Following Jesus Won't Save You | Theocast Clips

The man clearly feels a hole. He feels not completed, right?

Wait a minute.

What am I lacking? Like you're not granting me eternal life by your demeanor.

Exactly. He's going to say this, well, I've done all that, right? So like Jesus is clearly there's something else in your mind, because if it's simply about keeping the commandments, I've kept them.

Yeah.

If it's about keeping the law, I've done it. So what else is there?

He says, if you would be perfect. He finally gives the point of the law because you want to be justified, be perfect, and then he points out where he's not perfect and he goes, well, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and your treasures will be in heaven.

The point of it is Jesus says you're failing the law in your heart.

Exactly.

That's the problem. You're failing the law in your heart.

What he's doing right there. A lot of times, you know, this John, as soon as we hear that, sell what you possess, give to the poor, you'll have treasure in heaven, come follow me. That there is turned into something like, um, from Jesus himself, friends, uh, surrender all for Christ equals the good news.

Surrender all to Jesus and you'll be saved.

That's right.

That's the gospel people say. And we've said this before. The only problem with that message, surrender all for Christ and you'll be saved is that nobody's ever done it.

Right.

So that's a damning, it's a damning statement, not a statement of comfort and good news and hope and peace. And so what Jesus is doing here is not giving this man gospel. He's doubling down on the law with verse 21.

He's dumping the full weight of the law on this man's conscience. This dude has said, I've done this Jesus. I've kept the commandments. In other words, when you say I've kept the law, you're saying I've loved God and neighbor perfectly.

So Jesus effectively in verse 21 says, okay, prove it. Prove that you've loved God and neighbor perfectly by selling everything you have given it to the poor and following me. The man can't do it. And he goes away dejected.

That's the point.

You can't do this.

That's right.

Well, and some people say that's the good news about it. As Jesus says, come follow me. That's the gospel. And I'm like, no, that's not the gospel.

Not in this context.

No, because to come follow Jesus is something that you have to do and you can't, that's the thing about it.

Well, it's kind of like forsake all this and follow me. Forsake sin, come to Christ. And we've been clear on that in the past. If there's something we need to do in order to come to Christ, that's not good news.

Well, and you have reasons to boast.

Well, sure. But I mean, in the first place, you couldn't do it.

That's right.

In the second place, yeah, you have reason to boast, which the gospel, or excuse me, the epistles make very clear that we don't have any.

Well, the funny thing was that someone pointed this out to me the other day. Well, yeah, the disciples left all and followed Jesus until they didn't.

Until they didn't.

And I mean, in the way that it's stated with the calling of the disciples, it's so matter of fact, Jesus goes and says, hey, come do this. And they do. And it's like, it's, it's very clear that the work of God is involved in this and they come and do it.

And, and it's, and it is noteworthy that they do follow Christ, but because it's just so plainly stated, it's very obvious, even in the minds of the evangelists who record it. It's like, yeah, this is Jesus called them and they came and did it because this was all a part of the plan.

Obviously.

Anyway. Yeah.

Well, just to summarize back down into it, you know, the disciples are like, wait a minute, Jesus.

Yeah.

Like, you know, what's going on here.

If he can't be saved and they got the point and that's where, you know, you can see that it's like, they're, they're not catching that Jesus has to die. They're wanting to issue the kingdom now. I mean, the disciples themselves are wrestling through bad theology of law gospel themselves.

Yeah.

And a false, false expect, or just improper expectations of even the Messiah and the Messiah's ministry and all the rest.

Yeah.

I mean, the men are walking glory.

Yeah.

The men that are walking with the, which, you know, gives me a lot of comfort to know that men that walked with Jesus struggled to, you know, with these types of things and so, uh, all right. So those are two, I'm like having this urge to get into the next section.

So let's not really, uh, maybe last comment from me on the, on the rich young man, and then we'll move into the last passage is the point of it at the end versus 25 and six, again, the disciples wig out because they're like, um, if this upright dude, who's been blessed because of his obedience, he's wealthy, God's blessed him.

If he can't enter the kingdom of heaven, then Jesus, who can be saved? We've explained why they would even ask such a question. And then his answer is beautiful. He says with man, it's impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

Meaning with man, salvation's impossible.

Which is the point of the illustration with the camel and the needle, the needle. It's like that.

Exactly. It can't be done. And so it's, in other words, the words, the words of Christ here are the man thinks he's going to just be justified according to law keeping Jesus proves to him, you can't keep the law for righteousness and everybody's freaking out and well, how can anybody be saved?

Christ says God's.