What Must I Do?
Notes
Transcript
Pastoral Prayer:
Announcements:
Kent, if you can incorporate that into your announcements time, that would be great and play it in that window. You can mention again that the kids and families from VBS raised over $2500 to go toward Sweet Sleep.
back to school event on the 15th?
· Share an update on how the retreat went the weekend prior. Any testimony or evidence of His grace at work through that?
C-20- Bible Study at Lake Bloomington this Thursday. Meet at the church at 5:30pm to carpool
Bryant and Andrea Kempf marriage
Introduction
Introduction
In about a month I will have completed two years serving as the youth and college pastor here at Crosspoint. In two years I have learned a lot as it regards to serving students and how to connect with them. One thing that I have observed in my time here is how much boys, excuse me, young men, try to impress the girls that they have a crush on. From bragging about how strong they are to being ultra competitive when it comes to 9 square. I’ve observed some attention seeking tactics. It’s not just middle/high school boys, this is very much in post high school men as well. While reading an online article, that talked about things that men do to impress women, 7 things stood out.
Flashing Cash
Trying to be someone that they are not
Namedropping “famous” people that they know
Talking about how nice they are
Pretending to be smarter than they are
doing insane physical stunts
Refusing to open up about their feelings (tough guy)
If I’m being honest I used to be one of those boys in school. I used to think that if I did certain things, if I played well enough in basketball, or got the best grades, somehow that would catch the attention of a female. I thought, as many men do, that if I performed well enough, I could win the approval of that particular crush.
If we are being honest, brothers and sisters in Christ, there are sometimes we fall into this kind of thinking that we need to be impressive in our relationship with God. We can go down the path of thinking, if I do well enough in a certain area of life that God will love me more or maybe God will bless me more. If I act kind toward other people than God will treat me with kindness. Then there is also the flip side, since I failed in this area, then God can’t really love me right now. I must work myself back into God’s approval. But the end this kind of thinking leaves us to ask, “what must I do?”. What must I do for God to like me? What must I do for God to approve of me?
This is the same question that a certain city official had for Jesus.
If you have your bibles with you, please meet me in Luke 18. Luke 18:18. I will start reading from verse 18.
Read verses 18-19 then stop.
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 18
18 A ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother.”,
21 “I have kept all these from my youth,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich.
At the beginning of this story in Luke’s gospel we see this city official, or a ruler, ask Jesus what he must do to be approved by God to inherit eternal life.
Read v. 18b- “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
What Must I Do To Be Approved By God?
What Must I Do To Be Approved By God?
Right away we see that this ruler thinks he can attain eternal life by his actions. That by his own actions, he can win God’s approval. Now the answer that Jesus gives this ruler can be kind of confusing, because on the front end it seems like Jesus is denying His deity which would be very problematic to what we, as Christians, believe about the Trinity.
The Holman New Testament Commentary on Luke puts it this way
Luke D. Dedication to Kingdom Living over Wealthy Living: A Worthy Reward (18:18–30)
18:19. Jesus caught the man’s attention by challenging his description of Jesus as good. Only one person can be truly good. That is God. Thus, unknowingly, the administrator had linked Jesus to God. Jesus caught the link and brought it out into the open. He repeated traditional Jewish theology in confessing that God alone is good. In so doing, Jesus did not affirm or deny his own claim to deity. Luke expected his readers, however, to see the link that Jesus made and to affirm the obvious—that Jesus, being good, was also God.
Jesus then continues to answer the man in the following verses, let’s pick back up our passage at verse 20.
Read Luke 18:20-23
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 18
20 You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother.”,
21 “I have kept all these from my youth,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich.
<--- Put up the first scripture slide.
Let’s pause reading for a moment to digest what we just read.
We see that the second part of Jesus response to the ruler was reminding the ruler of God’s perfect and good law. This was an attempt to expose the ruler’s false understanding of the law and it worked as the man responded that he had observed them his entire life.
The Moody Bible Commentary says this concerning the ruler
“The response of Jesus to the ruler’s greeting- was not a denial by Jesus of His own deity, but a question designed to expose the ruler’s superficiality. The man had a superficial understanding of “goodness,” and therefore a superficial understanding of God. As the conversation continued he showed a superficial understanding of the law. Finally, he proved to have a superficial understanding of Jesus, for he failed to demonstrate humility before Jesus or a willingness to follow Jesus, because that meant giving up the comforts and securities he possessed in this life.”
From our passage we see that are three problems with the ruler trying to justify himself by the law.
Problems with trying to justify by the law
1. The law was never meant to be the means by which someone inherits eternal life.
On the contrary the law was meant to expose sin and expose humanity’s helpless state and need for God’s grace and forgiveness.
What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me.
2. The ruler thought that observing the law was outward action based.
We see that in the sermon on the mount found in Matthew 5, Jesus expounds on the OT law.
“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Whoever insults his brother or sister, will be subject to the court. Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be subject to hellfire.
Also later in the same chapter of Matthew 5, Jesus says this
“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
From these two passages we see Jesus explain that sin is much deeper than an outward action. Sin starts in the heart. Sin is a heart problem that manifests itself in outward actions.
3. Humanity will always come up short when trying to be justified by the law.
Re-read Luke 18:22-23
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 18
22 When Jesus heard this, he told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich.
Now I want to quickly clarify that when Jesus said that the ruler lacked one thing, He was not saying that the ruler was almost perfect, like somehow if this man had actually sold everything that he could’ve have been justified by his works. We need to remember that Jesus is talking with someone who is trying to impress God with his works. All Jesus needs to do is to expose one sinful area of the heart which results in exposing the true sinful, fallen, selfish heart that this ruler has.
For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
Needless to say this man has been exposed. Now bare with me for a moment as I attempt another student ministry illustration. Raise your hand if you are a middle school, high school, or college student. What game was super popular last year that was kinda like Mafia but was called something else. Started with an A....Among Us. in the game Among Us you have regular people doing tasks but then you have bad guys what’s their names? Imposters trying to ruin everything. And when someone thinks they know who an imposter is. What do they say to other people? It’s a 3 lettered word, I think it begins with an s.... sus. which is short for suspicious. You call him sus because you see him acting as someone who he is not.
That is basically whats happening here. This ruler is trying to play the game like he is super righteous, but here comes Jesus and calls this man sus or suspicious and exposes his sin.
Then the ruler walks away sad as if he is too proud to humble himself before Jesus.
When sin is exposed there are two options. One is that we turn away from God and try to handle our sin on our own (which never ends well and it never goes away). The other option is to turn to God. He will forgive us of our sin and cast our sin away as if it goes to the deepest parts of the ocean, choosing not to remember it.
Here we see a man turn away from God in tears but I pray that you would turn to God when your sin is exposed.
What we see next in our story is that Jesus turns to his disciples to have a teaching moment.
Let’s continue reading in our story in Luke 18:24-30
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 18
24 Seeing that he became sad, Jesus said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For 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.”
26 Those who heard this asked, “Then who can be saved?”
27 He replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
28 Then Peter said, “Look, we have left what we had and followed you.”
29 So he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left a house, wife or brothers or sisters, parents or children because of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more at this time, and eternal life in the age to come.”
Here we see a well known phrase, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
Jesus gives a great picture of what impossible looks like. A camel, a huge animal, trying to fit through the tiny hole at the top of a needle. Literally impossible. But Jesus says that it is easier for that to happen than for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
Now here is another statement that is worth spending some time to study because on the front end it seems like Jesus is saying that anyone has a wealth has a harder time getting to heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle.
So what is Jesus trying to communicate here?
1. Jesus was breaking down the Jewish stereotype that a rich man was seen as more blessed by God.
Jesus wants people know that it doesn’t matter what financial status you are, God wants to love you. Just because you don’t have as comfortable a lifestyle as someone else in the community, doesn’t mean God loves you any less or cares about you any less.
2. Those who do have wealth can have a tendency to trust in their resources rather than trusting in God.
For this rich young ruler, he found his identity in his wealth, he probably liked being treated well by the public because of his status, he enjoyed having not to worry about whether or not he was going to make ends meet. Because what we see in the end, is that the ruler chose his wealth over following Jesus.
Three Takeaways
God desires your heart.
Salvation is only possible with God
We are called to have God as our first priority in life.
Communion
1 Cor. 11:23-26
On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Kent, if you can also pray for the offering between the 3rd and 4th song, and then close out the service that would be great.