The Rich Young Ruler | Matthew 19:16-30

The following resource is brought to you by Real Life Community Church in Richmond, Kentucky.

We hope you're both challenged and encouraged by this message from Pastor Chris May.

If you have your Bibles.

We are in a journey through the book of Matthew and we're moving and scooting Matthew, chapter 19,.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

We're going to close out chapter 19 this morning, if you would stand with me.

Matthew 19, beginning in verse 16.

Matthew 19, verse 16, and behold, a man came up to him.

Matthew 19:16

That would be Jesus saying teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?

And Jesus said to him why do you ask me about what is good?

There is only one who is good.

And if you would enter life, keep the commandments.

And he said to him which ones?

And Jesus said you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal and you shall not bear false witness.

Honor your father and mother.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The young man said to him all these I have kept.

What do I still lack?

And Jesus said to him if you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

And come follow me.

And when the young man heard this, he went away, sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

And Jesus said to his disciples truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.

Again, I tell you, 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 when the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying who then can be saved?

Jesus looked at them and said with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

You believe that.

And Peter said in reply see Jesus, we've left everything and followed you.

What then will we have?

And Jesus said to them truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man will sit on this glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on the 12th throne, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or children or lands, for my name's sake will receive a hundred fold and will inherit eternal life.

But many who are first will be last and the last shall be first.

This is the word of the Lord, and you may be seated Well.

In verse 16, the beginning of our text, we are introduced to sort of a mystery man.

We know really very little about him, we don't know even his name, but this man comes up to Jesus with a vitally important question.

All three synoptic gospels Matthew, mark and Luke include this story, so I think we should listen up today.

So we know very little about this man, but what we do know, we call him the rich young ruler.

And to even get that we have to put all three of the gospel accounts together.

All the accounts say that he is rich, he is very wealthy, but Matthew 19, verse 20, alone says that he is young.

Matthew 19:20

And then Luke's account tells us that he is a ruler, he has an official ruling position.

So this man has a lot going for him, doesn't he?

He has wealth, he has youth and he has fame, or, you could say, power.

He's a rich, young, well-known ruler.

Would he not be the epitome of success in our culture?

Aren't these the qualities that are our pursuits, the people in our culture?

Isn't this what men and women are running after?

Because youth, fame.

Think about wealth for a moment.

Do you know that the median salary in America, household income, would be $71,000?

That's the median income If you are a single and you make $71,000 a year.

You're the only one who lives in your home.

You're the top 1% of the world's richest people If you are married and you have a household income of $71,000, you're in the top 2.3% of the world's richest people.

And if you're married with children, you have two kids living in a home with you, you're still in the top 5% of the world's wealthiest people.

And yet it's not enough.

And I know that because I did some study this week and found that America is now over $1 trillion in credit card debt at an average interest rate of 20%.

Dave Ramsey would have a heart attack.

He probably knows that.

He knows that.

All right, I was going to call him and teach him something.

Why do we think that the money that we have is not enough?

Why do we have to keep going in more and more debt?

Because we believe the lie that money is going to satisfy our hearts, and it just doesn't.

And then let's talk about youthfulness for a minute.

Used to be that older people were admired, that they were considered to be wise and have been through some stuff.

You would go to them, and there was no shame in getting old.

You would go to them for advice.

Gray hair was a mark of sophistication.

See, some of you are really sophisticated, but now for many it's become a mark of embarrassment, because we go to great lengths to stay looking young.

In 2021, the global anti-aging market was estimated to be worth over 62 billion US dollars.

Think about that.

Keeping one's youth is one of our biggest cultural pursuits, and I'm not scared to get old.

As a matter of fact, my family has really you could call them good genes.

My mom is 60 in her.

I'm not going to say that because I'll get it wrong.

She's over 60.

She's going to be listening, but people think often she's my sister.

And people come up to me all the time and they say, oh, pastor, you look so young.

As a matter of fact, when I meet people and they ask me what I do and I say, well, I'm a pastor, they go you're pastor.

Right, I hate looking 12 years old sometimes.

I'm just not scared to get the gray hair and the wrinkles and all that.

I stay in the sun as long as I can and just to be wrinkled.

I'm just joking, but keeping one's youth is one of our biggest cultural concerns.

And then you take fame.

Is that not a pursuit of our culture?

Again, looking at some statistics this week, one in four boys and girls of people in generation Z.

So this would be what?

Born in what?

Late 90s, early 2000s?

One in four say that one of their biggest concerns is going viral, meaning if you're not in, if you don't know what I'm talking about, it doesn't mean they want a virus.

With the onslaught of social media now, a lot of people can be famous who otherwise would have no chance.

And so these kids are doing crazy things like risking their lives that they can get you know, for the chance of getting millions of views on one of their videos.

They're just pursuing fame.

And you know, as Americans we have the ability to achieve some level of wealth and youth and fame, but as Rabbi Schmuley Boutique said he said this Americans consume three quarters of the world's anti-depressants because materialism will never bring us happiness.

So we have the ability to pursue all these things and make them somewhat of a reality, but yet we are so unsatisfied.

And so in the story, I think we can relate to the rich young ruler who has all of these things and yet knows something is missing.

He's coming to terms with his own mortality and he comes to Jesus and he says what, how can I get eternal life?

What must I do?

And so today, what we learn from Jesus conversation with this man is that, as Keller often puts it, christianity cost us more than we could ever imagine, but the reward is beyond anything we could ever dare dream.

Christianity cost us more than we could ever imagine, but its payoff is more than we could ever dare dream.

Let's just consider the cost of Christianity.

After conversing with this man and telling him how he could have eternal life, verse 22 says the young man went away sorrowful, which begs the question why would anyone walk away after having an encounter with Jesus when he tells you how to have eternal life?

Why would anyone walk away sad?

And here's why I believe the man walks away sad.

It's because he met the real Jesus.

See, our version of Jesus tends to make us happy, but you come into contact with the real Jesus, you are faced with some harsh realities and you just might walk away sad or angry, because the real Jesus shows us that none of us are good enough to have eternal life Like we like to think.

We're good people, we like to think that we can get to God by our own merit, but what Jesus the real Jesus, shows us is that we're not as good as we might think.

Are you with me this morning, verse 16,.

Listen to what the man asks.

This is so arrogant.

And behold, a man came up to Jesus saying Teacher, what good deed must I do to earn eternal life?

What good deed must I do to earn eternal life?

Is this not the way the world thinks, if they think about heaven, if they believe in heaven?

And you ask 90% of those people what do you do?

How do you get there?

If you want to go to heaven, well, you've got to be a good person, you've got to do good things.

And so the rich young ruler has this misconception, like many people in our time, that eternal life can be earned.

And so Jesus challenges this misconception.

Look with me at verse 17.

And so Jesus said to him why do you ask me about what is good?

There is only one who is good.

In other words, we can think that we're good, but there's only one that's ever walked this earth that is good, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

So here it is, the rich young ruler.

I mean, he's an upstanding citizen.

He seems to really be that.

And so when he compares himself with the wicked totalitarian people, with those who are about themselves and exploit others, he goes I'm a good person.

Surely I can just do maybe one more thing and God will grant me eternal life.

So when you compare yourself to the person next to you look at him this morning you might be able to say, I'm pretty good.

Some of you are going, yep, I'm pretty good, but compare yourself to almighty, the holy, perfect God and you get an accurate look at your lack of goodness.

Are you with me?

Da Carson writes this that the man asked Jesus about good deeds but has an inadequate understanding of the goodness required to gain eternal life.

For only God is good.

In that sense, do you know what the standard of goodness is for eternal life?

Perfection is anybody perfect in here?

Some of you might think you are, but is anybody, I mean really, are you perfect?

Then you can't get to God by your own merit, and so Jesus is so brilliant.

The man asked Jesus what commandments do I need to keep?

Because, look at, jesus says again let's go back, teacher.

What good deeds must I do to have eternal life?

And Jesus says what?

Why do you ask me about what's good?

And then Jesus could here say well, you're not saved by works, you're saved by grace, through faith.

That's how we would answer.

But Jesus just plays along.

It's kind of messing with him, right.

But this is so brilliant.

He says if you would enter life, keep my commandments.

And he does this because he knows this religious man thinks that he keeps all the commandments of God.

So he says keep the commandments.

And how does the guy answer?

He respond he says well, which commandments, lord?

There's lots of them.

The Old Testament there were 613 laws.

Which commandments, lord, do I need to keep?

And so verses 18 and 19.

And Jesus said here they are you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And you notice, here I want to point your attention to the fact that Jesus only lists the visible laws that can clearly be seen, like it's pretty clear if I murder somebody or not.

Hopefully you have not done that this week.

So he lists murder, adultery, theft, lying, loving your father and mother, loving your neighbor and the rich young ruler.

He's like great, I've done none of these things, I've kept these laws.

So he believes in a sense that, wow, I'm doing what I need to do for eternal life.

But yet in his heart, he knows something's still lacking and he says, jesus, he asked what do I still lack?

See, if we're honest with ourselves, we might think we're good enough to gain God, to gain heaven, to gain eternal life.

But if we're honest, if we look deep enough, we know that there's something, something's still missing.

Verse 21,.

Jesus said to him if you would be perfect, there's God's standard, here's what you do Tell what you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Jesus, come, follow me.

This is brilliant.

Jesus is not saying please don't take it like this that in order to that you can buy your way into heaven.

That's not what he's saying.

You know what he's doing.

He's revealing the fact that this man does not possess what it takes to enter the kingdom of God, to have eternal life.

Because Jesus sees the heart.

On the outside it looks like the man is a lawkeeper.

But you know what Jesus knows about this man's heart.

His treasure, his first love is not God Almighty, what is it?

It's his wealth.

In Matthew 22, a law here asks Jesus what is the greatest command?

Jesus answers you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all of your mind, with all of it.

You can't have a divided heart.

In Matthew 6, 24, jesus says you can't serve two masters.

Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money.

This man wanted to serve God, he wanted to know God.

The problem is he also wanted to serve and to worship his possessions.

So the real Jesus shows this man and us that we aren't as good as we might think and that may cause some of us to walk away.

Sad, I hope not.

And the real Jesus, you know what he shows us here.

He shows us that Christianity costs us more than we could ever imagine.

See, we just tell people just pray a little prayer in your heart and you'll be saved.

Well, I wouldn't really say to do that.

Jesus says repent and believe the gospel.

It says to confess Jesus Romans 10, not just as Savior, but as what.

Okay, good, somebody knows.

All right, just making sure I need to have a talk with each of you after church.

We confess Jesus as Lord.

What's the implication is?

When somebody's your Lord, you do what they say.

Are you with me?

Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is Lord, and the real Christianity costs us more than we could ever imagine.

The rich young ruler had tried to earn his way to God, but it just simply was not enough, because God doesn't have that which is most important in this man's life, namely his heart and his allegiance.

Here's what Christianity means.

Here's what, here's what becoming a Christian means.

It means we lay everything down, everything down at the feet of Jesus and say it's at your disposal, every sin, it's yours, god.

That doesn't mean that we clean ourselves up and come to Jesus.

You can't clean yourself up.

What it means is Lord, I want to live for you, and so I give you my life.

Change me, save me, make me new.

I'm willing to give it all up for you.

See, many people think that Jesus is just something or someone you just tack on to your life.

Like, your life stays the same and, yeah, I just give me a little Jesus, somebody I can go to and pray to and help me out of trouble.

And, you know, give me some things when I lack certain things.

But no, christianity is not something we tack on to our lives.

Christianity is something that becomes our entire life.

It's losing everything so that God can renew us and give us everything that our heart needs.

It's a new life.

We are new creations in Jesus Christ.

Now let me just preach for a second Step on some toes.

You okay with that?

I'm getting good at that Preaching through Matthew 18 and 19.

I hear people all the time say and you see this hashtag on social media God first, god first.

And my question to you is how many of you in here would say God first in my life?

Okay, at least you're honest, because only three of you raised your hands.

How many would say God first?

Let me challenge you on it.

Does your life demonstrate God first?

It's one thing to say it, it's one thing to write it on social media.

What about money?

What if God told you today, say, you have great wealth, you have a nice house, wonderful, you know nice cars, all that.

Nothing wrong with having nice things.

But what if God said today you know, ashley, you own a business, you have a great business.

She's a great insurance agent, by the way, with State Farm, ashley, and you're a physical therapist, you guys, and you have a beautiful house and I celebrate that with you.

But what if, today, god said, hey, we want you to go to some third world country and we want you to sell everything you have.

We want you to sell everything you have.

What would you guys do?

What would you do?

You would what?

Yeah, right, yeah, how tough.

I mean, let's be honest, that would be tough for any of us.

But you know that when you come to Christ, it doesn't mean that everybody has to be missionaries or pastors, but what it means is, lord, I'm willing to do anything to follow you, to give anything to follow you.

I have great friends who are missionaries within the assemblies of God and these people are very well educated.

They could make a lot of money and they could live in great comfort and luxury here in America, but God called them the missions.

They have like five million kids.

I have a big family and God called them to a Muslim country that is I can't even mention because it's so dangerous for them.

It's a closed country to the gospel and the last time I saw them I said tell me about where you're living.

And they live in this like massive apartment building, nowhere, very hot part of the world.

They're living with all these kids in like a one bedroom apartment that's, and for a while I don't even think they had plumbing.

They have left everything and they haven't done it.

Begrudgingly, they're some of the happiest people I know.

They've given it up for Jesus.

Or would you be willing to do that?

And some of you would say, yes, maybe money is not your treasure.

Let me tell you one that's really popular in this area it's sports.

It's sports.

My uncle pastors a church in Richmond or in Eastern Kentucky and he says you know, I just know, when sports season comes around, when kids are in sports, the church attendance is just going to go down the drain.

Years ago, when I was actually when I was first in ministry, so this is just about two decades ago I did youth ministry and we had a big youth group on Wednesday nights.

And you know why?

Because it was unheard of for a team to practice on Wednesday nights because it was called church night.

That started shifting, actually, when I was in youth ministry and I remember my lead pastor.

He had a son who was a star football player, I think, in Franklin County and he was a quarterback, and my pastor said you are not missing church on Wednesdays.

Well, dad, we practice on Wednesdays and it's mandatory.

He said okay, you're going to church on Wednesdays, you're going to youth group.

That's what's most important.

So you know what he did.

They talked to the coach and if you're valuable enough as a team member, the rules can bend.

All right.

And so here's what he said I'm not playing.

I'm not allowed to play unless you let me off on Wednesday.

So the coach says all right, here's what you're going to do.

I'll let you off on Wednesdays, but if you miss Wednesday, you're going to run the bleachers for X amount of minutes.

Buy yourself every Thursday practice.

And he did it.

Can you imagine the testimony that that was as a whole team saw this man or this teenager running bleachers?

For the glory of God, it was unheard of to practice on Wednesdays in now.

Now it's not just Wednesdays, it's the Lord's Day.

There are baseball games going all around right now.

I'm so grateful for Joe and Stephanie.

They pursued a new ball team.

How old is cold Eight?

In the team that he was on, it was like how many Sunday Did they practice?

On Sundays, everything practice played an eight year old, because church means nothing.

And so, thankfully, joe and Stephanie were able to get cold on another team where they don't practice or do very few tournaments on Sundays.

But, guys, we can say my point is this we can say to our kids God first, oh God's most important.

But yet we chase money.

We work hours and hours and hours to buy things that we don't need.

We go in debt to buy things we don't need At prices we can't afford to impress people we don't even like.

I didn't coin that, but that's good right there.

But oh, money's not my God.

Yes, it is.

We tell our kids God before sports.

Then why do you miss every Lord's Day?

Why are sports?

Brother Jerry, am I preaching?

Why are sports?

Why do they trump youth group?

I've met many.

Listen, I grew up in Clark County and sports is a God.

If you were not an athlete, you were nothing.

You were nothing.

And I have so many people.

Everybody thought they were going to be a star.

You know how minute of a chance it is that your kid is going to be a sports star.

Maybe I don't want to bust your dreams, but listen, it's just very unlikely to happen.

But parents invested money and time from sport to sport football, basketball, baseball.

It's not like they play one sport, it's all your round.

And consequently, they never miss church.

And then they.

I mean they never.

They always miss church.

They were never in church.

And then they graduate and I don't know why he doesn't love the Lord Duh.

Why does he stay home and watch football on Sundays instead coming to church?

Because that's the God you presented in your home.

And when we say, if you're going to do that, just be honest and say God's not that important to us, because what you're teaching them is that you can say God can be really important to you, but you can miss church.

You cannot read your Bible, you can put other things above him, but he knows you love him.

No, he's to be the treasure of your heart.

That's what Jesus is showing this rich man Christianity.

It costs us more than we could ever imagine.

But let me end on something some positive, a positive note.

Here.

Let's talk about the reward of Christianity.

Oh, it's so much greater than what you have to give up.

Is Jesus being mean to the rich young ruler here?

Here's what people think.

Well, jesus just wants to take away my fun.

No, I want to read Mark's account of this story.

This is Mark 10, 21.

Jesus, looking at this rich young ruler, loved him and said to him you like one thing.

Sell all that you have and give it to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven.

Come follow me.

Jesus didn't hate this man.

Jesus didn't hate this man, did he?

He loved him.

Love was the motive.

Love was the motive I'm preaching hard this morning, but it's not.

It's not out of hatred, it's not out of condemnation, it's out of love, because I'm asking you, as Jesus asked you, to give some stuff up, to be willing to give things up, but what you get is so much better.

What's the rewards that Jesus offers?

Well, in verse 27, the man has walked away sad, and the disciples asked Jesus, hey, we've given up everything, like literally, we've left our jobs, we left our homes, we've walked away from our families, because we're quite literally going where you go, following you around, to preach that the kingdom of heaven is near, to preach the gospel Jesus.

What do we get?

What do we get for this?

And it's a beautiful thing because Jesus says this truly.

I say to you in the new world, when the Son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on the 12th thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

The context of what was the original question that the man asked how do I get what?

Eternal life?

So, disciples, what reward do you get for following Christ, for surrendering everything at his feet?

You get number one.

You get eternal life.

That's a pretty good trade off.

That's a pretty good trade off.

So you get.

This is amazing.

Those with eternal life will gain the earth.

The meek shall inherit what the earth.

So Jesus says truly I say to you in the new world, you're going to be judges.

The new world, this means this new means regeneration or restoration.

God is renewing his creation.

We think of eternal life as being us floating on clouds somewhere.

Beloved God created a good world that has been tainted by sin and he, jesus, came not just to save our souls, but to save us body, soul and spirit and to redeem God's good creation.

We will spend eternity not on clouds somewhere, as bodyless souls or spirits floating around playing harps all day.

Some of you will play harps, others won't.

I kind of want to do that, but we'll actually be on the renewed creation.

Imagine, I mean, this world's beautiful, but imagine it without being tainted by sin.

Wow.

So you get blessings in the life to come, but not only that.

Not only that, you get blessings in this life.

Now the twelve disciples think of it.

They left businesses, family houses, all of that, and Jesus tells them.

Here's what he says everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters, or father or mother or children or lands for my namesake will receive a hundred fold and will inherit eternal life.

So if we just read Matthew's account, we go, oh well, that's future, we get houses and brothers and sisters and parents in heaven, right.

But we have to go to Mark's gospel to see what Jesus is really saying.

He says that you will receive these things.

In the book of Mark he says that we will receive these things in this life and in the life to come.

What does that mean?

I mean, this sounds like transactional right.

There's a lot of preachers who say that this means that if you sacrifice for Jesus, god's going to pay you back a hundred times.

So if you give up your house and give it to the poor, you're going to have a hundred houses.

I don't think that's what Jesus is saying here.

And let me give you three reasons why.

Number one why would Jesus promise us material wealth, which he just said makes it hard for us to enter the kingdom of heaven?

Remember, he said it's easier to go for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Oh, by the way, but here's a hundred houses for you disciples.

So that's one reason.

Secondly, you know these preachers say well, if you give up a house, god's going to give you a hundred literal houses.

But what about?

What about brothers and sisters?

That's in the promise too.

Parents, your children give up.

You know they see they leave and become a missionary.

They're 18.

They're going to be a missionary.

So they've left father, mother, brother, sister.

But God's going to give in a hundred more.

That means you're popping out a hundred more kids.

Mama, how many don't want to receive that Right?

Come on somebody.

So why would?

If that's not literal, why would the houses be literal?

Let's see what's he saying.

One of the reasons I believe this isn't what Jesus is saying is because if it were what he was saying, jesus would be a liar, because none of the disciples died, as you know, within real estate empires.

None of them.

They weren't on those corny commercials, you know, with rings all over and you can be a millionaire too.

You know they weren't doing that they died with practically nothing.

What's the text talking about Now?

These verses are about the wonderful blessing of being part of the family of God.

Here's what happens with the disciples.

They left houses in businesses, they had virtually nothing.

And you know what they did?

They traveled from town to town, going into the whole known world preaching the gospel.

How much faith does that take?

You quit your job.

You have no home, you have nothing.

You pitch hiking everywhere, riding a camel everywhere, and you have no idea what's await you in the next town.

But Jesus says don't worry, you're going to have hundreds of houses.

Why?

Because the people of God are gifted in hospitality.

And they said oh disciples, I know you don't have much, but let me share what I have with you.

Come into our home, we'll feed you, we'll give you a place to sleep.

It's beautiful to be part of the family of God.

Just last week, can I share the story about your company?

All right, so just last week, a couple of weeks ago, jody, who's the executive assistant here?

She and Thomas were called by a friend from Texas and said hey, these people that you've never met, they're good Christians, but they're driving through and they have no place to stay no-transcript.

Jody and Thomas just opened their home and my first thought was you all crazy.

People are nuts these days, but it was a.

They said it was a wonderful time they opened.

That's what Christians do we take care of one another.

And so when Jesus is talking about houses, he's saying listen, your people are gonna other Christians are gonna share what they have with you.

They're their wealth and their material possessions and their food.

And this is what we're doing for Dave and Debbie Amesler this morning.

We're taking up funds for them because they've less so much, so they've given up so much.

But we're saying, dave and Debbie, we thank you for going to Guatemala and we've got more than we need, so we're gonna send some to you.

Houses you didn't build Right, money you didn't work for, but you're doing the work of God and we want to bless you.

And then the brothers and sisters, mommas, you don't have to have a bunch more kids to make this happen.

Listen, some, some Christians.

Yes, if you're a missionary, you leave family, but you know that there are Christians throughout the world.

When they become Christians, they are disowned, they are excommunicated.

Everything they knew is taken from.

They've known is taken from them.

But you know what Jesus says, don't worry, none of us want to be alone.

All of us want family.

But you know what Jesus says, don't worry, you've got, when you come with me, when you follow me, you've got more brothers and sisters than you can count.

We have people in this church who have no family in this area.

Yet they have family.

They have family who loves them like blood relatives.

That's what you get.

You get blessings in this life and you get it in the life to come.

Would you come to the keys for me please, sir?

So let me close like this If you're chasing money and wealth and fame or whatever it is, you are not satisfied.

If you look deep enough, if those things are the treasures of your heart, if that's what you're pursuing and I'm not preaching a poverty gospel, that's not the point but have you, is God truly the treasure of your heart.

What Jesus is offering ultimately is the satisfaction that everyone human being is looking for Satisfaction in this life and the life to come.

So Jesus said to his disciples listen, using hyperbole, he said it's easier to go for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to a root for them, for a rich person to have eternal life.

And the disciples ask who, then, can be saved?

And that's a good question for us today, because, relatively speaking, when we look globally, are we all rich?

Are we all rich in here, comparatively?

Perhaps this is why America doesn't need God anymore, because we have enough.

So the disciples say, lord, who can be saved?

And here's what Jesus says with man, it's impossible.

With God, all things are possible.

Here's how salvation is possible for anyone, especially people like us who have so much.

It's to recognize we can't buy heaven.

It's to recognize that we can't earn by our own merit Salvation.

Salvation starts with humility, laying down at the feet of Jesus and go.

I have nothing to bring to the table.

My heart is so far from you.

I've tried to be a good citizen, I've tried to do good, I've tried to obey you, but, lord, I'm not good enough.

I'm good enough.

So I repent and I thank you that Jesus did for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

I receive his sacrifice.

He paid at Calvary the punishment owed to me and it's only through him Jesus, who was raised from the dead, will one day raise us, who are in him, from the dead.

Let me just ask you one more time is Jesus, does your life speak?

Do your decisions speak that Jesus is the true treasure of your heart.

Jim Elliott was a famous missionary who died a martyr.

I think he was in some part of unreached part of Ecuador years ago and here's what he said.

I'm going to close with this quote.

Listen to me very carefully.

Jim Elliott, missionary, says these words.

He died for the faith.

He says quote he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

Father in heaven, forgive us for not treasuring you above all things.

Help us see today that these, these pursuits of wealth and in fame and youthfulness, they will never satisfy our heart.

Father in heaven, forgive us for not treasuring you above all things.

These pursuits of wealth and in fame and youthfulness, they will never satisfy our hearts.

Being a good person will not give us eternal life.

Yes, we are called to good works, but it's only through you and through a relationship with you that we can truly do good works.

For the one here today who has perhaps money and talent and a level of fame or youthfulness, whatever it might be, something that the world values, yet they are still empty.

May their hearts find you today.

May you reveal the veil and let them see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ Lord.

I think of the parable in Matthew 13, where the man is walking through the field and he comes up on this priceless treasure and he goes to sell everything he owns Gladly.

The scripture says he sells it all to obtain the treasure.

We want to be like that today.

We want to see Jesus as so precious and so worthy that we're willing to lay everything down and we don't do it begrudgingly.

We say it's all yours.

Every sin, every worldly possession, it pales in comparison to the glory of Jesus Christ.

Help us today, god.

Surrender it all to you.

We pray to Jesus' good name Amen At 7 pm.

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