WWUTT 2062 With God All Things Are Possible (Matthew 19:16-26)

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A rich young ruler comes up to Jesus and says, what must I do to be saved? Jesus says, keep the commandments.

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The rich young ruler says, I've done that. But it turns out that he's not as good as he thinks he is when we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of Matthew 19 this week, we're looking at the exchange between Jesus and the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, verses 16 to 26.

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I'll read the account here from the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. And behold, someone came to him and said, teacher, what good thing shall

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I do that I may have eternal life? And he said to him, why are you asking me about what is good?

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There is only one who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

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Then he said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.

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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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The young man said to him, all these things I have kept, what am I still lacking? Jesus said to him, if you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.

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But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

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And Jesus said to his disciples, truly, I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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And again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

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And when the disciples heard this, they were astonished and said, then who can be saved? And looking at them,

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Jesus said to them, with people, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

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And that's really the lesson from this exchange. This is one of those accounts where the narrative builds to the point.

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And so the purpose is right there at the end of verse 26. With people, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

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No one can save themselves. No one by their abilities or good works or even social status can receive the kingdom of God.

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It is not possible for a man to achieve by his own goodness, God's kingdom.

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It is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. God is the one who saves.

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And that's ultimately the lesson here that we get to as we go back through this account. So Jesus has three exchanges with the rich young ruler.

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The rich man says something, Jesus responds. That happens three times. Then Jesus turns to his disciples and teaches them.

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So this is split into two parts, Jesus with the rich young man, and then Jesus with his disciples.

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Now, rich young ruler is not a phrase that's used here. That's the title that we give to this section.

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I believe rich young ruler is more the title that's given in Mark 10. I think the language is used there.

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This just says young man, verse 20, the young man, verse 22, when the young man heard this statement, and we know that he's wealthy because it says that he owns much property.

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So therefore, we refer to him as the rich young ruler, and we have this as Jesus exchange with this young man.

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Now, as a ruler, it probably doesn't mean that he is a governor of some kind.

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This may be a title for a Pharisee, because the Pharisees were referred to as the rulers, could be a

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Sadducee or something like that. So he was a teacher of the law, maybe part of the Sanhedrin.

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That might have been the status that this young man had, hence why he is so diligent to keep the law and proud about it.

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And not only that, but he has many possessions. This could be an argument for why he would be a Sadducee rather than a

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Pharisee. The Sadducee tended to be wealthier. This is not that Pharisees weren't, but the Sadducees were kind of of that upper echelon.

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Anyway, that's just some theories as to what his social status probably was. In verse 16, this young man comes to Jesus and says, "'Teacher, what good things shall

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I do that I may have eternal life?' So he knows the teachings of Jesus.

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He knows the miracles that Jesus has performed. And this is not framed as him challenging

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Jesus in some way. Like he genuinely wants to know, what do I have to do to gain eternal life?

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Because we see his heartbreak at the end of this exchange when he's unwilling to give up his possessions and follow

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Jesus. So this is a genuine request. I wanna know, what do

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I have to do to gain eternal life?' Now, that may be an argument against him being a Sadducee because the

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Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Or maybe he was a

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Sadducee and he was just becoming more convinced by what Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of God.

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So what do I have to do to enter that kingdom? I've heard your teaching on it, I'm convinced.

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So now what do I have to do to gain eternal life? And Jesus says to him, why are you asking me about what is good?

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There is only one who is good. But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

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Now in Mark 10, that answer is a little bit different because Jesus says to the rich young ruler there, why do you call me good?

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The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and addresses him as good teacher. And Jesus challenges him by responding, why do you call me good?

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No one is good, but God alone. The response is the same, the wording is just slightly different.

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But that verse in Mark 10 has often been thrown at me to say that Jesus did not claim to be

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God. You can't quite get that claim out of Matthew 19, 17.

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So usually it's the Mark 10 passage that somebody will use. See, Jesus is saying here that he's not

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God. That's the way that verse will get twisted when it's thrown at me in that way. But that's not at all what

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Jesus is saying. He's challenging this young man's heart because the young man does not actually think of Jesus as being the son of God.

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So why are you calling me good or why are you asking me about what is good if you are not willing to recognize that I am

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God is really the challenge that he's giving to the young man. Doesn't explicitly say it in that way, but already exposing that his intentions are self -centered and he's not ready to give up what he has to worship

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God. There is something in his heart that he is still exalting above the place of God.

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So Jesus says to him to keep the commandments. You should know what is good.

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What is God said is good. He has said to keep the commandments. So that's what Jesus points him back to.

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The young man says, which ones, which commandments? And Jesus said, you shall not murder.

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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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Now, all of these references to the 10 commandments, obviously. And that last one, you shall love your neighbor as yourself is the summation of all of these.

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Because if you love your neighbor as yourself, then you're keeping all of these commandments. That's the second table of the law.

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And that's what Jesus goes through here. He goes through the second table of the law. He doesn't say, love the

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Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, because that's what the young man is not doing. And that's the commandment that Jesus is reserving, which he's gonna challenge him with once the young man says, yeah,

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I've been doing all of that. So the young man's claim is that he's fulfilling the second table of the law.

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He is doing everything on that next half. I've been loving my neighbor. I've been great with my parents.

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I take good care of my parents. I've never slept with somebody who's not my wife. I've never murdered anybody.

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I haven't stolen from anyone. I've not lied about anybody. I've kept all these commandments. Now, surely he hasn't, but this is what

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Jesus is presenting to him first. If you wanna do what is good, if you wanna gain life, then keep these commandments.

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And the young man is able to boast in himself, his self -righteous declaration, all these

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I have kept. What am I still lacking? Now, at least he was humble enough to add that next part of the question.

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Yeah, I've done this. So what else do I need to gain life? Maybe I've learned the secret and Jesus is gonna congratulate me here and he's gonna tell me that you've made it.

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Continue on the way that you are. Well done, good and faithful servant. Great is gonna be your reward in heaven. Maybe that's

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Jesus' response to me. So still very self -assured here. But Jesus says to him, if you wish to be complete.

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So saying there's yet something this young man has not done. If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

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Now, oftentimes this response is taken to mean that we all need to give away all that we have and give to the poor and then we have treasure in heaven.

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Jesus is not calling every single person to give away all they have to the poor.

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He is calling you to follow him, but he may not be telling you that you gotta get rid of all your stuff.

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He might be. Maybe there is a conviction of the spirit on your heart that you just cling too much to your stuff and you need to let it go or it is hindering your relationship with God.

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What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he forfeits his soul? So maybe you are feeling that tug on your heart that you need to give up everything.

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I had a friend who gave up everything and hit the mission field. He felt that that was his calling, that he needed to give up everything that he had and he needed to hit the mission field and go overseas and preach the gospel.

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Well done to him. I'm glad when he felt that conviction, he responded to it and he gave up all that he had to follow

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Christ. I don't feel that same conviction. I don't feel that God is telling me that I need to get rid of all of my stuff.

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I've certainly sacrificed a lot and I think we all need to be willing to do that.

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Don't cling so close to your stuff that it is hindering your relationship with Christ.

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This man clearly loves all of his possessions. I mean, what if Jesus appeared to you and said, hey, give up all that you have and then you'll have treasure in heaven.

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Would you tell him no? I mean, this is my stuff, Jesus. I can't get rid of this stuff. Maybe you have spending habits you need to change.

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You look at your checkbook. What does your checkbook reflect? That you love God or you love your stuff? Maybe there are some things there that you need to take into consideration but this answer to this man is not a command to every single person that they need to give up all their stuff or they're not gonna get into heaven.

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That verse is often twisted to mean that but that is not the application here. Jesus is specifically challenging this man, this man's heart who loves his stuff and does not love

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God. He's been challenging his heart from the very moment that the man addressed him. Teacher, what good thing shall

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I do that I may have eternal life? Why do you ask me about what is good, Jesus says? There is only one who is good.

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So what good thing can you do if you're not doing the good that God says that you're supposed to do?

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So Jesus, still challenging this man, tells him, sell your possessions, give it to the poor.

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You will have treasure in heaven. There's your life. There's the eternal life that you're asking about. And then come and follow me.

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See, that's the other part of it. Just doing what Jesus told him to do, just obeying the commandment, just getting rid of his stuff, won't save him.

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He has to follow Jesus. Jesus is the only way to the Father. John 14, six,

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Jesus saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. So it wouldn't have been enough for this young man to get rid of his stuff.

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He also had to follow Jesus. Get rid of his idols, worship Christ.

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But when the young man heard this statement, it says in verse 22, he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

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I don't know if you remember a few years back, this might've been half a decade ago now. This could've been five years ago. But Lauren Daigle, of course, the famous Christian singer.

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She's had pop success, even in the secular market. She was on a radio interview in which the interviewer asked her, do you believe that homosexuality is a sin?

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And all of this was going on surrounding the controversy of Lauren Daigle appearing on Ellen's show,

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Ellen Degeneres, the TV talk show that she did. And Ellen, of course, is a very outspoken lesbian, pro -LGBTQ.

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So Lauren Daigle, a Christian singer, goes on Ellen's program. And there were Christians who were going, what is Lauren Daigle doing on her program?

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And so this interviewer was talking to Lauren. And of course, this was a famous exchange in which

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Lauren said she didn't know if homosexuality was a sin. That was the part of the interview that a lot of people remembered, was

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Lauren saying, I don't know if it's a sin. I did a what video on it. It's been one of my more popular what videos.

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But there was more to that interview than just that. The interviewer had said to her, you couldn't just tell

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Ellen no, that would be career suicide. This was so great for your career, and it's built up your platform and given you an opportunity to reach out to more people.

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Look at how many more lives you could be changing because you went on Ellen's show. And there was another part of the interview where Lauren said that she was married to her career.

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I mean, everything about her answers there sounded like my whole life is this.

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This is my whole life. I'm not gonna sacrifice or do anything that could potentially jeopardize it.

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And if Lauren Daigle had been that rich young ruler that was standing before Christ, could she have given up her stuff when

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Jesus said to her, sell all that you have, give it to the poor and come follow me and you'll have treasure in heaven.

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A lot of us would probably put ourselves in the shoes of the rich young ruler and think that we would be able to answer this question better than he did.

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We wouldn't be heartbroken about having to get rid of all of our stuff. We would do it with glee. I'm gonna follow

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Jesus and I'm gonna inherit eternal life. It's easy for us to say because we're not in this man's shoes.

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But how many of us are really clinging too much to our stuff? How many of us have set an idol in the place of Christ and this is the thing that we need to be happy?

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Even if you can say, I give 99 % of my life to Christ, but just 1%, I mean, I just need this small percentage.

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I need this other thing to really feel fulfilled, to feel like my life is whole or complete or make me happy.

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Then I tell you, it doesn't matter what percentage you think you're giving to Christ, that other thing that you say that you need, even in a small portion in order to be happy, that's your

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God. That's what you've exalted to the place of God because you can't be happy without that.

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So what things do we need to examine in our lives that we know that we need to get rid of?

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And we can't do it on our own because again, as the point of this exchange here is to show us by our own power, we can't make it.

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Let's continue on with what Jesus says to his disciples. He turns to his disciples in verse 23 and he says, truly

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I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Now in Mark 10, there's kind of a beat there.

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Jesus says that, but then the disciples are just kind of perplexed. And so then Jesus goes on and says, again

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I say to you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

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So though Matthew doesn't insert it like another little pause in between there, it's kind of assumed, it's implied that Jesus makes this first statement, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

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He who has put his trust, his faith and riches. The apostle Paul warned Timothy in first Timothy chapter six, teach the rich in your church not to put their trust in riches, but trust in God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.

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That's first Timothy 6, 17. So Jesus telling his disciples, it's hard for rich man to enter the kingdom of God because he's put his trust in his stuff.

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The more stuff you own, the more your stuff owns you. That's what's happened with this rich man.

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And so then Jesus goes on to say in verse 24, again, I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

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Now, this is a phrase that many have tried to interpret multiple different ways. You have like a camel, some have thought was a really large rope.

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So it's hard to put a really large rope through the eye of a needle, right? And you've probably heard the explanation for the eye of a needle as being a small door in the city gate.

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So at night when the gates are closed, if a merchant, a traveling merchant came late and he's got his camel all saddled with stuff, well, he's gotta take all the stuff off the camel and then the camel has to crawl through the door on its knees and it's painstaking.

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It would have been better if he had arrived at the city on time, but that small little door in the gate is referred to as the needle's eye.

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But really there's no historical evidence for large ropes called camels or for doors in the city gate referred to as the needle's eye.

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And even if there were such things, each one of those things you could still accomplish by your own power.

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It would be hard to get a rope through the eye of a needle, but you could do it, just shred it and get each thread through there one at a time.

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And even though it's annoying to have to take all your stuff off your camel and get him to crawl through a door, you can still accomplish it.

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Man can achieve these things by his own power. The point Jesus is making is that it's impossible for man to get into the kingdom of God by his own power.

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So he is a literally contrasting the largest living creature in Judah with the smallest opening, the eye of a needle.

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And we know that that is his literal intention because the disciples respond and say that who can be saved?

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They're astonished by what Jesus said. They're not sitting there going, you know, it sure is annoying trying to get one of those camel ropes through the eye of a needle.

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No, they know. What Jesus just said is now, he's stated an impossibility.

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If this rich young man who's kept all these commandments and even has riches, because it was believed by the

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Jews, if a person was wealthy, God has clearly blessed them. So surely a rich man who's kept all of the commandments is inheriting the kingdom of God.

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And yet Jesus is standing right here saying, this man's not getting in. And so the disciples are flabbergasted by this.

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Then who can be saved if this guy can't get in? Then who's getting in? And Jesus responds to them, verse 26, with people, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

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Again, Jesus' instruction to the rich young ruler, give up all you have and come follow me.

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It is only through Jesus Christ that we inherit the kingdom of God.

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It is not by our power. It is not by our works. It's by his power and the work he has accomplished.

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And when we trust in him that our sins are forgiven and righteousness has been given to us through faith in Jesus Christ, then we have eternal life with him in glory.

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We are fellow heirs with him of his eternal kingdom when we trust that he has done it.

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It is not by us that we're saved. It is only through Christ. I believe it was just yesterday I said, I reminded you of this saying, you have contributed nothing to your salvation, but the sin that made your salvation necessary.

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So repent of your sin, repent of your self -righteousness, repent of whatever it is that you're trusting in to get you into heaven if it's not

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Christ. Cling to Christ, seek his forgiveness, and you will have treasure in heaven.

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With people, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here. We are bombarded by so many things in this world, different philosophies, different ideas, people in this world saying, this is what you need to do in order to be good.

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Everybody has their definitions of good. Everybody has their vision for what a successful life is supposed to look like.

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Everybody's got their philosophies. You need to believe what I say that you need to believe in order to unlock the secrets of the universe, in order for people to like you, in order for you to have treasure on earth and in heaven.

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But if it's not Christ, then it's nothing. It is rubbish. It is going to perish with this world when judgment comes against this place.

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It is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we can be forgiven our sins, saved from judgment, and inherit eternal life with God in glory.

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So forgive us our sins, convict us when we sin so that we'll turn from that temptation to Christ, deliver us from evil into your eternal kingdom.

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It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word, when we understand the text.