No One is Good Except God Alone

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 10, verses 17 -22.

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As Jesus was setting out on His journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him and asked

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Him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 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. Do not murder.

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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, looking at him, loved him and said to him, You lack one thing. Go sell all that you have, 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. This is the gospel of the

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Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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Here again, the sentence from our epistle text taken from Hebrews. Exhort one another every day as long as is called today so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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Now I'm here to tell you today, these are actually very important words, and we dare not ignore them.

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Ignoring them, we ignore them to our own eternal detriment. Sin is not your friend.

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Sin is not something that is only slightly dangerous. Sin literally damns, and sin is something that seeks to control you.

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And so we're going to take a look at our gospel text here, and we're going to notice then how sin and its deceitfulness has literally blown this poor fellow's understanding of himself literally out of the water in a way that makes it impossible for him to see the very thing that he needs, the one thing he lacks, in order to gain eternal life.

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So with that, we're going to return to our gospel text in Mark 10, 17, and a little bit of a note here.

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We all know the name of this text. If you've been around the church for any length of time, we refer to this story as the account of the rich young ruler.

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Keep that in mind. We'll talk about that in a second. So it says this. As Jesus was setting out on his journey, a man ran up, knelt before him, and asked him,

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Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

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Now, the question itself is actually not a very good one. It actually assumes some things that are not very good, actually, as it relates to how we are saved.

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Now, like I said, we all know that this is the account of the rich young ruler. We know this because Matthew 19, 20 says he was young.

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All three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, tell us that he's rich. And then Luke 18 tells us he was a ruler.

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So know this. This guy had youth, he had wealth, and he had power.

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That's a wicked combination, by the way. And think of it this way. According to the world's standards, this guy was set.

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I mean, he had everything he needed, according to the world, to have guaranteed happiness and success in this lifetime.

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In fact, if he were living today, a rich, wealthy guy with power, oh, he'd probably have a villa on the

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French Riviera, be driving a $200 ,000, $300 ,000 Aston Martin sports car, and dating supermodels.

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I mean, this is the guy that everybody wants to be. In fact, think of it this way.

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At best, our celebrities here in the United States, they only have two of these ingredients.

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This guy has three ingredients. They only have two. Celebrities have youth and they have wealth. And as long as they still remain youthful, they get starring roles in movies and things like that.

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But then once they get older, they kind of only make appearances here and there. And so in our culture, by the way, our celebrities who have youth and wealth, our culture worships these people.

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In fact, the paparazzi stalk them. Bazillions of dollars are spent purchasing tabloid magazines that sell the latest photos of them, as well as the sizzling hot gossip of their lives.

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And people buy these things all over the place. In fact, just go to Walmart, go to Hugo's.

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There you are standing in the checkout line. And all the magazines facing you in the checkout line are all about these people who have wealth and have youth.

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Now, in the British Commonwealth, they actually have people who have all three of these ingredients.

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And these are the ones who are a step above celebrities. And these are the royals. And unlike celebrities, like I said, they have all three of these ingredients, wealth, money, power.

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And like the fellow that appears in our gospel text, it's important to note that the royals didn't earn this money or amass this wealth and power through entrepreneurial endeavors or because they invented some amazing internet gizmo or gadget.

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In fact, they were born into it, and they received all of this as an inheritance.

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Something to think about here. Now, if you're thinking that this text, then, really isn't about you, let me remind every one of us here that people across the world, in fact,

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I would even argue people here in Kongsvinger, myself included, have actually dreamt of what it would be like to be one of them.

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Have you ever heard somebody say something to the effect of, how is it that people like that have won life's lottery?

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What did they do right that they have all of this wealth, that they are so popular and so well -known and so talented, and everybody just fawns all over them?

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And see, the reason why we buy these magazines is because we want to be them. If you've seen

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Filler on the Roof, you've got Tevye singing that song, Oh, if I were a rich man, da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da, right?

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All day long, I'd pity -pity -pum. And he just dreams of being a wealthy man. And see, here's the thing.

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When we are doing this, remember the deceitfulness of sin is now knocking on the door of your heart because you are committing the sin of coveting.

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But here's the interesting thing. We place them up on a pedestal. We worship them.

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Our lives are wrapped up in their fate, their gossip, their marriages, their divorces, their children.

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Yeah, right? But understand this. The truth is that just like the things that you purchase that you are so excited about, they wear out, and there's this thing called the law of diminishing returns that kicks in.

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So the thing that you purchased a few years ago, maybe you saved up and got yourself a really nice new car, and you loved getting into that car and that new car smell and all that kind of stuff.

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And now the thing needs to be washed, and you barely maintain it at all. It needs an oil and lube and all this kind of stuff.

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And the thing that brought you so much joy and happiness now is wearisome.

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Yeah, that same law of diminishing returns, by the way, also applies to people who are in the wealthy, young, powerful set.

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In fact, over and again, human beings have found that when they aspire to climb the great mountain so that everybody can see how great they are, they get to the top of the mountain, and they realize there's nothing there.

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There literally is nothing there. And by the way, not only is the law of diminishing returns kind of this thing that kicks in that makes it so that nothing in this life satisfies, don't even get me started about youth.

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That thing disappears so fast it makes your head spin. No joke. Yesterday, I was 18 years old, and I had a 32 -inch waist.

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Look what happened to me. It all happened overnight. At least that's how I remember it.

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So all of these things are now kind of in play. This is a fellow who's young, wealthy, powerful, and he recognizes that something's off here, and he's heard about this eternal life thing that Jesus has been preaching about, and he wants to know how he can get in on it.

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He wants to know how he can get in on it. And so he asks Jesus the question, What must I do to inherit eternal life?

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Now, a little bit of a note. We're going to give this guy some props. This question is completely in a different league than the question that we heard last week from the

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Pharisees. You see, this fellow is actually genuinely seeking understanding. He's not trying to trap

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Jesus in his words, nor is even there the remotest hint that this question is a ruse and that his real motive is to somehow weaponize

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Jesus' answer in order to destroy Jesus' reputation and his character. That's how the

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Pharisees play their game. But he's not doing this. He's legitimately seeking an answer to this question.

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And it's important for us to recognize this, that Jesus immediately begins to answer his question, and the guy doesn't catch it.

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In fact, many of us on a first reading, we don't catch it either. So Jesus said to him, here's how the answer works.

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Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

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Now, Jesus is not saying he's not good, and he's not saying he's not God. That's not the point of his statement.

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But he's beginning to answer the question, and let me highlight the important part of the answer.

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No one is good except God alone.

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Nobody. And you sit there and go, well, I'm not that bad.

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And that's kind of the point. So listen to what Jesus said. No one is good except God alone.

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Let's make this personal. That means I'm not good. It means you're not good.

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It means this rich young ruler, he ain't good either. And inheriting eternal life via being good isn't going to work because, here again, these words, no one is good except for God alone.

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This is precisely what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3. He writes in Romans 3 9,

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Are we Jews any better off than anybody else? Well, no, not at all. We've already charged that all.

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That's everybody. Both Jews and Greeks, they're under sin. As it is written, and listen to the words,

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None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

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All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good.

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Not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive.

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The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

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Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they have not known.

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There is no fear of God before their eyes. And here,

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Scripture is not talking about them. Scripture is talking about us.

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All of us. And this is why Paul then says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.

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In order that every mouth may be stopped, silenced, so that the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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For by works of the law, no human being, not even one, will be justified, declared righteous in God's sight.

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Think, inherit eternal life. Since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

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So right out of the chute, Jesus says, No one is good except for God alone.

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And now Jesus turns to the commandments. You know the commandments,

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Jesus says to this young fellow. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal.

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Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.

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Now, remember what Paul said. That the law was given so that the whole world may be silenced and held accountable to God.

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That's the purpose of the law. So Jesus here quotes the second table of the Ten Commandments and watch this fellow's response to the list.

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Teacher, all of these I've kept from my youth. Really?

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Really. As one of my old pastors once said, and this is a quote, clearly he hasn't studied

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Luther's small catechism, and he seems not to have heard Jesus's sermon on the mount.

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If he had, he would know that murder, adultery, theft, false witness, fraud, and insubordination are in every person's heart.

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And we are guilty of all of these things, even if we don't act them out.

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Neglect of the poor and the neighbor in need is murder. So is prejudice, hatred, and simply wishing somebody dead.

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Adultery is simply the fleeting, lustful look at another who is not your spouse, and that occurs even when somebody is looking at a computer screen or at something on the television.

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False witness need not be nothing more than a juicy bit of gossip that you share.

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And fraud is a shady tax return. And honoring father and mother, well, that also includes all other authorities too.

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So you'll note the deceitfulness of sin. Jesus quotes the law to him, and he says, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's baby stuff.

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I'm already doing that. But he's not. Because no one is good except God alone.

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Verse 21. So Jesus, looking at him, loved him.

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And see, you're going to note, this is the same kind of love that we read about in the Gospel of John.

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It says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

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This is that same kind of love. That love for his creation, despite the fact that deceitfulness of sin has blinded this fellow to just how sinful and wretched he is.

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Jesus loves him. And so he said to him, all right, you lack one thing.

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And this is where everybody gets it wrong. Like the social justice warrior liberals will sit there and go, see, all you have to do here is sell everything you have and you can be saved.

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That's not the thing that he lacks. So watch what he says. You lack one thing. Go sell all that you have, give it to the poor.

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You'll have treasure in heaven. Come, follow me.

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What is the one thing this fellow lacks? Jesus. That's the thing he lacks.

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You see, no one is good except for God alone. Jesus loved this fellow and he actually said the exact same words to him that he spoke to his disciples when he first called them.

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And those words were, come, follow me. And does he?

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No. And here's where we must pay attention. In Jesus' parable of the sower and the soils.

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Try saying that like ten times fast. Or even try saying it like once like me and you'll mess it up.

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In the parable of the sower and the soils, Jesus tells us that the word of God is like seed that is broadcast by a guy who's out there sowing seed.

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And some falls on a path, some falls in rocky soil, some falls in thorny soil, and others falls in good soil.

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Listen to what Jesus says about the seed, the word of God that falls on the thorny soil.

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In Mark 4, 18 and 19, he says, Here we have a perfect example of that in our gospel text.

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Jesus says those same words that he said to James and John and his other disciples.

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Come, follow me. The word has been sown by Christ. And this guy's heart, his soil is thorny.

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And the deceitfulness of riches and the deceitfulness of sin choke out that word and it proves unfruitful.

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It's exactly what happens. And so disheartened by Jesus' words, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.

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I guess he wasn't as good as he thought he was. And that's the point.

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He actually proved to be an idolater, somebody who loved his money more than God, loved his power more than God.

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And don't worry, his youth eventually fleeted and he's in the grave today.

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And so let's take a look at this text then through the warning that is given to us in our epistle text.

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In our epistle text, the inspired author writes, Take care, brothers, lest there be in you an evil and an unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living

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God. You're going to note Hebrews is written to Christians. It's written to people who already believe.

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You see, don't sit there and say to that rich young ruler, Oh, you poor, you poor blind fool.

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If only, if only, if only. You see, his life, his blindness, the deceitfulness of sin and the deceitfulness of riches proves as a warning to us.

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And don't think that you're strong in and of yourself and can somehow stand. The one who thinks he's able to stand like this will fall.

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So hear the word of God then telling us, don't be like that fellow with an unbelieving and evil heart, which can lead you to fall away from the living

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God. Instead, exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

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Sin will turn you around, make you think that up is down and that down is up and that black is white and that white is black.

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Deceitfulness of sin will blind you to the very thing that you need. For we've come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold to our original confidence firm to the end.

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And what is our original confidence in Christ? What original confidence is this inspired author pointing to?

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Salvation by grace through faith alone. And that Christ has bled and died, not for good people, not for people who think they're keeping the commandments, but for those who recognize that they haven't and are in need of a savior.

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So then the author says this. So today, if you hear God's voice, don't harden your heart as in the rebellion.

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For those who heard for who were those who heard and yet rebelled.

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And now he makes reference to the children of Israel during the wanderings in the wilderness after the

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Exodus. These same people who saw the mighty hand of God, who saw

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Moses turn the water of the Nile into blood. These same people who saw the staff of Moses turn into a serpent and then turn back into a staff.

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These same people who witnessed the ten plagues that God wrought on Egypt in judgment against her.

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The same people who walked on the bottom of the Red Sea as on dry land, with the water on both sides like a wall.

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Who saw the burning, smoking presence of God on Mount Sinai and heard the voice of God thundering from Mount Sinai.

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These same people. They also suffered from an unbelieving heart.

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And despite all of these miracles and hearing the word of God, the deceitfulness of sin turned them around.

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So was it not all of those who left Egypt led by Moses and with whom was God provoked for 40 years?

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Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient.

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So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

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No one is good except for God alone.

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If you're here to get advice on how to be a good person because you think you're an okay person, you're in the wrong place.

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Church is not for good people. No one is good except for God alone.

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Church is for sinners. In need of a Savior who recognized all along that the one thing that they lacked was

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Jesus. And they are following Him and they are believing Him and trusting

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Him for the righteousness and goodness that they lack to be given to them as a gift.

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For their sins to be forgiven and eternal life granted as a gift.

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Not as a reward or a wage, but as a gift. No one is good except for God alone.

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And consider this. This rich young ruler who by the world's standards had it all.

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He was unwilling to let any of that go in order to have Christ.

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But consider this. 2 Corinthians 8 -9 says this of Jesus. For you know that the grace of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake

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He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich.

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You see, Jesus, King of kings, Lord of lords, sits at the right hand of the

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Father. He is God of God, light of light, very God of very God. And Philippians 2 makes it clear that He emptied

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Himself, though being by very nature God. He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied

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Himself. The wealthiest and richest and most powerful in all of the universe emptied

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Himself and became a slave. Poor. So that you and I might have treasure in heaven.

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So that we can be rich. See, that's the mystery of the Incarnation.

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That He made Himself nothing so that you can be reconciled to God.

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All of us who are sinners in need of the Savior. And He took our sin upon Himself and bled and died for all of it.

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Every one of our commandment -breaking sins that we've committed, and if you've broken one of them, you're guilty of them all.

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So that we might be rich. Not rich here on earth, but rich with the treasures of heaven.

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Rich in Christ. Rich in eternal life. And not have to suffer the poverty of eternal damnation.

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So let us repent again of our self -righteousness. Let us repent of this idea that somehow we're good people.

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No one is good except for God alone. Let us confess that we are beggars. Confess that we are in need of a

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Savior. Confess that we cannot save ourselves. Confess that we don't even have a penny that we can throw into the bucket to contribute towards our own salvation.

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We don't need it anyway. Christ has done it all for us. So let us grasp to the one thing that this fellow lacked.

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And that's Christ. And in grasping Him, although we lose everything here, by having

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Him we gain everything now and in eternity as a gift. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744. We thank you for your support.

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