No One is Good Except God Alone

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 Minnesota.

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

And now here's a message.

From Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark chapter 10 verses 17 through 22.

As Jesus started on his way a man ran up to him fell on his knees before him.

Good teacher, he asked.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Why do you call me good, Jesus answered.

No one is good except for God alone.

You know the commandments.

Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud,

honor your father and mother.

Teacher, he declared.

All of these I've kept since I was a boy.

And Jesus looked at him and he loved him.

All right, one thing you lack, he said.

Go sell everything you have.

Give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come follow me.

At this the man's face fell.

He went away sad because he had great wealth.

In the name of Jesus.

All right, so this is an interesting text that's before us and you're gonna need your pew Bibles.

We're gonna be in a few different spots today.

We'll begin with our gospel text.

Gospel Mark chapter 10 verse 17.

Here's what it says.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him, fell on his knees before him, and said,

good teacher, he asked.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Let's stop for a second and analyze the question.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

All right, let's say that grandma has written you into her will.

She's written you into her will and she's decided that she's going to give you the whole estate.

You get the farm, you get the land, you get the implements, you get even the green combine.

Grandma's being very generous.

Of course she's not going to be here.

And so what do you have to do to inherit all of this?

What work must you do?

Answer, nothing.

An inheritance is a gift.

In fact, if you really want to be industrious, what you really need to do is figure out how to knock off granny,

right?

But if you get caught, you will not get the inheritance.

You'll spend the rest of your life in one of those orange jumpsuits and we all know how good those look, right?

So rather than knock her off, what you do is you just sit and you wait.

And when grandma dies, you receive the estate.

Eternal life in scripture is an inheritance.

This man has it right.

He knows that he's going to inherit it.

It's an inheritance, but he wrongly thinks that he's got to do something to earn it.

He's very confused.

It's well, okay, how many good works are enough for me to do?

You know, how many little old ladies do I have to help across the street?

How many poor people do I need to give money to?

How many homeless people do I need to feed?

Let me know what the level is so that I know that now, now I have eternal life

because I've done certain things.

And this is how we all think.

I do good works.

God says, good boy.

And then he gives me good.

He gives me eternal life.

That's not how it works.

Now watch what Jesus does.

This is not a throwaway question.

It's the key to unlocking this passage.

Jesus says, why do you call me good?

The guy should have stopped right there and really taken this question to heart.

Jesus answered, no one is good except for God alone.

Not you, not any of the people in this church, not me.

No one is good except for God alone.

This guy should have taken the hint because Jesus was politely in a way saying without

dishonoring this man, you're not good.

No one is good except for God alone.

All right, so you know the commandments.

Do not murder.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not give false testimony.

Do not defraud.

Honor your father and mother.

By way of a side note here, you'll notice that when we read our ten commandments,

commandments nine and ten have to do with coveting.

You know, you don't covet your neighbor's stuff and then you also don't covet your neighbor's wife or

his manservants or his maidservants, right?

And Jesus takes the two commandments regarding coveting and sticks them together and says you will not defraud.

Defrauding is a form of theft and it begins with coveting.

And defrauding basically involves coming up with a clever scheme by which you can then come into

possession of your neighbor's things without actually sneaking into his house in the middle of the night and taking him while he's not

looking.

Defrauding basically, it's a wonderful scheme that you've come up with that technically is legal

but it's still a form of theft and it begins with coveting, just by way of a note there.

So Jesus here, he asks the question, you know the commandments, he lists off the

commandments and you're going to notice something about these commandments.

They all have to do with the second table of the law.

Second table of the law is how we deal with each other.

And this guy then gives what I would consider to be a very foolish answer.

He says, teacher, all of these I've kept since I was a boy.

And all the Norwegians said, oof, oh boy, this guy needs a

lot of help.

Theologically, he's completely screwed up.

He thinks the law is basically a ladder that you climb.

He's climbed the ladder and now he's earned eternal life.

Salvation is not something you earn, it's a gift given by God.

So Jesus, knowing how to use the law properly, looked at him and it says he loved him.

Jesus didn't despise him, he truly loved this man.

Why?

Because he's going to the cross to plead and to die for him.

All right, one thing you lack, he said, go sell everything you have and

give it to the poor.

You'll have treasure in heaven, then come follow me.

And the guy's face fell.

He went away sad because he had great wealth.

In other words, oh, now we're going to deal with the first table of the law.

First commandment, you will have no other gods before me.

What is this man's God?

His money.

That is the thing he is trusting in.

That is the thing where he is getting his security from.

Money is the thing that he worships.

And oh, there's many people who do this today.

Very sad thing.

And so he left Jesus.

Jesus said, come follow me.

Jesus is God in human flesh.

But he left sad because he had great wealth.

Now, it's important for us to note kind of the interplay that's going on here.

In order to understand this passage, you have to get the proper distinction of law and gospel.

And Jesus is not saying, oh, you can earn your salvation if you go and

sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

It's pretty easy.

Eternal life, eternally with God, world without end, the streets of

gold, and all I have to do is sell everything I have and give it to the poor.

That's an easy exchange.

I can go do that.

And now I've earned it.

That's not what Jesus is saying.

What Jesus is doing is using the law to show this man that he is not good.

No one is good except for God alone.

This man thinks he's good.

And Jesus, by pointing out his idolatry, has revealed to this man that he's not good.

He's an idolater.

He's not somebody who trusts in the one true God.

He trusts in himself.

Now, I want to compare this text to another text from the book of Acts.

If you have your pew Bibles, open to Acts 16.

We're going to start at verse 11.

We're going to look at another man who asks almost the identical question,

but it's under different circumstances, and you can kind of see the difference so that you can see what's going on here.

Acts 16, verse 11, and we're going to hear about Paul

and Silas, and tacitly we're going to hear about Luke, the author of Acts,

and their arrival in the town of Philippi.

Here's what it says starting at verse 11.

From Troas, we put out to sea, sailed straight for Samothrace, the next day on to

Neapolis, and from there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony, and the leading city of that district of

Macedonia, and we stayed there several days.

On the Sabbath, we went outside the city gate to the river where we expected to find a place of

prayer.

We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of

Thyatira.

She's a dealer in purple cloth.

She's making lots of money.

Purple is the color of royalty, and it is an expensive color.

I think they made it using the ink from octopuses, you know, something to that effect.

Very difficult to come up come across the stuff to make purple, but it says this, she was a

worshiper of God.

Note to yourself here, in the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts, when somebody is described as

a worshiper of God, that means that they are a Gentile learning to become a Jew.

They're studying Judaism.

They're in catechism class, all right?

So a worshiper of God is a class of people.

If we had young ones here who were in catechism, we'd call them our catechumens, right?

So they're studying to become Jews, so she's a worshiper of God.

And here's what it says, the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message.

Uh -oh, there goes decision theology right there.

Why?

Because it's the Lord who opens our hearts to hear the message of the gospel and saving work of Christ.

And so the Lord opened her heart, and when she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to

her home.

If you consider me a believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my house, and she persuaded us.

You'll notice that Luke here, the author of Acts, is including himself, us, we, he's part of this.

And notice it says that her entire household was baptized, everybody in her house.

Now, in the days before birth control, if an entire household is

baptized, would that include little ones?

Oh, absolutely, everybody.

So then the story continues.

Once, when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who

had a spirit by which she predicted the future.

Uh -huh, she earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune -telling.

Now, you can't see it in this English translation, but in the Greek it's very clear what kind of a spirit she had.

The Greek says that she had a spirit of Puthon.

Sounds like a python or snake, right?

Well, by saying that she had a spirit of Puthon, we know exactly where this girl spent some time

serving, and that was at a place called the Oracle of Delphi.

If you've heard of this, if you've read any of the ancient accounts regarding the Oracle of Delphi, it was the place you would go

to ask the gods about your future and fortune.

And in fact, Alexander the Great made a stop at the Oracle of Delphi.

And the way this worked, by the way, is that the Oracle of Delphi, you can visit the place to this day.

The ruins of the temple are still there.

It was built over a crevice where there was volcanic gases that were coming up through this crevice,

and they were intoxicating type of gases.

And the girls that served at the Oracle of Delphi, they would put their face over the crevice,

breathe in the fumes, and then go into an ecstatic state and speak in tongues.

The men of the Oracle of Delphi would then interpret the tongues, you

know, as if this was an answer.

So somebody would say, I'm here to find out my fortune.

Does so -and -so love me?

Will we get married and have children and live happily ever after?

And then one of these girls would stick her face over the crack and breathe it in and start just speaking gibberish,

and then the priest would interpret and say, yes, no, maybe, who knows, you know, how do you answer with

specificity, something like that.

But so we know because this girl in Philippi had a spirit of Puthon, that

puts her as, at one point, working at the Oracle of Delphi.

So she's demon -possessed, she's able to predict the future, she earned a great deal of money for her

owners by fortune -telling, and this girl followed Paul and the

rest of us, shouting—be careful not to shout too loud—these men are

servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.

Always beware when the demons are proclaiming Christ.

They never are really quite telling the truth.

In an ancient culture, in a town like Philippi, where the people believed in the

pantheon of the Greco -Roman deities of Apollo, Athena, Zeus,

to proclaim that Jesus is the Most High God is to basically

say that he's one of many.

Now granted, Paul was preaching the way of salvation, but he wasn't preaching

that Jesus is the Most High God.

He's proclaiming that Jesus is the only true God.

See the difference?

So she kept this up for many days.

Had to be a bother.

So finally Paul became so troubled, he turned around and said to the Spirit, in the name of Jesus

Christ, I command you to come out of her.

And at that moment, the Spirit left her.

And when the owners of the slave girl realized their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul

and Silas, dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.

They brought them before the magistrates and said, these men are Jews, they're throwing our city into an uproar by

advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or to practice.

And the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered

them to be stripped and beaten.

By the way, Paul and Silas are both Roman citizens.

They did not have to put up with this, but they said nothing about their rights.

And the reason for this is quite simple, because they considered this type of reproach, this type of

beating, to actually be a blessing.

That they were found worthy to suffer shame to the name of Christ.

They would rather have that than exercise their rights.

So the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten, and after they had been severely flogged,

which means they're in need of medical care, they were thrown into prison.

And everybody knows how clean the prisons were at that time.

And the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.

Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell, fastened their feet in the stocks.

I'm worrying about, at this point, you know, bacterial infection, things like that.

But here's what Paul and Silas did.

It says this, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

And you go, what?

These men have just been beaten, have just been flogged, they're in need of medical attention,

their wounds have not even really been cared for, and their idea,

at this point, of the thing to be doing, it's time to have a prayer service.

So they're praying and they're singing hymns to God, and while this is going on, the other prisoners

were listening to them, as well as the guard.

The guard was hearing this, too.

Now, if you would like an example of one of the hymns that they probably sung,

open up your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 through 11.

Let me find the page for some of you.

Philippians chapter 2, 6 through 11.

You can find this on page 831.

And you'll notice in your pew Bible, it's formatted as if it's a poem.

And there's a reason for this, is because when you read it in Greek, you can see what's going on.

These are lyrics.

This is a hymn, one of the ancient hymns of the first Christians.

And I like to think that since Paul puts this hymn in his epistle to the Philippians, that this

may have been one of the hymns that they were singing in jail.

Let me read the lyrics, talking about Jesus.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to

be grasped, but made himself nothing.

Taking the very nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he

humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that the name of

Jesus every knee should bow in heaven on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus

Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

That's a pretty beefy hymn.

The iambic pentameter doesn't quite come across in the English translation, let's just put it that way.

But that's probably one of the hymns that the prisoners heard that night,

as Paul and Silas were praising God, and proclaiming Christ, and praying.

And while this was going on, the text says this,.

And we all know how that story ends, right?

Prison break, the guys in the orange jumpsuits come pouring out, and heading this way and that,

while they call up the marshals, and get the dogs, and the helicopters out to look for them, right?

That's how that's supposed to go.

But that's not what happened this day.

The prison doors were open, and the unthinkable happened.

Not one prisoner left.

And you ask yourself, what is going on here?

The jailer woke up, and when he saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword, and

was about to kill himself, because he thought the prisoners had escaped.

He was just gonna save the authorities time, because had any of those prisoners escaped, they would have

killed him.

That is the price to pay for letting prisoners escape.

But Paul shouted, don't harm yourself.

We're all here.

So the jailer called for lights, and he rushed in, and he fell trembling

before Paul and Silas.

Notice the parallel.

This guy comes and falls on his knees before Paul and Silas.

Remember the rich young ruler, he fell before Jesus, right?

But unlike the rich young ruler, this jailer doesn't think that

he's a good person.

He doesn't.

He knows he's heard about Jesus, and his death on the cross,

and he knows that he's a sinner in need of a Savior, through the preaching, through the prayers, through the hymns

that he's just heard.

He says, then he brought them out, and he asked, sirs, what must I do to be

saved?

He's not expecting to do something in order to inherit eternal life.

He knows he needs to be saved.

Similar question, yet very different.

Pointing at kind of the same thing, really the same thing totally, but from two different approaches.

One, a man who thinks he's righteous, and the other, a man who knows that he's not.

What must I do to be saved?

And they replied, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.

You and your whole household, that includes the babies.

So then they spoke the word of the Lord to him, and to all the others in his house, and at that hour of the night, the jailer

took them and washed their wounds, and then immediately he and his family, they were

baptized.

The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them, and he was filled with joy because he had come to believe

in God, he and his whole family.

How are we saved?

By trying hard, doing good works, getting our little

good works star chart out, and tracking our progress, counting up the

merits, holding up our scorecard to God and say, see, I've done it?

No.

The purpose of the law is not for you to save yourself.

Romans chapter 3 says this, we know that whatever the law says, this is verse 19, it says to those who are

under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

And that's what Jesus did with the law that day with the rich young ruler.

He used the law to silence that man so that he can be held accountable to God.

And then Romans says this, therefore no one, not one person, will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing

the law.

Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin.

That's the purpose of the law.

So if you're trying to rack up the brownie points and say, oh, I've kept all these commandments,

God, from the time I was little, we say, oofta, no way.

No, you haven't.

That's not why the law was given.

The law was given to show that you're a sinner in need of a Savior, me as well as you.

But then Romans goes on to say this, now righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets

testify.

This is the righteousness from God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

What must I do to be saved?

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

There's no difference.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through

the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.

He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand

unpunished.

He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those

who have faith in Jesus.

So where then is boasting?

If you're not saved by your works but you're saved totally by grace as a gift

because Christ died for the ungodly, there's absolutely no room for boasting.

What are you gonna boast in?

Yeah, I'm a sinner in need of a Savior.

I can boast in that, I guess.

Boast in the fact that Christ has saved somebody even as wretched as me.

There's no room for boasting.

It's excluded.

On what principle?

On that of observing the law?

No, but on that of faith.

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

So I go back to one of the questions, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And I pointed out the fact that eternal life is an inheritance.

It truly is.

And Jesus has willed in his last will and testament that we inherit the

kingdom.

And what's necessary for us to inherit the kingdom is for one to die.

And that one has died.

It's Jesus.

And it's through his death and through his will, last will and testament,

that he has chosen to give to us, to you, to me, the

inheritance of eternal life.

He's willed it to us and he's gone to the cross and bled and died so that we might possess it and own it.

And my job, part of my job, Sunday after Sunday, is to read out

the will and let you know that you are one of those whom Jesus

has chosen to receive this inheritance.

Not by any work that you've done.

He's only giving this inheritance to sinful, wicked, and unholy people.

Those who need a Savior like me and like you.

So rather than leave today sad because you have great wealth or sad

because you found out that you're a sinner, leave today with great joy like the Philippian

jailer.

With a great joy of knowing that God has opened your heart, has washed away your sins,

has forgiven you by the shed blood of Christ.

Let your wounds be healed today and trust and believe that as I'm reading

out this will, that you truly have received a glorious

inheritance by the one who bled and died for you.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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