Receiving the Kingdom Like a Child
Notes
Transcript
PRAY
Theme: You cannot earn eternal life. You must receive it like a child—empty-handed, by grace alone.
Introduction
Today is a joyful and significant day as we have witnessed the baptism of Alice.
Her baptism is not simply a family tradition or a special ceremony.
It is a gospel, a good news, moment, a vivid picture of God’s grace.
And to understand that grace, we’re going to look at todays passage in Luke 18:15–30.
This passage has two contrasting moments.
In one, infants, babies, are brought to Jesus—helpless, dependent, and gladly received by him.
In the other, a rich, sucessful leader walks away from Jesus—sorrowful, burdened, and still searching.
Between these two stories,
Jesus shows us what it means to receive the kingdom of God.
And today, he invites us all—whatever our age, background, or beliefs—our sceptisisms or current understanding,
to come to him.
1. Come Like a Child (vv. 15–17)
1. Come Like a Child (vv. 15–17)
Luke tells us that people were bringing babies to Jesus so that he might touch them.
The word he uses, literally, means infants—tiny, fully dependent babies.
And the disciples rebuke them.
To them, Jesus is for the worthy.
Jesus is for the mature,
the moral,
the impressive.
Not for children who can offer nothing.
Sure, they’re often cute, but that’s about all that’s going for them.
And when someone as important and busy as JEsus is around,
there are more importnat things to do. - no offence Alice.
But Jesus turns their thinking upside down:
But Jesus called the children to him and said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Notice what Jesus doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say, "The kingdom belongs to those who act like children"
or even those who love children.
He says it belongs to people who come to him like children, on the same way an infant does.
Babies are completely helpless.
They can’t earn anything.
They can’t perform - other than in their nappies
They come with nothing.
And that’s exactly how you must come to Jesus.
Not with your achievement record.
Not with your religion.
Not with your reasons.
But empty-handed.
Completely Dependant,
Neediness - is not a problem in God’s kingdom—it’s the prerequisite.
That’s why we can baptize babies.
Alice hasn’t earned this moment.
She can’t articulate her faith.
But her baptism isn’t about her promise to God
—it’s about God’s promise to her.
It doesn’t say, "Look how faithful she is." It says, "Look how faithful God is."
It doesn’t declare what Alice has done for God,
It shows what God has done for her - she belongs to God’s family because her parents belong,
Tim and Sarah came to the Lord empty handed - like Alice,
So their children now belong to Him.
And every one of us must come to Jesus like that.
Not carried by our strength, but by his.
Can you say that you have received this promise?
Have you come to Christ like, Alice—carried to him helplessly,
not climbing to him in your own strength?
The point is made clearer by the next event here.
2. Don’t Trust in Riches or Morals (vv. 18–23)
2. Don’t Trust in Riches or Morals (vv. 18–23)
The contrast could not be sharper.
Enter the rich ruler.
He’s young, successful, morally upright.
And yet he comes with a question that betrays a deep fear:
v”18 - Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
It’s a surprising question,
for someone who has everything worldly that he could want, - He is rich.
and even has a religion he knows and follows - He has good morals.
but he’s still afraid.
Deep down, he knows that death is coming.
And after death—what?
Well, He want’s eternal life,
becasue he knows enough about life and religion,
to know that there must be a creator God,
and that it stands to reason
God’s not going to be best impressed with the way he’s lived his life.
DOn’t be mistaken.
This rich ruler has lived a ‘good life’. in our normal undertsnading of things BUt not a perfect life.
He knows he’s good, but is he good enough?
His question reveals his greatest fear.
How can I avoid God’s right judgement in hell,
and instead be spared judgement and live eternally with Him in Glory.
He is afraid of being found wanting before God.
He has riches, success, morality—but no assurance.
Jesus answers with a question that cuts under the rich man’s thinking: v“20
”Why do you call me good? No one is good—except God alone."
Jesus isn’t denying his divinity. We know he claims to be God, and therefore Good.
But He’s challenging the ruler’s shallow understanding of goodness.
The man thinks of goodness as being decent and respectable, moral.
Jesus defines it by God’s perfect holiness.
And by that standard, no one is good.
How can i earn, what must I do, how ‘good’ must I be to inherit eternal life?
Well no-one is good.
So he gives the man a test to help him answer his own question:
You know the commandments: “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother.”’ ‘All these I have kept since I was a boy,’ he said.
This is a sincere man—a moral man.
He is the kind of guy we all like and respect today.
He’s what most of us want to be, or perhaps are.
We want to be basically good people.
BUt as Jesus is now about to point out - our good, isn’t good enough:
JEsus knows that while the man is preppared to do certain things for God,
he is not prepared to give everything to God:
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy.
Jesus isn’t giving a universal command to sell all possessions if you want to be saved.
He’s simply revealing this man’s heart.
He’s asked him the moral life questions from the 10 commandments - and it seems on the whole he’s doing prerty good.
But now he turns his attention to the questions of who he worships?
The first commandmment of God,
And God spoke all these words: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before me.
The rich mans real god isn’t God—it’s wealth, it’s his own comfort - it’s himself.
Jesus proves this
not by suggesting that he can earn eternal life by giving away his wealth,
but by prooving the man’s true God is wealth
- otherwise if it so called for it - he would gladly give it all up for the Lord God.
And so, faced with the choice between his riches and eternal life,
he chooses his riches.
And he walks away.
This is not just his story. It’s ours.
Some of us trust in our success, others in our reputation, or our decency.
Like the rich man, we want to be safe from judgment
without surrendering our hearts to Jesus.
We want eternal life,
but we don’t want the embarrassment of saying we had it wrong this far in life.
We want eternal life,
but we don’t want to give up our Sunday’s to Jesus.
We want eternal life
but we don’t want to repent of our sin and so show our weakness.
Our whole worldview revolves around what we truely worship,
And the call of Jesus to come to him empty handed,
To give up our love of other things
Aknowldegeding we can bring nothing and do nothing to be saved,
Means so many refuse to do it.
The rich man wasn’t prepared to put Jesus before His wealth.
What is it that Is stoping you?
So it seems for our rich man and maybe for us:
3. Salvation Is Impossible (vv. 24–27)
3. Salvation Is Impossible (vv. 24–27)
Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ Those who heard this asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’
Don’t miss what Jesus says here.
He really means it.
Salvation is impossible for man to achieve.
You get a camel through the eye of a needle and we’ll talk again.
We will never be ‘good’ in God’s sight,
and we will never be able in our own strength to come empty handed,
We are too wedded to our own idols.
TO put Jesus before everythgin else in our lives.
To repent of our sin,
and accept His lordship over our lives.
It’s humanly impossible.
IF you’re visiting today - you can go home and tell your mates -
I went to the worst church serivce ever!
They told me salvation is impossible!
Worst sales pitch ever!
You cannot buy it.
You cannot earn it.
You cannot inherit it.
You cannot behave your way into it.
"Who then can be saved?" ask the crowds, ask us.
It’s a good question.
- just as it worries the Rich man and the crowds.
It should worry us what we’re hearing from Jesus
They aren’t just curious—they’re anxious.
The crowd understands that Jesus is talking about salvation from God’s judgment.
They’re not asking,
“Who can have a nicer life?”
but, “Who can be saved from God’s wrath?”
They too fear the final judgment.
They know they’re not good enough.
And so they ask, “If the rich and moral can’t be saved, who can?”
And
Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with man (big pause) is possible with God.’
"What is impossible with man is possible with God."
Here is the thunderclap of grace.
You can’t save yourself.
But God can save you.
And that is exactly what he has done in Christ Jesus.
This is the Gospel, the good news, the Christian mesage,
the only Hope in life and death.
Jesus didn’t come just to teach or inspire.
He came to die in our place, bearing our sin and God’s wrath on the cross.
He came to do the impossible:
to save us from hell and bring us to God.
To give us eternal life,
This is what makes grace so stunning.
You don’t have to be enough.
You don’t have to fix yourself.
You don’t have to be ‘good’, or have been good enough.
In fact you can be the thief on the cross,
the man on death row,
the tax collector or the prostitute,
you can be the one with the darkest and most hideous thoughts and sin in your past or present.
YOu can be a generally ‘good’ person.
You only have to come with a hand handful of - nothing.
The rich man, sadly, could have kept his wealth if it wasn’t his god.
But Jesus simply knew, as did the rich man - it was something he could never love less than God.
This is why it’s harder for a rich happy man to be saved than a sad and miserable person.
The irony being the rich man is actually sad now anyway.
Some of us - we are happy to take the good morals and the religious experience and hope that’s enough.
Well it’s not. - not in this life and certainly not in the next.
We must call on the grace of God,
Ask Him to do the impossible for us.
to free us from our worship of self,
money,
sin,
whatever it is we can’t let go off,
ask him to do the impossible.
Save us.
Draw us to Jesus.
trusting in nothing of ourselves - but solely on him.
So what about you?
Are you prepared to give your whole life to JEsus so that you revice eternal life and are spared the judgement of God when you die?
Is the sacrficie in this life, worth it?
Oh yes.
4. Grace Is Worth Everything (vv. 28–30)
4. Grace Is Worth Everything (vv. 28–30)
Peter said to him, ‘We have left all we had to follow you!’ ‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said to them, ‘no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.’
Peter, one of Jesus’ true followers,
speaks up: "We have left all we had to follow you!"
He’s wondering: Did we get it right?
"No one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life."
The gospel doesn’t just save you from judgment.
It gives you treasure beyond imagining.
Jesus is saying:
Anything you give up for me—comfort, control, security, riches—will be repaid a hundredfold.
Not always in material ways,
but it is always better than what we left behind.
It is the riches of knowing God,
being assured of eternal life with him,
being part of his church family,
inheriting eternal joy.
Some here today may be afraid to come to Jesus because of what you might lose:
Career plans, lifestyle, relationships.
it’s impossible, my spouse will thnk I’m crazy,
my hobbies might have to change,
my secrets might have to be faced and repented of,
it’s impossoble.
Yes, yes, it is,
but fortunately you can Ask God to save you and he can do the impossible.
You don’t have to bring anythign but empty humble repentant hands.
Come to him and the belssings of GRace,
His Love,
His forgiveness,
the support of His church family,
the assurance of facing no judgement
the sure hope of eternal life
a hundredfold blessing on what you currently have..
Pause
Two scenes. Infants, received with joy because they came with nothing.
A rich moral leader, walking away sorrowful, because he couldn’t let go of what he loved. How ironic.
Who will you be like?
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