1. "The problem wasn't in the man owning the property, it was in the property owning the man."

2. "Our virtues don't pay for our vices. Our good deeds can never make up for our bad. In order for the kingdom of God to be saved, sinners like you and I need a spiritual miracle."

3. "In the same way that attempting to undo the crucifixion by sort of pulling the nails out of Jesus' feet or his hands wouldn't raise him from the dead, merely trying to end our sins won't work."

4. "The sins of the Christian, though serious, are counter to the new nature that God has given us in Christ. They are running against the grain of what God the Holy Spirit is doing in us."

5. "One day even your most frustratingly besetting sin will be gone. You will outlast it eternally."

6. "What the rich young ruler was unwilling to give up for Jesus, Jesus was willing to give up for all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in Him alone."

7. "God's kingdom is surprising. It's not comprised of exactly who you might think. Those who bring nothing but their utter dependence are in, while those who think they can obey their way in are out."

8. "Nothing is more central to the Bible than Jesus' death and resurrection. The entire Bible pivots on one weekend in Jerusalem about 2000 years ago."

9. "We can take up our cross to follow Christ into the Kingdom of God only because Christ has first taken up His cross for us."

10. "Have you imagined a moral substitute for Christianity in which our sacrifices for Christ are more important than Christ's sacrifice for us?"

Observation Questions

1. In Luke 18:15-17, what did Jesus say about those who would receive the kingdom of God, and what warning did He give about those who do not receive it like a child?

2. According to Luke 18:18-20, what question did the ruler ask Jesus, and which commandments did Jesus cite in His initial response?

3. In Luke 18:22-23, what specific instruction did Jesus give to the rich young ruler, and how did the ruler respond to this instruction?

4. What comparison did Jesus make in Luke 18:25 to illustrate the difficulty of a rich person entering the kingdom of God?

5. In Luke 18:27, how did Jesus respond to the question "Who then can be saved?" and what does this reveal about the source of salvation?

6. According to Luke 18:31-33, what specific events did Jesus predict would happen to the Son of Man in Jerusalem, and what would occur on the third day?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why do you think Jesus used children as an example of how to receive the kingdom of God? What quality of children is Jesus emphasizing, and how does this contrast with the rich young ruler's approach?

2. Jesus listed several commandments from the second table of the law but omitted "You shall not covet." How does this omission, combined with Jesus' instruction to sell everything, expose the ruler's true spiritual condition?

3. What does Jesus mean when He says "What is impossible with man is possible with God" (Luke 18:27)? How does this statement summarize His teaching about who can enter the kingdom?

4. Why did Jesus give such detailed predictions about His suffering, death, and resurrection (Luke 18:31-33) immediately after teaching about entering the kingdom? How are these two topics connected?

5. The disciples "understood none of these things" (Luke 18:34) about Jesus' coming death. What does this reveal about the nature of saving faith and how God works in bringing people to understand the gospel?

Application Questions

1. The rich young ruler's wealth was his "master sin" that kept him from following Jesus. What might be a "master sin" or competing loyalty in your own life that could hinder your wholehearted trust in Christ, and what practical step could you take this week to address it?

2. Receiving the kingdom "like a child" involves utter dependence on God rather than self-reliance. In what specific area of your life are you currently trying to earn God's favor through your own efforts rather than trusting in Christ's finished work?

3. Jesus promised that those who leave things behind for the sake of the kingdom will receive "many times more in this time" (Luke 18:30). How have you experienced the blessings of Christian community and fellowship as a reward for following Christ? How might you deepen those relationships this week?

4. The sermon emphasized that Jesus' death on the cross is central to salvation—not our moral achievements or sacrifices. How does this truth change the way you approach God in prayer, and how might it affect a conversation you have this week with someone who thinks they must earn their way to God?

5. Peter and the disciples had "left their homes and followed" Jesus (Luke 18:28). What is one tangible way you could prioritize following Jesus over comfort, security, or reputation in your daily routine or decisions this coming week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Matthew 18:1-5 — This parallel passage expands on Jesus' teaching about becoming like children to enter the kingdom, emphasizing the necessity of humility.

2. Isaiah 52:13–53:12 — This prophecy, referenced in the sermon, describes the suffering servant whom Jesus identified as Himself, showing that His death was predicted and central to God's plan.

3. Colossians 3:1-11 — This passage addresses putting to death earthly idols including covetousness, which Paul explicitly calls idolatry, reinforcing the sermon's teaching on turning from sin.

4. Ephesians 2:1-10 — This passage explains that salvation is a gift of God, not a result of works, directly supporting the sermon's main point that we cannot save ourselves.

5. Mark 10:17-31 — This parallel account of the rich young ruler provides additional details, including that Jesus "loved him," enriching our understanding of Christ's compassion even when calling for radical discipleship.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Many People Misunderstand What Salvation Is

II. Only Those Who Trust Like Children Enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:15-17)

III. Only Those Who Turn from Their Idols Enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:18-30)

IV. Only Those Who Follow Jesus Enter the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:31-34)

V. Christ's Sacrifice Alone Is the Basis for Entering the Kingdom

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Detailed Sermon Outline

In his 1940 autobiography, the Big Sea, Langston Hughes, famous poet of the mid-20th century, recalled his salvation in his youth.

I was saved from sin when I was going on 13, but not really saved. It happened like this. There was a big revival at my Auntie Reed's church. Every night for weeks there had been much preaching, singing, praying, and shouting. Finally all the young people had gone to the altar and were saved, but one boy and me.

He was a rounder's son named Wesley. Wesley and I were surrounded by sisters and deacons praying. It was very hot in the church and getting late now. Finally Wesley said to me in a whisper, I'm tired of sitting here. Let's get up and get saved.

So he got up and was saved. Then I was left all alone on the mourner's bench. My aunt came and knelt at my knees and cried while prayers and songs swirled all around me in the little church. The whole congregation prayed for me alone in a mighty wail of moans. God had not struck Wesley dead for taking his name in vain or for lying in the temple.

So I decided that maybe to save further trouble I'd better lie too and say that Jesus had come. And get up and be saved. So I got up. Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting as they saw me rise. I couldn't bear to tell my aunt that I'd lied, that I'd deceived everybody in the church, that I hadn't seen Jesus, and that now I didn't believe there was a Jesus anymore.

This or an experience not far from it is what a lot of people know as salvation.

As far as they know, a true salvation doesn't really exist at all. The whole idea seems ludicrous. Really, reality is in accepting all those things that Christians try to be saved from. Our so-called vices, our guilt feelings, our selfishness, our responsibility for ourselves, loneliness, our mortality.

Many, many more people believe in some sort of salvation and they desire it, but they don't know how to get it. Some think it comes through acquiring our own spiritual power. Many think it comes through religious actions. Still others that whatever salvation there is to get comes to those who are worldly wise and shrewd and suspicious. Many today seem to be embracing the perennially popular idea that salvation is a kind of success that we achieve whether a success of moral ways or material wealth.

The example and teaching of Christ are often invoked as guides. On such a path of salvation? At the bottom of it, many people today seem to think that salvation comes from within one way or another.

Now what we want to know this morning is the answer to a simple question.

Is this what Jesus taught?

We've just gotten into a study of the last section of the climax really of Jesus' earthly ministry. And we're following along in Luke's Gospel again this morning. We're in Luke chapter 18. Here in Luke 18 we see that Jesus teaches on salvation. And just to cut to the chase, He clearly taught that we all need to be saved.

We'll be coming back to that more in the sermon. Jesus also taught that we may be saved, but He didn't teach that we would be saved by the kind of means we've just mentioned. He taught clearly, and this is the point, that we can't save ourselves, but that salvation is a gift of God. We cannot save ourselves by whatever means, but salvation is a gift of God. This is absolutely fundamental to understanding Jesus' teaching.

If you get this wrong, it's like getting something wrong in the foundations of a very tall building. I mean, everything is going to be off if you get this point wrong. So pay very careful attention to this. We're in Luke 18, Jesus and the disciples are approaching Jericho, the last town before Jerusalem itself. And we're watching the end of Jesus' earthly ministry begin.

You'll find this on page 877 in the Bibles provided, page 877, you'll be helped if you open your Bible, follow along. In this chapter Jesus teaches very clearly that salvation is nothing like what so many, even so many who call themselves Christians, think that it is. The language for salvation that Jesus often uses is receiving the kingdom of God or entering the kingdom of God. That's the language we find here in the middle of Luke 18. The children, the rich young ruler, Christ's prediction of what was coming, will find this language there.

What we saw last Sunday was how it was that the humble tax collector who knew that he needed God to be merciful, who knew that he even needed God to mercifully provide a sacrifice for him, if he were to be justified, that that tax collector in the parable becomes a beacon for us of what it will mean to understand Jesus as our Savior. Now we have three more scenes, no parables, just incidents, in the life of Jesus, in his ministry, that take us more through Luke 18, teaching us more about how we can enter the kingdom of God. The disciples would have been absorbed by this teaching, entering the kingdom of God. They for three years had known publicly and with increasing understanding that they were following the Messiah, the long promised king of Israel. And what's happening now?

The king is coming to the national capital. It seems that a climax is approaching. So if he's talking about entering the kingdom of God, that was electrifying language for them. It would have popped. But the issues involved, as we understand, have even more universal and eternal implications than those disciples would have realized at the time.

And so this ancient question presses in on us too this morning. Who can enter the kingdom of God? Who can enter the kingdom of God? Only those who, I'm gonna give you the outline now, here we go. Number one, trust.

That's what we see in the story of Jesus and the children in verses 15 to 17, believe in Jesus, trust. Only those who number two, turn, that is, repent of their idols. That's what we see in that long account of the rich young ruler, verses 18 to 30, turn, repent of their idols.

And finally, only those who follow Jesus, verses 31 to 34, the prediction of His death. It's Jesus that's the key to our salvation. It's what He does, not what we've done. I'll read the passages as we come to them. I pray that as we go through them, you will learn what it means to enter the kingdom of God.

So, who will enter the kingdom of God? Only those, number one, who trust, who believe in Jesus. Let's look at this first passage, verses 15 to 17. Now they were bringing even infants to Him, that He might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

But Jesus called them to Him, saying, 'Let the children come to Me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.' belongs to the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. So you see this is a story about who belongs to the kingdom of God or receives it or you look further down in our passage, verses 24 and 25, who can enter the kingdom of God. This is really a great theme of Jesus' whole ministry. If you go back to his first recorded sermon in Luke and Luke four, Verse 43, he's out in a preaching tour.

He's been in Nazareth and now it's the next day and he says, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose. Well, what is the good news of the kingdom? It's that you and I can enter the kingdom. That is that we can be under the rule and reign of the righteous God, the good God, even though we have sinned, we can be forgiven.

And restored to fellowship with the one who made us and who will judge us.

So that's the question that's raised in our passage a little bit later in verse 26 by what Jesus says just before. Let's get that clearly in mind. This idea of entering the kingdom, receiving the kingdom is a question of being saved. So the question before us in these stories is who will be saved? Who will enter the kingdom of God?

Who will find favor under his rule. And in this first story, here come the infants, the children. Now, don't you just love Jesus' attitude to the children in this story? I mean, I'm not sure what was up with the disciples here. I mean, the text doesn't get more specific.

Maybe they just thought Jesus was too important or too busy to be bothered by the children. But Jesus will have nothing to do with that kind of attitude. He clearly loves these infants. They seem to be very young ones. They're carried, presumably by their parents, for Jesus to touch them as a way of praying for them, praying for God's blessing on them.

Jesus liked to use children we know as examples. At an earlier point when the disciples were arguing among themselves about who was the greatest, I mean, exactly at that point, then Jesus actually takes the initiative and asks for a child to be brought to him. That's over in Matthew, chapter 18. I want to look over there just for a moment. Matthew, chapter 18, very beginning of that chapter.

At this time the disciples came to Jesus saying, 'Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?' and calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, 'Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ' Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. He calls his disciples to stop sort of angling to be the greatest. It makes them sound too much like the Pharisee in the story that he had just told, you know, reciting their own virtues. He calls them not to become children, obviously they can't become children, but to adopt a childlike humility.

Now that's the only way he says they'll ever be able to enter the kingdom of God. Isn't the Lord kind to give us the children that we have in this congregation? I remember, I think, when the Schmuckers first came, your kids were like the only ones in the nursery 30 years ago. And now we literally have hundreds of kids here, hundreds of children. I mean, whenever we're praying or reading the Bible, you can hear them like the lowing of the cattle.

You know? Friends, that's a, when we have our moment of silence at the beginning, it's the moment of listening to babies. And that's fine. What a great thing to do. It's the rising generation among us.

What a wonderful stewardship the Lord has given to us. So we teach children, but we can also learn from them. They instruct us simply by the way they are. Jesus came to announce the good news of the arrival, at least the beginning of the kingdom of God. So here in this passage he teaches us that the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like children, who receive the kingdom of God.

He says here in verse 17 in our passage, Like a child. So the question for us is, what does that mean? What does it mean to receive the kingdom of God like a child? Writers use many words to try to describe this. Some point to children's openness, their freshness, their Their spontaneity?

Are those characteristics of those who receive the kingdom of God like a child? I don't think any of those are Jesus' point here. Others have thought that the point of this story is how we receive infants or other people of low status who may not be regarded as much. You know, sort of don't be like those stuffy disciples, but be more like Jesus.

And while that certainly is an important Christian topic, it's a fundamentally misread this passage. That's not what this passage is primarily showing. This passage is not about who we will receive, but about what kind of person will receive the Kingdom of God. And Jesus is not teaching about those whom others regard as lowly receiving the Kingdom of God.

No, Jesus is talking about our receiving the kingdom of God like a little child. The point is not the identity of those that we should receive, but the identity of those who will receive the kingdom of God. The point is not our charity to each other, even children. But rather the dependence, like a child intuitively has on their parents, when the arms go up for mom or dad to pick them up, the arms go up, we should have that same kind of dependence on God. We utterly depend on Him for our salvation.

And for children and adults who hear this story, it's a call to trust in God completely and to receive salvation as a gift from Him.

Many have seen in this passage a justification for baptizing infants. Now, I think it has to be admitted that this is a couple of things. One, this is one of the best justification of the baptism of infants in the Bible.

And second, it is a very poor justification.

As the Swiss theologian Roger Nicole used to say, There are verses in the Bible with babies and no water, and verses in the Bible with water and no babies. But there are no verses in the Bible with water and babies.

Astutely observed, Dr. Nicole.

Receiving the Kingdom of God is in view in this passage, not baptism.

But since I brought up baptism, I should just observe to you kids here that we don't baptize you here at this church, not because we don't like you or because we're trying to hinder you, from coming to Christ or because we don't think you're Christians, but we're trying to help you. That's why we don't baptize you as kids. We think delaying baptism will help you, not hinder you. If we said that you were baptized before you could even remember it, like we baptize infants, then we would be teaching you that you had obeyed Jesus' command to be baptized when in fact you had not done what Jesus taught. We don't think you really would be baptized.

In the New Testament, baptism is only performed on those who have believed in a way infants don't. And if we agreed to baptize you at age five or age 10, like some churches do today, There would be many of you who would sincerely want to be baptized. You're not trying to fool anybody. You really want to be, really, really, really, really, and you mean it. But then later in high school or as a young adult, you might realize you didn't understand what it meant to be a Christian, and really, you have no desire to be publicly identified as a Christian, and yet we've publicly assured you that you are one.

You now think you're an expert in Christianity, you've experienced it yourself, and that's all there is to it. We don't want to do that to you. We're trying to help you. We as a church would have confused you by taking your early profession as something intended to last a lifetime. Imagine if everyone were made to be whatever profession they first said in first grade they wanted to be.

Or made to marry the first person they ever dated. Friends, we grow up as people. We grow and we develop into the people that we are. So kids, you should definitely follow Christ even today. Be clear, do not wait until you are baptized to follow Christ.

You should follow Christ today. I pray that you will know what it means to serve Him as an eight-year-old. Or as a 12-year-old, or as a 16-year-old, learn what it means to follow Christ. But you lose nothing in following Christ if you wait to be baptized until not just you and your family, but until the church around generally, and even the world outside your home, can increasingly testify that you are following Christ as you've lived out that faith in the face of temptations. If you have more questions about this, talk to your parents or talk to one of the pastors here at church.

Or you can even talk to me. I'll be at that door right afterwards. Happy to talk to you. So, who will enter the kingdom of God? Not those of a certain age, but those of a certain attitude.

Toward God. That's his point here. Only those who trust, only those who believe in Jesus. Second question then, who will enter the kingdom of God or second answer, only those number two, who turn, who repent of their idols. That's what we read in this longer account here in the middle of the chapter, verses 18 to 30.

Listen as I read this text, verses 18 to 30. 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 these 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. But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

Seeing 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, well 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. So here is the famous account of the rich young ruler. Luke introduces him to us as a ruler, perhaps meaning of a local synagogue or some other public recognition. But what a perfect contrast he is with the previous story. With the children that are being brought.

The fact that such unlikely folks became examples to us about who would enter the kingdom of God kind of sets us up for how this man would probably be seen as likely to enter the kingdom of God, you know? I mean, he's just God's type, right? You know, he's a ruler, he's successful, he's rich, and that very wealth at the time was taken as a sign of God's blessing. So the reason they're so surprised, well, he can't be saved, who can be saved is because they assumed If you see someone who's wealthy, unless they're just strikingly immoral, you know. But if you see somebody who's a good, upstanding citizen and they're very wealthy, then it's being blessed by God and that's a sign that they're good with God and so certainly they will be saved.

I'm not sure about the rest of us, but clearly they're getting in. They're already kind of in now. You know, that was the thinking behind the way they reacted to what Jesus said there. And especially because he's moral. Matthew is the one who adds the detail that he was young.

Anyway, this rich young ruler becomes the poster boy for the danger of a master sin.

By that I mean simply one sin which is so deeply rooted in us that it indicates the heart direction of our lives.

You understand what I mean?

We all sin. Christians and non-Christians sin. So none of us can earn salvation by our lives. Our virtues don't pay for our vices. Our good deeds can never make up for our bad.

In order the kingdom of God to be saved, sinners like you and I need a spiritual miracle. In the same way that attempting to undo the crucifixion by sort of pulling the nails out of Jesus' feet or his hands wouldn't raise him from the dead, merely trying to end our sins won't work. On the one hand, it won't fix us, it won't heal our hearts' love of wrong, and on the other, it will gain us no forgiveness for the sins that we've already committed.

Having said all that, the sins of the Christian, though serious, are counter to the new nature that God has given us in Christ. They are running against the grain of what God the Holy Spirit is doing in us.

But the sins that we knew before we were Christians, or maybe your sins if you're here today and you're not a Christian, those sins may very well simply be a surface expression of what truly is your deepest allegiance and commitment and devotion. And that's the way it seemed to be with this rich young ruler. That's what Jesus was showing him and his disciples and us by the instruction he gave him in verse 22. He wasn't just interested in what the young man hadn't done. He wanted to know what he had done positively.

When the young man called Jesus good, which is a very unusual way to address somebody, he opened up an avenue for Jesus to do this teaching. The ruler asked an important question. I mean, the most important question. And Jesus laid out the law to the man as a human expression of God's kind of goodness. Now we have to go back to the Old Testament to understand this for a moment.

We don't need to turn there, but I'll just remind you. In the Old Testament, the summary of God's law is in the Ten Commandments. Those Ten Commandments were given by God to His people. You can read them in Exodus chapter 20. Or Deuteronomy chapter 5, and they are traditionally referred to as being in two tables.

That refers to the fact that in Exodus a few times Moses would refer to the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone written by the finger of God. And Christians have long noticed that the first four of the Ten Commandments have to do with our relationship with God. You know, have no other gods, don't make any images, don't take the Lord's name in vain, remember the Sabbath day. And the last six have to do with our relationships with each other. Honor your father and mother, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't covet.

So Christians have referred to the first table as shorthand for what God required of His people regarding their relationship with Him and the second table as what God required of His people in relating to others. And together they are taken to be a summary of what God requires of us. Okay, that's the background. Now back to the story of the rich young ruler. Well, you see what Jesus did here in verse 20?

Look at verse 20.

He refers to the second table of God's law. As a kind of quick summary of what is good. No adultery, no murder, no stealing, no lying, honoring father and mother.

He covered the whole second table, didn't He?

Well, no, He didn't. No. You see which one Jesus omitted? The last one. The only one having to do with our possessions.

You shall not covet.

But it seems in breaking that last commandment, this young man may have broken the first as well. It's Colossians 3:5, Covetousness, which is idolatry.

When the man professed ignorance of his own sin, Jesus helped him out. He simply said in verse 22, 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.

Some commentators that are more left-leaning see in this a kind of proto-communism or socialism, an attack on private property. However, I can't help but notice a few verses later in chapter 19 there's Zacchaeus who gives away a whole bunch of what he has, but certainly not all. There are other statements elsewhere in the Gospels and in Acts that will show that's not what Jesus is teaching here. Now the pages of the New Testament repeatedly affirm private individuals' responsibility for property that they own. Friends, the problem wasn't in the man owning the property, it was in the property owning the man.

That was the challenge here. And that's what Jesus was showing him by suggesting him that he live out his desire to inherit eternal life, that's what he's asked for, by showing him that for him, knowing the rich young ruler as he did in particular, his only way to eternal life was to walk away from his riches to follow Jesus.

Because he knew that it was those riches that he really cared about.

And he wanted to make that clear to everybody around and to the young man himself.

That's where we see that Jesus surgically revealed this man's master sin. That sin which was no passing contradiction, no mere troubling turbulence like the sins that beset every true follower of Jesus in this life until we die, but rather which was an anchor which held his soul solidly in the possession of his possessions. Money was his master. And for such people, Jesus says, it's as strange for them to enter the kingdom of God as it is for the largest animal around, the camel, to go through the smallest opening.

Eye of a needle. Some of you who've traveled in the Middle East have had guides who have pointed out this saying and then pointed out some small opening in an ancient wall and told you those are called needle's eyes. And what Jesus really meant in this parable was that if the camel would get down and take all the packs off like the young man needed to get rid of his wealth, then he could make it through. Those may be Profitable tour guides, they're very poor interpreters of the teaching of Jesus. Because the whole point of Jesus' teaching here is not that it's difficult, but that it's impossible.

This is about a camel going through the eye of a needle. It is hyperbole to show that it's impossible. It is impossible for us to be saved.

Apart from God. You see, the young man was not free. He would not be allowed to leave his possessions, even to follow Jesus. The sin of coveting, of wanting what someone else has, even if it means they won't have it, which held within it discontentment and envy and all kinds of lack of charity to others. Was the sin that held him in thrall.

As that man heard the instruction, he became very sad. We read in verse 23. Just consider that, friends. Look at verse 23. It says he became very sad.

Hold that moment in your mind's eye with the ruler considering eternal life in one hand and a very rich present life in the other.

That's the state he's in as he weighed them and considered. Did he pause even before he became very sad?

He could have been like the man in Matthew 13:44. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sold all that he has and buys that field. Comparing the two, eternal life and his present earthly riches, the rich young ruler should have sold all that he had in joy. But we read here in verse 23, he became very sad.

And Mark and Matthew even tells us that he went away sorrowful.

Oh, my friend, is there a master sin acting as a leash, a kind of collar, a choker on your soul today?

Keeping you at its heel, keeping you back from eternal life that's found in a childlike trust of God and following Jesus.

If you're a Christian here, just like Peter and the disciples have done, you have become the objects of a humanly impossible salvation. Look at verse 27. Jesus said, what is impossible with man is possible with God. And He's talking about who can enter the kingdom of God. And he's observing that even those who are thought most likely to enter, in this case, this obviously blessed man who is rich, if even they are completely desperate without God, then what about most of us?

Anyone coming into the kingdom of God is only possible because God will make it so. Did you notice a couple of stanzas in How Sweet and Awful is the Place? That talked about His grace being extended to us. Why did we see? Why did we believe?

That's just what he's about to come to in the last verses of our passage. But before we turn to those last verses, my Christian brother or sister, just appreciate the fact that God has done what without Him is impossible for you. Relish that fact. Thank Him and praise Him for that. In saving you, He has delivered you from that anchor of sin that would hold you and keep you and pull you and ultimately submerge you and drown you forever in its hold.

One day even your most frustratingly besetting sin will be gone. You will outlast it eternally. You've experienced something like what Peter says here. In verse 28, with his typical innocent enthusiasm, We've left our homes and followed youd. Following Jesus is taking priority over everything else in your life if you're a Christian.

Praise God. But Mark, I still said, yeah, I understand that. But the direction of your life is you're following Jesus. Praise God. Praise Him for that.

Every Christian here has sold everything we have in some sense. Like the man in Matthew 13:44, In order to purchase the field with the treasure, we've all been given a joyful sight of the surpassing value of having Christ above everything else. Ah, but you could have this opinion and others could think of you like this, or you could have this wealth or this success. Friends, Christ's reassurance to His troubled disciples here in our passage down in verses 29 and 30. Should encourage us.

We all pay some costs in following Christ. At the same time, we've also all already been brought some rewards even in this life that following Christ has brought us. I wonder if in conversation after church today, maybe over lunch, you might remember and share some of the costs that you've paid or maybe some of the rewards that you've already experienced in this time as Jesus Puts it in verse 30, meaning in this world, this age, this life. Friends, testify about the houses and spouses, the siblings and families, or children or parents that God has given you in the body of Christ.

Glorify Him in your speech, even as you edify others. And don't forget to consider some of the unimaginable blessings that God has promised us forever with Him. Like we sing to each other in so many of our songs. So who will enter the kingdom of God? Only those who turn, repent of their idols.

Last one, who will enter the kingdom of God? Only those who number three follow Jesus. Look at verses 31 to 34. Because friends, Jesus is the crucial focus of our salvation. The rich young ruler has gone away.

Jesus has taught the disciples about the challenge of salvation, including the rich. And then look in verse 31, He pulls His disciples away from the others who may have been there, verse 31, 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.' Now this begins sounding like good news, doesn't it? Everything written about the Son of Man, that's the prophesied Messiah, in the Scriptures will be accomplished. It will actually happen. Well, that sounds good.

Jesus affirmed the obvious. They were on their way traveling to Jerusalem. In fact, just a few verses down, look at verse 35. It says, They drew near Jericho. That is the last town before the steep ascent up to Jerusalem.

That's right there. And that's where they're going to meet blind Bartimaeus, the beginning of chapter or the next study here in the end of 18, who seemed to have more spiritual truth that he saw than the most eagle-eyed Pharisee or respected religious ruler. Anyway, Jesus makes this sweeping statement here, Everything that is written about the Son of Man and the Son of Man is just a title from the Old Testament for the Messiah that Jesus had taught them, these prophecies were pointing to Him. He says, Everything that is written by the prophets will be accomplished. Now, what were they thinking of?

They were almost certainly thinking, Ah, here is a Son of David, a descendant of David. He will reign on David's throne. We're about to see the beginning of the long promised much talked about Messianic Kingdom, which is going to mean all kinds of good stuff for those who are in on the ground floor. So they were definitely, I'm sure, getting excited as they're thinking about the destruction of the Romans. Their expectation of this new king reigning in a renewed Jerusalem must have been electrifying.

In those days as they neared Jerusalem. But Jesus had some different prophecies in mind. When He said, Everything would be accomplished, He was thinking about that passage Lauren read to us earlier, in Isaiah 52 and 53. Other passages too, like Psalm 22 or Zechariah 13. He was to come to Jerusalem and there be despised and rejected by men.

There He would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. He would be stricken, smitten, and afflicted. He would be pierced, crushed, chastised, wounded. He would even be slaughtered. He would pour His soul out to death.

This is the sixth or seventh time in Luke's Gospel we read a prediction like this. Luke again and again testifies to the Scriptures being accomplished. A very common way Jesus taught was to teach his disciples that the Scriptures would be fulfilled. An important part of Jesus teaching the disciples was to teach them to look to God's Word to find God's will. It would always be an unerring guide, always to be followed.

Though sometimes it wouldn't just be rich young rulers who would end up divesting themselves of all their earthly attachments. It was about to be Jesus Himself. Look at verse 32, For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. That would be fulfilled by the foreign power, then in Jerusalem, the occupying Romans. And what did He say?

What would happen to Him then? They expected that Jesus would defeat the Romans, but instead He is given over into their hands. It's the first time Luke has mentioned the Gentiles in this kind of role. And there in their power and control, we read here, it says, Jesus said that He will be mocked.

And it was true, wasn't it? I mean, He was mocked. He was scorned. His claims derided. The Roman troops preparing to crucify Him literally made fun of Him.

We read on, and shamefully treated. And Jesus was. He was insulted. He was beaten. He was treated terribly.

He even gets very specific there. At the end of verse 32, He says that He would be spit upon. Hardly a sign of submission or a tribute to to His greatness. But that's exactly what happened. Earlier in Luke's gospel, he had taught that he would be rejected now as the gospel goes on, as he gets closer to it actually happening, he's being more specific, more graphic about what that rejection would look like.

You see, he keeps going, spit upon, He'd said back in 1725, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

He gets most pointed in verse 33, look down at verse 33, and after flogging Him, they will kill Him. Friends, Jesus' death is central to the message about entering the Kingdom of God. That's why we sang that song earlier, Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. It may have seemed like a simple, repetitive song, but it's getting at an absolutely central truth to what Christianity teaches about salvation. Jesus' death is central.

Imagine trying to talk about the kingdom of God without Christ's crucifixion being at the center of it. Did you ever think about that? One way that you can tell this is at the heart of the message is by how much of each gospel it takes up. You may think of the four Gospels as four biographies of Jesus. They're actually mainly about his death on the cross.

If you look at Matthew and Mark and Luke, it's like a kind of fish eye, you know, just right in on that last week. You have all the previous slight mention of the first thirty years, then a little bit more than three years before the last week. And then like a quarter or a third of it is just the last week, and particularly the crucifixion. And with John's gospel, it's even half of it. Friends, that's the point of it all.

That's what's going on here. My friend, if you're not normally at church, you want to figure out how it is that Jesus' death is so central to your salvation. What does that mean? What does that have to do with how you relate to God? We would love to help you figure that out.

Paul summarized it as being of first importance in 1 Corinthians 15. He said, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried. There is no Christianity without the cross. Why is the cross so important? Because on the cross Jesus died as a sacrifice, as a substitute.

For all of us who have deserved that death and judgment by the way we've lived. He took that death for all of us who would turn and trust in Him. That's the nub of the good news. That's the little bit that you must make sure that you understand.

Friend, that's great news. That God has loved us like this, that He would give His only Son, that Christ would lay down His life for us. You need to realize that Christ's ministry, though, didn't end at the cross. I mean, look at the end of verse 33. And on the third day He will rise.

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 15, speaking of the first importance about Christ, He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. So this basic truth that Jesus came to die as an atonement for sinners like us is at the heart of what he's teaching about how we entered the kingdom of God. He taught this repeatedly. He came to accomplish this. This was his intended end.

Friends, his life was not a life that was tragically cut short as a young man, like Martin Luther King, Jr. No, his was a life of prophecies, both terrible and wonderful, fulfilled. Jesus read these words of Isaiah. He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. And He knew that they were written about Him.

Jesus came to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah. Look at the last verse in our passage, verse 34, But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them. They did not grasp what He said. In our next passage we'll find that it seemed that blind the blind man understood more about the truth of who Jesus was than the disciples did.

But the disciples here didn't understand Jesus because what he was saying was contrary to their assumptions. They knew he was referring to himself, but maybe they thought it was a parable or some kind of symbol or riddle for them to figure out. The passive verb there, was hidden, is suggesting theologically it's referring to the action of God. That it was God who was hiding it. He was doing this.

Friends, the united and entire witness of the Bible is that God is sovereign in salvation. He owes it to no one, and yet no sinner will be saved without His action. The ironies gather deep and thick as Jesus nears Jerusalem. So what the rich young ruler was unwilling to give up for Jesus, Jesus was willing to give up for all of us who would turn from our sins and trust in Him alone, like the little child with hands extended up to his parents. That's the kind of dependence we must have on God.

That's the kind of trust He's calling us to have in the sacrifice He has provided for us in Jesus. None of this should be surprising to them. But on the other hand, how could they grasp Christ, the Heavenly Father, giving up His only Son to die for them? Soon enough, after the resurrection in chapter 24, we can read Jesus explaining this all to them. But right now their minds were shaped by popular preconceptions about the promised coming King more than by what we heard in Isaiah 52 and 53 about those who had entered the kingdom of God.

It would be those who would finally follow this Jesus, rely on his righteous life and his sacrificial death and his justifying resurrection rather than on themselves.

Finally, saving faith is a gift of God. And so we pray. For those we love to understand and to believe. And we're not intimidated by unbelief because there's a God who's given us understanding and faith. And so He can do that again.

What He did for these disciples, what He's done for us, we too. Can come to believe and trust and follow Jesus. Who will enter the kingdom of God? Only those who follow Jesus. He is our way.

He is our substitute. So let me try to sum this up for you. Who will enter the kingdom of God? Only those who trust in the Lord turn from their sins.

And follow Jesus. Does this surprise you? Well, God's kingdom is surprising. It's not comprised of exactly who you might think. Those who bring nothing but their utter dependence are in, while those who think they can obey their way in are out.

Powerful and virtuous people are not virtuous enough, and yet others get in who give up all rival loyalties and devotions. This is a completely absorbing kingdom. And then there is the King Himself. Perhaps before today you may not have realized that the real King who came was rejected. Frankly, Jesus was considered by many at the time and many since then as a failure.

Jesus Himself predicted His own failure. That it was predicted in the Bible. At the same time, most surprising of all, we learned that Jesus, after being publicly put to death, was raised from the dead. Friends, this is the foundational claim of Christianity. It is on this truth that claim of Christ's resurrection from the dead.

The King's victorious reign over death and sin is based his resurrection. It's why we're meeting even now on the first day of the week and not on a Saturday, the Sabbath, because Christ, after he was crucified, to death was raised from the dead. As Don Carson put it, Nothing is more central to the Bible than Jesus' death and resurrection. The entire Bible pivots on one weekend in Jerusalem about 2000 years ago. That's exactly what Jesus taught.

So what about you?

Have you imagined that Jesus' teaching is more about morality, ethics, charity, less concerned about his own identity, his own death on the cross? Have you imagined a moral substitute for Christianity in which our sacrifices for Christ are more important than Christ's sacrifice for us?

Francis Grimké was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1850. After moving to the North and getting a university education, Grimké felt called into the pastoral ministry. He attended Princeton, where he was taught by Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield.

In 1878 he became the senior minister of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church here in Washington, where he pastored for almost 50 years. Can you imagine what he would have seen during those years? I can only begin to imagine what any pastor who has served the same congregation for almost twice as long as I've served this one would have seen in his long life. Add to that the tumultuous years that he was there, everything from from Reconstruction through World War I. Grimke preached one sermon entitled Christianity and Race Prejudice on June 5th, 1910. Got a lot of publicity, a lot of attention, was republished widely.

In it he spoke very bluntly and bravely to white churches and white Christians, quote, if race prejudice is wrong, he said, then the church must forsake it. Must give it up. There's no option left to it. It must repent. It must do differently.

It must change its course if it is to remain Christian. Friends, that's a hundred years ago. Can you imagine the injustice that he suffered as an African-American man, a Christian minister, that he would have witnessed in the lives that he was so intimately involved with of so many people in his church for so many decades? What he would have seen, the stories that would have been recounted to him. Now, a man like that would surely have some good works to his credit, pastoring in a hard situation like that for a long time.

A man like that could almost be said to deserve heaven.

Couldn't he? Either as a reward for the good he did or reparations for the bad that he suffered. But Grimke knew better than to try to enter the Kingdom of God like that. He knew that no amount of good works of his own could ever save him. Grimke wrote in his journal in 1918, I call myself a Christian and if believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, believes that the blood alone cleanses from sin, I am.

For I do believe in Him and trusting Him for salvation. I am depending upon no merit of my own, but upon His righteousness alone when I shall appear before the bar of God to render up my account.

Friends, we can take up our cross to follow Christ into the Kingdom of God only because Christ has first taken up His cross for us.

Do you believe that? Let's pray.

Lord, in youn tender love, would youd show us like youe did that rich young ruler, Lord, that nothing else is to be trusted ultimately. Not our own goodness or our own righteousness, but only Christ's. Teach us that even this morning we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.