This morning, we're going to stay in the book of Matthew. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 19, and we'll begin reading in verse 16 in just a few moments. My family and I visited my parents' house over the Memorial Day weekend, and one morning while we were there, my older kids were watching a show on Disney XD, and after a few minutes, a commercial came on that caught my attention. It was an ad showing a public school classroom, and kids were bringing their parents as somewhat of a show-and-tell. They were introducing their parents and what they did. It went something like this. Hi, this is my dad, and he's an advertising executive. Hi, this is my mom, and she's a dental technician. Hi, this is my dad, and he's an IT guy. I thought of you, Tim, when I saw that. Hi, this is my mom, and she's And there was a pause, and he didn't know what to say about his mom. And a commercial voice popped in, and it said, what would your child say if you never received your degree? And so it was an advertisement encouraging parents to pursue higher level education through several of the commercial sponsors. It goes on to tell how easy it is to get started, who you can call, what website you can go to for more information. The website's name, which is stuck in my brain for all eternity, is kidslovedegrees.com. How do I know that so much? They said it a thousand times in 60 seconds. KidsLoveDegrees.com, KidsLoveDegrees.com, KidsLoveDegrees.com. Kind of annoying, isn't it? As the commercial ends, we're brought back to the child, and thankfully his mom's got a degree too, and he says exactly what they were wanting him to say. My mom is an algebra teacher. Now, this is not a sermon against higher education by any means. I'm not opposed to higher education at all. Tara and I both have degrees, and if you go in my office at home, you'll see both of our diplomas hanging on the wall. We won't talk about the fact that Tara's is bigger than mine, but it has nothing to do with Auburn being better than Alabama by any means. It's just that she has one extra word in mind that I don't have, and that's doctor. So I'm not opposed to higher education, but what I am opposed to is the notion that the child would have nothing positive to say about his mother if she doesn't have a degree. Consider the media channel that the commercial is being played on. This isn't a Lifetime commercial or an FX commercial or some channel geared towards adults, encouraging them to go get higher education. It's on Disney, directed squarely at children. The message is a subtle one, but a scary one, that this boy will be embarrassed If he can't say what his mom does, if she doesn't have the proper education and a career of some sort, then the kids might laugh at him. He might even be ashamed to invite his mom to parents day because of her lack of higher education. What would your child say if you never received your degree? How about this? My mom doesn't have a degree, but that doesn't mean she's not a great mother. She teaches me about God. The way she lives her life demonstrates that she loves God, she loves my dad, and she loves me. In doing so, she gives me something that can't be given with money, or status, or possessions, or degrees. We're supposed to fawn all over this mom because she's an algebra teacher. But if she's a stay-at-home mom with a college degree, she's wasting her life. I know that because my wife has been told that. It's a non-Christian worldview that we need to take care to guard against. In James 2, we read, My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, Have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Do you see the shift in priority there? In the non-Christian worldview, judgment is made on the basis of accomplishment or contribution to society of power and success. We talked to those things last week as the pride of life. But with the Christian worldview, judgment is based on love of the Savior. Listen, my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and the heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? And we love because he first loved us. And so this morning, the passage we examine brings into focus what we have been talking about the last three weeks, the kingdom of God. We see the perceived value of the kingdom of the world. and the kingdom of God from two different perspectives. And we see two different results of that perceived value. And my prayer for each of us this morning is that we prioritize our lives according to the right valuation of the kingdom of God. And so let's read Matthew 19, verses 16 through 30. And behold, a man came up to him saying, Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He said to him, Which ones? And Jesus said, You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, All these I have kept. What do I still lack? Jesus said to him, If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. When the young man had heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, 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. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Then Peter said in reply, See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? Jesus said to them, Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last and the last first. May God bless the reading of his word. Jesus has left Galilee and is headed toward Judea and ultimately Jerusalem, where he will be crucified. And earlier in chapter 19, the Pharisees came with the intent to test Jesus. Now we see a man come up to him, a rich man, a young man, and a ruler, according to the Mark and Luke accounts. And he doesn't come to test Jesus, But is one desperately seeking an answer to his question? In the parallel account in Mark, we're told that he ran up to Jesus and knelt before Him. He's kneeling, asking what he must do to have eternal life. And it's this sincerity which causes Jesus to look at him with love. It is this sincerity that causes him to later walk away sorrowful. He's a man desiring salvation and is asking the right questions about eternal life. But as Jesus knows, he's not a man who is ready to forsake all to follow Christ. Jesus does not immediately answer his question. Instead, he answers his question with another question. Jesus takes issue with his use of the term good. In the Matthew account, we see the man asking, what good deed must I do? In the Mark account, the man addresses Jesus as good teacher. Jesus' response in all of the synoptic accounts deals with the use of this term good. In verse 17 of Matthew 19, he asks, why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. This man did not know who Jesus was. Jesus' point then was not that the title good was inappropriate for him. Certainly we can call Jesus good teacher. Jesus as God could rightly assign himself the attribute of goodness because he is goodness. But in the eyes of this young man, no man and no act should be good apart from God himself. And then Jesus begins to answer his question now that that's been corrected. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. Consider that. Consider that apart from the work of Christ on Calvary, this is a valid statement. Keep the law. In Deuteronomy 6, verse 25, we are told, And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us. And then in Deuteronomy 27, we are told, Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And all the people said, Amen. The problem, of course, is that no man could keep all the commandments. In Galatians 3, Paul tells us the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Christ Jesus might be given to those who believe. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned. until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. And so this young man is trapped in the law and any answer he gives apart from, I have broken the law, I need mercy, is going to fail. Verse 18 begins with a man seeming to at least understand some of the difficulty with which Jesus has confronted him. Because he asks, which ones? It's a good question to ask. According to the rabbinic calculation, there are 613 commandments in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. And to keep all 613 perfectly would be an impossible undertaking, unless you're Christ. But Jesus doesn't list all 613. He lists five of the Ten Commandments. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. And then he summarizes those with those same commandments with you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And it's the same way that Paul summarizes those same commandments in Romans 13 when he says, Oh, no one anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law for the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not covet. And any other commandment are summed up in this word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus did not mention the first four commandments dealing with this man's relationship with God, but if we look at his response later on, his walking away sorrowful because he had many possessions, we know that he has broken the first commandment. You shall have no other gods. before me." Possibly Jesus doesn't mention these because the ones that he does mention concern behavior towards others that can be observed. This also becomes a problem for the man because he replies, all these I have kept. As we said earlier, this man is likely very sincere in his answer. Paul claimed the same thing for himself in Philippians 3 when he declares himself blameless as to righteousness under the law. To other men, this rich, young ruler fit the bill of a blameless life. He has not outwardly committed these things. He was by man's definition a good man. But then he asks Jesus another question. What do I still lack? From verse 21, Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, Go, sell what you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come, follow me." The interpretation of this passage is debated. Many would take this verse to mean that a true Christian sells everything he has and gives everything away. But we see many times in Scripture that this is not the case. Many great men of God had great wealth. Job, Abraham, David, all of these men had great possessions. and yet they believed God and it was counted to them as righteousness. We also must be careful not to view this as a works-based salvation, that another outward act by this man is all that was needed for him to inherit eternal life. After all, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, if I give away all that I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. We also must be careful not to ignore Christ's call to forsake ourselves. Two weeks ago, we looked at Luke 14, and in our passage, Christ declared, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. And so the right interpretation of Jesus' answer to this man is one of priority. What is in his heart? Of this passage, R.T. France writes, The imperatives sell and give are followed by come and follow. The essence of Jesus' demand is not disinvestment, but discipleship. So the giving up of possessions is not presented as a sacrifice desirable for its own sake, but rather as the means to something far better, treasure and heaven. Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. This man, Jesus knew, had a heart problem. He was fine with outward signs of righteousness. He was able to keep some of the commandments, at least outwardly. But Jesus' ministry constantly pointed to the inwardness of the commandments. Adultery begins in the heart. Murder is as much a sin of the heart as it is an outward act. You may never commit the physical act of adultery or murder, but if you have lust or hatred in your heart, that breaks the commandments. And so this one thing the man must do in order to be complete is impossible for him. His heart is not with Christ, and Jesus knew it. His master was Mammon, and no man may serve two masters. When faced with the decision regarding the one he must serve, he chose money over Christ. And the result, as we learn in verse 22, is that he went away sorrowful. for he had great possessions. It is important to note his sorrow. It's not that he didn't want eternal life. It was not that he did not want to be Jesus's disciple. However, he was not willing to give up his master. He loved his master and therefore hated the Lord. Remember how we discussed the notion of hate two weeks ago? The notion that When we love the Lord and we hate our father and mother, we show preference to the Lord. When conflict arises between directions each one would take us, we defer to the Lord. Thereby, we hate our parents or our children or our brothers and sisters. And here Jesus was calling this man to a different direction, to forsake his current master, his great possessions, and he was not willing to give it up. This man loved the world. He had great pride in his possessions. And we learned last week that that is not from the Father. The love of the Father was not in him. But wait. Mark 10.21 says that Jesus, looking at him, loved him. So how can you say that the love of the Father was not in him if Jesus loved him? Aren't they one? If Jesus loved him, doesn't God love him? Here, we must understand the difference between God's love for all of his creatures, in a sense. In the case of Jesus, a love based on compassion. The difference between that and a special, redemptive love that God has for his children. Clearly, Jesus was saddened by this man's response, but the man was not saved. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he loved Jerusalem. But God has reserved his special redemptive love for his elect. After the rich young ruler leaves, Jesus uses the encounter as a teaching opportunity for his disciples. In verses 23 and 24, he tells them, Truly I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. A rich person. Again, I tell you, 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. The difficulty that we see in verse 23 quickly becomes an impossibility in verse 24. And many have struggled mightily against this impossibility. And yet here we have a camel, the largest animal in the region, trying to fit through the eye of a needle. Some have tried to point to the possibility of a mistranslation, that perhaps the intended Greek word was awful letter and Jesus instead meant a large rope or a large cord. There are many problems with this, but I'll just name a couple. First, how does a large rope fit through the eye of a needle any better than a camel? It's just as impossible. And second, a similar figure of speech was already used in rabbinic teaching to describe the impossible. And that was an elephant through the eye of a needle. Some have tried to explain away the impossibility by suggesting that there was a gate called the eye of the needle and a camel could make it through this gate, but he had to get down on his knees and you had to remove all the baggage off of him. And it paints a great pastoral picture. It's just a false one. Because while it may make for a good sermon, We have no record of any such gate. And it defeats the purpose of Jesus's statement. It disregards the disciples response as well. Look at what they say in the next verse. When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, greatly astonished, saying, Who then can be saved? We need to understand that in Jesus's time, great possessions were thought to mean great blessing from God. Consider the man who just walked away sorrowful. He had great wealth. He was a ruler. We don't have any reason to think other than he was probably a man of great influence in his society. If wealth indicated blessing from God, he had it. And yet it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And so the disciples ask a very logical question then. Who then can be saved? And with that question, they hit the nail on the head. Because Jesus solves the riddle of the camel going through the eye of a needle with his next statement. With man, this is impossible. We don't need to try to explain away the statement that Jesus makes. as something less than impossibility on the part of man. In fact, Jesus says, with man it is impossible. It will not happen. And so that's it. Time to end the day. There's not really any point in us being here, is there? There's nothing that we can do to earn salvation. Jesus said it himself. It's impossible. But wait a second. You say, I'm not rich. I don't have many possessions at all. So Jesus isn't talking about me. I'm not a rich person. So it's still possible for me to go to heaven. But consider this. What does Jesus examine about this rich young ruler? The heart. And what does Jeremiah say about the heart? In verse 9 of chapter 17. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it? And what does Jeremiah say about our ability to change our heart? In verse 23 of chapter 13. He asks, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil. By nature, we cannot do good. We are born in sin and we are enemies of God as a result of that sin. And we are told that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. And so every one of us is in the same predicament as the rich young ruler. We had another master, one to whom Scripture says we were a slave. And so with man, it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God. But Jesus wasn't finished teaching. He didn't stop with the statement. With man, it is impossible. He continues, but with God. But with God, all things are possible. And that is the hope each of us has. We are not dependent upon ourselves for eternal life. We are not dependent upon keeping of the law. We are dependent upon God and his mercy. And it is through faith in His Son that we have the hope of eternal life and the possibility of keeping the law as God gave us a new heart and wrote the law on our hearts so that we can keep the law. Faith that our possessions are useless to us. Faith that our works are useless to us. Faith that Christ's work and only Christ's work is useful to us. And so what are our priorities in life then? Which master do we serve? The one that is temporary and useless or the one who is eternal and all-powerful? Vin and Shane and others of you are working hard in school in order to earn a living to provide for your families. And that's a very biblical thing to do. In the context of caring for widows, Paul writes to Timothy, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, And especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. In the context of men sitting around idle, waiting on Christ's return, Paul admonishes the Thessalonians by writing, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. But to the Christian, education should be a tool, not a source of pride. A good education can feed your family. And it can ease your walk through this world. And in that, it's a good thing. Education, though, can also make you prideful, a source of superiority that leads little boys in classrooms to be embarrassed when their mom or dad doesn't have a degree. Money is a tool. It's not something to love. Money provides for our family. It provides for the church. It provides for the care for the poor. and support for a ministry, or to build hospitals. And money can corrupt the government and drive people to murder, and it can destroy marriages. Technology should be a tool for good, but not evil. Today, with the Internet, you have centuries of Christian writings at your disposal. It makes it much, much easier to prepare a sermon or to study the Bible We can send words of encouragement to our brothers and sisters in Christ through email, through text messaging, on your mobile phone. We have all these technologies available to us. And we can bring glory to God with those tools. But with those same tools, we can become trapped in the sin of pornography. Or we can lose everything we have in online gambling. Or we can drive people to suicide with cyberbullying. You see, education and money and technology are not evil, but Christians should use these tools in very different ways than the world. They are not our master. We have one master and he is the Lord. If we are not our own, if we were bought with a price, then we don't boast in the things of this world. If we boast, we boast in the Lord. John Owen reminds us If our principal treasure be as we profess in things spiritual and heavenly, and woe unto us if it be not so, on them will our affections and consequently our desires and thoughts be principally fixed. And it is to these heavenly priorities the disciples turn next. In verse 27, Peter declares, See, we've left everything to follow you. What then will we have? And Jesus answers him in verse 28 and 29. Truly, I say to you in the new world, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Later on in Matthew 25, we see identical language from Jesus regarding His glorious throne. We read, When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. Before Him will be gathered all the nations, and He will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And He will place the sheep on His right, and the goats on His left. And so the imagery in Matthew 25 is that of the second coming of Christ and the final judgment. At that time, the sheep are separated from the goats. The sheep go to eternal life. The goats go to eternal punishment. We see also elsewhere in Scripture that Christ's disciples participate in the judgment of the world. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul's questioning the church as to why disputes that are coming up among themselves can't be settled among themselves. And related to that, he asks the question, do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? And so in the new world, the regeneration literally in the Greek, the new heaven and the new earth that John sees in Revelation 21, the time at which Christ makes all things new, Christ's disciples will be with him, judging the world, not loving the world as the rich young ruler does. And the recompense for forsaking those things that are temporary, houses, lands, even family, will be a hundredfold. The usage of the term hundredfold is similar to that of the language Jesus used to answer how many times we should forgive our brother. Seventy times seven. It is incalculable. Everything we give up in this world will pale in comparison to how we are recompensed. Oh, and we'll inherit eternal life. The chapter ends with Jesus stating, but many who are first will be last, and the last first. The Greek word for but that begins the sentence leads many commentators to think that this verse might begin the next chapter. But let's consider the contrast of priorities in the account, and then we may conclude that the ending is perfectly appropriate here. The man we first encounter is powerful and rich. There may be some like him in our society that people want to emulate. Maybe Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, or maybe in the early 20th century, Andrew Carnegie or J.P. Morgan. In the world, They are first. But their status of first in the world may make them last in relation to God. Who is their master? Their wealth and power, or Jesus Christ? If their master is their wealth and power, then the first, like the rich young ruler, will be last. The men we encounter at the end of the passage, though, are poor and powerless. They have abandoned their fishing business, their tax collecting, and every other job they had to follow Christ. And yet, they will have a recompense of a hundredfold in the eternal kingdom, and they will have eternal life. The last will be first. In your day-to-day life, what priority do you place on the kingdom of God? Do you raise your children pointing them to the world, pointing them to Christ? Do you take pride in your accomplishments? Or do you take pride in the saving work of somebody else? Do you forsake your family or your church to advance your standing in this kingdom? Or do you forsake all for his kingdom? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Let's pray.