Powerful Sermon on The Rich Young Ruler

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Hey, everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel.

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What you're about to watch is a sermon, a message from Apologia Church's worship service. And again, I want to thank you all so much for watching, for liking, for commenting, for sharing the sermon itself.

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We truly believe that it's important for the Christian church to have an engagement in the public square with the

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Word of God. So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world. I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this, and that is that I'm not your pastor, though I'd love to be,

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That is vitally important and actually a biblical command. And so as much again as we love for your participation, your partnership, and we are so thankful to God that He's using these in your lives, we want to encourage you to get plugged into a local church.

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So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them. God bless you. And again,

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I tell you, it's easier for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than And I want to say one last word about that.

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Do make sure that none of your giving and partnership towards Apologia Church interferes with your giving, your worship, your tithes, your offerings to a local body of believers in your area. It's 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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When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said,

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With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Let's go ahead and pray with me.

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Father, we thank you again that we can come into your presence based upon the finished work of Christ. Your word says that we can come boldly into your presence, and we're so thankful that your mercies are new every morning, that we can come not based upon our own merits, not based upon our own goodness, because we don't have any, but based upon your sure loving kindness and grace.

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Father, I pray that you would help me to convey your word and handle your word correctly, rightly dividing the word of truth, so that your people would be edified, your people would be blessed, your people would be changed and challenged and sanctified by your perfect word.

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I pray that you would help me to decrease so that you would increase, so that everything about me would be forgotten.

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I would really just be a conduit for your word, for your message, and that all things that I say tonight would only be for your namesake, would only be for your glory, so that you would be more loved and more honored, more obeyed.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray, and everybody said, Amen. So, I titled this sermon today, and I'm going to be moving through it pretty quickly,

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Jesus the Evangelist. As you just read, there's a whole lot going on in these ten verses, much more than I can even hope to convey in the time that we have.

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But super crucial truths, just a couple of the topics that have come up inside of the verses that I just read is superficial religiosity, selfish seeking, the complete inability to be saved by your own works or your own efforts, an improper understanding of goodness, a proper understanding of goodness, spiritual blindness and delusion, idolatry and spiritual blasphemy, the hindrance of wealth worship.

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But really what I want to focus on, as you can focus on many of these different topics that come up, is how

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Jesus is using the law here in really an example of evangelism, how Jesus uses the law to communicate the truth.

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As Pastor Jeff was saying, the law has a manifold practical application inside of the life of the believer and concerning the unbeliever.

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But what you see clearly is that Jesus is demonstrating the crucial use of the law of God to expose sin, to expose guilt and condemnation.

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That is the crux, I believe that's the focus. And we must, being the witnesses that Jesus has called us to be, being the faithful Christ followers as Jesus called us to be, we must declare and explain the law of God to the lost in our efforts to evangelize them.

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If we don't have the essential component of the law in our efforts to witness and evangelize, we're not going to evangelize in any way effectively or potently with the power of God.

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That's how crucial it is, this aspect of declaring the law and explaining the law. If the law is not an essential component of our evangelistic efforts, whatever they may be, then as I said, totally ineffective, we're really just wasting our time.

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But if we desire to lead people to Christ, as I hope each one of us are, because we've been given that commission, we've been given that commandment,

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Jesus has told us to go out and be the light in this world, right, to preach the gospel to all creation,

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Mark chapter 16, verse 15. If we desire to lead the lost to Christ, that is accomplished by the law.

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As we explain the law. Let me say that again. That is accomplished by the law as we explain the law.

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So if you take the law out of your communication of Jesus Christ to your lost loved ones, brothers, sisters, family members, whoever it may be, you're not going to lead them to Christ.

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That is the focus of the law. Galatians 3 .26 is clear. It says, therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith.

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No law in your communication of the gospel, no leading to Christ.

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Understand that. We don't lead people to Christ by baiting them in or schmoozing them or any other tactic.

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God has clearly outlined and explained to us what we do to lead people to Christ. That's through the law.

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The American Evangelical Church has a vast population of false converts. Unfortunately, it does.

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Much of the American Evangelical Church, churches are filled with false converts, tares.

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Because what the American Evangelical Church has done in so many parts of our nation is try to use carnal means to grow a church or to reach the lost.

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And all you do when you do that is you create a church of the tares. But one of the big issues and why the

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American Evangelical Church has fallen off the cliff in evangelism in so many ways is because the law of God has no place in evangelism and the law of God has no place within the life of the church.

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We are in the state that we are now as a Christian church in the nation because the people of God have said, no, we don't want anything to do with the law of God.

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It has been done away with, a very unbiblical type of philosophy.

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But we're kind of reaping the whirlwind because of our denial of the law of God, because of our dismissal of the law of God, because of leaving the law of God out of our lives and out of our evangelistic efforts.

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False converts really are those who pray a prayer to receive Jesus. And because the law of God declares him and depicts him as judge and king, if you eliminate the law of God out of your discussion of Jesus to the lost, what you're going to do is you're going to convert people to a life coach or a motivational speaker, a spiritual add -on in life, a genie in the bottle.

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You see, many people are saved to a Jesus who's really not the Jesus of the Scriptures as the law depicts and defines, but he's an idol that is powerless to save anyone.

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The law leads the lost to Christ as Savior because it exposes us as sinners, condemned, damned, and hell -bound.

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And so if the law is operative and the law is being exposed and declared rightly, we're going to run

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Jesus as Savior because the law has made us aware of our horrible situation, our condemned status, and the hell that awaits us if we're not saved by him and him alone.

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So the lost come to Jesus as he truly is, as we would declare the law.

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So let's go ahead and let's just dig into these verses. Contextually, Jesus is on the east side of the

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Jordan. He's in a place called Perea. You can go to Matthew chapter 19, 16 through 26 right now in your

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Bible. I'm just going to kind of just expound and go through these verses kind of line by line.

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But Jesus is in the latter part of his ministry. He's about to head into Jerusalem. Actually, he's making his way into Jerusalem where he's going to die, rise again.

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He's going to be crucified. So, of course, the truths that he's imparting are incredibly important.

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Not that any of the truths that Jesus imparts is lesser, but, of course, these truths that we see here in the

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Scriptures are absolutely essential, so binding, so absolutely important. And the question,

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I guess, as we look at the story of the rich and young rulers, who is this guy? Now, Mark 10 and Luke 18 also give this account of Jesus' encounter with this really interesting man.

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But taking all their accounts together, we know that this guy is young. He's really got it all going.

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He's super wealthy. He's a property owner. He has much possessions, the

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Bible says. He's distinguished, super driven to be young and to accomplish all this at such a young age.

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He's ambitious, and he's a ruler. And really what you can only gather as the Scriptures say that he's a ruler is that he's got to be a ruler of a synagogue.

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That really only makes sense in that kind of socioeconomic climate. And he would be kind of the senior position.

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He'd have the most senior position as a lay leader. That's who this rich, young ruler is. And that's kind of odd, and I ask the question as I've been studying this, is how can this young guy attain such a position as a ruler in a synagogue because that position was mainly held for older men, the wise.

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That was a position for the older men, but somehow he got the job.

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And he comes running to Jesus. He comes to Jesus, and it's very commendable in the way that this rich, young ruler, we don't have the name of the guy.

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I'm just going to call him Guy from now on. But he comes running to Jesus. He comes kneeling, and he comes in humility.

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And this is super odd about this story too because distinguished Middle Eastern gentlemen who are dignified, who have status and have position don't do these types of things.

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They don't come running. They don't come kneeling, and they don't come humbly. But this is exactly what this man does.

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Matthew says, Behold. And that word there in the Greek is kind of tantamount to whoa. Like would you take a look, just get a load of this.

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Would you look at this? This is super out of the norm for some guy like this, so highly revered and honored to come like this.

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So he comes running. He comes kneeling. He comes in humility. But he also comes really boldly because Jesus is an outcast, a

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Jewish rabbi, that a ruler in a synagogue should not have anything to do with because he'd be kicked out of the synagogue.

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Remember, Nicodemus came in John chapter 3 at night because he was afraid.

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But this guy is not afraid. He's not afraid of the stigma. He's not afraid of being attached to Jesus.

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And so this is super commendable about how he approaches him. He's moral. He doesn't get to where he is without being moral.

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He's very religious in his terms and what he says to Jesus. And he comes to the right source for the right answer.

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He's coming to ask for eternal life. That is on his mind.

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That's in his heart. That's what he wants to possess. So he comes to eternal life. Jesus is eternal life, to learn about eternal life and to see how he can possess eternal life.

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1 John 5 .20 says, And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true.

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And we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

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He's coming commendably. He's coming humbly. He's coming honorably. He's coming fearlessly. And he's coming to the right source.

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And he's coming to Christ for something. Matthew 19 .16, Again, And behold, a man came up to him, saying,

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Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And so this is what we're hearing.

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This is the question of a bold, ambitious man who's really pulled himself up by his own bootstraps.

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I mean, getting all that he has, the position, the prestige, the popularity, the wealth, the respect, the possessions, they're all his.

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And he's done it by the hair of his chinny -chin -chin. Actually, I don't even think that applies at all to that.

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Elbow grease. Elbow grease, that's the right one. But they don't seem to satisfy him.

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They don't seem to satisfy him. He's got it all. Can you imagine the wealth that he had, the position, the accolades, the respect, the praises?

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They just don't seem to cut it. He's looking for something else. How do we know that? It's because of the

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Jewish understanding of eternal life. The Jewish understanding of eternal life is not quantity of life.

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It's not a duration. He didn't come asking Jesus, Hey, I want to live forever. How can I make that happen?

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He wanted the God type of life. Eternal life, according to the Jewish mind, was the quality of life.

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Because he didn't find the quality of life in the realm of all his accomplishments and the stuff that he acquired.

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It just didn't satisfy him. He's looking for something else. And now what he wants, he wants the ultimate inheritance.

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But he wants the ultimate inheritance, and this is so crucial to understand as we go through this, and as you understand what

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Jesus is conveying here, he wants it by his own efforts. He's trying to gain it in his own strength, by his own merits.

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That's the focus. And if you look at him, he's kind of an evangelist's dream come true.

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Because people don't usually come up to you when you're out in the streets sharing Jesus, running up to you asking, How can

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I have eternal life? They don't do that. This guy's not flipping you the bird and spitting on you and cussing at you, threatening you with death and violence, laughing at you or mocking you, everything that we experience at the mill and other places, almost weekly if not monthly, but this guy's not doing it.

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He's running up to you in humility. Now I've got a question for you. What would you do if a wealthy man of stature came up to you asking you about eternal life?

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What would your response be? Would you lead him in a sinner's prayer to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior?

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Would you try to win him because of all the money that he could bring into the kingdom? Maybe kiss up to him a little bit.

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Would you first listen to his story or maybe fulfill a felt need that he has? Maybe you would first spend time to build a relationship with this man so that you can have authority to speak into his life.

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Well, hopefully you said no to all of those, but those are very typical evangelistic methods in the

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American Evangelical Church. But that is not what Jesus did. He responds to this guy's request at a first glance super just oddly.

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We've got to explain the things that he is saying because so many people take it out of context. Matthew 19, 17.

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And he said to him, Why do you ask me what is good? There is only one who is good.

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If you would enter life, keep the commandments. So in Mark and Luke, he comes up asking him,

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Good teacher. So pulling all these together, pulling all the accounts together, he's calling Jesus a good teacher and asking what good deed he can do to inherit eternal life.

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Now the most important word in understanding all of this, Matthew 19, 16 through 26, is the word good.

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That is one of the most important words in all of life, in all the scriptures.

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One of the most important words for you to understand that is really life or death, that is eternal significance, is the word good.

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We have to understand that. That word good that this man uses is from the

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Greek word agathos. And that word agathos and what he is saying, he said agathos, good teacher, what agathos deed can

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I produce to inherit eternal life? And that word means internally virtuous, good to the core, good through and through, someone who is good at the heart level.

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Kalos or kalos is another word for good and that just means good looking like Josh Haskins sitting right here.

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So he's not using kalos, he's using... It's true. It's true. Especially the beard.

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Beard envy. But he's asking what good deed can

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I produce out of my internally virtuous self to produce eternal life?

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What can I do to inherit eternal life by flowing out of the goodness within me?

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I think that's... If you would really look at the original language, that's what he's saying. And Jesus says something, something so cutting.

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And I remember when I first read this, really kind of beguiling or puzzling. He says, why are you calling me good?

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Only one is good and only God is good. And we know cults and different people who are not exegeting the scriptures correctly, mainly because they're not indwelt with the spirit of God who gives us spiritual understanding.

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They've taken this out of context and said, see, Jesus is saying that he's not good. Is Jesus telling us he's not good and therefore not

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God? Is that what he's saying? No. He's not saying that. That is absolutely the opposite of what he's saying.

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But Jesus is responding to this man with the full knowledge that this man is not understanding who

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Christ is. He's not coming up to Rabbi Jesus with the understanding that he's the all -reigning, omnipotent creator of all things, incarnate

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God in the flesh. That is not how this man views Jesus. And Jesus is replying to this man with the full knowledge of how this man is questioning him.

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He believes Jesus to be a mere man and he uses good in a super loose way and in an absolutely incorrect way.

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He believes himself to be good and all men to be good. I'm not going to be speculative at all, but I feel like this man has gone to religious leaders and rabbis and just kind of threw that word around.

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Maybe that's the reason that he is the ruler that he is. But of course, the Bible is silent about that. That's just kind of my thoughts as I've been thinking through this.

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But what he is doing is he is not referring to Jesus as God in the flesh. So what's

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Jesus saying? Jesus is saying, why are you using that word to apply to a man?

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You don't even know me. So you are calling me good. You are calling yourself good.

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You are thinking you can produce any type of goodness to inherit eternal life. You don't even know what you are talking about.

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And being a ruler of a synagogue, have you not read the Psalms? He is a ruler in the synagogue. He should know what the

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Psalms say. A couple of these Psalms. Psalm 14, Once as the fool said in his heart, there is no

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God. They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good.

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Psalm 36, 1 -3, Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes.

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For it flatters him in his own eyes concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit.

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He has ceased to be wise and to do good. This rich, young ruler coming up to Jesus with the position that he had, should have known.

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That's why Jesus is responding, Why are you saying this? Why are you calling me good?

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You should know this by now. So what Jesus does is he stops him dead in his tracks and he confronts his understanding of good.

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And that is what we must do in our evangelism. Like Christ, we must confront a lost person's natural misunderstanding of goodness.

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It's absolutely vital. It's absolutely crucial. And the work that God has called us to do is to be the witnesses that he's called us to be.

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Absolutely, why? Here's the answer. Because fallen man trusts in his own self -perceived goodness to gain eternal life and to justify himself before God.

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Fallen man trusts in his own goodness to be saved. It was great going out on Friday night with Wade and all the rest of the guys.

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And as we would sit there in the rain, Wade would do something cool. As people would pass, he'd hand out gospel tracts.

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And he'd say, hey, what's going to happen after you die? Are you going to go to heaven or hell? Do you believe in heaven or hell?

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And I don't know about you if you've ever talked to people about Jesus, but about 99 % of the time if you asked them, if you were to stand before God on the day of your judgment and he were to ask you, why should

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I let you into heaven, what would you say? And what do people say? Because I'm a good person. That's what they say.

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They are trusting. They are leaning in their own goodness. And it will not save them.

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When you ask someone, do you want to hear the gospel? I'm a Christian. And what do they say? I'm good.

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Now, I don't think they're saying I'm internally virtuous and therefore because of that I can gain my own eternal salvation.

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But it's just kind of weird. You hear it all the time. I'm good. But man believes he's good. Sin has so absolutely deceived lost fallen man to where we believe we're good and that we're good and we're not.

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The lost man desperately needs to see himself as God sees him.

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He does not see himself as he truly is. Sin is so deceived. Our self -perception is absolutely deluded.

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Proverbs 30 .12 speaks to this. There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.

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Proverbs 16 .2 says, All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight but the Lord weighs the motive.

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We have to see ourselves as God sees us so we can go to God as Savior. Revelation 3 .17

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For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

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That's how man is good. Your Jesus thing, your Christian walk, that's good for you.

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How many times have you heard that? Now, if that floats your boat, that's good for you, but if that's the crutch that you need to lean on, that's good for you.

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It's not good for me. So he's so deluded in his own self -perception, believing that he can stand before a just and holy

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God on the day of his judgment, and think that that is somehow going to protect him from the wrath of God.

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That is headed his way is a scary, it's a terrifying thing to think of. There is not one good person, and this is what

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Jesus is saying, on the face of this earth, everyone is radically corrupt, totally depraved, and headed to a very literal hell.

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We need to know that about the people that we rub shoulders with. Romans 3, 19 -18.

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What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already been charged that all, both

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Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it's written, none is righteous, no, not one.

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No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

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No one does good, 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. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

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In their paths are ruin and misery. In the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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So, this guy should have known this. Why? You know, Romans chapter 3 is constructed, Paul constructs

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Romans chapter 3, of course, carried along by the Holy Spirit, taken from Psalm 14, 53, 5, 140, 10, 35, and Isaiah 59.

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The guy should have known what he was talking about. That's why Jesus stops him and says, why are you calling me good?

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The lost desperately needs to know about himself in order to run to Jesus the

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Savior. We need to believe this about the lost in order to gain an urgency to witness to them.

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This will help motivate you in your evangelism and kind of get us out of the apathy that we might have or a sluggardness that we have or a lack of urgency to really go out and proclaim the gospel when we see people in the way that God sees them, when we see them as completely enslaved and self -deluded and dead, spiritually dead, headed to hell.

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But we kind of don't see that way naturally. We think people are nice, and because they're nice, then therefore they're good.

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We use nice. We use nice a lot, but we can't apply good so loosely and haphazardly.

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Nice people are not going to make it to heaven based upon their niceness. Grandma Jannie, who never swore and baked apple pies for you your whole life, is not a good person, even though she never said nothing, never did nothing to you.

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You've got to see Grandma Jannie is not good. Little orphan Annie, not good.

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The ultra -nice Mormon neighbor who'd do anything to help you, bend over backwards. You get a flat tire and he's already jacking up the car right after you got the flat tire.

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He's not good. Romans 3 .23 says, For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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Man is not good at the core. He's an absolute guilty criminal before God. You've got to show the lost their reality and their sinful condition before God.

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Here's a good question for you. I was thinking about evangelism. Do we show the lost about their sins by getting big old neon signs and placarding different sins on that sign and bringing them to them or having neon shirts with different sins written all over them?

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Is that how we evangelize correctly, to tell people that they're in their sin and that they're lost and not good before God?

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Is that the right methodology? What do you think? No. No, that is so absolutely self -righteous.

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It is. Why? Because when we reveal sin, when we expose sin to people without appealing to God's standard of righteousness in His law, it's self -righteous.

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Self -righteous. Who are we to do that? When we're sinners ourselves, fallen ourselves. So when we are exposing, it's not going up to someone just pointing your finger in their face and saying, you sinner.

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No, that's not how you do it. There's no power there. That's just, that is an effort and futility.

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Exposing sin without appealing to God's standard of righteousness embodied in His law is self -righteous. How do we do it?

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We do it like Jesus did. We use the law. Matthew 8, 19, 18 through 19. If you would enter life, keep the commandments,

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He said to him. So if you really want to save yourself and do it by your own efforts, then you have to keep all of the commandments perfectly.

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He said, and which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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If you're going to do this, and this is Jesus talking to him, if you're going to do this based upon your own efforts, which is absolutely impossible, you better keep them all perfectly from birth without fail.

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Because if you fall in one point of the law, if you transgress even one of Jesus' commands, one lustful thought, even stealing a little thing.

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I used to steal beef jerky when I was a kid from Kmart. Was it Kmart? I remember it was Thrifty.

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I can't remember where it was from. But I told my son, it's just beef jerky. Even one little thing that you steal, or even think about stealing, you have fallen short of it all.

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James 2, 10 says, for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point, has become accountable for all of it.

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So Jesus is referring to the Decalogue and the extra Decalogue as he uses the law to expose this man's sin.

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And he refers here in Matthew only to the second table of the law that has to do with loving our neighbor only.

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It's super interesting. As you see him do that, you talk to a guy in your evangelism, and you ask him, as Wade did so well, and the other guys did so well, you ask him why

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God should let them into heaven when they die. And when he says that he's good, and he's fine without God, he's in no need of Jesus, he's just going to be justified based upon his own standing.

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So many people will tell you, you know what, God is the judge, and I'll just wait for that day to be judged by him. That is a fearful thing to hear.

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What we can respond is this, so you're good, according to what standard, you think

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God's going to judge you based upon your own standards or his. So you expose that to the person that you're talking to, and you explain to them that God is not waiting for them to die so that he can have their own definition of who he is.

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God is not waiting them, you ask them, do you think God is really waiting for you to explain life and who he is, and his standards of righteousness?

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Because that's what an autonomous man thinks, that he can live based upon his own relative understanding of truth.

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No, God is not going to judge us based upon our own standards. If we've ever lied, like I said, we're guilty.

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Lusted in our heart, guilty. Stolen something, guilty. Coveted, guilty. The law is a mirror that we graciously and lovingly hold up in front of the face of the unbeliever, and they don't see their own deluded, wrong self -perception when you share the law with them and let them know that they're guilty of it.

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They see themselves as God sees them, a lawbreaker, a criminal, headed to hell, and that's how they need to see themselves.

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Guilty, corrupt, lost, not good, but evil. That is the purpose of the law,

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Romans 7 .7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin?

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By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.

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So important. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet.

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So what's this man's response to all this as Jesus uses the law to expose his sin? And I think it's safe to say it's one of the most self -deluded statements in all the

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Word of God. This man is so deluded by his own sense of goodness, his own self -definition of goodness.

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This has got to be one of the most self -deluded statements in all of Scripture. He says, All of these

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I have kept. What still do I lack? Can you imagine that? That's the blindness of sinful man.

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That's the pride and arrogance of sinful man to stand before Jesus, to say I've done it all. I've kept it all.

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Sin has completely deceived him. He's completely delusional about his own goodness.

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1 John 1 .8 We say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

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The most damning delusion that you can believe about yourself and anybody else is that you're good when you've been confronted with the perfect standard of God's righteousness.

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The most damning delusion, the most damning belief that a person can hold in this life is that they're good and they can measure up to God's standards.

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Totally deceived. It's the law that is the light that shines through that darkness.

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It's the law that exposes that. Not you. Not your whatever you want to do to try that.

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You can't make it happen in the life of a spiritually dead sinner. You have to use the law and allow that to shine brightly into their life, to expose the delusion that they're living in.

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He believes that he's flawlessly kept the law, but he doesn't understand the depth of the law. Waking up that morning, he might not have stolen anything.

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He might not have committed adultery. He might not have used the Lord's name in vain. But Jesus goes to show on the

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Sermon on the Mount that it's the depth of the law. That the Lord not only weighs our outward actions but examines the heart.

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Really, that man, before he ate breakfast, broke the law in who knows how many ways. We have to expose this delusional self -perception.

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That's what the law does. It's perfect in destroying our delusions. It's perfect in tearing down our false perceptions.

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It renders us all guilty, so we'd run to the one who can make us righteous. Romans 7, 8 -13 says,

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For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

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So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me?

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By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good. In order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

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Matthew 19, 20 -21, Jesus said to him, If you would be perfect, go sell all what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

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When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. So Jesus is saying, oh really, you're perfect.

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He says it, if you would be perfect, oh so you're perfect, so you've got this down. The man is declaring self -perfectionism.

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So what does Jesus do by telling him to go sell all possessions? What he's saying is, you really measure up to perfection when it comes to obeying the law of God?

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Let's look at law number one, Exodus 23. You shall have no other gods before me.

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What does this man do? He says, go sell all you have, and the guy gets sad and just bounces bales.

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Jesus goes to show him that this man is not coming to God, really seeking eternal life to gain

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God. He's not coming to God. He did not come running and kneeling, ambitiously and boldly and humbly to gain

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God, which is really the gospel that we would gain God. He's coming as an idolater.

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His money, his stuff, himself, is what he worships.

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He's a blasphemer also. Because when we put on the religious garb, and we talk the religious talk, and we walk the religious walk, and we come into the house of God worshiping, even though at the heart level we actually are worshipers of idols, then everything that we do is blasphemous to God.

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He's a blasphemer. His money and stuff is his God. He's a flagrant violator of the first commandment.

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Jesus exposed that. From the external, and you can see it in the responses of the disciples, from the outside, this guy's, like I said, he's religious.

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He can talk the talk. He's using religious terminologies. He's walking the walk. He's going to be with the people of God.

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He's entered into a connective relationship with the people of God. But inwardly, he's in love with his fleshly pleasure and his wealth, and the status that that affords him.

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So my question to you is, could that be true of us as Americans?

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Because the American idol really is wealth. The American idol, the predominant idol in our land and in our nation is wealth.

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And so many people come, and they connect themselves to the body of Christ, and come in professing Jesus Christ, and going to church service after church service.

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And like I said, they can say the Christianese or listen to the Christian music, even though it's absolutely horrible, and they can attach them to all forms of religiosity.

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But inwardly, it's all about another god. It's all about idol worship.

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This guy's coming to Jesus with wrong intentions. He's worshipping at the altar of money, and he's pursuing wealth as his god.

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Titus 1 .16 talks about people who have the front of faith, who have the front of genuine

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Christianity, but inwardly, they're lost. Titus 1 .16 says, they profess to know

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God, but they deny him by their works. Matthew 15 .18 says, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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So my question is, does your life, choices, your value system, your goals reflect a worship and pursuit of God?

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Or if you're honest, are you worshipping and pursuing money? If you would really take an introspective look at yourself, evaluate your life's actions.

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Are you really worshipping God, or really is it the pursuit of wealth? Is it the pursuit of pleasure, of comforts in this life and here and now?

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Well, the heart is an idol factory. We all fall guilty of that, but we have to evaluate the genuineness of our pursuing of God.

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I'm not demonizing money here, which many people like to do with this. Money is just a means of exchange.

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But this man went away sorrowful because he could not achieve eternal life based upon his own efforts. He couldn't rack this up on his accomplishment chart.

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The crazy thing is, he didn't answer back to Jesus. Jesus said, go sell everything and follow me, and you will have eternal life.

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He didn't answer back. Because if that's the deal, then it's a no -go. Jesus' eternal life was not worth giving away everything that he had.

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He chose external pleasures with hell to come over eternal life in relationship with God.

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When Jesus says, you lack one thing to him, it means that he lacks completely the ability in himself to inherit eternal life based upon his own efforts.

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That's the crux of this. Many people believe, falsely believe, Colts will say, yeah, see what Jesus is saying here?

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He's telling the guy to obey the commands, and he will have eternal life. That is the absolute opposite of what Jesus is saying here.

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Jesus is saying that, and he's exposing the fact that he has no ability within himself. He says, this is what you lack.

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You can't do it. You can't cut it. You can't measure up. Maybe he would have cut a deal.

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Maybe he would have gone through it if Jesus, maybe it was a little bit of a lesser mandate that Christ gave him.

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But no, Jesus did not compromise. Jesus exposed his sin. Matthew 19, 23 -24, and Jesus said to his disciples,

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Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Now, what does Jesus mean when he says, Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven?

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What is Jesus saying in light of everything that we expounded on this? It's hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven because your success in this life can falsely be perceived as the blessing of God.

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It's hard for a rich person because you can have more idols in your life that you hold on to, but also it's hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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Why? Because nobody wants to tell the rich person about his sin, as Jesus is doing here.

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That's why it's hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. We don't want to, and I'm going to admit it myself, when

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I'm out in the street, sometimes early on I'd gravitate to people that were homeless, and when a wealthy guy would come by,

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I'd get a little nervous because I felt like I was intruding on his space. It's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God because we're not bold enough and brave enough, as Jesus here so exemplifies, to go up to him and say, man, your riches aren't going to save you.

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You're dead in sin. Let me show that to you by the law. That's exactly what he's talking about.

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Camel in the eye of a needle, what Jesus is using when he says it's harder for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven than smooshing a fat camel through the eye of a needle.

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It's impossible. Now, there's weirdo explanations of this a little bit.

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They're weird. What Jesus is saying is it's impossible for a rich man. It's impossible for a man who thinks that he can inherit the eternal life based upon his own good deeds to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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That's what he's saying. What do the disciples say? When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved?

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But Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are impossible.

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Why did his disciples ask this? Why were they astonished? Why? So Jesus is saying, no.

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Sell all your stuff. The man doesn't say anything. He just goes about his way. Jesus goes about his way.

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He doesn't hunt the man down. He doesn't try to drag him back to himself and maybe, like I said, create a lesser deal.

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Maybe if you'd sell half of your possessions, it'll be cool. Jesus doesn't do that. So his disciples are saying, who can be saved?

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Why? It's because the corrupt religious leaders of the day sucked up to the wealthy so that they could receive from them.

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That's why. And that's what these disciples have been taught. They see the religious leaders of the day who are corrupt going up and just schmoozing and flattering the wealthy for their own self -interest.

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So they're looking internally and saying, well, if this guy can't get to heaven, when I thought this was the type of person that can get to heaven based upon his status and his wealth, how can

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I get to heaven being just a poor fisherman? Jesus says this.

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It's the law, right? And then it's the gospel, just like Pastor Jeff just said. With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

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So we see the law perfectly illustrated, perfectly executed. In Jesus' example of evangelism here, the disciples say, who can do it?

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Jesus says, man can't do it. Only God can save. Salvation is of the

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Lord. God is the author of salvation. Law and then the gospel.

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Jesus is the perfect law keeper. His perfect life and substitutionary death are the only means by which we can be saved and inherit eternal life.

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So, as you think about your own desire to be the witness and the light, the evangelist that God has commanded you, created you and resourced you to be by way of the

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Holy Spirit powerfully, He's empowered all of us to be capable handlers of His Word, to be disseminators of the gospel.

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That doesn't mean all of us are called to stand out and preach the gospel. We're not all called to do that, but you are commissioned and commanded by the

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King of Kings to disseminate and spread the gospel. And as you do it, you want to do it powerfully.

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You want to do it effectively. You want your authority to be Christ in the scriptures.

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So you want your methodology of evangelism to be founded on the

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Word of God. So many people say this, they say, you know what, it doesn't matter what methods that you use as long as the message is the same.

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You could just chuck that up and throw it in the trash. That's crazy to think about. We don't determine our own methodology.

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We look at Christ. We look at the scriptures. We look at the men of God filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. We look into their lives.

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They are the authority. And conceptually it's so simple. I was just talking to somebody about this. Conceptually it's simple. We like to make it so difficult.

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Go to the lost and share the law and the gospel. That's it. That's the equation. It's so simple.

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So as we do that, let's do it like Christ. We don't do it.

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We're just spinning our wheels. We're just spinning our wheels and we're wasting our time if we don't use the law to expose sin.

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We're just creating a more vast populace in the American Evangelical Church of converts that we need to evangelize.

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Much of the evangelism that needs to be done are those that are filling churches, sitting in pews

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Sunday after Sunday. Because in those environments, the law and the gospel is not being preached.

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So many people that will come up to you and say, yeah, I'm a Christian. I don't need to hear it. We really need to investigate that.

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We really need to ask them about the gospel. Ask them how they know they are saved. And finally, before I pray, we have to look at man.

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You have to see your neighbors. You have to see your co -workers. You have to see them through the lenses of the scriptures and the law of God.

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You need to see them as God sees them, enslaved, headed to a very literal hell, to spend an everlasting amount of time incurring in themselves the punitive sentence that they are worthy of.

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Can you imagine experiencing that? Can you imagine being in an everlasting jail cell for the rest of your life with no end?

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Thankfully, those of us who are in Christ, that's not the reality. But we need to be compassionate and loving enough to get out of our comfort zones to change, even if you've been a

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Christian for 30 or 40 years, to change and say, you know what, I'm going to go about this obedient task that you've called me to do, filled with your power, and doing it according to the way that you've showed us to do it.