This scripture reading this morning is Luke chapter 19, verses one through 10. The sermon is based on the preceding chapter, chapter 18, on the account of Christ's encounter with the rich young ruler. And it is remarkable, I think, and no accident, that Luke placed these accounts together like this. Because in the account of the rich ruler, as we're going to see, here's a man who refused to follow Christ in the end, give up his treasure and follow Christ. And then in Zacchaeus, here we have this man who did follow Christ and give up all. So listen then to this account of Jesus and Zacchaeus. Luke 19, verse one. He entered Jericho and was passing through, and there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was. But on account of the crowd, he could not because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled. He's gone in to be the guest of a man who's a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I've defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house. since he also is a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost." That is the word of God, and we are to receive it as such. It's an amazing passage, often kind of trivialized, I think, by us. It's one of, and there's nothing certainly wrong with teaching our children the account of Zacchaeus and Jesus, but, I think that often, I know that I as a kid, you know, you learn the little Sunday school song about Zacchaeus, the little wee man and so on. But often I think instruction of the real depth of that passage goes wanting. And we'll plan to look at that passage in Well, about two weeks. We're only going to look at, it's gonna take a couple of weeks, including this morning to deal with Jesus and the rich young ruler. And then after that, I wanna take a look at Zacchaeus then. Well, let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing then on the ministry of his word. Father, Thank you for the scriptures. Thank you for your word. Here you are, almighty and holy God, so far in majesty above us that we can't even imagine your glory. And yet you have chosen in your goodness to not only reveal yourself to us in the creation, and to create us in the first place, and to not only send your son then, your own son, into this world, to reveal in person your godhood. But for us living in later centuries, you've given us this book. You've given us the scriptures in which we can meet Jesus and meet you and come to know you and to hear the good news of salvation and to grow in the grace of Christ. So thank you for this word, Father, and we pray that we would come to this book for what it is, that it is your word. It bears your authority. It is not the mere opinions of men, but it is you speaking to us from on high. And so Father, we pray that by faith, we would hear your word and obey you. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen. The Apostle John wrote these words. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that's in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Well, we're looking at the Gospel of Luke. And specifically, we're looking at passages in Luke which speak to this matter of the cost of following Christ. And under that heading, of course, the free gift that costs everything, you have to begin to think of the rich young ruler. We've met him before in our series that we went through the Gospel of Matthew. It's also an account that you can find in the Gospel of Mark, each one adding certain details. So this account, the rich young ruler, is a record of a man who, unlike Christian that we're seeing in Pilgrim's Progress, who left the city of destruction gave up everything to go, this man, as we're going to see, does not do that. He remains in the city of destruction. I hope that you're finding as we go through the Gospels And looking at the parables of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus, that while all scripture is inspired by God, and all of it is equal for our edification, nevertheless, there's something about studying and hearing The words of Christ himself, that's not to say, I should add, by the way, that, for example, the epistles of the Apostle Paul, those are the words of Christ, too, every bit as much as these as he inspired the rest of the New Testament. Nevertheless, there's something about reading about Christ in the Gospels here that is particularly particularly powerful, and it's a great place to begin to present the gospel to someone, to an unbeliever. Well, follow along then. I'm gonna read from chapter 18, and we begin at verse 18. I'm gonna read down through verse 30, and you can follow along. It's printed out here in your handout. And a ruler asked him, asked Jesus, 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, that is the young man said, all these I've 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. 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's 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, then who can be saved? But he said, what is impossible with man is possible with God. And Peter said, see, and it's like, look, we've left our homes and followed you. And he said to them, truly I say to you, there's 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. Well, we'll plan to deal more with this business of the eye of the needle and a camel going through and so forth next time. Both of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, as I said, record this event. And if you look at them, you do pick up on a couple more details, particularly in their opening verse. In Matthew 19, when the young man, now here in Luke, he's called a ruler, all right, a ruler. And then Matthew 19, he's called a young man. And in Mark chapter 10, we're also told not so much about the man himself, but what he did. Luke just says, a ruler asked him, good teacher. But Mark tells us, as he, Christ was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And so here it is, you put those together and you've got the classic name that we give him, the rich, young ruler. He was extremely rich. He was a young man. And he was some kind of a ruler among the Jews. Now, this is a remarkable scene. In today's church, for the most part, if a person was in a church service, for example, and responded in the way that this man did, runs up, what must I do to be saved? They would be pronounced saved, right? Right on the spot, that would be it, no more questions asked. You have, after all, he's an extremely wealthy man. He wasn't just rich, he was extremely wealthy. He enjoyed a high position. He was socially popular. He might have been, we don't know, a member of the Sanhedrin, some kind of a ruler among the Jews. And he doesn't just casually approach Jesus. Here's a man of high respectability, high office in his community. He's a wealthy person. And the crowd that was standing around had to be shocked to see a man like this running up to Jesus and he kneels down in front of him. And you know, your initial reaction certainly would be, here's genuine humility. I mean, this guy, this is faith in salvation. In action, we would have concluded that, I think, if we would have been watching. But if that would have been our conclusion, we would have been wrong. Matthew 13 describes what kind of a fellow this was. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. He has no root in himself. He endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises, when following Christ is going to cost something, on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world, and here it is, the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word. and it proves unfruitful. So you hear this man run up to Jesus, you see him run up to Jesus, he kneels down before him and he asks a solid question. I mean, how many of us would be very, very happy to have an unsaved family member, unsaved friend or neighbor come over, knock on your door in a parent, some kind of agitated state, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And it'd be like, man, there's the opportunity. Surely this guy's gonna get saved today, you see. It's a good question. It's probably, I think I heard when R.C. Sproul was preaching on this passage, he said, this is the most important question a person can ask. There's no more important question than this. What must I do to be saved? What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? Now, we don't know exactly what this young man was thinking about when he uses this phrase, inherit eternal life. It's kind of an odd phrase coming from a Jew of that day. We don't hear that kind of language much in the scriptures from the Jews, inherit eternal life. They pretty much conceived of the kingdom of God as being an earthly type thing for the most part, in which Israel would be like the dominant nation. The Messiah's purpose was to come and restore the nation Israel and they would be kind of the top dog. And I'm not sure how far their thinking went then in respect to the eternality of the kingdom, though they should have known a lot from their own scriptures about the fact that the kingdom of the Messiah is an eternal kingdom. For example, Daniel chapter two. In the days of those kings, this is Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dream. In the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces, all these kingdoms, and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. And then in chapter 12 of Daniel, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. So maybe what he is asking Good probability is when he speaks of eternal life, inheriting eternal life. Maybe he isn't. What must I do to be saved? But even then, as we're going to see, his concept of saved from what is not accurate. Now, we want to give this young man credit. At this point, he's far, he's way ahead of most people around us today. I mean, we're surrounded by people, they're not even concerned to ask this question in the first place. Yeah, save from what? What do I need to be, I don't need to be saved from anything. They just suppress any notion of that, you see. It's always been that way. Listen to Matthew Henry, way back in his day, the great thing we are every one of us concerned to inquire after is what we shall do to get to heaven, what we shall do to inherit eternal life. This implies such a belief of an eternal life after this as atheists and infidels have not, they don't have this, such a concern. to make it sure as a careless, unthinking world have not, and such a willingness to comply with any terms that it may be made sure as those who have not, who are resolvedly devoted to the world and the flesh. That's kind of his old English language. What he's saying there is that us as Christians, you know, We are concerned to ask this question, what shall we do to inherit eternal life? But the rest of the world is careless and unthinking. They don't give it a regard. And if any thought of that pops into their mind, what happens after I die? They suppress it. They work to suppress it. Now, as a Jew, This young man, certainly as a ruler of the Jews, he would have regarded himself as a member of God's chosen people. And, as we're about to see, he also regarded himself as having done quite a good job obeying the law. Kind of presents himself as perfect. So, why is he asking the question? We don't know for sure. He comes and he says, is there anything else I need to do? Any stone I've left unturned? Just let me know. Now, he might have been sincere, of course, if he was sincere, he was sincerely mistaken in this, but he might have been sincere when he's asking this question. He had, after all, run up to Jesus in zeal and knelt down then before him, calls him good teacher, and so on. The problem is, the answer that he's going to receive is an answer that he did not expect then at all, you see. Maybe it would have been more like, well, just, yeah, you know, Fine job, fine job you've done here. Just one little thing. Actually, Jesus kind of presents it to him that way before he gives the answer, but the guy's expecting, he was not expecting the answer that he received. He will ultimately walk away from Jesus, unwilling to comply with Jesus' command, And yet to this point, he was, as we said, far ahead of most people today. At least he's asking questions. He goes to Jesus. He goes to him. He went humbly. He went urgently. You might say from Pilgrim's Progress, this guy came right up to the wicket gate. He's right there. And then Beelzebub in his castle, he's gonna shoot an arrow and nail him before he ever enters in and goes in. And in a way, in a way, it's Christ that shoots the arrow in a way, or at least gives the opening. I don't know that's quite accurate to say, but nevertheless, he does not, he does not enter. Have you ever noticed how often Jesus, when people will ask him a question, he gives them an answer that not only did they not expect, but initially when you read it, you're like, how is that even connected with what they said, right? So Nicodemus comes up to Jesus at night and he engages Jesus in some conversation. You know, we know that you're from God and so on. And then Jesus essentially says, unless you're born again, you'll never see the kingdom of God. Boom. And the reason is, that this happens is Jesus knows our hearts. He knows the real issues and the real questions, and he gets right to it. He doesn't mess around, you see. And we have that kind of a thing here. The man comes up and he asks this question. Well, good teacher, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus responds to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. When Jesus does this, he really is answering the question. It's just that he knows what the question is. He knows what the important question is, and he gets right to it. The important question here, an issue in his life that this young man needed to face up to, is that his real problem is that he had a deficient notion of goodness. And specifically, he thought that he himself was good. And he thought that because he's had a very flawed concept of the goodness of God. That was his problem. And to a degree, Greater or lesser, every one of us is probably infected with that, that false thinking as well, and it's deadly. It is deadly. I mean, really, how many people who profess to be Christians think that they're in, when you get right down to it, they might mouth the words about believing in Jesus and so forth, being saved, but when you get right down to it, they think, that God approves of them because they're approvable, that God regards them as good because they're good, not necessarily perfect, but good enough, a pretty good person. That same sermon that I listened to by Sproul, he said, he referred to a poll that was done And by the way, you can go to the Ligonier site, and they do a far-reaching poll every year and publish the results. And in this case, the poll that he was referring to was in regard to what Christians, people who profess to be Christian, evangelical Christians, have to say about questions like, do you think that man is basically good? He said 80% of professing Christians, evangelical Christians, responded yes. That they think that Man, human beings, there's goodness, that there is goodness in human beings, in spite of what the Bible has to say then to the contrary. But this is a soul killer. It's that idea that worldly wise men sent Christian over, you go see Mr. Legality over there, sends him to Sinai. And you know, you're good enough, you can pull this off. Well, that's what this rich young man, that's the road he'd gone down. And as I say then, we need to examine ourselves. Am I really trusting in Christ, recognizing that there's no good thing in me? in me, of myself, no good thing in me, but my righteousness then is entirely of Christ, or am I just kind of, you know, who's the guy that put his thumb in the pie? Peter Piper, right? And then he says what? He said, wow, what a good boy am I. That kind of thinking will send you to hell, right? Because it is in opposition to trusting in Christ and his righteousness then alone. So don't skip over that, do some self-examination there. Am I really trusting in Christ, or do I think really, you know, I'm a pretty good person. I'm not perfect, but I'm a pretty good person, and as a result of that, God and I are on good terms. When you were born into this world, when I was born into this world, we were enemies of God. We are born in sin. We grew up and we, as we progressed into childhood, we loved our sin. We hated God. And I would hope that the older, the longer that you're a Christian, the older in Christ that you grow, you begin to see increasingly how sinful you are. Any goodness that's in us, any righteousness that's in us has come to us from Christ. It's only because that we are in him that there's any goodness then in us, and that goodness is of him. And we don't like to think about those things very much, you see. It's easy to think about that rotten sinner that we see down here and so forth and that guy, but to regard ourselves as lacking any goodness Well, that is another matter, you see. Christ is our righteousness, and Christ then alone. Well, this man, as I said, he has this deficient notion of goodness, and that's what Jesus, Jesus sees that immediately, and he addresses it. Why are you calling me good? He knew the man wasn't, the man's coming to Jesus as good teacher, okay? He doesn't have the foggiest, I don't think, that Jesus is God. And so Jesus isn't saying, well, I'm just a man, and only God is good. He's not saying that. What he's saying is, if you're addressing me, as good teacher, what do you mean by that? Because the fact of the matter is, no one is good except God. Do you think that I'm God? Now, he doesn't ask him that, but that's the, you see, that's the implication. Well, the man didn't come to him because he thought that Jesus was God. The irony is, though, that this fellow that thought he was so good has come face to face with goodness in its perfection. He's face to face with God. And he's thinking at the same time that he's pretty good. He's pretty good. I've kept all these commandments. All have turned aside, Paul wrote. Together they've become worthless. No one does good, not even one. And Ecclesiastes. Listen to this, Ecclesiastes 7, surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins, all right? James 1, do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. Psalm 107, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness. See, these verses are showing us only God is good, right? Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Here's a definition of God given, if you can do that, given in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. What is God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being. Wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. So if you pull goodness out of the list there, what this is saying is God is a spirit, infinite and eternal in his goodness. Would any of us like to claim that we are infinite in our goodness and that our goodness is eternal? It never changes, it always has been, and it always will be. Robert Raymond, in his systematic theology book, listen to what he says. This is a section, all systematic theologies have a section on the attributes of God. God has always been and always will be infinitely good. dealing bountifully and kindly with all his creatures. His attribute of goodness subsumes, that is, includes, his love, grace, mercy, pity, compassion, long-suffering, kindness, and other such expressions of his tender and fatherly character. The goodness of God is vast. And these are the things that this young man was oblivious to. He's just throwing around this adjective, good. Well, good teacher. Think about the goodness of God here some more, and then we'll come back to the young man and his thinking on this. Psalm 103 lists and sets forth the goodness of God as shown in his creation. And it's things that we take for granted. And if we would just think on these things more, we wouldn't be guilty of throwing this idea around of good. Well, this is good, and that is good, and I'm good, and that kind of a thing. Listen to Psalm 103 here. Psalm of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Stick goodness in there if you want, right? Forget not all his goodness. Who forgives all, this is the King James, by the way. Who forgives all thine iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns thee with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us after or according to our sins. nor rewarded us according to our iniquities, for as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear him. He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower in the field, so he flourishes. The wind passes over it and it's gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. And it's righteousness to children's children. To such as keep his covenant and to those that remember his commandments to do them, the Lord has prepared his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you his angels that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless you the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord. all his works in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul." And all of those, that praise is evoked from getting a clearer handle on the goodness of God. I attached at the end of your handout, a copy of another Psalm, which is, was it Psalm 104 here? Yeah, Psalm 104, that one really lays out also the goodness of God. That's the one I was thinking of in his works in creation. But these are the depths of the goodness of God. And when this young man comes up to Jesus, You know, loosely tossing around this good teacher phrase, he reveals, he betrays the fact that his idea of God is flawed. And therefore, his evaluation of himself is flawed. He believed that he was good. He addresses Jesus as a good man and a good teacher, but not as the perfect and perfectly good God. Now, if you compare the perfect goodness of God, unchangeable goodness of God, with the so-called goodness of man, do we still want to say that we are, in and of ourselves, good? But as we've seen, there's no goodness in us natively. Any goodness in us is an alien goodness that's been given us by our regeneration in Christ and in his spirit dwelling within us. It's a fruit of the spirit that is in us. And it becomes ours, but we didn't manufacture it. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. There it is, you see. There it is. I can't take any credit for it. I can praise God for my heart desiring to do good. But I can't take any credit for it. I certainly wasn't born into this world with such a heart. Well, then Jesus goes on, verse 20, tells him, 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 then this man, maybe, I mean, maybe the crowd was even applauding, I don't know, when he gives this answer. All these I've kept from my youth. The reality of this guy's mindset and of his heart is exposed now, you see. I mean, really? All these commandments of God I've kept from my youth. He fancied himself quite good. He was absolutely ignorant of the requirements then of God's law. He shouldn't have been, but he was. Now, it's interesting here that Luke quotes Jesus presenting the man with five of the Ten Commandments. Matthew adds a sixth, although it's not part of the Ten Commandments proper. It's a summation of them. Matthew adds, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you see, no adultery, no murder, no stealing, no lying, honor father and mother. But essentially, that's from what's called the second table, the second half of the Ten Commandments. And then they're summarized, Jesus said so, that those are summarized by the loss is fulfilled by sin. The first table, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. And then the second is like it, right? He says, then love your neighbor as yourself. So if you love your neighbor, you're not going to murder your neighbor. You're not going to steal from your neighbor, and so on. It's also interesting, these are just some things to quote, to take note of, and there's a reason behind them. I'm sure we don't always know the reason, but Jesus did not include the 10th commandment. Now that's interesting. The 10th commandment is the one that got the apostle Paul. The 10th commandment is, you shall not covet. This young man is extremely rich. There's gotta be a reason why, well you know, in essence Jesus did quote that 10th commandment to him, you shall not covet. Only he didn't, in a way that would not be expected. He's gonna tell him, go sell everything that you have, you see. The man, well, listen to J.C. Ryle comment on this, and then next time, I would like us to think further and examine further just what this young man's notion of the law was. And then to go further into this matter of his love for the world. You see, as it turns out, this man, this young man was an idolater. He wasn't a good man at all. And he was oblivious to this. And Jesus is revealing that. He hadn't, and maybe this is why Jesus didn't quote directly from the first table of the law. You should have no other gods before me. Well, he did have a God before him, and that God was money. And he chose that God. And he went away dead then in his sins. But this issue, this idea of a false notion of goodness, And this idea that somehow we have an ability within ourselves to go the way of the law. People will deny that they're doing that. Professing Christians will deny. No, I know that we're not saved by the law, and at the same time can be deceived into, I regard myself as pretty good, and I think God is smiling upon me every day because I'm good. Here's J.C. Ryle. At once the spiritual blindness of the inquirer, the young man, was detected. All these, said the man, I've kept from my youth up. An answer more full of darkness and self-ignorance, it's impossible to conceive. He who made it could have known nothing, rightly, either about himself or God or God's law. Does the case of this rich ruler stand alone? Do we suppose there are none like him at the present day? If we do, then we're greatly deceived. There are thousands, it may be feared, in all our congregations who have not the least idea of the spiritual nature of God's law, and consequently know nothing of their own sinfulness. They do not see that God requires truth in the inward parts, and that we may break the commandments in our heart and thoughts even when we do not break them in outward actions. To be delivered from such blindness is one of the first things needful to our salvation. The eyes of our understandings must be enlightened by the Holy Spirit. We must learn to know what God's opinion of us is. No man really taught of the Spirit will ever talk of having kept all God's commandments from his youth. He will rather cry with Paul, the law is spiritual, but I am carnal. I know that in me dwells no good thing. In other words, Jesus is confronting this young man who had just told him, all these I've kept my whole life. I've kept the commandments of God. What Jesus is showing him is you haven't in your entire life for one second kept the law of God. Because the law of God only condemns us. It only incites sin. It's only given to show us our sin and then to drive us to Christ. And the sad part about this story, this account, and Jesus was saddened by it. He felt a love for this man. Then here this man rushes up and he's all excited and pumped up. What must I do to inherit eternal life? He bows down, kneels down before Jesus, calls him a good teacher, and he's all excited and things seem so promising. And after a few words from Jesus, the whole atmosphere changes. And the excitement and the smile and the bubbliness turns to being downcast and sad as he walks away, refusing to get a trillion dollars by giving a nickel. And that's really the essence of the insanity of a person who loves this present world, refuses to give it up in order to have eternal life. Father, we thank you for Christ. Thank you that you got a hold of us and you showed us our sin. You showed us our utter depravity and absolute inability to obey your law, or to do anything to merit salvation from you. And then you showed us Christ, and you opened our eyes to him and his salvation. and you caused us to be born again, you made us into new creations. We give you thanks for this great salvation, and we pray as always, Father, if there be anyone that listens to this message today who is dead in their sins, who maybe like the rich young ruler, thinks themselves really good enough to stand before you, And then Father, we pray that you would open their eyes, show them mercy, and show them, let them hear and feel the thunderings of Mount Sinai, that they might in fear and trembling come and ask you to be merciful to them, the sinner. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen.