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And by the way, when I call him the rich young ruler, that's that that is the typical description of this young man from a just just come.
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Commentaries often refer to him as the rich young ruler. He is referred that way in later.
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He's referred to as a rich person and in other gospel. I believe he is referred to as a ruler. So that that's where that term comes from.
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If you're wondering where I got that from. But he says. All these.
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I've kept from my youth. All what? All these commands,
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Jesus, I never killed nobody. I never committed adultery.
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By the way, an R .C. Sproul pointed this out. It was obvious he had never heard
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Jesus give the Sermon on the Mount. Because what did Jesus say in the Sermon on the
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Mount? If you look with lust, you commit adultery in your heart. If you hate your brother, you committed murder in your heart. Jesus is already.
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Jesus has already gone through that. It's obvious the man wasn't there to hear that because he wouldn't be spouting off his own righteousness.
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But he is all these I have kept from my youth. And here's the part that just is amazing.
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It says in Jesus, looking at him. Loved him. Mike, what does the
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King James say there? But it says loved him.
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Doesn't use another word. I've thought about that word a lot. Obviously, we know what the word love means, biblical definitions of love and things.
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But just how. And what this means that Jesus loved this young man,
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I mean, we could argue Jesus loved everyone. You know, Jesus showed love and kindness to everyone he came in contact with. But for some reason, the writer of this gospel chooses to tell us that he loved this young man.
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That he had compassion on this young man. Perhaps it's because he knew.
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He knew that this young man. Didn't didn't know the trouble he was really in.
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You ever seen somebody who's so pitiful they don't even know it. You ever have somebody come up and want to tell you there's something great that happened to him and they're telling you the story and you're like, that's the worst thing
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I can hear of. But but you just have pity on him because in that moment, it's like it's you just smiling.
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I don't want to give any examples because I don't hurt anybody's feelings, but it happens to me a lot. People will come up and tell me something and it's it's really not that great, but they're happy.
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They're proud of whatever this thing is, and I'm just praying for him. And Jesus knows this young man just said, all these
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I've kept for my youth, and Jesus looked at him, loved him and said, you lack one thing.
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Go sell all that you have and give to the poor. And you'll have treasure in heaven and come follow me.
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Now, it's important to say that particular command would be hard for anybody to hear, but especially someone who has wealth.
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I think we have to be honest and say. That would be difficult to hear if somebody just said, give up everything and come follow me when you know you have a lot to go home to.
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But on the other side of that. Jesus has also given a parable, you may remember when he said the kingdom of God is like a pearl of great price and the man went and sold everything he had to buy that pearl.
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This man is standing right in front of Jesus and he's between Jesus and all of his worldly goods.
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And he's going to choose poorly. He's got the pearl of great price.
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He's got he's got it here. And he's got the invitation, come and follow me, and he's all he can hear is the wealth behind him calling him back.
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And what does the Bible say? It tells us that the fool is the one. Who forfeits his soul for this world, and that's what he's about to do.
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Now, I do want to say this, I do not believe that this passage gives a universal condemnation to all wealth.
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Neither do I believe it is a universal command that every person who has anything is forced to sell it.
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If that and I talk about this in my ethics class, we did a whole hour and a half this past couple weeks ago on biblical economics and what does the
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Bible teach about economics? The Bible certainly does not command every person who's a Christian to sell everything that they have.
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If that were the case, there would be no Christian businessmen. There would be no Christian managers, owners or operators of businesses.
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There would be no Christian politicians and maybe there aren't. But what
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I mean is that all of those things we understand. But this young man had a
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God that wasn't God. Remember how I said earlier, there's two tables of the law, you get the first table and the second table and the second table are these things, you know, don't murder, don't steal, don't lie.
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But what is the first table? It's the very first command. Have no other gods before the
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Lord. I have no other gods before me, and this young man is standing between the
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Lord and his goods, and he's about to turn his head and go the other way.
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So what is his God? And that's why we see in verse twenty two, it says disheartened by the saying by what saying disheartened by what
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Jesus is going to go sell everything. Come follow me. Disheartened by that. He went away sorrowful.
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For he had great possessions. And that's been said many times. I didn't invent this little statement, but you probably heard it before.
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A man with great possessions is often possessed by them. And that's what we see.
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He was possessed by his possessions, he was. He didn't have things, his things had him.
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And not that I want to rush through this, but the tag on this is so important because Jesus doesn't let it go.
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The man went away sorrowful. By the way, notice it doesn't say went away, repented, went away sorrowful.
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Sorrow does not always equal repentance. Look at Judas. Sorrow does not always equal repentance.
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Repentance will have sorrow, but not all sorrow will have repentance. It says, and Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how difficult is it for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God?
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Again, some people take that and say you can't ever have wealth. That's not what Jesus is saying, but he is saying this possessions possessed.
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And the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult is it to enter the kingdom of God?
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Notice he calls them children. I just couldn't. I can't bypass that. What did we start out talking about tonight?
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Children, what does childlike faith do? It trusts.
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What was Jesus asking the rich young ruler to do? Trust me.
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You see, you trust what you have. Sell what you have and trust me.
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So now that's done and he looks at his disciples and he calls them children. He says, children, is that what it says in the
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King James Brotherhood to say children? Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I just want to make sure it's the same word translated children.
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Children, how difficult is it to enter the kingdom of God? Here's the thing about it.
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Entering the kingdom of God is at the same time the most difficult thing and the most easy thing in the whole world.
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It's easy because we do nothing to accomplish it, but it's hard because we do nothing to accomplish it.
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We simply trust in what he has done. And as I said, you ask people what they trust in and they want to trust in something that they have done.
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They want to trust in something that they have contributed. They don't want to simply offer
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God an empty hand of faith. He says, children.
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How difficult is it to enter the kingdom of God and then this very famous phrase is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.
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I don't have time to go into this too much. There is a. There's a belief that there was a hole in the wall of Jerusalem where camels would get down and go through, and that was called the eye of the needle.
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I'm not convinced that ever existed, but that's made its way into many sermon illustrations that that was what
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Jesus was referring to here. I think this is a hyperbolic statement similar to the one
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Jesus used when he says unless you cut your hand off, remember, talked about that a few weeks ago. Jesus is not actually calling for self mutilation.
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And here he's not really saying a camel has to go through the eye of a needle, but he's saying it's hard. In the same way, it would be hard to stick a camel through the eye of a needle.
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It would be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And by the way, that should scare us a little bit because we live in the richest country in the world, don't we?
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We live in one of the few countries in the world that actually has an active middle class, at least it used to. I get too political tonight.
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But where I've said this before, and I think it's accurate. That the average
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American dishwasher consumes more calories in a day than about a third of the world.
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How much food is we throw away and put out into our sewers? So we live in a rich.
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I mean, how many how many of us really don't know where our next meal is coming from? No, we we know. People around the world don't.
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But do we trust Christ? That's the question. Do we trust Christ in this abundance? Do we trust
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Christ with our abundance? Or do we trust our abundance? And Christ becomes an accouterment, an accessory of life.
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We add Christ to our life to make our life better rather than making him our life. And notice the question.
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And they were astonished and said, then who can be saved? Do you know why they ask that question?
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Because if there's one thing that was believed at that time among the Jewish people was that wealth equaled the blessing of God.
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And therefore, if you had wealth, you had the blessing of God. Surely you are in the kingdom if you have wealth.
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And Jesus says a man of great wealth is it's harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for you to get into the kingdom of God.
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And they say, well, then who's going to be saved if the rich people can't get saved? Then what about us?
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And Jesus responds. And he says, with man, it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God, what a beautiful thought your salvation is impossible for you.
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That's what he just said, because they said, who can be saved? Jesus is with man. It's impossible. By the way, that's one of the great
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Calvinistic verses. Not that I'm just looking to Pope Calvinism and all my sermons, but I'm going to say it.
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Jesus just said, for man, it is impossible. But not with God.
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See, we don't get saved by what we do. We get saved by what
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God does in us. He gives us that faith that is necessary, that childlike faith.
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And it goes on and I'm just going to read to the end and then I'll pray. Peter said to him, we've left everything and followed you.
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Oh, by the way, this is going to tie later, so we're not just leaving this behind, we this is going to tie in just a little bit later in the chapter,
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James and John are going to ask to be seated at his right and left side. So they're not see they they keep missing the point.
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You're supposed to be like children. No, we want to be on the right left side. Peter just got told, you know, with God, it's impossible.
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But hey, we left everything. And Jesus doesn't kick him in the shins, even though he might have deserved it in that moment.
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But instead, he encourages him, he says, truly, I say to you, there's not one who's left house or brothers or sisters or mother, father, children or lands for the sake of for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers, sisters and mothers, children and lands with persecution.
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And that's key. We can have the blessings of God, but it won't be apart from the persecution of the world with persecutions.
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And in the age to come, eternal life. For many who will be first will be last.
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Think about that rich young ruler, he was first in this world, first with his money, first with his finances, first with his position.
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Many who are first will be last, but the last the children. The children who have very little value, the children who the disciples try to keep away from Jesus.
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Last will be first and the first will be last. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for the opportunity to study your word, I pray that this would be something that would remind us of the importance.
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Of understanding that our salvation is not of us, but of you. And Lord, there's nothing in this world that's worth.
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There's nothing in this world that is worth our salvation. Lord, help us to hold everything we own with a open fist, with an open hand and trust,
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Lord, you to care for us. And like a small child trusts his parent,
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Lord, help us to trust you and trust and obey. And we pray this in Christ's name.