7. Michael Shultz | Calvinism and the Love of God | Open Air Theology Conference 2024

Amen, it's an honor and a privilege to have been invited back again

I thank you haps and Jeff and Braden for allowing me to somebody like me to preach with guys like you

It's a blessing if you'd like I invite you to open your Bibles today To the gospel of Mark the

New Testament gospel of Mark, and I will be speaking today from Mark chapter 10 verses 17 through 27 mark 10 17

Through 27. I imagine this passage is going to be a familiar one to you.

Although maybe not the most familiar There's certainly a detail in this that you might have passed over before and not taken much recognition of I'm going to make great emphasis of it today

Because I truly believe that it's important. There's no greater authority than the scripture And so my intention is to present a scripture that I wholeheartedly believe corrects an error

That many Christians both on the conservative and liberal wings of our spectrum have missed

When it comes to their understanding and their teaching about the love of God The cliff that American Christians have long fallen off of when discussing the love of God is we have for many years taught that God loves everyone the exact same way and That way is by not asking them to change whatsoever

That's how God loves everyone is the way that most American Christians have been taught about the love of God for many years

Now most of us in this room would immediately say that's an error but in correcting that error

I believe we have swung to the opposite end of the spectrum the opposite end of the pendulum and many of us have unfortunately fallen into an error of our own that has yet to be acknowledged and Seeking to correct the error that the

American Church has long fallen into we have in many ways become like the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2 That church if you're not familiar with it was fervent for upholding proper doctrine

Christ acknowledged. They had good doctrine They were adamant for calling out false teachers

Christ commended them for refusing to have false teachers They engaged their culture for the cause of Christ But they neglected love in many ways

We embody the church at Ephesus because we have become so obsessed with correcting the error of reckless

Love that we have entirely neglected love It's not just that we don't believe that God recklessly loves sinners

Many of us either believe or teach that God doesn't love sinners at all Although we have doctrinal fidelity and faithful endurance through cultural debasement and proper apologetics

We neglect love and Jesus Christ says of a church like that. I would rather you close.

I Doctrinal fidelity than to do so whilst lacking love It's not enough all of our confessions in our street evangelism in our apologetics and our ministries and our seminaries if we operate them without love

That's not enough. Jesus Christ would rather have it close So as we read and preach this passage

I want to do something that I don't normally do which is I'm going to take it a little bit out of order This will be certainly an expository message

But I'm going to focus first of all on verses 17 through 20 and ask a question, which is who is this man?

We're going to be reading about today. Who is he? What kind of person would we consider him to be if we met him? And then

I'm going to skip to verses 23 through 27 and ask the question. Who are we? how are we different from him and Then we'll return to the middle in verses 21 and 2.

I'm going to ask the question. Who is God? Who's the man who are we who is

God and As we answer those questions, I want you to have two things in mind two questions of your own

Number one, how does God love? Number two does God love everyone

How does God love and does God love everyone? So hopefully you've had time to find your place in Mark 10

We're going to read verses 17 through 27 and if you're able I would want to ask you to stand and honor and reverence for the reading of the

Word of God as We read Mark chapter 10 verses 17 through 27 the

Word of God says and As he was setting out on his journey a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him

Good teacher. What must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus said to him. Why do you call me good?

No one is good except God alone You know the commandments do not murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not bear false witness

Do not defraud honor your father and mother and he said to him teacher all these I've kept from my youth and Jesus looking at him loved him and Said to him you lack one thing

Go sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me disheartened by the saying he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions and Jesus looked around and said to his disciples how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God and The disciples were amazed at his words

But Jesus said to them again children How difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God?

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God and They were exceedingly astonished and said to him then who can be saved and Jesus looked at them and said with man it is impossible

But not with God For all things are possible with God You can be seated as we pray our

God in heaven you are high and lifted up and you are so very good and you are holy and The chasm that we have opened up between ourselves and you is so deep and wide that no one could possibly span it

But we know that you and your great love and by your great strength have spanned the chasm

You sent your son to be the Savior of the world and We can never lift our chins in pride because you did it purely out of your goodwill

We earned nothing and your love has provided everything So we pray today that you would reveal the depth of your love which reached into the dregs for us in Jesus name

Amen to provide a bit of context as to where we are at this point in Christ's ministry.

He's well near the end of his life In fact, he is traveling south. He has left

Capernaum in the north He has come into an area called Perea on the eastern side of the Jordan River traveling south to Jerusalem for the last time

He will soon come into the city of Jericho where he will heal a blind a blind man named Bartimaeus in Route to what we now call the triumphal entry

We must imagine that Jesus has a lot on his mind. I Of God that Christ bore on the cross for us and We are often prone to make much of the wrath of God that he endured and make little of the physical excruciation that he endured

But it wasn't nothing The physical pain that he endured wasn't nothing Being whipped and lashed and flogged and spat on and having his beard and hair ripped out and wearing a crown of thorns

It wasn't nothing Being nailed to a cross to hang midair for several hours while being ridiculed wasn't nothing

We know that the greater torment came from Christ enduring the undiluted wrath of God on our behalf

But the physical torment wasn't nothing He was just as much a man as he was God How could it not be on his mind as?

He walked to Jerusalem for the last time He must have pondered not only the physical and the spiritual excruciation that he would soon endure

But as he's walking along and here's Judas humming a happy little song right beside him and he knows good and well

It's you that will betray me He walks along and certainly

Peters first in line and he knows it's Peter who will deny him three times

He walks along and all the rest of his merry little band of disciples are just Chipper as they walk to the

Passover in Jerusalem, and he knows all of you will abandon me in my most solemn and needful hour

What must have been on our Savior's mind as he walked to Jerusalem for the last time? Not only this going on inwardly

But we must recognize that we have just concluded in chapter 10 a rather lengthy discussion of divorce which we all know are always just so fun and Then in verses 13 through 16, he has to reprimand his disciples for not yet understanding how to even handle children they've been with him for three years and they don't know how to handle kids a thousand days

These who will in Ephesians 2 20 be called the foundation upon which the church is built.

Don't know how to handle kids a Thousand days of listening to him preach a thousand days of waking up and hearing the morning prayers a

Thousand days of watching him keep the law and perform miracles a thousand days of hearing him preach and then being called aside to get a private commentary where he explained everything to them a thousand days of evening prayers a

Thousand days and you don't get it Where have you been? What have you been doing?

I'd be indignant too. That's what it says in verse 14. He was indignant with them What is going on in our

Savior's head in this moment and it is in that moment this aggravated certainly angry moment that our burdened

Savior in verse 17 throws his His bag over his shoulder and latches his sandals and sets out to leave and a man ran up and knelt before him

Now mark doesn't tell us much about this man. Other than what we gather in verse 22 that he was rich He had great possessions, but this story appears in each of the synoptic

Gospels Matthew Mark and Luke It's a very important story We gather more about this man from Matthew and Luke's retelling of the story

Matthew tells us in Matthew 19 20 that he was a young Man, he uses a Greek word that generally denotes somebody under the age of 40.

He's hardly what we would call middle -aged He's probably not as old as Jesus Luke tells us that he was a ruler using a

Greek word that always asserted some level of authority whether religious or governmental I believe the man was a religious leader based on the fact that he thinks that he's kept the law

So I'm going to operate under that presumption that he's a religious ruler something like gyrus if you've read Mark 5 a ruler of the synagogue

But in either case he's a man who's advanced in position well beyond his years Whether a government or a religious official he's quite young to be in the position that he's in and beyond being in the position

He's quite successful at it because he's wealthy The man has everything that a person could want

He has money and prestige and youth and usually you only get two of those at a time

You can get money and prestige, but it's gonna take you your whole life to earn it or you can get money and youth But you're gonna have to rob people to get it.

It's not gonna be prestigious. He's got everything though He has money and prestige and youth and beyond that he seems to have a degree of religious humility

He runs up. He kneels at the foot of Jesus He calls Jesus good teacher a term that was reserved for the most revered and respected rabbis of his age

He asked Jesus a good question. It's not a dumb question Jesus has been asked really dumb questions, okay?

You remember this one the Sadducees come up, and you can see these dunces. Just okay. We got him now. Yeah, okay?

Hey, Jesus. We got you one alright. You ready for this stumper So there's a woman right and she marries this guy then he dies then she marries his younger brother

Then he dies then she marries his younger brother Then he dies then she marries his younger brother

Then he dies then she marries his younger brother, and you know Jesus sitting there like man I know there's a question here somewhere there has to be a question

Somewhere in the she marries his younger brother, and then he dies and then she dies so here's the question

Whose husband will she be at the resurrection and the disciples must have gone. Are you kidding me with this?

That's the quick. He's God And you're asking that This is the kind of thing that he spent his three years in ministry doing

But this guy asks a pretty good question in fact I would stand ten toes down and say this is the best question anybody ever asked

Jesus What's the question? The question is relayed in Mark 10 as well as Luke 18 is what must

I do to inherit eternal life? Now if you're somebody who writes in or highlights in your

Bible This would be a good place to put some emphasis the words what must I do? Because this man isn't asking how do

I get to heaven that's a different question It's not asking that he's asking a different question in Matthew 1916

Matthew reports it as he had said what good deed must I do to inherit eternal life

This young this young man flat -out believes in works -based salvation There's no getting around it

He flat -out believes he can earn his way to heaven there must be some thing I can do to earn

God's favor and enough of it to get me into heaven And what that means is that this man has just identified himself as what we today would call a heretic

He preaches a false gospel He's a false teacher and Jesus responds in a way that does provide us with a perfect template for how to discuss the doctrine of total depravity

Verse 18 why do you call me good? No one's good except God alone Now it's not entirely clear what precisely

Jesus is offended by some people say that he's trying to teach this man about his own divinity Some sort of a modus ponens type rationality if if you say that I'm good

But we know the only people who are good are God and therefore I am God that that might be what he's getting at Other commentators believe that he's reprimanding this man for using a title like good to describe somebody

He's never met before because that title refers to someone who's very admirable very respectable

You can't just apply that to anybody. It's even used to describe God in the Old Testament So you're either gonna lift man way too high or you're gonna bring

God way too low You can't just go around flippantly using that language either way It's perfectly reasonable

But before we move on I want to emphasize here that Jesus in either case taught that no person on earth was a good person

Nobody He says no less. No one is good except God alone He levels the entire human race as being in one category not good people without exception he universally categorizes everyone is not good and this is something that we need to remember because here in a few minutes the disciples are gonna have a panic attack and it's

Largely because they understood what that meant And what it's gonna mean as we move forward

The verse 19 Jesus tells the guy what he would need to do in order to get to heaven on the basis of his own works You know the commandments

Now something that Mark doesn't tell us that Matthew does Matthew 19 17 and 18 Jesus says to enter life keep the commandments and the man interrupts

Jesus and he says which ones Which specific ones as if he's formulating a grocery list that he's gonna go down and check the boxes.

I've done that I've done that I'm the that I'm sure now I'm going to heaven on the basis of my own goodness and works

We must admit it's kind of odd Jesus is even engaging in this conversation for for one You walk up to Jesus.

Hey Jesus, how do I get to heaven on the basis of my own goodness and works? And he actually answers the question That's not how we would respond to that question

We wouldn't say we'll do this this and this No, we would say you can't but with that in mind

It's perfectly normal that Jesus is answering the question because of how he answers that his answer is this perfectly keep the law

That's how you get to heaven on the basis of your own works Perfectly keep the law The only way you can enter into the kingdom of God by your own works is by standing

Perfectly justified before God having entirely kept his commandments and the only person to ever do that is

Jesus Christ Now we know that we're granted admission through him as by faith

We receive his imputed righteousness by which we stand justified before God as if we ourselves live the perfect life that he lived

But this man He doesn't think that's the case In fact, he actually thinks he's got a pretty good shot

This man is so proud so self -righteous. He really thinks he's got a good chance at it. I Might just be able to do this

I can earn my own salvation So Jesus gives them the list Do not murder do not commit adultery.

Do not steal do not bear false witness. Do not defraud honor your father and mother and All of us just like everyone standing around in that day, of course

Understand Jesus has just taken the man to the Decalogue the Ten Commandments But what we probably didn't notice and what they definitely don't notice here is that Jesus has done something very cool.

Very odd That shows his anthropological understanding that he knows how people work First of all, he named them out of order

You might not have noticed that he starts with number five. He finishes with number six Kind of odd Why did he do that?

Then you read the list again, and you'll notice. Hey, wait a second as a kid. I watched Sesame Street You guys remember one of these things just doesn't belong here

One of those isn't in the Ten Commandments You didn't notice it and neither today

Let's go through the list. Do not murder do not commit adultery. Do not steal. These are in the Decalogue Do not bear false witness that's there

Honor your father and mother that's there What's he done Do not defraud

That's not in the Decalogue Jesus and I guarantee you it wasn't an accident. It didn't slip his mind

He put that there on purpose I'm trying to figure this out Why did he put that one there and why did he say them out of order and I start thinking about this and best thing

I can come up with is that Jesus understood that when you say things out of order you can slip something in and people might not notice

If I asked you for example to give me all of the letters in the English alphabet following the letter P in your head

Where'd you start L? You started with L Because it doesn't work with the rhythm

We can't go PQRS it doesn't work that way we go element of PQRS we can't go there

It's not the way we learned it So you want to slip something in on somebody and them not notice?

Mix up the order and before they realize what's happened. You're way down the road He goes six seven eight nine five and then he slips one in that doesn't belong so the question then becomes well

Why did he do that? Why did he want people off his trail? Why did he put one in that doesn't belong there?

And I remember the story of the woman at the well John 4 Jesus comes to the well give me something to drink you don't even have a cup.

Why are you talking to me anyway? I'm a Samaritan. You're a Jew. They are soon enough. They're talking about mountains Is it Gerasim or Sinai and Jesus is talking to her and she says oh, you know give me this water

And what does he say? go get your husband and She says well actually

I'm not married And he goes true

You are not married You have been married five times and you are living with a man that you're not married to right now

But no lie You're not married Why did he do that?

Jesus made a habit of Subtly pointing out the very sin that a person was committing in such a way

That it left room for them not to be publicly humiliated and embarrassed He wanted them to be convicted without shaming them in the presence of others

To put it in modern vernacular Jesus wasn't a jerk He has every reason to be

He's not a pushover he's direct when people are rude with him, but Even though this guy is a pompous self -righteous wretch and Jesus is already in a plenty bad mood

He's not a jerk Some of us should be taking notes He's not a jerk

I don't care what your favorite youtuber told you Jesus is not a jerk The reason

Jesus put this command on the list I believe is because that man Was using his position as a ruler to extort from people and defraud them to make himself wealthier and more powerful

I believe that I think that's why he put that there I think he mixed them up so that other people wouldn't notice that he was pointing directly to the sin that this man committed and Telling him you want to get to heaven on the basis of your own works

Keep all the commandments including this one that you and I both know you don't keep And he would say the same thing to you and I You know what you're doing

You want to get to heaven on the basis of your own works just do everything right including the thing that you're doing wrong How does the man respond to Jesus's loving subtlety well teacher all these

I've kept from my youth No conviction No conviction at all.

It's as if he says to Jesus. Well. Yeah, of course be perfect in every way I've been doing that since I was a kid Completely a joke

The undiluted shameless pride on this guy He looks God in the flesh right in the eyes and stands ten toes down and says

I'm perfect Despite Jesus pointing directly at the sin he commits no problem with any of that What an awful person

You imagine if this guy came to your church Hi, I'm perfect.

I Don't lie or steal or commit adultery or murder or wrong other people. I perfectly honor my father and mother

Ray Comfort couldn't help this guy He'd be halfway down the way of the master.

You know say or buy or not I can't do that. I can't do the impression by your own admission You're a lying thieving murdering and then he'd go wait a second.

Did you say no? Did you say you don't do any of those things you really think you're perfect If it came in our church, we'd be on Twitter or Facebook in a heartbeat

There's some wackadoo came in here today telling us. He's perfect When John MacArthur preached this passage, he labeled this guy the blasphemous rich young ruler

He's terrible. This guy's awful his doctrines all wrong He's a false teacher and a heretic, but that kind of pales in comparison to the fact that he thinks he's perfect He's awful.

This guy's a monster That's who he is Now I want you to look with me at verses 23 through 27, that's that's who the man is let's look at who we are

Because with this unthinkably horrible person described it says in Luke 18 24 Jesus noticed how the guy reacted to what he just said and he starts describing this guy to the disciples

But what we should notice is that he doesn't treat this guy as if he's unique That guy's not he's not abnormal

Now he starts out in verse 24, excuse me verse 23 by saying yeah How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God?

He's more or less saying anybody like that guy's gonna have a hard time and the disciples in verse 24

They're amazed that he's just said that and so it's almost like he's surprised that they're surprised

You think it's? You can't believe that guy can't get in so he doubles down Verse 25 no, excuse me 24.

I should learn my passage before I stand up to preach verse 24 children How difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God?

It's not just for the wealthy guys. It's difficult. Anyway Not just for guys like that, but for anybody

It's difficult The disciples are struggling to realize something that I believe many of us have failed to realize

Which is that that guy represents us? And he doesn't just represent us

That guy represents everything good about us He represents the very best of us

He has reached the pinnacle of human accomplishment. He's financially successful.

He has many possessions. He's culturally successful He's in a position of prestige and leadership. He's temporally successful.

He's accomplished all this in a very short life Here he seems to have some degree of ethical and religious and moral success

He's convinced at least most people that he keeps the commandment certainly he's convinced himself He's done everything right and here he is running to Jesus kneeling at his feet desiring to go to heaven

This guy is the synergist dream of his own free will

Despite all the world's trinkets and doles This guy has come to the point where he understands that he has a

God -sized hole in his heart That he simply cannot fill on his own and so he runs to Jesus of his own free will and asked

How do I get to heaven? He's done everything a human can do.

This is the closest any person has ever come to being saved without God drawing them

This is it and At the end of the story He walks away lost

That's as close as we've ever gotten Because no man can come to me unless my father draws him

This is the best we've got and The disciples have realized that and in verse 26.

It says they're exceedingly Astonished the Greek term actually might be translated panicked

They don't know what to do now because this is a terrifying realization.

This guy has done everything right by human standards He's got money prestige time ethics morals religiousness.

He's come to Jesus. He wants to go to heaven if That guy can't make it if he can't make it

Jesus. You're saying it's hard for anybody like him If he can't make it

Good grief, who? He's clearly better than some Galilean fisherman.

He's clearly better than poor Michael Schultz sitting down working at Home Depot. This guy is everything He's the best of us

If he can't make it who can possibly be saved if not him

Then who and Jesus answers that question in verse 27 who can possibly be saved

Jesus's response With man, it's impossible

Do you see how he's built into this First it was difficult For the rich then it was difficult for everybody then it was so difficult

It's like a camel going through the eye of a needle now. He just flat -out says it it's impossible It's not just hard.

It's not just difficult. It's not just that it won't happen. How possible is it? It's not

It's not possible at all that anybody would be saved by the basis of their own goodness and works it's impossible

It is impossible but not with God For all things are possible with God That when

God intervenes then and only then can and will anyone be saved It's impossible with man if there's anything we have to put in if there's any work that we have to contribute if there's anything in Us that's required

It's impossible It's absolutely impossible not a little bit possible not highly unlikely impossible

Can't happen but with God all things are possible And I need you to see this and understand this because this man this rich young ruler this nameless faceless man was you

He was me We don't get his name, but his name might as well have been Michael Schultz. He's us

He knows there's something more to this life than silver and gold He's trying it seems to be an ethical and decent guy in his culture and age

He recognizes the value of the teachings of Jesus. He's got a bit of a pride problem Yes, he lacks the ability to see his own insufficiencies and failures by a biblical standard.

Yeah, he's an awful person But so we're all of us This man represents every single one of us in our lost and unregenerate state.

Who are we? We're him With all of our work and all of our will

With all of our efforts and our money with all of our success with all of our intellectual comprehension It just leaves us walking away from Jesus damn to hell

That's where it leaves us. It's not enough The poet writes though I could live for all to lift them higher or spend the century seeking light within though I indulge my every dark desire exhausting every avenue of sin.

It's not enough It's not enough I could walk the world forever until my shoes were filled with blood it's not enough

I could write all wrongs or ravage everything beneath the Sun It's not enough though all the world could bow to me and I could drink my fill of fear and love

It's not enough. It won't wake my soul. It won't make me whole. It's not enough. It never was

We cannot do it Jesus knows this Jesus taught this the man's lost

He's trying to get to God on the basis of his own goodness and works. He's a horrible man. Just like us now in all of this

We're very good at talking about how unrighteous we are We're very good at talking about how unholy we are and especially when we talk about the lost and unregenerate

We're very good at talking about the evil of man As brother Claude said it's up up up with God and down down down with man

But the unfortunate part is I believe we forgot that first half most of us simply have a doctrine that says down down down with man and We have forgotten

The highness of our God because how does Jesus Christ look at a man like that?

What does Jesus feel for a man like that? What does he express to a man like that?

Verse 21 right in the midst by the way of this man's gross self -righteousness he has just looked

God in the flesh right in the eyes and said I am Perfect and the only perfect man to ever live is standing in front of him and he looks the man right in the eyes

And loves him we would expect

Jesus to be enraged. He has every reason to He's disappointed in his disciples He's dealing with the undeniable stress of preparing to be tortured and murdered while enduring the undiluted wrath of God in just a few days

He has every reason and justification and motivation to go off on this man and hate him

But in verse 21 Jesus looking at him Loved him. This is a disaster

For most people in the Calvinist camps understanding of how God loves and who he loves

This is a disaster That's not how we expected the story to go

If a Calvinist had written the book of Mark We wouldn't have put that in But God wanted it in We would expect him to respond to this hypocrite and heretic and false teacher the way he responds to some in Mark 3 5

Mark is keen to point out how Jesus responds to people. He says there he looked around at them with anger grieved at their hardness of heart

But he didn't do that it says Jesus looking at him loved him The Greek term is in blepsaus.

It's a Meaningful look a fixed gaze a moment of direct eye Contact the man looks at Jesus right in the eyes and says

I'm perfect and Jesus looks him right in the eyes and loves him Does this man fit into your concept of who and how

God loves I'll tell you what one of my teachers used to tell me

Sonny. You better get this, right? You better get this, right Jesus loved him.

It doesn't say he felt pity for him. It doesn't say anger. It doesn't say grief It doesn't say compassion the

Greek word that's used is agapasin You don't have to be a Greek scholar to know the root of agapasin agape It means nothing less than love the word that's used is it describes how

Jesus felt about this lost sinful unregenerate likely Unelect man, and it's the exact same

Greek word That's used in John 3 16 to describe how God loved the world It's the exact same word that's used in John 13 1 to describe how

Jesus loved his disciples It's the exact same word that's used in John 15 9 to describe how the father loves the son

It's the exact same word that's used in Ephesians 5 25 to describe how Christ loved the church and before you burn me

I recognize that there are different kinds of love in God But what I'm pointing to is the fact that you cannot get around this.

There's no other meaning to the word. He loved him He loved him does this man fit into who you believe

God loves God loved this sinful lost unelect man

Wasn't a fake love Romans 12 9 tells us to let love be genuine. Jesus certainly never loved hypocritically

He loved him For anyone who would want to deny that God loves sinners or the unsaved or the unelect it doesn't doesn't get any worse because as The man walks away in verse 22

It says he was disheartened or sorrowful the word that's rendered disheartened comes from a root word. That means hateful. It wasn't just sad

He was offended How dare Jesus say that to me? If anything he's hardened he walks away angry and disappointed in Jesus And we have no scriptural indication nor traditional record that would lead us to believe that this man ever came to faith

He walks away for the last time Lost and damned to hell.

So then do you understand the gravity of verse 21? Jesus loved him.

He was a thief and Jesus loved him He was a liar and Jesus loved him

He was a false teacher and Jesus loved him. He had bad even heretical doctrine and Jesus loved him

He rejected Jesus and Jesus loved him He was unsaved and Jesus loved him we have every reason to believe he was not even elect and Jesus loved him.

How does God love? Jesus loved this man by telling him to give up what he most loved

That element of his identity which meant the most to him what he had worked his entire life to attain

What he had worked the hardest to accomplish that which made him feel the most satisfied and safe and comfortable

Jesus loved him by calling him to give it all up Jesus loved him by calling him to change who he was

So when you hear me say that Jesus loves sinners I'm in absolutely no way saying that sinners are then entitled to maintain or defend what they do and who they are

That's not how God loves Jesus loved this man and in loving him

He told him the truth and he called him to repent and leave the most important thing in the world to him

Michael Ramsden is quoted as saying this love does not exist in the absence of judgment true love exists only when someone has passed a correct moral judgment about you and who you are when they are under no illusions about What you're like and they still love you

That's true. Love and Jesus loved this man.

He was under no presuppositions. No illusions about what this man was like and he loved him God loves sinners and he calls them to repent

But don't forget that first part He loves them Which leads us to that second part who does

God love Well, how does God love God loves by telling people the truth and calling them to repent?

So therefore who does God love? everyone Hear it from a

Calvinist God loves everyone Thank you, whoever you are bold enough to say amen

The one man in this room to stand alongside Michael Schultz will have our crosses outside together, brother

They may burn us yet, but we will stand together Who does God love?

He loves everyone I'm endlessly amazed that we are so hesitant to say that out loud

Did an interview with dr. Foskey here recently hates when I call him that but I call him that anyway He made the comment which is popular right now that the disciples the

Apostles didn't go out telling people that God loved them That wasn't their evangelistic method. That might be true But I made the response they also didn't go out telling everybody that God hated them

That wasn't their evangelistic method either Folks, the gospel is offensive enough.

It doesn't need your help. You don't have to be a jerk. I know it's popular right now

I know you can get a lot of clicks. I know your YouTube channel could grow. I know your podcast would shoot through the stars

You don't have to be a jerk You really don't have to it should concern us that we are very comfortable preaching that God hates sinners, which is true and And yet we are very uncomfortable preaching that God loves sinners, which is also true

It should concern us That that's not being said it strikes me that Mark's gospel was written very early after Christ's death probably within 30 years or so and this man being a rich young ruler was likely alive when

Mark's gospel began to circulate and the Situation immediately preceding what just happened to him was where Jesus took a group of children in his arms and blessed them 30 years later most all of those children were probably alive and as the gospel of Mark began to circulate if it ever came into their hands and They're there

They must have remembered that moment when Jesus took him and took them in his arms and blessed them and as they keep reading they

Read about this rich young ruler and they must have got to what we now call verse 21 that Jesus loved him

And if there was a heart in their chest and they knew where this man was they would have run to him with the scroll

Did you know Jesus loved you? The Apostles were not afraid of the idea that an unsaved unregenerate man would hear that Jesus loved him

The Apostles were not afraid of boldly proclaiming to the lost that Jesus loved them Ladies and gentlemen, there are multitudes in this world sitting in darkness

And yes, they're pouring their love on that darkness just like the rich young ruler did and just like you and I did

But it is spiritual malpractice for which we should be defrocked If we sit in the ivory towers of salvation and refuse to tell those sitting in darkness of the love that freed us from the

Darkness, they now sit in Why did Jesus love the rich young ruler?

Wasn't because he was good. It wasn't because he was saved It wasn't because he was elect Jesus loved this man not because of who he was but because of who

Jesus was And God loves sinners not because of who the sinners are but because of who

God is. I Believe we are afraid to proclaim God's love for sinners because we're afraid that we will lift sinners up far too high

We'll make them think too highly of themselves But what we show is that we are not at all afraid of bringing

God down far too low And making them misunderstand how high our

God is Fear not that others will misunderstand and misconstrue what you say

Fear rather that God will condemn you for failing to rightly proclaim who he is and what he does

Our poets and hymn writers never feared proclaiming God as being too loving They wrote songs like this fear not that I need shall exceed his provisions our

God ever yearns his resources to share Lean hard on the arm everlasting availing the father both thee and thy love will up bear his love has no

Limits his grace has no measure his power No boundary known unto men for out of his infinite riches in Jesus.

He giveth and giveth and giveth again We sang this at my church last week see from his head his hands his feet sorrow and love

Flow mingled down did ever such love and sorrow meet or thorns composed so rich a crown

Where this whole realm of nature mine it is a present far too small love so amazing so divine

Demands my soul my life my all May we never forget nor fail to proclaim what great love the father has for us and all of those around us

Lest we forget the very source of Salvation remember therefore from where you have fallen

Repent and do the works you did at first These are the words of Jesus Christ for a church that had forgotten love