There is a heart condition in my family. There is a real heart condition in my family. This is a real thing. This is not a made-up story. Not that we ever had made-up stories here, but this is a real heart condition. My great uncles all died of it. So the story gets retold occasionally at Christmas time or when we have family gatherings, usually when I'm just about to eat a lot of things with butter on them. And my mother or someone else will bring up, well, you know what happened to uncle Frank, uncle Francis, that's great uncle Francis, not my direct uncle, great uncle, my dad's uncle. Well, great uncle Frank had breakfast, went out to the farm machinery said, dropped dead, 55 years old. Then there was the other uncle, the other great uncle. He was in the farmyard, Uncle Alan, standing talking to his neighbor, Neville, when Uncle Alan fell on the spot, dead. 65 years old. The third one was praying at his bed. They found him, arms clasped at his bed, dead. Mid-fifties. These are all great uncles on my dad's side, but my granddad, my mother's dad, I never met. I was born in Zambia and went over there, and he was in Australia, and he was 53 years old and caravanning with my grandmother at the time near a town called Yung, and he made a noise in the caravan. My grandmother said, are you OK? And he said, I think so. They were his last words. 53. Now, I've got a small consolation, medically speaking, because my wife makes me go to a doctor every year. And it's really helpful. It apparently really is. And this young man, you know, he's our new doctor to us. He used the phrase regularly at the last visit. He kept saying things like this, a man of your age. A man in your years, a man in your middle age, always phrases used in different ways. I thought, is there something going on here? They're like saying, yeah, you'll be my age soon one day. And he's warning me about all the things that could happen. And he said, you got any heart conditions in your family? I said, well, yes. And I looked at Amy and she's like, you need to bring it up like three, three granduncles. And then there was my grandfather on the other side. So yeah, maybe it's a thing. And he said, great uncles don't matter. I'm like, there you go. It's back to the butter for me. Well, he's got me on proactive, but. I have a family heart condition. My dad's dad had some sort of pneumatic fever which led to an arrhythmia or something, I don't fully understand. He went to serve in World War II, they wouldn't let him. My family has a heart condition. It's actually not our biggest problem though, is it? You read Mark 10. And you read the people that Jesus is meeting in Mark 10, and the family heart condition is the same for people there as it is the same for me. See, I've got a spiritual family heart condition. As you'll hear later in this sermon, there are things in this sermon that have affected and impacted my family, my wider family, in a multitude of ways. It's a spiritual heart condition is my biggest problem. It's actually yours too. And it goes back to our, not great uncles, but our great greatest grandparents. It goes back to the garden, doesn't it? To the fall. A heart condition that has affected, as we just saw in Mark's gospel, it affects every marriage because it affected the marriage of Adam and Eve. A heart condition that affects the way that we relate to children and the little ones in our society. We look at the vulnerable and the little ones and we want to roll over the top of them and ignore them rather than actually welcome them. It's a heart condition that affects the way that we relate to God. That we want to acknowledge, like the rich man, that there is a God and goodness, wouldn't it be good if I could enter into eternal life because that means I would have everything now and everything then. Except one little problem is this, we tend to make other things in this world our God. That's the heart condition we've got. We live for stuff. We live for things. We live for someone else, something else, rather than the God who made us. This is the heart condition. As I think about that, I need a spiritual heart transplant, but here's the problem. That is impossible. It's impossible for me to get. It's impossible for man, humanly speaking, which means we really do need to pay attention to what Jesus is saying. How are we going to have a changed heart? I can eat proactive margarine to deal with my family's heart condition. So I'm off the butter, I'm on the proactive. My dad kept telling Amy, ever since she's known him, since we've been married, you know, he's on the proactive. And he told her, he says to Amy over the kitchen table, this has lowered my cholesterol. I think Amy didn't believe him. Um, and, uh, anyway, which is fine. Like it doesn't sound very believable, does it? You know, it's not like chugging Proactiv is going to actually be a medical thing that helps you. Anyway, I was sitting in that same doctor's office and I said, look, okay, so my cholesterol is a bit high. I've got this family heart condition. What do I need to do? Look, my dad says Proactiv reduced his cholesterol. And I said it in such a way that as if the doctor would go, oh yeah, that's not true. And he goes, totally. You need to get on Proactiv. It works. And so here I am drinking it like it's milk. But part of it is, is I can maybe do something about my physical future, but my eternal future, my soul, I can't fix that. It's so deep. I need Jesus. In this particular episode, Jesus shows us three things about our hearts. Firstly, our hearts are hard. That's our condition. Second, our hearts are hard and therefore the symptoms we see is they lack humility. And thirdly, that leads to when we think about eternal life, a lot of us struggle with this. A lot of us struggle with assurance. A lot of us struggle with, even if you're a Christian person, particularly if you're a Christian person, you might say, well, I believe in Jesus, but I just desperately struggle with, am I really saved? Does he really love me? We struggle with assurance. Come and see what Jesus says to these things. Firstly, our hearts are hard. We see this where this group of people, the Pharisees come, and if you're looking for a bunch of people that love to critique others, love to criticize, love to that they would love to just get under your skin, it's the Pharisees. Here they come, they come for Jesus, and notice we see that Mark writes, and remember Peter is Mark's kind of resource for understanding what happened as an eyewitness. So Peter saw this, the disciples saw this, of course Jesus sees their hearts, but we see Mark writes down, they come to test him. We see that in verse two. Remember this, that's the purpose of their coming. They're coming to test Jesus. What do they want? They want to make a big show in front of everybody and embarrass Jesus. They want to say, hey, Jesus, let's pick the hot topic. Jesus is divorce lawful. What are you going to say about that, Jesus? They want to embarrass him. They want to shame him. They want to show that they're right. These cynical serpents, whitewashed walls come to test Jesus. I love Jesus answers. You look in verse three. What did Moses command you? You got a question, he answers with a question. You're the Pharisees, you know your Bibles. What did Moses command you? and they say, oh, well, he allowed us to have a certificate of divorce. We see in verse four. Why did Moses allow them to have a certificate of divorce? If you go to Deuteronomy 24, you don't have to right now, but you can write down for later. Deuteronomy 24, there's a few verses there that speak about this certificate of divorce. And you can read it and sum it up and know this, and Jesus brings it to the fore of the whole conversation. He says, you know why Moses gave you a severe divorce. Why? Because your hearts are hard. Jesus cuts right to the meaning. In fact, ironically enough, he cuts to the issue of what they're doing with their hearts. Their hard hearts are coming towards Jesus. Hard. And he says, Guys, this is why Moses wrote you a certificate of divorce. Because you're hard-hearted. Jesus starts doing heart surgery now, and where they came to openly embarrass him, he does open heart surgery in front of everyone. Not the physical kind, but the stuff we really need, the spiritual kind. Your hearts are hard. And notice how he does this. You have a look there in verse six, Jesus said, and because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. And then Jesus goes, we see in, I'm having trouble with the verse numbers in my glasses, I need a new prescription. It's verse six, we see in verse six, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. You see this, Jesus, doesn't want to pit Moses against anyone else. Notice Jesus doesn't say Moses was wrong. Jesus is just saying, Moses, through the law that God allows by his provision, allows for your hardness of heart. But Jesus grounds his surgical teachings straight to the heart of the matter in the doctrine of creation. Genesis 1 and 2. From the beginning God made them male and female. He made them one flesh, therefore they're one flesh. And verse 9, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Jesus says this marriage is a creation ordinance, it's from the beginning. Marriage is not particularly a Christian ordinance. It's not just for Christians to get married. Humans can get married. Male and female are to marry. And if they can, and to not separate. That is how God has designed it. It's part of the fabric of existence. And of course our society likes to toy with things and then break things. And then we don't know how to put it back together anymore. So we like to get married and go, yeah, we don't like it that way. Let's mess around with it a bit. And then it gets broken again and again and again until we can't recognize it anymore. It's like me when I got my mother's appliances and pulled them apart to make things. So I thought I would make a hovercraft out of a hairdryer. And without her permission, which was very unwise, I tried to do that by putting the parts of the hairdryer into a margarine container with a hole cut in the top, thinking that if I turned it on, it would hover around like a hovercraft. Wouldn't that be amazing? Except it wasn't amazing. It melted the margarine container and gave me a slight shock. The shock for my mother was more palpable. We don't mess around with the way God has designed things. God has designed marriage. We're the ones that break it. We're the ones with our hard hearts that mess with it and change it, and it doesn't work properly. But God has designed marriage, one flesh, join, not to separate. Now this is a moment where Jesus teaches the Pharisees. Then we see in verse 10, the disciples in private, in the home, in the house, ask about it. because it's weighting complex. And Jesus shows how much, basically in verses 11 and 12, here's what Jesus is showing us, how much we are not to devalue marriage. Jesus is for marriage. Jesus is against divorce, which in some cases can lead to adultery. Now, at this point, it can feel like, is Jesus being hard or harsh? No, he's not. He's being clear and loving. But I know we feel this in a variety of ways in this church and in our society. I feel it in my wider family. The issue of divorce is up close and personal for Amy, my wife, and I. Amy's side of our family, so our families joined together. When we got married, I used to say, your family, you know, you can say that, a married couple can say that in such a way that it burns, right? In a fight, in a disagreement, you say, your family is like this. It's awful. And I had to learn. You're always learning in marriage, had to learn. No, no, no. When we got married, that's my family too. So to be clear, Amy's side of my family. Amy's side of my family, nearly every single couple has been divorced. Amy's parents have been divorced three times. This is a sensitive topic. This is complex. It's in no way does anyone seek to be harsh or hard. Divorce is a tragedy. If anyone has seen or experienced divorce, it's not as easy as just a certificate. It's never that. This is especially important for us to see in our society, yes, where divorce rates are so high, but it's not the certificate or the divorce that is the problem. That's the outcome. The problem is the hard hearts. That's the issue, isn't it? And so we need to actually, before a divorce happens, we need to go back and think, how can we help marriages flourish? Well, I think it goes back to even when people are single and start dating. How can we help those relationships flourish? Dating, for example, if we just start with dating, dating has two ends. There are two ends to dating and they're both good. They're both good. Dating has two ends. It's either you get married or you break up. And I want to say this, hear this, neither are a tragedy. It is not a tragedy to have a breakup in a dating relationship. May you've seen this in the movies, but in my younger years, I saw this in the movies. I saw this in my friendship circles and sadly, sometimes amongst Christians. where, you know, someone had been dating for six months or a couple of years, and then there was a breakup. And what would happen is, sadly, all the friends of the guy would treat the ex-girlfriend of the breakup as if she was some sort of pariah. And all the friends of the girl would treat the boyfriend as, ah, the bad ex-boyfriend. And I'm just like, why are we doing this? A breakup of a dating relationship is not a tragedy. Why? Why isn't it true? Because there were no public promises made. It wasn't a marriage. We should not be treating breaking date ups, and I think often in Christian circles we do this because we love marriage and we elevate it, rightly so, but then we tend to elevate dating and then we have levels of dating. Like we have, we're dating, but we're not, we're talking about dating. And so we have the pre-dating kind of thing. We're talking about the dating, we're thinking about dating, and then we'll have the dating. And then the dating, we have a promise ring, but it's not an engagement ring. And I know some of it's American culture and some of it's translated over here. But we've turned dating into something it's not. Dating has two ends. You either get married or you break up and both are good. Whatever decision is made, if that's the decision to be made, make that decision and celebrate it. Don't turn people into pariahs because they broke off a dating relationship. It's not a divorce. It's not a tragedy. There were no promises broken. But the end of a marriage, that's not good. It is a tragedy. It is sad. I've seen online on social media, um, these, I forget the name of it now, slipped my mind, but these divorce celebrations. You can see what people are doing, right? They're trying to, trying to make the best. And maybe there were awful situations they were in. We'll speak to that in a moment, but There's a sadness. It's like celebrating death. Our society doesn't know how to handle death anymore, so we celebrate it and play the footy songs as the coffin goes out the door. But for those who are loved and closest to that person, it's very difficult to celebrate death. Death is loss. It's an invasion in our world. Someone said to me recently, death is beautiful. Well, I've conducted a lot of funerals. I've prepared families for weeks, a couple of weeks on end in some cases. as a waiting for coroner's reports and all sorts of things. And during all that time, most people can cope. You know when people can't cope? It's standing at the graveside when they flick that switch and I usually read those verses from 1 Corinthians 15. That's when it's very hard to control your emotions. Death is sad. It doesn't belong. Divorce is sad. It doesn't belong. It's not meant to be. It's not here by design. It's not here because God just says, well, you know what? Some marriages, you just get a bit tired of someone, you move on. That's okay. Divorce exists because our hearts are sinful. And we ought to say that because the people who've experienced it understand that. But ever since the creation, God has made marriage. to be beautiful and flourishing. Yet ever since the fall, marriage is now hard." We also see in 1 Corinthians 7, which was our second cross-reference reading, we see that divorce might happen because of desertion. So Paul writes to new believers, and perhaps the spouse is, the husband is not a believer, or the wife's not a believer, and they just want to leave this new believing Christian. And Paul says, if you try, try your best, but if they go, they go. There's those kinds of things. But we see, most of all, Jesus values marriage. Now, reforming, we're not a Bible-based church. we're a Bible-focused church. You know, churches will say, I'm Bible-based. Well, that's nice. You can base it on the Bible and bounce off. I want us to be Bible-focused. I want us to be so thinking through the scriptures that it pours through every part of our life. And if we're focused on the scriptures, it means that we'll have our hearts' affections centered on the Savior, on Jesus, who speaks these words, who speaks the scriptures. So if we're all about Christ and community and compassion, which is what we are about, living in a fallen world, belonging to an imperfect church, which will always be this side of entering into eternal life, where the church is yet triumphant, but it means for now, the church militant, the church that's struggling in this life, means we will always have people, always, in our churches, who have all sorts of hard heart issues, who have all sorts of sins, who have been affected by these things, and we will have people who are divorced. We do have people with us we dearly love who are divorced. And we who love Christ and their community will treat them with compassion. I remember as a boy, I still remember this sticks in my mind. You know, there's some things you don't design them to stay there like a movie, but this is something that stood in my mind. I was about 10 years old and my uncle, he was the youngest. So he was a young man about 22 at the time. My uncle's wife just up and left and he didn't know why. It was very confusing for all of us, but what was more confusing was the lack of compassion and care where the pastor said, well, he's a divorced man. We don't know what to do with him. That's very confusing for a 10-year-old. What do we do? We need to have a heart of compassion. the mind of Jesus' wisdom to love and welcome those who experience divorce. You can read books about ethics. Some of them on our church library. I can lend you some or show you some. Michael Hill has written excellent stuff on this area. And his big recommendation, which I think is really, really helpful is this, is there's this thing called the retrieval ethic. And retrieval ethic has to exist in our world because our world is on retrieval mode. That's what the gospel is doing. It's not perfect and neat. We don't have neat situations. We have broken situations, fallen situations. And in those situations, we keep bringing the gospel to our own hearts as well as to the hearts of others. If someone is divorced and they're remarried and they're turning up here, the message is not, oh, well, you don't belong here. The message is stay married who you're married to. As best you can stay married. We need to recognize in some marriages also this. We've spoken about this, I've written about this in the journal. There are the awful, not just tragedies, appalling ways in which people are abused in marriages. It is disgusting. Now I say that, I get a bit of emotion, I guess. I'm a pastor. So I often walk into the situations that I'd rather walk away from. I walk in to the house, the home. I walk in to the marriage that is disintegrating. I walk into the situation where you have to read the room and listen and get to know and see, I see abuse happening here. I have to work this out. But when you see a marriage falling apart and a divorce happening, and then you see that for years that woman was oppressed or abused verbally, at times physically, when you see that, friends, the divorce is just the endpoint of an awful set of circumstances. The divorce, that certificate, it sounds so clinical, doesn't it? But those marriage vows were broken years ago. Anyone who abuses someone in a marriage has broken those marriage vows. Because a marriage, which public promises, that's what a marriage is. We're struggling with definitions in our society. It's a public promise between a male and a female, a man and a woman. And those public promises usually go like this. I conduct a lot of weddings. In fact, someone asked me recently, how many you've done? I'd have to go and look in the book and count. for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part. And the for better or for the worse means it's not you that's to bring the worse. You are to protect them and care for them and nourish them in the worse. Today, friends, we've got two main applications at this point. If you're married, You know that marriage is a gift, don't you? You know this. But here's something else you'll know. Every married couple knows this. Marriage is hard. It's hard. Why? Because of my hard heart. Because of yours. When I was a younger man, doctor friend. I was once. I had color in my hair. I remember it used to be for us and my friends, we were young Christians, new Christians. And for us, it was like, Oh wow, good Jesus. Now I just need a spouse. You know, like it was the, and, and it was all like, you know, the movies at the time, like it was Sweet Home Alabama and you know, Lord of the Rings. They're very different genres. Basically the same idea. Sorry, Lord of the Rings fans. Where it's all happy ever after, right? And so we think, I just need to find that perfect person. Find that perfect person, that perfect woman, that perfect guy. Find that perfect person. And then when you get married, you realize this. There's no such thing. Especially when you look in the mirror. Friends, getting married is not finding the perfect person. Not even the perfect person for you. Getting married is this choice. Which sinner am I going to share life with for the rest of my life? As a sinner. Marriage is hard. And you know now, married people, speaking to you to start with, speaking with you, that you know now that this side of the fall, marriages do not survive without grace. Like, if we don't survive salvation-wise with our grace, if by grace we are saved, how do we think relationships survive but without grace? It's by grace our marriages survive. And it's commitment to the public promises we made. Sometimes, uh, my kids or sometimes just not my kids. I shouldn't, you know, kids, friends say, you know, they almost want to promise out of you. Like I was making coffees this morning, you can give me a hot chocolate. Look, I'll get it to you before the service promise. No, I can't promise multitude of things could happen in between me and making a coffee and you getting a hot chocolate. I make very few promises in life. I have made two sets of promises in life, two major promises that I do not want to break. One of them is this. When I made vows to Amy, I want to take those seriously, those public promises. Not just in public, by the way, but in private, in my heart. Why? Because Jesus made marriage and he's looking into my heart and he's looking into my marriage. He sees what I think in private. The second one, the second set of vows I made is to this church. When I was ordained and inducted and called, and if you were there and you signed that call, I promised that I would, to the best of my abilities, serve you by grace. Both of them mean this. And let's talk about marriage. The commitment of public promises of marriage are this. By grace, I choose to love you and forgive you. By grace, I choose to love you and forgive you. Now, when it comes to abusive marriages, Titus 2, grace trains us to renounce ungodliness. So grace doesn't just save us and help me to say, I choose to love and forgive you. But it also says, I will speak the truth in love. In a marriage where something's not OK, the spouse should be able to say, that's not OK. because grace saves us, shapes us, and trains us. Now, what does it mean if you're single or dating? I think that is for you too. So you might not be thinking of getting married, you might be single, but for us, we want to support marriages, pray for them. At weddings that I conduct, we ask for the vows between the couple, and then we say the congregation. We support them, and we ask people to say we will. that you'll have friends, if you're single, you'll have friends, likely, by the stats, who have not stayed married. I've married people that have sadly not stayed married. And what does that mean for me? Here's what it means for me, and what I pray will be helpful for you. If you are thinking of getting married, I think it is the most unwise thing in the world not to prepare for that. and not prepare for that with counsel and care through those who have served and know how to help you prepare for marriage. Find that person who's not just gonna say what you want to hear, by the way. That's what Pharisees do. They just want to hear what Jesus says and make them feel so. Find the person who's going to take Jesus' tender words of truth and speak them to you for your good. Because it matters before God, when you marry, you say for better or for worse. And hear this, see how Jesus is tended towards you. Because if you want to get married, but you don't want someone to disagree with you, you won't be married very long, but you also will not have a posture towards Jesus where he's going to be your Lord. Because of all the people in the universe who needs to disagree with you, who is that? It's Jesus. Jesus needs to disagree with me. He needs to say, Russ, that's not okay. That's sin. You should repent. That's for my good, for my rejoicing. And so my prayer is, if you're married or getting married, keep Jesus in your ears, in your marriage. Focus on the Bible, not just be a Bible-based marriage, be a Bible-focused marriage. because of his compassion towards you. Now remember where the Pharisees started this conversation. The Pharisees counted Jesus and they're wanting to test him. It is the hot button issue of that day. Remember how John the Baptist was killed? Why was John the Baptist killed? Because he was a jerk? No, people can get killed for being a jerk, that happens. Was it because he was just mildly annoying? You know, some prophets, they're like, ah, preach, preach, preach for ages. All I want to do is get you to go to Jesus. Ah, so annoying. Let's kill him. No. Was it because we had a spate of just, you know what? We need some entertainment. Let's kill some. No, it wasn't because of that. Why was John the Baptist killed? Do you remember? Because he said to Herod who had remarried and divorced and said, that's not okay. And Herod didn't like it. Harris wife didn't like it. So off with his head. It was a hot button issue. So the Pharisees come with a hot button issue. What are they wanting? Maybe we'll get Jesus killed over this. They come, this whole scene is about divorce. Jesus says, it's not, it's actually about your hard hearts. You see this marriage is instituted at creation, right? Divorce becomes an institution because of sin. Divorce has become an institution because of sin. And Jesus knows his Bible, of course, because he wrote it. He's the author. Genesis 2 to Deuteronomy 24. He knows human hearts. He knows you and I. He knows our hearts are hard. And so Jesus, in our relationship with us to him, now wants to speak to our lack of humility. And the perfect opportunity comes because the children start running to Jesus. Look what the disciples do. Look at verse 13. They were bringing children to him that he might touch them and Jesus rebuked them. How quickly the disciples forget. It was only the last episode that Jesus grabbed the child in Mark 9 verse 36, put the child in their midst and said, functionally said this, I'll paraphrase, but this is what basically Jesus said last time. It wasn't the sermon, so I'm just quoting myself, but not particularly Jesus. But he basically says this, you guys need to stop being man babies. being all about yourself, tearing others down. You know, they're saying, hey, we should stop those people doing that thing. Stop being man babies and start getting humble hearts and be like a child. What's this about? What is Jesus saying here? Verse 15, truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. What is Jesus saying? Jesus is showing us, often our hearts like humility. The radical humility is the key though, to receiving the kingdom of God. See, we know this. Children aren't innocent. It's not like the children are perfect. You know, some Christian circles think children are innocent. Well, I was going to say meet my kids, but you know, that's awful on my kids, isn't it? I should stop doing that. Just get to know children. They're not innocent. They're not. I've said it before. You've heard it before. You don't have to teach your kids how to be, you know, sinful. It just happens. But you didn't have to teach me how to be sinful. It's who I am by nature. I'm a sinner and yet saved. This is the wonderful thing. But you can't get saved. You can't enter the kingdom of God. You can't enter eternal life until you come humbly like a weak and dependent child. The purpose of Jesus teaching about children is not to show us to be childish. That's the man baby problem. Men who don't grow up. That's the disciples problem in chapter nine. They're not growing up. Sometimes I want to say to men, I just wish you would not grow up. I wish you would Christ up. Like, why aren't you like Christ? Why aren't you reflecting Christ? And Jesus wants to say to these disciples, these men, look at the word, it's indignant with them. He's indignant. In other words, fed up. But Jesus doesn't want them to be childish. He wants them to stop being childish and instead be childlike. There is a difference. To have a personal posture toward God that is childlike is to be in a place where you're humble and you know you need grace. See, children don't walk around going how much they've achieved before God and others. They're not trying to impress. They're just trying to humbly come towards him. When you receive Jesus this way, you know you receive grace. Grace that saves us, grace that keeps you safe. As we rapidly head towards eternity, but then some of us do struggle with lack of assurance. It's easy to understand how much of lack of an assurance is a pastoral problem. When you just get to know one another, even in our church, some of us struggle with this. Here's a famous scene that helps us. This scene here, we've got a rich man comes to Jesus. He comes to Jesus and he comes at the service level. It seems that he's interested in inheriting internal life. He comes with a question, look, I've got everything in life, but I want to go to heaven when I die. There's a whole bunch of people live in a world like that. We just, we just hope we've got that free ticket, you know, and maybe I can bank it in later, cash it in later. When I, when I get to that train station at the end of life, I'll be able to get on that train. That's what this man's asking. He calls Jesus a good teacher, which sounds like a nice compliment, but Jesus turns that compliment into a doctrinal moment. And he says, why do you call me good? No one's good, but God alone. In other words, Jesus is saying, do you realize I'm not just a good teacher? Do you realize I'm God? And Jesus is showing the man now, here's how God measures things. Here's how I measure things. It starts with the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, got the list of commandments there, God's commandments, and he goes through that list. Jesus, with that list, presents that to the man, and the man says, well, I've kept those things. I've kept them. I've not lied, I've not stolen anything, and I've tried to honor my mother and father. I've not murdered or defrauded any way to the top. I've not even got my money that way. He says, I've kept those things. He sees himself as morally good. And Jesus puts his finger on a nerve when he says, you lack one thing. You lack one thing, so give your goods to the lacking. Jesus says, give everything away and follow me. Now this is not, by the way, Jesus saying we should all now for go and empty our bank accounts, give to reforming church or the poor down the street or the mission across the world. And now enter Monday with literally nothing to buy your breakfast. And then say, what do we do next? Some Christian cults have tried that. It doesn't work very well. But if we're Bible focused, it's not what Jesus is saying. You see, look in verse 21, Jesus looks at the man and loved him. Jesus is not being harsh. He's not being, he's not using hyperbole as a way to kind of, you know, ah, let me just drop the mic on you. He's not doing that. He's loving the man. And what Jesus is really doing is identifying where the man has broken the commandments where we all do. Can you see which commandment this man has broken? It's the first one. He doesn't love God most. He loves his money more. He loves something else more than God. When he identifies that to the man, the man, verse 22, is disheartened. Notice that word in English there, disheartened. We live in a world that's disheartening, lowers our hearts, depresses us, deflates us. This man is disheartened because he goes back to that world. Notice this, look at this. He went away sorrowful for our great possessions. The man is sad because he goes away from Jesus. If you track away from Jesus, if you would rather something else than Jesus, you will be sad. Oh, we think we're happy. We think we're temporarily happy. We think we've got what we want. But this man has a heart condition that clearly has a hole in it, clearly hasn't got all that he wants. He's got a craving, but he can't let go of the wealth of the world to receive it. So he leaves. He leaves for the fleeting and the frustrating things of this world. And Jesus looks around to his disciples and says this, here's the problem. It is easier, verse 25, for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. When I was growing up, I heard many a preacher give many an explanation that made no sense to this verse. I once heard a preacher who was quite wealthy, which is nothing wrong with that, by the way. There's nothing sinful about having wealth. It's how your heart is postured towards wealth and God. But I heard once a preacher say in person that Jesus used this hyperbole But it's hyperbole in a sense that, well, apparently, you know, there's this wall in Jerusalem which has a hole in it, a gate, that what the camels had to do is they come to this particular camel gate, they called it, and they'd have to take the baggage off the camel so the camel could squeeze through the gate to get in Jerusalem. That's how hard it is. It's so hard for a rich person to get in the kingdom of God that they can make it, They can get in, they've just got to squeeze a little bit to get in through that camel gate. Have you heard that? I've got some nods. I know it's popular, right? Here's the problem with it. Two problems. One, no such gate exists. It doesn't make sense. Does it make sense to you as an explanation? Why have a gate at Jerusalem? That is manned and guarded, by the way. And we've got, ah, the camels, they've got to go through this other one. And it's really awkward. It's like saying, you know what? Like the trucks are big, but we're going to make them go through the small gate over there. Come on. That's not the biggest problem. That actually speaks entirely against what Jesus' point is. Look at his point. What is Jesus saying there? You see, the disciples get it because they say in verse 29, they're astonished. Who can be saved? So verse 29, verse 26, I'll fix these glasses one day. They're astonished. Who can be saved? Why are they astonished? Why? Because Jesus is not saying, yeah, you can get through, you can just squeeze through. And they're not going, oh, that's a relief. They're saying, no, they're thinking not camel and gate. They're thinking camel and a needle pinhole. They're thinking it's impossible. Even if you were to put that camel into a thermomix, it would still be hard to get it through the eye of a needle. And it's hard to get a camel in a Thermomix. Like you'd have, that's a whole process involved. Cutting up and butchering said camel and then putting it into the Thermomix. But have you tried putting anything that's come out of a Thermomix through the eye of a needle and get the entire contents through? Jesus point is, it's impossible. And of all the people that actually get something in their day, it's the disciples. They get it. They get what Jesus is saying. So all this talk about gates and just, it's silly. It's people trying to excuse their own hard heart. And worse, preach it like it's truth. Jesus is saying it's impossible. You can't hold on to the things of this life and love them so much and then go, but I'm gonna get into eternal life. Jesus is saying you gotta love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, all your affections. Now at this point, you might be thinking that does sound impossible. Jesus says to this man, you've broken the first commandment, you shall know other gods before me. Jesus says the man's sin of his heart is ultimately idolatry. He gained the world, forfeits his life. The rich man, his spiritual life is about as satisfying as watching a stock exchange. That's about how satisfying it gets. But the issue is, he won't give up that false security, that false assurance. Because the rich man is, sadly, tragically, ironically, possessed by his own possessions. They own him. and he lacks assurance, searches for security, and keeps on looking everywhere but Jesus like a rich fool does. Contrary to the humble approach of coming like a dependent child, the man walks away sad. The children go to Jesus and rejoice. They're having fun. They're happy with Jesus. Where are you right now? Are you happy and satisfied because you've got Jesus? You can be. You can have everything. Even with what feels like in this world, nothing or nothing much or very little or not as much. You can have everything when you've got Jesus. The disciples feel this. Peter says, we gave up everything to follow you, which is technically not true. Because we find out later, there's still got some fishing boats and some sort of opportunity for, but, but Peter's feeling it and he butts in and Jesus is like, well, let's just a minute, Peter, what I'm offering you is eternal life. I'm offering you. Actually, you think you've gave up everything I've I'm offering you everything. What is the, everything you've noticed in the text there. Peter says, we gave up all this stuff. We gave up all these people and family and everything. And Jesus says, you join in with me. You get everything. Yes. You'll get persecutions in this life. People will think you're weird. Well, that never hurt anyone. People will talk about you. They'll say bad things. Well, that's, that's hard. You get everything. What's the, everything you get the kingdom of God, the church eternal. What is the only thing that will last forever in this world? It's not wealth. It's not this building. The only thing that is going to last forever from this world are the people in this room and all those around the world who have Jesus. That's the only thing. It's the church. The church is the only thing that is present in this earth and eternal forever. It's the church. And Jesus says, that's what you get. You get the church. hundredfold. Jesus gives us a glimpse, a picture of eternal life that is not just like the man, the rich man wanted a ticket to heaven. It's more than a ticket to heaven. Eternal life is more than just escaping from hell. Eternal life is everything. It's everything you ever dreamed of or wanted. It's what your hearts crave for. It's the relationships without the tragedies. It's the friendships without the scorn or the cynicism. It's the way in which we can actually be like Christ forever. No more tears, no more sin. Only Jesus can bring that. Why? Because only Jesus can change your heart. Do you know the first heart transplant when it was done? Anyone got any guesses? You don't have to call it out because we're Presbyterians, but if you want to, I don't mind. Can you guess the first heart transplant? I did some research. Apparently, it was in 1967. That was a bit later than I thought, actually. But anyway, 67. That patient lived for 18 days. At that time, they thought that would be impossible. And it became possible. Now it's routine. I'm hoping, maybe one day, it'll be so routine it's easy. You know, for those that proactive doesn't work. But even though man can change the blood pump, like we can take out this pump and put in a new Davey or a Briggs & Stratton or something. We can put in a new blood pump. Maybe we'll make one and little 3D printers. Even if we could do that, changing that won't change me. It won't give me humility, assurance, won't change the hardness that's in me. We saw in our call to worship from Ezekiel 36, only he who does this, he will give a new heart and a new spirit within you. He will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. He'll give you a spiritual heart transplant. And he can give you that today. Yes, it doesn't beat perfectly, but it starts to change you and your life. It will actually change your relationships, your dating, your marriages. It will change your posture towards people, and most of all, towards God. Because you will know His love, and that experience will mean you will just love Him most. It's Jesus who created marriage, isn't it? He was there at the beginning. And yet it's us who divorced him. We divorced him in our hearts. We thought it would be that easy, get a certificate of divorce, and that easy, let's get a certificate to heaven. But Jesus is the one that knows that's impossible. So what does Jesus do? He comes as a humble servant like a child. He comes depending upon his father. And Jesus does more than go through the eye of a needle. Jesus does the impossible by going through death. He does it on a cross and he's risen with an inheritance that money cannot buy. The rich man went away sad because he went away from Jesus. Friends, my plea is for you now. My prayer is for you in a moment. Don't walk away from Jesus and be sad. Come to him. He will change your heart. He will change your life. Where all sinners come to Jesus, they get their life back because He makes the impossible possible for you. Would you pray with me? Let's pray this happens among us. Our Father in heaven, even though we've come today wondering about eternal life, we pray that we will with childlike humility receive King Jesus. We're asking for this, for you to do what only you can do, the impossible. We're asking that though we may have come this morning with disheartened hearts, we may have come sad and sorrowful. Maybe we've even come hearing your word preached with an expectation of, ah, this will be interesting at best. it won't change much for me. We're asking now that by your spirit that breathed this word into being, that this would be the focus of our hearts and that by meeting Jesus and going towards him, we would now be full of joy in possessing Christ. Thank you for Jesus who heals our hard hearts. Thank you. And we pray that we'll continue to be thankful with joy in Jesus. Amen.