How Good is Good Enough?

It seems anytime that I speak to people who don’t know Jesus as their Lord, they alway say that “I’m basically a good person.” This seems to be a predominate view in the world, even among Christians. This view that we are pretty good.

This is usually followed by the statement that “sure I swear sometimes, and I drink to much once in a while, but hey, I’m only human.”

This statement, showing that it is human nature to err reveals to us how twisted of a view we have on goodness.

This is becasue our view of goodness is a relative view based on whoever is around us. When the true standard for goodness is God.

v.18-19

Good Teacher

The man is using the term first of all to flatter Jesus. He is also using it to mean someone who is virtuous, someone of good character.

This is what most people mean by the term good.

Jesus shuts his flattery down by taking the term good to a whole other level by saying only God is good.

Jesus is no longer speaking of relative goodness that we as humans may possess. He is speaking of goodness at the level of the creator God who from all goodness flows.

This goodness that Jesus speaks of is the goodness that is never unjust, is never unrighteous.

Not only that but the inward motivations behind our actions are good.

R.C. Sproul Jr. - Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once, and He volunteered.

This is all to say that the man’s perceptions of good were flawed, which is what lead to his wrong presumptions in the end.

v.20

You Know the Commands

This is odd becasue Jesus had just spoken about how getting into the kingdom is of grace, but here He speaks of the law.

The great thing that we see Jesus doing is pointing to scripture,

He does it here

when He is tempted by Satan.

Jesus used the scripture as authoritative. It still is today.

There is one thing that Luke left out that Matthew included in his gospel.

Matthew 19:18 ESV

18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness,

Which ones?

Satan himself is working behind a question such as this. Where we begin to question which of the bible we can ignore and which part do we need to pay attention to.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

All scripture is breathed out by God and is good for us.

How much do we try to weasel and reason about is this really how God called us to live. ie

Why do I need to forgive so and so.

Why can’t I live with my girlfriend or boyfriend before marriage?

I don’t think that’s really what God meant about homosexuality.

We go to the bible as our solid rock, not culture.

When we begin to cut chunks out of scripture, we are no longer serving God, but ourselves.

v.20-21

Jesus lists some, and the man lies…he says that he’s kept them. He must have missed the sermon on the mount when Jesus expounded on the commandments.

With the man still believing that he is good, Jesus expounds on the first commandment.

To love the Lord your God, with all your heart mind and strength.

v.22

One Thing You Lack

You might think that Jesus was calling him to a life of poverty.

That isn’t the point that Jesus is making.

The man’s wealth is his idol, Jesus is showing him what he loves more than God.

Giving up his wealth wasn’t the end, but the means to an end.

What God desires is our hearts, he wants us to desire Him.

The man giving up his wealth was the call to give up the thing prohibiting him from following God.

What is inhibiting you?

Before getting to hard on him, realize that this is the call for every disciple.

We have been bought with a price, therefore we are to crucify our desires, our wants for the sake of following Christ.

Are you a disciple?

Are you a Christian? Then you are a disciple.

Are you living to make Christ known, or is there something in your life that stops you from serving God?

Our salvation is all of grace, we contribute nothing to our salvation. But Eph 2:10 says we were created for good works and should be walking in them.

So are you doing all you can, or does your comfort get in the way, does your fear get in the way?

v.23-27

The rich man is sad becasue he doesn’t want to repent of his idolatry and follow Jesus.

Camel Through the Eye of a Needle

I’ve heard is said that this eye of the needle was a gate in the Jerusalem wall.

A camel would have to be unloaded and crawl to get through it. It was exceedingly difficult.

I don’t think that is what Jesus is speaking of at all. There is no record of any such gate until around the 9th century. It didn’t exist in antiquity.

Those who heard said, that is impossible, not that is difficult.

I think Jesus meant a literal camel, and a literal needle.

This was a form of Hebrew proverb that was common in those days.

This would be an impossible task.

We Serve a God of Miracles

Abraham was 75 years old when he was first told that he would be a great nation. But it wasn’t until Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born.

Why? becasue God wanted to show that it wasn’t in any might or strength that they had, but through God that mighty works were done.

How many times did Israel go into battle when entering Caanan, and none of them were lost? Impossible.

Shad, Me, Obed thrown into the fiery furnace and didn’t even have the smell of smoke on them.

We serve a God of miracles.

Harder for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man.

Or a poor man, or me, or you.

Why? Because none of us are good enough

This man wasn’t good enough, none of us are good enough.

v.27

The Impossible is Possible with God

Apart from the mercy and sovereign grace of God in our lives we would all be going to hell.

We were as spiritually dead as the bones in the valley in Ezekiel. Yet God takes the sun bleached bones, brings them together, puts tendons and flesh back on them and breaths new life in them.

As miraculous as that would be to see, when we see a sinner dead in their trespasses come to know who Jesus is you have just experienced no less of a miracle that what Ezekiel saw.

For apart from God drawing people to himself, no one can be saved.

Yet praise be to God, we serve the God who does the impossible.

When we aren’t willing to follow God, we are to focused on the temporal, not the eternal.

v.28-30

Jesus reminds us not to focus on what we have lost in the temporal, but to focus on what we are gaining in the eternal.