In your Bible, if you would join me in Matthew 19. Matthew 19, we're going to begin in verse number 13 and read down to verse number 22. The Bible tells us in this Gospel of Matthew 19 verse 13, Then there were brought unto Him little children, that He should put His hands on them and pray. And the disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, Allow or suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto Me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
And He laid His hands on them and departed thence. Behold, one came and said unto Him, Good Master, what good things shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And He said unto him, Why callest thou Me good?
There is none good, but one that is God. But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. The young man saith unto him, All these have I kept from my youth up.
What lack I yet? Pretty amazing statement. Verse 21, Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, know and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow Me.
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Father, we are so blessed to be able to assemble together in the name of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ. And we ask that Your hand would be upon this service in a very powerful way, that if anyone's lost, today would be the day of salvation. And for Christians who may not be as surrendered in some area of their life, Lord, that we would have You as the Lord over all that we are and everything that we have and all that we say and do, may You reign supreme. We pray that You would take our hearts and mold them into what You desire us to be. For Your glory and our good, we ask it in Jesus' name. And God's people said, Amen.
You may be seated. Well, the text before us is an extremely intriguing text that has gripped my heart over this last week, as I have studied through this. And I pray that your heart would be the same, that your life would be impacted and affected by what we look at today. That as we came in this morning, that we would have hearts to receive the Word of God and leave with it in our hearts to be leading us through life. Now, context is essential to understanding the text of Scripture. You need to have an understanding of the historical context, what was going on when Jesus was writing these, where these texts were being written. Who was He writing to?
What was the setting? Last week we looked at a subject of divorce in verse 1-12, and we talked about the rabbinical schools of Shammai and Hillel that were reigning in that day, and it was important to understand that they had two very opposite views. Shammai was a very conservative, biblical viewpoint on marriage and divorce, where Hillel had molded into a view that you could divorce your spouse for any reason, and that was the dominant view of the day. And so when you understand that historical context, it's better to help you understand why the text says what it does. Then also to understand the grammatical text. What is the grammar of the text? Why was that word used, and where else is it used?
And we do that every week. We'll break down different Greek words, and the reason we do that is not to try to somehow sound smart, but to show you that this word applies to this, and this is the etymology of that word. And also you need to understand the textual setting of the context. Why is that passage where it is in chapter 19, and why is this written here?
There's a text that comes before it and a text that comes after it, and so context is a big deal. Sometimes our media doesn't understand that, but we need to understand that when we read our Bibles. So leading up to this passage, Jesus had been teaching on forgiveness in chapter 18, the last portion of chapter 18, the last half of chapter 18. And then after he goes through forgiveness, chapter 19 verse 1 through 12 goes into the subject of divorce. What happens when a husband and wife come together and they are unwilling to forgive each other? It's probably going to roll into a divorce, isn't it?
And that is a very destructive thing, and Jesus, we looked at what he said about that last week. And then also forgiveness is necessary if you've come through divorces to learn to forgive. But then the very next thing that he deals with is the subject of children. Little children are brought to him. And are kids impacted by divorce?
Are they affected by a broken home? Very likely many of the kids that were brought to Jesus came from divorced families because divorce was so rampant in the culture in that day. How important it is for us to fight for our marriages and protect our marriages because of the effects it has on kids. Now I truly believe the two greatest ways I can love my kids is to first and primarily love God with all of my heart. I can't give my children anything better than a father that loves Jesus most. The second thing that I need to give my children that's the best thing I can give them is a father who loves their mother, that I would love my wife.
And when they see that, that brings a lot of security. Sometimes people say, well, my kids are first place in my life and I love them most. And I would say that's bad. You don't want your kids to be number one. God needs to be number one. To make your kid an idol in your heart, idolatry will not bless them, it will curse them. So understand God needs to be first, your spouse, and then you're able to produce the love upon them and the blessing upon them. There's nothing better that you could give your children and I could give my children than a godly parent who loves their mother or their father there. So we see that forgiveness is essential to maintaining relationships.
We should seek to avoid divorce at all costs. And children now come on the scene and Jesus responds with a very strong spirit of protection over these kids as he blesses them and loves them. This is interesting that the very next passage after this verse 13 through 15 with these little kids being brought to Jesus deals with a young rich man.
So you go from a young children to a young rich man. The little ones are brought to Jesus, but the young man comes to Jesus by his own will. I believe there are some incredibly important truths that we can extract from these two stories and I want to show you them today.
But first let's walk through these two stories and then I want to highlight a number of essential eternal truths that we need to understand. The first thing we see in verse 13 through 15 are children being brought to Jesus. Verse 13 says then they're brought unto him little children.
According to Mark's parallel account, because these stories are told in the different gospel records, Mark 10 talks about where Jesus was actually in a house. The disciples were discussing with him some other questions about divorce. He's answering them and all of a sudden they get bombarded with these parents bringing their little children to Jesus. And they're wanting him to put his hands on them and to pray for them. Now it was customary in the Jews day to bring your children to the synagogue to have the rabbi or the scribe teacher to pray for them, to put their hands on them and bless them. You remember in the Old Testament Joseph brought his two sons to Jacob who put his hands on them and blessed them.
That was common among the Jewish people. One rabbinic tradition describes the custom of bringing a 13 year old boy to the elders in Jerusalem at the festival time, quote, to bless him and pray for him that he may be worthy to study the Torah and engage in good deeds. So they're bringing these little children. The word little children is a Greek word paid on which can include infants or little children. In classical Greek paid on was used to speak of children up to seven years of age.
So this was a child that these children were anywhere probably within that range, most likely infants, little toddlers, and maybe even a little bit older than that. And it says in verse 13, and the disciples rebuke them. So they're bringing children to Jesus and they rebuke him. The word rebuke here is a very forceful verb. In the Greek it expresses strong disapproval. It's actually the same word used when Jesus was rebuking Peter saying, he rebuked him and said, get behind me, Satan in Matthew 16, 22. It's also the same word used when Jesus rebuked the winds in the sea and caused them to go flat. It's interesting that they respond this way, especially after what happened in Matthew 18 in the previous chapter.
They had been arguing over who was the greatest among them. And do you remember what Jesus does? He called a little paid on unto himself. The child old enough to have run up to Jesus. He was very likely in Peter's house back in Matthew 18. The little child comes in, could have been Peter's own little child, but the child comes and Jesus called this paid on, this little child unto him and set him in the midst of the disciples. And he says, unless you be, if you want to be great in the kingdom, you've got to humble yourself like a child. And unless you be converted and become like a child, you won't even enter the kingdom of heaven, according to Matthew 18, chapter verse three and four. So the disciples strongly rebuke people and they caused Jesus to rebuke them. So it seems that these children in the eyes of the 12 disciples were just too low of a priority for Jesus.
I mean, they're just, they're just not a big enough deal. They're in the way of what real ministry should be. And I would ask you, what is your view of children? Are they too low of a priority for you to minister to them? Do you have an attitude that would reflect that of the disciples and be distant towards children? You say, well, it depends on whose kids they are.
Sometimes they get stressful. But I can tell you friends, we should never see any children or any ministry as being below us. Amen. If these children are brought to Jesus and he would invest in them, how much more should we? Now, how does Jesus respond in verse 14, but Jesus said, suffer or the word allow better would be, he says, allow little children and forbid them not.
Don't rebuke them from coming to me. He says, keep those kids here, bring them over here. He says, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
That's very interesting. He's basically saying the kingdom of God belongs to those that are like these children. Heaven belongs to the humble, to those who come with a childlike faith, a dependence upon God, who recognize themselves to be poor in spirit. To be saved, you must lay down your self-dependence.
You must lay down your self-effort and faith in you and what you can accomplish and put your faith only in what Jesus Christ can accomplish. Titus 3 5 says, we are saved not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. And Ephesians 2 8 9 remind us of those same truths. Now here we see Jesus once again elevating children as a picture of faith. They come with humility and dependency of faith. You know, when you talk to little children, you don't have to lay down a bunch of apologetical arguments defending the reality of a God and those kind of things. They just believe.
Their hearts are tender. Romans 12 3 said, God has given to every man a measure of faith and children indeed have that warm faith and soft heart to God. And what an important time to invest in children, to pour truth into them. And that's why at Lighthouse we make such a big deal of investing truth into kids. I thank God for those who work in Awanas here and for those who teach our toddler classes, even those little kids and those who care for infants in our nursery.
Thank you for that service. That is a Christ-like spirit to do that. And we praise God for your efforts and work. And we've seen this year our Awana ministry, our kids' ministry is just growing very much.
And God's really pouring his blessing on. Now, when you come to this passage in Matthew 19 13 through 15, one thing you don't see is Jesus baptizing any of these infants. If baptism was to be done to infants, wouldn't this be a perfect time for Jesus to implement it? When they're bringing little babies to him and infants and toddlers, yet no water or baptism is ever mentioned. You know why we don't baptize infants at Lighthouse? Because the Bible doesn't teach us to do that. Nowhere in the Bible do you ever see that done. You say, well, I got baptized as an infant.
Okay, I'm not saying that's wrong that that happened to you. But you need to be baptized after you're saved. The Bible always teaches believe and then be baptized. So you're saying that if I got baptized as an infant and got saved later in life, placed my faith in Christ, I need to get re-baptized.
The answer is yes. And we see that in Acts chapter eight, when the Ethiopian eunuch said, what hinders me to be baptized? And Philip said, if you believe in and with all your heart, you may be baptized. And he said, I believe and he was baptized. So believe and be baptized is always the biblical pattern.
And I got baptized when I was a young kid, and then I got saved later in life, and then I got re-baptized. And so this passage also points to the implication that such young children who are before the age of being able to understand the gospel are under the special protection of God's grace. I believe if children die before they're of the age of understanding the gospel and being able to understand it, that they would go immediately into the presence of God. I mean, just consider Jesus puts his hands on them and blesses them. There's no other place in the Bible where God does that to anyone who's not a believer.
God never blesses the lost, but he does bless his own. And so I believe these children are reflections of God's grace. And he says the kingdom belongs to such as these. He doesn't say that about unbelievers, right? These children represent those who belong to God.
And I believe that is very clear. Now verse 15 goes on, it says, and he laid his hands on them and departed thence. So Jesus Christ does what the parents asked him to do and blesses them. I think if we had children and Jesus were somewhere, we would want him to put his hands on our kids and pray for them, wouldn't we? This is very similar to what we do with a baby dedication where we dedicate children to the Lord at church during one of our Sunday morning services. That doesn't save the child. The child's under the grace of God, but it's saying, hey, we're praying for this child. We're asking God's blessing upon them. And we are taking responsibility not only as Christian parents, but as a church family to come alongside and help them raise his child to know Christ and to follow him. It takes more than one person to raise a child. It takes a whole society, doesn't it?
Everybody begins to touch them in some way. Now, again, if Jesus made himself available to minister to children, what would it say about us? Nobody should ever be underneath us to minister to. And do you reflect the spirit of the 12 or the spirit of Christ when it comes to ministering to children? I want to thank again the parents and the ones who bring their kids faithfully, those who serve in nursery, toddler, and other areas. Thank you for your service in those capacities.
And I also want to say this. If Jesus made time for the most humble in the culture, shouldn't we also be humble enough and make ourselves available enough to minister to people, to anyone that is in need? There should never be a teacher, a deacon, a trustee, a leader, a pastor of this church that is not available to people in the church. If you have a need and you need somebody to meet with you, minister to you, help you with whatever your need is, reach out to those leaders.
Jesus wasn't above ministering to children and nobody should ever in this church or any church be above ministering to anyone, right? Amen. And so if you ever have, hey, I got questions, preacher, you have time? Yeah, well, we'll make time. I meet with people every week, mobile people, and we can make that happen. We'd love to do that. The pastors here, other assistant pastors and ministry directors are available to you.
And so utilize that. If you have questions about your faith, if you have questions that you need to work through, over the last several weeks, I've met with multiple people dealing with the subject of forgiveness, divorce, other areas like that. And please reach out.
Reach out. Now, also consider Jesus rebukes those who for whatever reason were hindering children from coming to him. And then he blesses the children that are brought to him. I want to ask the question, is there anything in your life that you're doing that could hinder children from coming to Jesus? How can children be hindered from coming to Jesus in the day that we live?
Do you think different sports and activities, times that they could be under the word of God, but instead they're away from the house of God? Do you think that's a good priority to place on a child? What would Jesus say to those who pull their kids out of church to play a game or an activity?
Are you blessing your kids? Are you hindering them from coming to Jesus? Another hindrance that I've seen parents make are they hinder their kids from even making a spiritual decision because they think their kid's too young to ever make a spiritual decision. People will say things, well, I just don't think that they're ready and I don't think they fully understand.
And sometimes that can be true. But if a child wants to pray and call out to Christ and they want to be saved, listen, don't hinder them from making that decision. And I know sometimes people say, well, I don't want them to pray a prayer of salvation or make it a spiritual decision and then later think that they're saved and they're really not. Well, listen, you keeping them from making a spiritual decision is not going to guarantee them to always live for Jesus later in life.
You need to let their soft hearts receive the gospel whenever their desire is for that and to encourage that and edify that and then keep them in a church like this that will teach them the truths of like John 8 31 when Jesus says, if you continue in my word, then you're my disciple indeed. Or in 2 Corinthians 13 5 when Paul says, examine yourself whether you are in the faith. Have your, listen, my kids made spiritual decisions to trust in Christ as a young age. But I never said, hey, you never have to question your salvation.
You never have to doubt that. I would always say, hey, I know you trusted in Christ and if you're saved, then nobody can take you out of God's hand. But your life, the way you live will evidence whether you're truly born again or not, whether Christ is in you will be evidenced by the life you live. Jesus said, if you're in Christ, you become a new creature. All things pass away.
All things become new. And if there's no change, there's no salvation. So don't hinder your kids from making spiritual decisions. Also, I've seen parents through the years hinder their kids from being baptized.
Well, they don't always display, pastor, the fully surrendered life. They were back talking the other day, so I didn't think they would be ready to be baptized. So you're telling me they need to be so sanctified to what level before they could follow the Lord in baptism. So they can be saved, but they're not able to be baptized. So are you telling me that you're going to keep them from getting baptized until they are good enough or well off enough? If they understand enough to be saved, they understand enough to also follow the Lord in baptism. Instead of hindering them and setting a standard that says you have to be good enough to get baptized, why don't you let them know they'll never be good enough? Why don't you let them know that we've all sinned and come short of God's glory?
And when they do sin, they need to repent and be right with God. Amen. I think we set this false idea up that our kids should be totally transformed, living just like Jesus. Do you remember when you were a kid? Right?
And how we are now? It's amazing. We can be critical and set some kind of moral standard upon them that you can't make religious decisions until you become moral. Think about what that's telling them.
Be careful of such things. Now we go from a young child to a young man in verse 16 through 21. And again, I would say this, when children make decisions of salvation in our church, we have young adult workers who sit down and go over a foundations book with them to make sure they understand the gospel, they understand baptism, they go over their testimony with them. We walk through that very carefully. So I just want you to know we do a lot of follow up with that as well before they would ever get baptized.
We work with them as well. And so we see the second point here, the second story is the rich young man coming to Jesus in verse 16. This is very fascinating. In verse 16 it says, And behold, one came and said unto him, Good master, what good things shall I do that I may have eternal life? I mean, that's just a pretty amazing verse. You don't see that stuff happening very often.
In fact, really hardly ever. Let me point out a few things that stand out just from this. First, the man came to Jesus. He is a seeker. Secondly, verse 20 gives us some more details about him. The Bible says he was a young man.
The term young man is a Greek word that could speak of somebody between the ages of 20 all the way up to the age of 40. Thirdly, we see in verse 22, as well as in Luke and Mark's account that this man had great possessions. He was a rich man. Fourth, he was a ruler according to Luke 18, 18. The Bible calls him a ruler. So it's often called the story of the rich young ruler. And ruler meant that he was probably a leader of a synagogue, which was kind of the Jewish church, if you would. But it was also, it could have been somebody who was involved in the Sanhedrin, one of the ruling, the lead ruling body, basically the legislative branch of the Jewish people.
There were 70 there. Number five, he doesn't ask for health, money or popularity. He isn't asking for external superficial things. The guy is asking a spiritual question.
I mean, he's focused on eternal life. This is tremendous. We see also number six, he shows respect to Jesus, calling him good master.
Agatha Didaskalas is the Greek word. It's you're a good teacher. He has also a level of humility. Mark's account in Mark 10 verse 17 says, when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running and kneeled to him and asked him good master. So this man comes, kneels down.
Mark adds that detail in there that he's humble enough to even kneel before Jesus. Seventh, not only does he have a great question, but who better could you bring the question of eternal life to than with Jesus, right? I mean, this is like the best question ever to the best person could ask. And then last, this would seemingly be the easiest conversion or salvation decision Jesus ever had. How could you ever mess this up?
Right? I mean, the guy's coming to you asking you, how do I have eternal life? It's like, if you can't lead that guy to Christ, your evangelism's off. But yet the guy leaves lost. He comes to Jesus asking, how do I have eternal life? And he leaves sorrowful and lost. Isn't that amazing? Now, how does Jesus respond to this guy?
Let's look at some questions here. Verse 17, he said unto him, why call us thou me good? There is none good but one that is God. Now, why does Jesus say that? Is Jesus saying, you call me good? Is he saying, I'm not good? Because that would only refer to God. Is Jesus saying he's not good or that he's not God? Not at all. Rather, Jesus is challenging this man's easy whimsical statement of using the word good in such a casual way – good master, what good thing could I do to have eternal life?
Jesus is like, whoa, slow down. That word good is only able to be reserved for that one who is really good, namely God. So if you're calling me good, what are you actually calling me?
And why are you asking if you could be good enough? Do you understand what you're even implying about yourself? Your statement is so whimsical.
You're just throwing this out there. Now, they did not have the New Testament. All they had was the Old Testament – 39 Old Testament books – and let me just read for you a few of the Old Testament passages so you can get an idea of what the Bible says in the Old Testament about is anybody good. Psalm 14, verse 3 says, they are all gone aside.
They are altogether become filthy. There is none that doeth good, the Bible says, no, not one. That's a very famous New Testament verse, but that is a repeat of – that's a quotation in Romans 3, verse 12 of Psalms 14, verse 3. Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 7, 20, there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. The Bible says in the book of Isaiah 64, 6, our righteousness is like filthy rags. Even the good things we do are detestable in how perfect God's eyes are. Jeremiah 17, 9 says, the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. Who can know it?
I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So man is worse than they realize. In light of these passages and many others, how could the guy say, what good thing could I do to have eternal life? Shouldn't his question have been, since no one is good, since everybody's sinful, how can we have our sins forgiven and be made right with God? But he doesn't say that. Also, again, since the term good can only be applied to God, Jesus is in essence saying, since God can only be defined as good, do you realize when you call me good what you're saying about me? Jesus is not saying that he's not good. He's not saying that he's not God. He's wanting the man to understand what he is saying.
And I don't think the man did understand that. The Bible tells us Jesus was without any sin. Hebrews 4.15, he was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 1 John 3.5 says, in him is no sin. 1 Peter 2.22 talks about Jesus did no sin, no guy was ever in his mouth. And so the right response, the guy should have been, Jesus, you are good, you are God, I am not, I don't fit that category.
But instead, the man believed what he said. Verse 17, Jesus goes on and challenges the man's goodness. He says, but if you will enter into life, if you want eternal life, keep the commandments. So I ask you the question, is the way you have eternal life, you have to keep the commandments? Do you get to heaven by being good enough?
Is it our morality that gets us there? Turn with me over to Galatians chapter number three. Hold your place here, Matthew 19, we'll go back there, but you can flip to the right in your Bibles, Galatians, it's after Romans, 1 Second Corinthians, you'll come to Galatians right before the book of Ephesians. So Galatians chapter three, this is a very, very important passage of Scripture that I want you to see. Galatians chapter three, look at verse number 21. Paul writes, and he says, is the law against the promise of God? He says, God forbid, for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.
In other words, if there was a law that could be given that could save you, then our salvation could be from the law, like we could be obedient enough and that could provide our salvation. But look what verse 22 says, but the Scripture hath concluded how many? Okay, let's try that again. That's when like you respond.
Okay, it's when you say stuff back. So, but the Scripture hath concluded, what's the word? See how much better that works? All under sin. Because of that, look what the next statement says, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that what?
That work for it. No, like you said, believe. Salvation cannot come through the law, it comes through faith. Verse 23, but before faith came, we were kept under the law. Shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed. Look at verse 24, wherefore the law was our what? Yeah.
Okay, you fell off a little bit there. The law was our schoolmaster. What's the schoolmaster do? It's a teacher, isn't it? Somebody who's instructing you, guiding you, directing you, telling you things that you need to know.
The law became our teacher, our schoolmaster to do what? To bring us to Christ that we might be justified not by works it says, but by faith. So listen to me, there are two ways to be saved. There are two ways that you can be saved. Jesus isn't the only way. The first way you can be saved is through being perfect. So door number one is never sinning. And no one will ever come to Jesus until they realize they can't make it through door number one. I know y'all about had a heart attack there on my theology. They're like, preacher, we're about to pop, right? And that's good.
I like that tension because I'm not the standard of truth here. The Bible says, amen. So to door number one, you come.
Now door number one's going to tell you, okay, here's what the Bible says. Keep the commandments. Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't take God's name in vain. Honor your parents.
And it just goes on. Love your neighbor as yourself. Put God first goes to the commandments. If you can live a perfect life, you can go through door number one.
Anybody lived a perfect life? Hands went like, nah. So because of that, the only way to be saved is through Jesus for everyone that's in this room. And we have to realize we cannot go through that door, but no one ever comes to Jesus until they realize they aren't as good as him.
Until they realize they're lost. No one goes through the remedy for cancer until they realize they are sick in need of a remedy. So the law's our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. So Jesus points the man to the law so that the law would point the man to Jesus.
Does that make sense? So Jesus, if you go back to look at Matthew 19, now we can plug this back in. Jesus says, so now it makes sense, doesn't it? Well, what should be the first thing Jesus points the guy to?
The law. He would have to. Nobody needs grace until they realize they need grace. So he says, hey, go to keep the commandments. And look what the guy says in verse 18. Which?
Really? Like if Jesus said keep the commandments, we'd be like, Jesus, I mean, ain't working here. I mean, dear God, like, you know, a mess right here, right? I mean, and the guy's like, which ones?
Bring them. And look what Jesus says here. Verse 18. Thou shall do no murder.
The guy's like, good. Thou shall not commit adultery. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother. If I could pause there for just a moment, what's interesting is, you know how the 10 commandments are kind of stacked, responsibilities to God are the first four, the last six have to do with your responsibility to man. So loving God, loving people is how Jesus defined it later.
He only goes to the second set. And so he's listing down the commands five through 10. But what's interesting, he leaves off covetousness. It's like the one thing, you know, the guy's struggling with.
And I think Jesus intentionally left it off so that he could bring down the truth later. But you would think the guy would be like, hey, what about that 10th one? Like do not covet things because obviously this guy was focused on his possessions. So Jesus lists all these commandments off. And notice how the guy responds. And before I read that, listen to the standard that God has in James 2 10.
He says, whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of how much? You see how high the standard is? It is so high that you will never reach it.
The only reason people think they're pretty good is because they're in the dark to what they really are. It's kind of like I was talking to somebody earlier today and I say, imagine going into a old house where maybe nobody had been in that room for say 25 years. And it had some big windows covered by some large blinds and then it had also a big, you know, covering over the main dining table. Say you went in there and you grabbed that off the dining table and you shook it and you were walking across the room with it. I said, what would happen the moment you open those blinds up and that sun came in?
What would you see in the air? Dust. Did the light create the dust?
No. It revealed it. It exposed it, right? It showed what was already there. What happens is when you, we look good in the dark, morally speaking, I had to clarify that to the early service.
You're a little ornery. Morally speaking, we all look good in the dark. But when you turn the light of God's word on, it exposes our sinfulness.
Friends, we are worse than we realize. And even if we kept all the law and offend in one point, the Bible says we're guilty of all. So how does a rich man respond to this? Look at verse 20. The rich man saith in him, all these things that I kept from my youth up, what lack I yet?
Really? I do think it's fascinating that Matthew does not bring up the fact that this is a young man until now. The young man saith unto him. You know, you remember back when Jesus had the woman caught in adultery, the Jews brought her before him and they were trying to trap Jesus in a situation. And they wanted to stone the woman. And Jesus said, whoever is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
Remember that? And you know how they responded? Listen to what the Bible says. It's very interesting in John 8 verse 9. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one beginning at the who?
Isn't that interesting? As we age, it should evaporate our pride in ourself. We should come to the conclusion the older we get that we are worse than we think we are.
If you age and you think better of yourself, you are getting in the dark. When you study Paul who wrote 13 books of the New Testament, at the beginning of his ministry, he said, you know what, unto me whom less than the least of all saints is this grace given, I'm not even worthy to be an apostle. 20 years later, as he ages, at the end of his life, the last books that he wrote, he said, I am not only unworthy of the grace that God's given me, he said, I am the chief of all sinners. He began to see himself as being even more sinful.
You know why? Because he was drawing closer to the light of truth. And the more you know God, the more you know yourself.
Youthful pride was blinding this man to his situation. I mean, this man lines his life up with the commandments and he says, well, I'm good. Is that all you got? I mean, the Bible may say there's none doeth good, no, not one, but they must not have met this guy. You know, good people can't get saved. Well, there's a new one.
Door number one is open, right, for this one. He may have said, you know what, Solomon needs to realize that there's not a just man who doeth good and sineth not until I've arrived. So this guy, this guy asked Jesus, he's like, I've kept all that. There's no problem. He says, what do I like yet?
What do I still need to do? How does Jesus respond to this guy? Verse 21, Jesus said unto him, if thou will be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven and come and follow me. I like what Mark 10's account says of this. Listen to Mark 10, 21, it says, didn't Jesus beholding him, loved him?
And then he goes on and tells him what he's going to say. Jesus loved this guy. He's lost and he's loved by God. He says, if you will be perfect, the word perfect, teleos, doesn't mean perfect in terms of being better than others, but it means to be totally complete, totally undivided, committed to God. If that's what you want, then sell all of your possessions. Give to the poor and come and follow me. Is Jesus teaching the only way you can be saved is to sell everything you have? Jesus' answer to the man went straight to the man's self-righteous God, which was his money and possessions. Jesus is challenging the man's self-righteous view of himself and the idol that was on his heart, which was his stuff. In essence, Jesus is saying, you think you fulfilled these commandments? What about the one that says, love your neighbor as yourself?
If you said you've always kept that, let me put it to the test. If you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself, then you'd be willing to give them everything you have, right? He just put the man in the light of God's truth. Now, how does the man respond? How does he respond to the challenge of giving up the world to have Christ and eternal life? How does he respond when Jesus puts his finger on the man's sin and the idol of his heart?
Verse 22, look what he does. When the young man heard that saying, he went away. Lupo is the Greek word sorrowful. It can be translated as deeply grieved, very distressed. He was pained. It's the same word used when Jesus first told his disciples that he was going to be crucified. They were greatly sorrowful.
How amazing. I want you to consider this, that this man comes to Jesus enthusiastically excited with a question and leaves sorrowful. He left Jesus sorrowful after coming to him with excitement. Things got worse.
He came to Jesus and left feeling worse about himself. Is that surprising? I had a lady years ago who, she was coming to church for a while. This has happened through the years.
I know you'll be shocked. But I went to visit her, an older lady, and I said, you know, I've been missing you these last couple of weeks. I said, just wanted to check on you, see how you're doing. And she said, you know, I come to church to feel better about myself, not worse. And these last couple of weeks, I have left feeling worse about myself.
I said, oh, I said, I could help you with that. You know why we leave feeling worse? Because we leave saying, Jesus, you're not worth the price you're asking me to pay. I would rather be the Lord of my life, living how I want, and you're touching things in my life I don't want to give you.
That's why. We want the throne. And he asked for it. We say we don't want to give it.
I need to be encouraged and told how great I am and how wonderful I am and how much God loves me just as I am. And he needs to accept that. I can tell you, friends, if this guy went to 95% of churches in our country, they would have said, man, this guy is one of the greatest guy. He's a new convert. He's a believer in Jesus now.
Because they would have put no parameters of surrender to him. We have a Christian culture today that says, you believe in God, that's great. That's all. You just need to be moral. You need to be good. You need to be kind. You need to be loving.
I mean, it's like, I've done all of that. This was a religious guy. This guy is terrifying.
Terrifying. Because he's what everybody probably wants their children to grow up to be. He's moral. He's religious. He's ethical. He's successful.
He's everything the world tells you you want your kid to grow up to be. And he was totally lost. So lost that even Jesus couldn't bring him to salvation. He's a synagogue guy. He's one of the most religious guys in the land. He's kneeling before Jesus.
I mean, we'd be like, man, that's my boy right there. It's great. And Jesus says he's not even saved. He's not even going to enter the kingdom.
This is terrifying. You see it? We want the easy Jesus in America. Give me the cheap version. Is there one on sale this week?
Not at Lighthouse. He calls you to give up everything you are to all that he is. Ralph Harris rightly says, by his own choice, he turned his back on Jesus and went back to his beautiful home, his pleasure, his acres on farm, forest and pastures, the power of the position, his wealth gave him the eyes that he had in the eyes of men. But in so doing, he broke the first of the Ten Commandments.
Gold was his God and self was his love. Jesus's conclusion. Look what he says in verse 23. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, verily I say unto you that a rich man can hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
What's Jesus saying? He's saying that riches are in fact the greatest hindrance for people coming to salvation. There's nothing that will keep you further from God than the world stuff. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 6 21, where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Jesus said in Matthew 6 25, the chief competitor with God for the affection of your heart is money. Money versus God. It's the number one competitor according to Jesus in Matthew 6 24 and five. Money and possessions kept this man from heaven.
It kept him from Christ. Jesus taught where you put your money will be where your heart is. Since that is true, how important should faithfully giving to God be in your life?
Do you give? What would be the most important truth also to teach young children who are growing up? What would be the most important thing for them to realize? Son, don't make money your God and God we trust not in stuff. Money and possessions have wings and they will fly away from dust to dust. Money means nothing.
It is it is a tool like anything else. The priority must be God. God will provide for you but God can take away but God is the one you must prioritize over all other things. If Jesus taught where your treasure is there will your heart be also what does it say to God if you give him none of your treasure? If I give nothing financially to the Lord what does that say about who owns my heart? Do you know givers never get upset when you mention statements like that?
The only ones who do is those who have money and possessions that are buying or are the idol of their heart. Robert Gundry said that Jesus did not command all his followers to sell all their possessions and give comfort only to the kind of people to whom he would issue that command. So let me bring us to the conclusion of this. We go from the story of a young child brought to Jesus to a young man who came to Jesus. We go from children leaving blessed by Jesus to a young man leaving grieved. We go from young children and emulating those who enter the kingdom and a young man who is an example of one who misses the kingdom. What are some concluding lessons from these stories?
Let me give you a couple. First of all do not hinder children from coming to Jesus. Is there anything in your life hindering children from coming to Jesus, specifically your own children?
You need to remove them. Secondly you can have riches that make you poor. You can have riches that make you poor. In the story of the rich young ruler you can raise a child who is extremely moral, financially well off, successful in the world's eyes and the person be completely impoverished in God's eyes. Jesus said of the rich young fool in Luke 12 verse 21, so is he that lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
You can be earthly rich and heavenly poor. You can thirdly be extremely moral and religious and be lost. This man was moral. He had strong convictions. He had a solid morality.
He was very ethical. He knew the commands of God and he sought to keep them. Fourth, earthly riches and success can create one of the greatest hindrances and barriers for people to be saved. It is such a barrier that Jesus said quite frankly that you can't even be saved if you're rich. Like riches are the wall against salvation. In verse 26 he goes on and says with men it's impossible for them to be saved if they're in these situations but with God all things are possible. Am I saying that if you're rich that that's sinful?
Absolutely not. God can bless you with finances. He can bless you with possessions. It's not wrong having things. It's just wrong when things have you. It's not money that is the root of all evil. The Bible said it's the love of money which is the affection for money. The average American has 50 percent of their waking day thinking about money, how they can get it, how they can spend it, how they can use it, how they can do other things.
It is just materialistic culture. I can tell you stay away from that mindset. It will rob you. So what happens when you put the truths of these two stories together? What happens when you marry these two truths together, the story of the young children brought to Jesus and the story of the young rich man who leaves Jesus? What you find is this. Do you see it? I hope you see it. I hope you've gotten it already.
It's this. The last thing you ever want to do is see your child grow up to be moral, religious, financially successful, prosperous, filled with the world's things and not have a true, genuine, authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. How many parents focus their kids future on what they'll be financially, academically, economically, athletic, and all of those things but not focusing on their future spiritual life? You raise them to be successful in the world but not for God.
There's nothing wrong with doing great in academics, economic things, financial areas, or athletics, but what does it mean if Christ is not Lord of your life? It's literally building walls that will keep them from Christ. It's literally creating barriers around them.
Does that make sense? We have to realize we have to keep their focus on what really matters. We begin to teach our children to love the world and like Jesus. Mark 836 says, what will it profit if they gain the whole world and lose their own soul? You know, I'm sure the rich young ruler's parents were very proud of him. He was successful, moral, religious. He was prosperous.
He was the envy of the town. He had fallen in love with his life and he didn't want to give up his life for the life that Jesus had offered him. His problem was that though he had a heart for God, morality, and ethics, he had a bigger heart for his possessions and worldly success. The man was a winner. He didn't lose very often. He was successful.
He was driven. And he didn't want to have a loss in his column of success if it meant giving up something for Jesus. Even for Jesus, he wasn't willing to lose anything.
I can tell you there is a danger in radical success. He very likely had a love for God, but the love for the world was too much. I want to ask you, take an honest evaluation. Are you raising your children to love God most or the world most? Ask yourself.
What do we learn from these two stories? Does your life show them a love for Christ most or a love for God? What does it say when we come to church 10 minutes late with the ball game 20 minutes early? What's it say when we put the things of the world in such a priority over the things of God?
We have all the new gadgets, the new gears, all of that stuff. What does it say when you come the least amount in the week? God, I will give you one hour of my week. I'll come to church at most once a week, if that. But life group, another hour, coming to 242 on a Sunday night to study the word of God, to get in the word of God with other individuals, to hold them accountable and to grow spiritually, that's too much.
They're asking too much, God. Wednesdays, off limits, but we'll work overtime for double pay. No problem taking the kids to different events and games and school activities and all the other things that can take up four, five, six, seven days a week.
No problem there. Can I just tell you, something happened to my parents when I was young. I grew up big sports guy. I mean, I was this height in eighth grade. So when my dad was addicted to sports and you have a son that's 6'4 in the eighth grade, like football basketball, it just shoved me into that world.
And so it became such an idol to us, just doing all these events and games and activities and traveling and all this, there's nothing wrong with that. But we were the family who would show up to church 30 minutes late, every service. It was unbelievable.
The Bevins were always late. It was okay. We went to a Pentecostal church, so they were only like a third of the way through their songs at that point. So I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just telling you, that's what we did 15 years. So we would go and we would leave.
Sunday morning was it. No Sunday school, no life groups, no Sunday nights, no Wednesday nights, no serving, no knowing anyone else in the church. We didn't know anybody in the church.
But we came, we sat in the back, we did something, we sat wherever, we just not plugged in. Something happened to my parents though, man. They were gripped by God at such a level that God began to stir in their hearts.
I don't know if it was, I believe they were saved before, but boy, they surrendered. And when God got a hold of my parents, it trickled down into the heart of their sons. The only reason I am here today is because my parents fell in love with Jesus and stopped liking Jesus and started loving Him.
And their love for Christ caused me to find a love for Christ and a salvation in Christ and a surrender to Christ that said, world, what you are offering me is not as much as what God offers me. We went from coming on Sunday morning to saying, hey, they got Sunday school, we're going to go to that. They have this thing on Sunday nights, yeah, we're going to go to that. Wednesday nights we were there. Men's Bible study every Saturday went to that. Pastor had a pastor training class on Thursday nights went to that.
Visitational Monday nights went to that. I mean, we were just there all the time. Not because we had to, we just wanted to. God got such a grip. The passion I had for the things of the world got turned to the things of God. And it has been the greatest joy of my life serving the Lord. So you know, Jesus just wanted to take everything from me.
Are you kidding me? There is nothing that I've given up for God. I have only received from Him. If this man said, I will sell everything, give it up and follow you, Jesus, by the end of the day, he'd be like, I am a worse sinner than I realize. Jesus, I need your grace.
I have broken all the commands. Can you imagine living with Jesus? The man would have been rewarded 10,000 full to give everything up to a follow Jesus. Whatever is holding you back from fully surrendering, whatever is keeping you from Him, it's the reason that people leave feeling miserable. No one leaves surrendered miserable.
When you leave with joy, you have found yourself fully surrendered to Christ. And I will say this, the greatest fear of your life is not surrendering to Him. The greatest fear is not surrendering.
The greatest fear of your life is to walk out of here still being on the throne of your heart, still calling the shots. You are robbing your life. You are robbing your family and you will take from them the greatest things that God could have done.
What would happen to me? What would happen to my brothers this morning that are preaching to people? What would happen to our lives if my parents did not get serious with Jesus when we were young teenagers?
There is no Lighthouse Baptist Church in Zinnia. I can tell you my life would have gone down the drain real fast. What happened was this, my parents went from good things being poured into my life that were ultimately becoming hindrances to my walk with Jesus to now seeing parents that were authentic lovers of God, followers of Jesus, imperfect parents, but those who were willing to admit their mistakes and their sins and follow Jesus and I can follow that. I just needed someone who loved God most, who was genuine authentic and because it was real in their life, it became so real in my life. I have never been a perfect person, sinner the whole way, but I can tell you what, when you get serious with Jesus, the effects are massive. Are you giving God the least amount this morning? Are you giving Him just a little bit? Ask yourself right now, what do you love most and what would the people around you say you love most in life? Is God just giving Him the smallest portion when He gave us His life? Friends, don't rob yourself from what God could do in your life, what He could do in your family. If you want to bless your children, put God number one and only when that happens will you pour out love upon your spouse and your children like you need to. Let's all stand this morning.
