Luke 18:15-43

Mark Smith preaching from Luke 18:15-43. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:18

We'll be in Luke chapter 18, starting in verse 15, and then going to the end of the chapter. Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they rebuked them, but Jesus called to him, saying, Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And a ruler asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And he said, All of these things I have kept from my youth. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me. When he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God, 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. Those who heard it said, Who then then who can be saved? But he said, What is impossible with man is possible with God. And Peter said, See, we have left our homes and followed you. And he said to them, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life. And taking the twelve he said to them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished, for he will be delivered over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon, and after flogging him they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise. But they understood none of these things. The saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing the crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, and he cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and commanded to and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, What do you want me to do to do for you? And he said, Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, Recover your sight, your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God, the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

And if while you're sitting down, you want to turn up that passage that Colin read for us in Luke chapter 18. Um, I don't suppose I could have a different music stand, or somebody could come and kind of help me with this one because it's loving just to collapse. Um I might just kind of put that out there into the universe and see if that manifests. Thanks. Uh that's not um uh core doctrine at City Church. Um just by just thought I'd kind of clarify that immediately. Thank you, uh dear brother. Let's see if that one works better. Uh fantastic, brilliant. Um great. If you need to follow along in another language, uh you can scan the QR code uh for our Glossa translation service uh as well. Hopefully that works. If it doesn't work, please also relay that feedback uh to Jared to make sure that that is up and running most uh most weeks. Uh finish the uh finish the sentence for me in your mind, okay? Ready? Here's a sentence. Finish it in your mind. My life will be full when. How have you finished that sentence? My life will be full when I have achieved the desired level in my career that I am aiming for. My life will be full when I have finally found my forever person. My life will be full when I have experienced more of what life has to offer. My life will be full when I have the material security and comfort. It means I don't need to be anxious anymore. There's a uh there's an old version of uh Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That's the version that I grew up watching. It's not the Johnny Depp one, it's the old Gene Wilder one, uh, which is far superior, right, Ben? Yes. Okay, some whoops. It is amazing. And there's a scene right at the uh right at the end uh when they're in the uh the great glass elevator where uh Willy Wonka bends down and he talks to Charlie, and he he says this he says, Don't forget, Charlie, what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted? What happened? He lived happily ever after. And that's the final line. And the camera pounds back, and you see the great glass elevator swirling over London. Live happily ever after when you get everything you ever wanted. We walk out of the movie theater, we finish watching the movie, we think, Yes! Love it! If I have everything that I ever wanted, I will live happily ever after. But there's a problem with that. It doesn't seem to be true. Have you noticed that? The people climb and climb and climb, and they finally reach the top of the mountain that they're trying to get up, whether it's their career. You see this with sports people all the time. There's this pinnacle that they're trying to achieve at the highest level of their sporting career. And they get it, and they lift the trophy, and they have a kind of breakdown afterwards because they think, well, where do I go after this? Movie stars, business opportunities, celebrities, there's all still this niggling, yearning, longing that something is still missing. More and more of us in the West, more and more of us who are in our uh 20s and 30s, some of us are beginning to kind of crest into our 40s, are realizing that there's something not quite right. There's something missing. That's why more people are turning to religion. Bible sales are up, church attendance is increasing. Because there's a realization that maybe there's something more. But the shocker of this passage is that he came to Jesus and leaves him feeling sadder than he was before. Whereas others in this passage that Colin read for us meet Jesus and are filled with praise for God, filled with joy in following him. And so the question for us this morning is less, have you met Jesus? But how have you come to him? Because you know, it's possible to meet the real Jesus as the rich young man did, and leave him feeling sad. Or you can meet the real Jesus and have a gladness and a joy that you never thought possible. That's the two things that we're going to look at this morning. The first is how can you leave Jesus feeling sad? How can you meet Jesus and leave him feeling sadder than you ever have before? Pick up the story in verse 18. We'll look back at uh uh at verses 15 to 17 in a few minutes, but we'll pick up the story in verse 18 if you're following along in your Bibles or on your phones. We meet this man, right? It's called the rich young ruler. We don't know his name. We know that he is a person of significant wealth, right? He is materially well off. And the thing to recognize about that is in that culture, that would have been a sign that you're being blessed by God. That's why in the second half, after he goes, everybody's like, well, then who can be saved? Because we thought that the rich people were the ones that God was showing his blessing to. So he's materially well off. But he's not just materially rich, he's actually morally rich. You know, when Jesus lists out some of those commandments, he's able to say, Well, I've kept them. And Jesus doesn't turn around and go, whatever. He effortly, he's like, fine. He seems to be a morally upstanding guy. And again, that would make sense. If he's morally upstanding, and then he's materially well off, the kind of equation in the mind of people looking at his life is he's a really great guy to be around. He's good, and that goodness is being shown in the fact that he's materially well off. But it gets even better for this guy, right? This guy is not just materially rich, he's not just morally rich, he has a level of self-awareness where he knows that there's something missing. He knows that he still lacks, and so he's he has the humility to go searching. He hasn't become conceited with his moral goodness, he hasn't become blind because of his riches. He's coming along to church, he's trying to figure out what else is going on. It's as though in this guy's mind, he's climbed up that mountain and he knows that he just can't quite get to the summit. He's maybe like a step or two steps away from the very pinnacle. And so he's come to Jesus going, How do I get to the very top? I've got the moral rich thing, I've got the material rich thing, but there's just this a little niggle here. Jesus, can you help me with that? So he's open. He's exactly the kind of person that we would all expect to be in the kingdom. But after his conversation with Jesus, he leaves. He leaves sad, literally, grieved. He is in grief because of a conversation that he has had with the real Jesus. Why? It's because the rich young man has approached Jesus with some wrong thinking. He's got a wrong framework about how the kingdom works. And Jesus is correcting it. There are four reasons why he leaves sad. There are four reasons why, if you come to Jesus with this sort of framework, the framework of the rich young man, you'll leave him sad too. You'll not be able to understand why you should follow him. The first is that the rich young man had the wrong categories of people in his mind. He comes to Jesus and he calls him good. Good teacher. On the one hand, that's a mark of respect. But Jesus has to immediately correct him. He says, No one is good except God alone. You see, the rich young man looked out at the world and thought that the world was full of good people and bad people. People in white hats and people in black hats. And so he looks at Jesus and goes, Well, Jesus clearly has a white hat on. How do I get the white hat? He thinks that the world is a mixture of good people and bad people. He's kept all the commandments. He just needs a little helping hand to get to the next level. Maybe he was expecting the reassurance from Jesus that the goodness of keeping those commandments was good enough. Isn't that what people want? People just want to be reassured that actually, yeah, they are. They are good people. But Jesus confronts and confounds his categories. He says, no one is good but God alone. So Jesus looks out at humanity and he has a completely different category framework for human beings. What Jesus is saying to this rich young man is there's there's bad people and there's God. That's it. There's bad people, that's you and me, and then there's God. No one is good except God alone. This is the first way that you will leave Jesus feeling sad. If you come to him thinking, well, I'm kind of good, I'm trying to clean up my act, I'm doing my best. Maybe Jesus can just kind of help me get over the uh over the line to the top of the mountain. I'm better than most. We assume that that maybe kind of puts us somewhere near God's good list, like he's Santa Claus. He's got a he's got a naughty list and a nice list, and you know, I should be, I might be on the bottom of the nice list, but I'm on that list, surely. If you get those categories wrong, you will never see your need of Jesus. And you'll never actually see Jesus as the good God who has come near and come to him for mercy. The rich young man went away sad because he had the wrong categories. The second reason why uh the rich young ruler went away sad is because he had the wrong approach. Wrong categories, wrong approach. He comes to Jesus and says, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? But this is how religion works, isn't it? This is how every other religion tells you to achieve the the summit of the mountain of the divine. You do the right things. I was uh I was I was I was doom scrolling uh on Instagram uh the uh the other day, and I I don't know what this tells you about my algorithm, uh, but there was a um there was a video of two young Muslim men uh singing um uh Ramadan Mubarak to the tune of we wish you a Merry Christmas. I don't know what that says about my algorithm, but it doesn't say anything good, right? Um but one of the things that they were saying is, may Allah regard your fasting, may He regard your good deeds. And that's the whole that's the whole, that's every other religion summed up in a nutshell. May that divine entity look at the good things that you're doing and have regard for them. And it's entirely possible that Allah or whoever it is might look at your good deeds and go, you're not good enough. Then what do you do? This young man comes to Jesus and goes, What must I do? He thought he was nearly there, just one more step. And Jesus says that he is not just one step away, but on the wrong road entirely. Christianity is not a moral add-on to your life. It is a complete reordering of your life, it's a complete rewiring of your approach to things like goodness and badness. It's a complete reordering of your moral posture. You go from achieving, which is everything in your world, right? Achieve this success, status. Christianity explodes all of that and says, don't achieve, receive. You don't earn it, it comes to you as a gift. How many of us come along to church because what we essentially want is a better version of our life. I've got my life, I've got my life plan, and what I would what I want is really just to kind of juice it up a little bit. I want a better version of the plan that I have, but Jesus comes along and explodes all of that. But in exploding it, he offers something better, a better version of your life, new creation life. You become a completely new person, a life that you cannot achieve, but you can receive by the mercy of Jesus. If you come to Jesus thinking, what must I do? And Christian, brother or sister, brother or sister, you do this all the time. I know because I talk to you. We're forever trying to achieve things because we are so convinced that Jesus is, yes, he died for us, and uh, but he's not really, he's not really pleased with us, and so we still think that we're kind of on the naughty list, and so we've got to do all of these things to make sure that he actually really likes us. If you approach Jesus like that, you will leave him sad, like the rich young ruler. He had wrong categories, he had the wrong approach, he had the wrong diagnosis, third, he had the wrong diagnosis of the problem that he was perceiving. He perceived this longing, this something else being missing. And Jesus is gonna put his finger on really what's going on inside this man's heart. So Jesus deliberately lists out some commandments, but you notice he doesn't start with commandment number one, he starts halfway through the Ten Commandments, which is uh the commandments that govern relationships between human beings. Not murdering, not stealing, not lying, not committing adultery, right? How you and I might relate towards one another. And the young man thinks, great, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Bingo, I've done all of those. Ever since I was a young boy. And Jesus doesn't challenge his behavior, but what he says next exposes his heart. You see, the first commandment says, I am the Lord your God, you will have no other gods before me. It is a command to exclusive worship, to exclusive trust, exclusive dependence. Jesus turns to the man and says, Sell everything that you have and give it to the poor. And in asking him to do that, he is revealing what really has his heart. How do we know that money has this man's heart? Well, we know because of his response. He leaves sad. We also know because if you read other instances where Jesus interacts with wealthy people, Jesus is not just some socialist. He doesn't have this kind of carte blanche rule where he goes to every wealthy person and says, Sell all that you have. So, like in the very next chapter, at the start of chapter 19, he talks to uh to a short king called Zacchaeus, right, who's up a tree. And uh Zacchaeus, what does he end up doing? He sells half. So there isn't like a hard and fast rule. You're rich, sell it all and distribute it or give it to the government and allow them to distribute it for you. The reason why Jesus tells this man to let go of all of his money is because his money had a grip on him. It's a little bit like alcohol, right? So I'm gonna flirt with um some uh some perhaps controversy. So you can send me an email afterwards, whatever, okay? Right. Okay. Here's the first question. Is it wrong, is it sinful to have a beer? Okay, let me give you the detailed theological answer. Detailed theological answer to the question of is it wrong to have a beer is no. No, it's not. There's lots of reasons why you wouldn't, but it's not sinful to do it. Okay? Send me an email afterwards. Now, let's say you're the kind of person who cannot go out and have one beer, and you have to go out and have 12 beers and get absolutely hammered. What should you do then with your relationship to alcohol? You should give up drinking. That's it. You should give up drinking, you should cut it out of your life because you cannot hold it in its right place in your heart, in the kind of one beer place. It has to be 12. In the same way, it's not that money is inherently sinful, it's what money does to our hearts. It's that it grabs such a hold of this young man's heart that Jesus says, you need to wrestle that thing away from your heart and give it away. Because then you will have a life that is fulfilled by me. There's something else, young man, on the throne of your life, and it's the cash that's in your bank account. And I can't sit on that throne while it's there. And so you take it away, you deal with it decisively in order to be free to follow Jesus. You cannot have money at the center of your life and Jesus at the center of your life. You cannot have money and Jesus as your security. You cannot have money and Jesus as your defining value. And none of that is to say that money is bad. It's the level of intensity with which you hold on to your material wealth that Jesus is criticizing and critiquing. Yeah, that's why we invite you to give. We invite you to give not because God needs your money, because the cattle on a thousand hills are the Lord's, but because we want your hearts to be freed from the grip of gold. Money does something to us, doesn't it? It does something to our hearts. I remember an old uh clergyman said that the last person, or the last part of a person to be converted is their wallet. It's one of those areas that we don't want Jesus to speak to. And we can be tempted to walk away from him feeling sad. Has your wallet been converted by Jesus? Have you loosened its grip on your heart so that the material wealth that you've been given becomes a blessing to be enjoyed? A tool to be used to bless others and for kingdom advancement? Or is it something, no, no, I have to have this? You don't understand, Mark. You don't understand how precarious things are, you don't understand. I need this, my security depends on this. Sell all you have. Give it to the poor. You can widen it out from money, you know. By simply asking yourself, what's the non-negotiable in your life? You know, what's the what's the red line that you're asking Jesus not to cross? Jesus, you can have every part of me, but not that. Jesus, my my life is laid bare before you, but not, don't ask this of me. If Jesus asks you to turn aside from that thing, could you do it? Or would you leave sad? Maybe it's the career path that you're on that you know you're kind of on it because you need the you need the affirmation from others, and you know that it's burdening you more and more and more and making you more stressed and more anxious. But you have to have it because you need the congratulations of your peers, you need to show yourself to be successful. Jesus says, I want I want that. Maybe it's a relationship. Jesus says, Actually, that relationship isn't particularly good for you. That relationship is more important to you than my relationship with you. I want you to I want you to lay that on the altar and come and follow me. Sell all you have and follow me. Maybe it's your own autonomy. You will be the master of the ship of your life. You'll not be told by anybody. You you won't give up control. And Jesus says, while that's got a grip on your heart, you'll never know the joy of following me. What's your red line? Jesus says, I want it. Jesus wants your dreams. So this rich young man has the wrong categories, the wrong approach, the wrong diagnosis of what's really going on in his heart. And then finally, he has the wrong valuation. I say finally, this is a finally of two points. Uh, we'll get on to the second half. It'll be shorter. Um, he's the wrong valuation. You why does he leave sad? Because all he was looking at was the cost of following Jesus. He could not see the value of having Christ. He was standing in front of infinite worth, and he preferred temporary wealth. He couldn't see the value of treasure in heaven. That's what Jesus says. You'll have treasure in heaven. He'd rather have treasure on earth. There's a thief that will steal every treasure that you lay up in this life. Do you know what that thief is called? Time. Time. Time will steal everything from you eventually. But Jesus says, if you lay up treasures in heaven, that is, if you value the things of eternity, if you value me as a source of your infinite worth, you'll always be rich. No time can take that away. Our choices, our actions, our giving what we give our time to, what we give our money to, they all reflect where our treasure is. But there's something else that this rich young man missed. In Mark's account of this story, not me in the third person, the gospel of Mark. In Mark's account of this story, Mark adds another little thing. Mark says that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. You see, the ritual man didn't just miss the value of Jesus. He couldn't see how much Jesus valued him. That's the real tragedy of this moment. This man comes to Jesus with real longing and leaves sadder than ever. Not because Jesus has nothing to offer him, but because he cannot see the value of the one who is offering it. He cannot let go of what he loves most in the moment. And if we're honest, that's our story. It's our danger. We want to be moral or successful. We're searching, we're even sitting in church, and we still walk away from Jesus sad. And so the question then becomes: is there another way to meet Jesus? Is it possible to encounter the real Jesus and to be filled with gladness, to follow him with joy? Because if this man can't do it, who can? That's the question of the disciples. But Jesus' response is to say that it is impossible with man, but it's possible with God. That's why Luke places around this story, the bit before and the bit after, stories of how to come to Jesus in a way that leaves you glad. That's our second point. How can you come to Jesus and leave with gladness? In the verses immediately before, uh, Jesus is interacting with children, with little ones. Now, as you saw this morning, we many of us were sentimental about uh about babies and about kids. Not so in the ancient world, let's just say. In the ancient world, children were not shown much sympathy or compassion. Indeed, the disciples, the very followers of Jesus, were shooing them away. That's how much regard they had for kids. What does Jesus do? Jesus rebukes them and shows them care, compassion. And then he teaches the adults and says, Do you know what? If you're going to enter the kingdom, you need to receive it like a child. What does that mean? How does the child receive? Answer. With empty hands. With empty hands. We've had the pleasure of having three toddlers in our house who all at various points would come up to our legs and go, ah, me, because they want their hands to be filled, usually with the Watsets that I'm eating, but whatever it is. They have empty hands. The kingdom is not entered by those who have built their lives, but by those who come with nothing but outstretched hands to Jesus, going, I'm me. No resume, no performance, no control. Not because the children are more innocent, but because they know that they are dependent. What does that look like? For us, it means coming to Jesus, not with your track record, not with your effort, not with your plans, but saying, I have nothing. I have nothing to offer. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling. That's the posture. If the kingdom is to be received like a child, how does actually someone come to that point? The rich young ruler couldn't do it. And if we're honest, we find it hard. That's why Luke gives us the encounter with the blind man afterwards. Not with someone rich, not with someone strong, but with someone weak, someone who has nothing, someone who is crying out to God for mercy. The blind man, and here we're uh in verses 35 to 43, the blind man is he's similarly shunned because again, if you were if you were rich and happy and healthy, you were blessed by God. If you were blind in the ancient world, well, you must have done something wrong, or your parents must have done something wrong, you're clearly being punished by God. So similarly shunned, and he's aware of his need. He's lying on the street and begging and he's crying out for mercy. And unlike the rich young ruler, there is nothing that he can do to regain his sight. He is utterly dependent on the grace of Jesus. And also, unlike the ruler and the disciples, the irony of this passage is that the blind guy sees Jesus more clearly than anybody else in this passage. Because how does the blind beggar refer to Jesus? He's there, he's sitting on the street and he's calling out. What does he call out? Son of David! Son of David, have mercy on me. He sees with the eyes of his heart that Jesus is the promised Defitic Messiah, Christ and King who's come into the world. He sees with greater clarity that this Jesus is not just good teacher, but the heir to the throne of the kingdom of God. He says, Have mercy on me. That's it. That's it. How do you come to Jesus and follow him with gladness? If you come to him and you say, Have mercy on me. That's it. You want to be glad in your life, you want to be glad in God, you want to know the joy of your salvation. We pray in the confession, restore to me, O Lord, the joy of your salvation. How do you do it? You come to Jesus and you go, Have mercy on me, son of David. That's it. Do you have the humility to do that? Jesus stops. And he asks the guy a perplexing question. He says to him, What do you want me to do for you? Um what do you think? Strange question. Isn't it obvious? In response, the blind man speaks of both his need and his confidence. He says, first of all, Lord, not good teacher. Lord, he sees Jesus before his eyes are open. Lord, let me receive my sight. I know who you are, and I know my need. Do you know your need? Do you know that you need the eyes of your heart enlightened? And do you know who Jesus is? Do you come in and go, Lord, let me receive my sight. Before his eyes ever see the face of Jesus, this man has 20-20 vision. This is how the kingdom is received. This is how you meet Jesus and come away with joy and gladness. If your hands are empty, if you know your need, and you cry out to him as Lord, that's it. In verse 43, Jesus heals the man's sight. But there are those who are still blind in this passage. It's the bit that we skipped over where Jesus foretells his death again, and Luke tells us in verse 34, but they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them. And they did not grasp what was said. Jesus was telling them what's going to happen, that he's going to be mocked and beaten and killed, and on the third day rise again. And they did not understand. The disciples had eyes and could not see. The blind man saw more clearly than they. Because it was hidden from them. It needed to be revealed to them. And in time it was. But what that teaches us is that to see Jesus for who he is is itself a gift of grace. It is a gift of grace to be received with open hands. What are they failing to see? Not just who Jesus is, but what he came to do. Not just as a teacher to follow, but as a savior to depend on. A savior who is going to the cross, who will give his life for sinners. Do not, brother, sister, do not be like the rich young ruler who walked away from Jesus after seeing, after encountering the real Christ. He walked away from Jesus, the very one who was walking to the cross for him. He walked away sad, still restless, still longing, still yearning, still exerting himself, trying to achieve, and he missed infinite worth staring him in the face. So for many of us, as we finish the question, it's not, do you believe in Jesus? So that may be the question for some. But what do you love more than him? What's blinding you to your need of him? What do you need to bring to him? Not trying to fix yourself, not trying to achieve, but saying, Lord, have mercy on me. Because if you don't see Jesus as your greatest treasure, you'll always leave him, no matter how close you are. But if God opens your eyes to see the infinite worth of Jesus, then you will follow him with gladness. Whatever the cost. And that in seeing him we might follow him with gladness all the days of our life, through whatever trials and tribulations, whatever sorrows this life may lay up for us, whatever the cost, may we follow him. We ask these things in his precious name. Amen.