Good evening, everyone. Welcome back, or welcome for the first time today. I'm glad that we can gather together, close out the Sabbath together in worship. Let's give ourselves just 30 seconds of quiet, still our hearts, still our minds, and after that time, I will begin our service with the prayer of invocation. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we adore you. We thank you for this day that you have made for us and given us great rest. We thank you for the wonderful thoughts of you that you have given us already. And we pray, Father, that tonight we would not be distracted, we would not have any less focus than we had this morning, but that we would give you our full attention. We know that we can't do this of our own power. We know that we cannot force ourselves to receive from you. And so we come to you now begging you, oh Holy Spirit, fill us, feed us, guide us, empower our worship. Speak through us, Lord, that you would be exalted before all the world. We praise you and thank you that you have given us voices that can be used for your songs. You have given us minds that can understand your word. You have given us hearts to love you and your people. We trust you, God, and we thank you for all your many wonderful blessings and provisions. Please provide for us that which we most need, your spirit, that we would worship you in spirit and in truth. We pray in Christ's name, amen. If you're able, please stand for our call to worship. Your call to worship tonight comes from Psalm 147, verse one. Praise the Lord, Jehovah, for it is good to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and praise is beautiful. Let's sing our first song, I Sing the Mighty Power of God. It's song number one in your bulletin. Amen indeed. Now the first thing I have to do before we move into our confession of sin is to confess my error, and you'll notice in your bulletin there's a formatting mistake. That's all me. 100% my fault. But I think we'll be able to follow well. We're moving now into the confession of sin, which is from Psalm 49, verses six to 13. That's the larger paragraph included there, if you feel like following me along. Those whose trust in their wealth and boast in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of their souls is costly and it shall cease forever, that he should continue to live eternally and not see the pit. For he sees wise men die, likewise the fool and the senseless person perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwelling places to all generations. They call their lands after their own names. Nevertheless, man, though in honor, does not remain. He's like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish and of their posterity who prove their sayings. The reading of God's word, please be seated. We'll take this passage into our confession of sin, and I just want to point out a simple truth from these few verses. It really strikes me, this line that they call their lands after their own names. This idea that what we have is ours, that what God has given us is no longer his, but it's ours to do with as we please, to name it how we want it to be named. And it's just a wrong understanding of why God blesses us in the way he does, or why God chooses not to give us certain things that he knows would not be a blessing to us. So let's go before our God. Let's confess our sin. Let us pray and ask him to show us what we must confess. I will begin by praying for us as a body, and then I'll leave a time of prolonged silence for you to confess your own sins. And then together we receive an assurance of pardon, which is included in the bulletin. Let's pray. Oh God almighty. How foolish we are. How mistaken we are when we look at our own lives and we think that it's ours. We look at our possessions and we think that they are for us to do with as we please. How mistaken we are, Father, for you have given us what we have for your glory, and you have made us what we are for your purposes and for your pleasure. We ask you, Lord, that it would please you now to move by your spirit within us, to recall to our minds that which we must confess, especially if we have been treating our life like it belongs to us to do as we please. Please, Lord God, help us that we can confess our sin to you rightly. Please hear the prayers of your people as they come to you now in the silence of their hearts. Oh Lord, we are so mistaken. We think that we can somehow save ourselves, and yet we know we cannot. We cannot buy salvation. We cannot earn salvation. And so we rejoice in you, that you are such a good and merciful God, and that you choose to save your people. Thank you. we come to you, praying in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Our assurance and pardon comes from John chapter 10, verses 27 to 28. The words of Jesus, who says, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. If you belong to God, It is entirely His work, His transforming grace that has made you His. And there is nothing that can change that or halt it. Let's stand together, sing praises to our God as we sing together Jesus. Song number two. Copy of God's Word, please take it out and open to Mark chapter 10. We're continuing on in the Gospel of Mark. I know it's been a while since we've been in this series. And I hope you'll forgive me. Had a lot of travel and things going on in June. But we're looking tonight at Mark chapter 10. We'll be looking at verses 23 through 31. Mark 10, 23 through 31. God's holy word for God's holy people. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? But Jesus looked at them and said, With men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God all things are possible. Then Peter began to say to him, See, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, There is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. Please pray with me. Almighty God, this is your word which you have saved for us, preserved for us, because you know, in your infinite wisdom, how desperately we need it. Please, Holy Spirit, interpret this word for us, that we would not be mistaken or confused leaving this place. And we beg you, by your power, that you would transform us through this, your holy and perfect word. And I pray, Lord, that you would let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh, Lord, my rock, my strength, my redeemer. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. This is an interesting passage before us. Are any of you familiar with Julian the Apostate? He was an emperor, a Roman emperor. And he was an emperor after Christian emperors. That's why he's called the apostate. Because he went back to the pagan religion and he sought to persecute again the church of Christ. And one of the ways that he sought to bring shame on the church was he came to this passage and he said, look at these weird Christians. They think if they serve Jesus, they're gonna get 100 wives. They're going to have 100 houses. They're going to have 100 mothers and fathers. And Julian just showed that he really did not understand what's happening in this passage. Well, I hope that we will have a better understanding. We've been going through Mark, wondrous gospel. Remember, Mark's got a purpose. What is the purpose for writing all these things down? His purpose is to show that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God. And he's shown us and proven this to us in all of these, what I like to think of as snapshots, like photos in a photo album, events from Jesus's ministry. He's shown us how he heals. He's shown us how he forgives sin. and that he has the authority and the power to forgive sin, he'll heal even the body of those whose sins he forgave. He acted as no one ever acted, touching lepers, dining with tax collectors, and he taught in a way that no one had ever taught before, with authority, with power. We've been going through this gospel together. We've come through the great confession, where God the Father gave Peter the words to say, to confess you are the Christ. We've heard him teaching how he is going to have to be persecuted, how he is going to have to be violently tortured and killed, but that he will rise from the dead and he will bring salvation to many. Most recently, we were looking at the event that we often call the story of the rich young ruler, in which Jesus is really gently dealing with a very mistaken young man, a man who thought that he had done everything right, and that he was living in a way that pleased God. But he thought something even worse. He thought that he could, of his own effort, live in a way that pleases God. And so when he comes to Jesus and says, I've kept all the law, essentially, and Jesus says, one final thing you must do. Do you remember what that was? If you have your Bibles open still, it's right there. He says, go, take all of your possessions, all of your treasures, sell it, and whatever you get from it, give to the poor, and you will have treasure. in heaven. In the very last verse, verse 22 says, but he was sad at this word and went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. And that leads us into our passage tonight in which Jesus uses the occasion of that story to drive home a truth for the disciples. And hopefully he'll drive home a truth for us. And that truth contained in verses 23 to 31 is that no one can save themselves. Only God can save. You cannot save yourself. Only God can save you. And so we're gonna look at this under two headings tonight. We'll look first at verses 23 through 27, in which we see that only God can overcome our self-reliance. And then we'll look at verses 28 through 31, in which we see that only God can overcome our worldly or fleshly motives. So let's jump right into it now. Verses 23 through 27, only God can overcome our self-reliance. Look at verse 23. Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. God alone can overcome our sense of self-reliance in our own self-perception. We look at ourselves and we look at our lives and we can evaluate it and say, oh, things are going pretty good. I get straight A's. I must be doing all right. Got lots of money in the bank. Things must be going great. All my cars are shiny and new. God must really be pleased. That is what the rich young ruler had thought. He was one who tried to keep the law, tried to keep God's commands, and he thought he was doing it perfectly because his life was so very blessed. And it's important to remember that at this time, in this age, even the teachers, the Pharisees, were teaching that your life is a sign of God's favor, or displeasure with you? The blessing or the curse? If your life is one of blessings, well, then God must be happy with you. And if your life is one of curses, well then, obviously, something's not so great. Maybe that reminds you of Job a little bit. Well, Jesus's challenge to the rich young ruler revealed what he was truly lacking. He was lacking humility. He was lacking a right sense of self-perception, understanding who he was before God. And he had more desire for his own life, for what he had, than for what Jesus Christ himself told him to do. If his desire was for God and for Jesus, what would he have done? He would have sold all those things, and he would have come back and followed Jesus. God can overcome our self-perception and our reliance on our own self-perception. And he can also overcome our reliance on our own wisdom. Look at verse 24. And the disciples were astonished at his words. Notice that they didn't say anything else. We're just told that they were astonished. But then we have this from Mark. But Jesus answered again and said to them. He's answering thoughts that were not put into words. He understands where his disciples are going, and he answers again and says, children, a term of affection and love for his disciples. How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God. So we see a difference happening in these two verses. The first is those who have riches. And then he perceives that his disciples are not getting it. They're astonished. Again, because the Pharisees and the leaders of the Jewish people had been teaching them that that's what, how do you know you're blessed? Because you have a lot of blessings. Those who trust in riches. This gives us a deeper understanding of the problem of riches. It's not just having them, right? So if you do have nice cars and you do have a nice house, I'm not telling you that that means you're not saved. But if you trust in your possessions and you trust in what you have. You are like the rest of the world. You are like the person in that psalm that we read for the confession of sin who thinks that he has so much stuff he can redeem himself, even redeem others. Do you remember that commander from Acts 22? When Paul is being treated rather harshly by the Jews and then they turn him over to a centurion and they're They're getting ready to beat him. Do you remember the centurion goes to the commander and he says, it's not me to tell you what to do, you're the commander, but be careful what you do to this guy, he's a Roman citizen. And the commander goes to Paul and he says, you're a Roman citizen? Because there are lots of rewards for being a citizen of Rome. Lots of privileges. You couldn't just be beaten. You had to go and stand trial. You couldn't be crucified as a citizen of Rome. Did you know that? That's why Paul, as tradition tells us, was beheaded because he's a Roman citizen. Well, the commander says that with a large sum, I obtained this citizenship. That's the way people think. We can earn our rewards. We can work harder. We can get more for ourselves. Does it really matter if God wants it for us? I want it for me. I can work as hard as I can, save as much as I can. Is that the whole point of why God gives us things? So that the disciples and so that we don't miss the point Jesus gives us more. And he gives us an old Jewish proverb in verse 25. See there? It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Now, a rich man with a great sum can enter the kingdom of Caesar, but a rich man cannot by his way into the kingdom of God. This proverb means it is impossible. In the Talmud, they change it slightly, this old Jewish proverb. It's not a camel in the Talmud, it's an elephant. Just to emphasize even more, it's impossible. Now there are some who would say, oh, this is referring to a specific gate in Jerusalem and we're talking about the camels with all the riches and all this stuff. No, it's real simple. We know what the eye of a needle is. It's that little teeny tiny part that the thread actually goes through and you can't stick a camel through that little tiny hole, doesn't matter who you are or what you're trying to do. It indicates that there is only one way to enter the kingdom of God, and it must be God's way. Verse 26, and they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, who then can be saved? Which is reasonable. If Jesus is just saying it's impossible for rich people to buy their way into heaven, well, a poor person who can't even buy themselves food to stay alive in this life, what hope could they have? And once again, the disciples show that they just, they don't really grasp how different the kingdom of God is from the kingdoms of men. They don't really understand the vast gulf between the righteousness of God and what man can earn for themselves. We know that even our greatest attempt at righteousness is what? Filthy rags, totally worthless. The only way to be saved is through God. And so Jesus says, he looked at them and said, with men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible. And that's the emphasis here. God can save. You and I know ourselves really well, don't we? We know the darkest thoughts that we've had. We know the darkest deeds that we've done. God knows them too. You cannot, of your own effort, wipe out all that crimson, all that red in your ledger. But God can and he has been telling his people throughout all of his holy word that he is the one who saves and he has the power to do anything. I was looking at some other passages and it just really, it got me going. It got me real excited. In Genesis 18, when the visitors come to Abraham and Sarah and they tell her, Sarah's gonna have a baby. Do you remember what Sarah does? She laughs. She laughs. But in verse 14, in fact, let's just turn there. Genesis 18. We're looking at verses 13 and 14. And the Lord said to Abraham, this is verse 13, why did Sarah laugh, saying, shall I surely bear a child since I am old? This is God speaking. Is anything too hard for Jehovah? This is God saying, is there anything too hard for me? At the appointed time, I will return to you according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Is there anything too hard for God? Anything too difficult for him to do? Absolutely not. It's impossible with men, but it is not impossible for God. The Hebrews, when they were enslaved in Egypt. Could they have ever saved themselves from that bondage? Not even a little bit. And yet, when God brings them out of slavery, and he's with them in the wilderness, guiding them to the promised land, what did the Hebrews do? Were they just so grateful all the time? With every step, praise the Lord. Oh, praise the Lord. We're out of slavery. Nope. All they wanted was onions and watermelons and leeks. What is it that they wanted? Well, they wanted riches. The riches of Egypt. There's an interesting thing here in the Greek. This word riches, it's got a bunch of different translations. It could be money. Sometimes it's translated as silver. In the Book of Acts, it's mainly translated as money. But in other uses, especially in classical Greek, the best English word that we have for it is the word stuff. It's just stuff. Riches, stuff, just the stuff of your life. And that's what the Hebrews wanted. They wanted to go back to Egypt, because Egypt seemed better, even though they were enslaved, even though their children were being murdered. At least they had a bunch of stuff. Nice houses, nice food. Not nice employers, but I mean, come on. Take some, you lose some. When they are in the wilderness, and God is the one completely providing for all of their needs, they start to grumble and complain about all that stuff. Let's go to Numbers chapter 11 real quick, since we got time. In Numbers 11, We're gonna look at verses 21 to 23. We got all these people complaining that they don't have enough to eat, and their complaint comes up to the Lord. And the Lord says to Moses, I will give them meat to eat. He says, you shall eat in verse 19, not one day. nor two days, nor five days, nor 10 days, nor 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you because you have despised the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever come up out of Egypt? Verse 21, and Moses said, the people who I'm among are 600,000 men on foot, yet you have said, I will give them meat that they may eat for a whole month. And here we have Moses showing his similarity to the disciples with that worldly understanding that just hadn't been shaken yet. He says, shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them to provide enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them to provide enough for them? And the Lord said to Moses, has the Lord's arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether what I say will happen to you or not. Brothers and sisters, do you believe that somehow God's power is less now than it was then? Do you believe that the things that to us seem impossible are also impossible to God? No. All things are possible with God, even overcoming yourself. He can overcome your self-reliance. He can overcome your self-perception. He can overcome your sense of wisdom. And boy, wisdom doesn't stop, does it? Our sense of reliance on our own wisdom, the more we learn, the more we think we know, the more we, hmm, we can kind of ignore that good advice. Somebody comes and tells us, well, actually, have you ever, have you ever been told what to do with your money by somebody older than you? When you're young, you think you know it all. And somebody tells you, no, that's not what you want to do with your money. You do not want to buy a brand new car, trust me. And as fools, when we're young, we don't heed that advice. Because our self-perception is, we got it figured out. We've made it this far. We're still alive. We've done pretty good. I'm 22 years old. I'm practically a master at this life thing. We look out at the world and we can say, oh, I know what it looks like to have the good life. I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what I'm going to do. We can plan our careers and we say, this is where I'm going to go. This is what I'm going to do. This is where I'll live. I'll live here. I'll have two dogs and two and a half children. We'll have computers, big screens. We know what it is to live the good life or we think we do. And only God can overcome that. Only God can convince you of what the good life really is. Only God can convince you of the reality of your life, which is what? That you live in the estate of sin and misery. Every part of your life is full of sin and full of misery. And the only answer to that is that God in his mercy has not left you in the estate of sin and misery, but sent a Redeemer, one to pull you out of it, out of the bondage to sin. Now, if you thought that this idea of being self-reliant, perceiving yourself as wise, understanding how life really is, if you think that's only a problem for the rich, or the wealthy, or the people who have a lot of stuff, think again. We look at our next section in which we see that there are people who are obviously not rich. Peter's not rich in the way that the rich young ruler was rich. And we see in verses 28 to 31 that only God can overcome our fleshly motives or our worldly motives. Let's look at verse 28 together. This is Peter responding. And it's interesting how this is put in the Greek, then Peter began to say to him, it has this implication that he barely gets the words out before Jesus steps on it. to squash it. Then Peter began to say to him, see, we have left all and followed you. So Jesus answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. Peter's statement here in verse 28, it almost has a tone of like relief, right? Oh, it's impossible for the rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I've left everything for God. I don't have anything. It's a good thing I don't have anything. This must mean that I'm gonna get in, right? Because I've given up everything for you. And indeed they had left all. Does that earn salvation? Can you sacrifice enough in your own life to earn salvation? If you thought so, those verses, 29 and 30, make it clear. It is a good thing to sacrifice your life to Christ, to be a living sacrifice, to pour out everything that you are, everything that you have, to live for Him, to live for the good news of the gospel. That is a good thing. But can anyone take credit for that? Can you boast that you've done that? Of course not. There's no boast. The only boast is in Christ, is in the work that he has done, that he has drawn you out of the land of darkness into the light. It was the spirit of God that convinced the disciples to follow Jesus of Nazareth. He called them. It wasn't anything in themselves. God is the one who gets all the credit. And now their lives might indeed have all the blessings that one would associate with worldly success. Even after he ascends into heaven, we see and we know, we learn they didn't have that. In the Acts of the Apostles, we don't see them suddenly having a bunch of mansions and servants and living the good life. In fact, in Acts chapter one, when they go to Jesus and they say, is now the time that you'll restore the kingdom? We can get this little picture from behind them that, ooh, they thought now's the time. These last three years were really rough, really hard, and guess what? Now's the easy life. Not exactly. Not exactly what happens to them. There are going to be blessings that come with serving God and living a life for him. That is true. And if we want to make sense, not like Julian the Apostate did, but make reasonable sense of what it means by a hundredfold, it really is just a superlative to say you can't even imagine how good your life will be under the blessings of Christ. Now we know as Christians we do have a hundred mothers and fathers, we'd probably have millions of mothers and fathers, millions of brothers and sisters. We have lots of family now, a huge family. Do you know that also means we have lots of riches, lots of stuff and resources now? That doesn't guarantee that we are gonna live in a way that pleases God, just because we have lots. The blessing that comes with serving and living for Christ is true, and it is now as well as in the future. Do you believe that? Do you believe that giving up certain things that the world tells you are good things for Christ's glory is worth it? Young kids, you guys are told what to think and what to believe all the time. I bet you love the show Bluey, don't you? It's godless drivel. I don't know, I've never watched it. But I'm sure it has messages that are trying to teach you something about life, trying to tell you something about how you should be. Or, I don't know, what's another, Daniel Tiger, right? He teaches you something about life and about how you should be. Is that enough? No, of course not. We need to learn from God. We need to serve God. And the blessings that He will show us and that He will give to us are gonna be so much more significant than anything the world would try to get your attention on. In fact, He's gonna bless you in ways that you kind of won't see as blessings. You ever read the book of James? Go to James chapter one. It's pretty clear. My brethren, count it all joy when you have too many books to read. No? My brethren, count it all joy when you have too many channels and can't find something to watch on television. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Did you ever think that the blessings you'd receive in this life would be trials? That's why Jesus says, you're gonna get all these things. You'll have great blessings with persecutions. Because just having those things does not indicate that God is pleased with you. But there's another side of this, brothers and sisters. Having all those earthly riches is not an indication that God is blessing you and pleased with you. But at the same time, not having all those earthly riches and all those things is not a sign that God is cursing you. It is not a sign that God is displeased with you and hates you and doesn't want anything to do with you. God's kingdom is not like the kingdoms of men. And in case we didn't get that, that's why he gives us verse 31. Many who are first will be last, and the last first. Essentially, what Jesus is teaching here is the same thing that Isaiah taught us in chapter 55, verses eight to nine. And if you wanna turn there, you may. I'm gonna go ahead and just read it for us. In Isaiah 55. A lot of you may already know which passage I'm talking about. Verse eight and nine, he says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. The way the world understands order, the way the world understands blessing, and the way the world understands the pleasure of God is not right. You must follow his word and his way. No one can earn salvation. No one can gain the blessings of God by their own effort. You can work hard, you can make your life look blessed to the world, but that won't mean that you actually are blessed. If you want real blessing, what do you need to do? Trust and obey. I'm glad you said that. Trust what God has said. He says that the last will be first and the first last. You need to trust God's assessment of you, how he sees you. As Christians, when God looks at you, what does he see? Does he see someone that he wants to curse? Does he see a sinner who can never do anything right, who is always a failure? who hasn't even worked hard enough to earn bread for his family? Is that what God sees when he looks at you? If you are cleansed by the blood of Christ, that's not what he sees. He looks at you, and what does he see? He sees Christ. He sees the righteousness of Christ that he has imputed to you. It's not anything in you. Remember Judas. Judas could be said to have been one of the first. He's one of the 12 preeminent in the early church, following Jesus, serving with Jesus. Do you remember all the privileges that he had? He got to serve miraculously generated food to thousands. He was given power from on high to cast out demons to heal infirmities when the disciples were sent out two by two. He had great privileges of being in charge of the money bag, you remember that? From the outside perspective, that is a really blessed career, right? He started out small, he advanced, he got to a certain point, now he's in charge of all the funds for this incredible ministry. And what did we learn about Judas? Riches got in the way. When that woman came to Jesus with the expensive perfume to anoint his feet before his death, Judas thought she was foolish. Those are riches. That's some of the best stuff you can have. What are you doing with that stuff? You're wasting it. Wasting that stuff on Jesus, boy, that hits home. Do you think that there are things in your life that if you spent them for Christ, it would be a waste? Your time? Your relationships? Your home? Your intellect? Your sense of humor? If you give boundary to your sense of humor so that you are not making crude jokes, lewd jokes, being rude all the time, speaking to young teenage people. If you think that you're somehow gonna be lacking in what the world has, no. God will be pleased for you to act as he wants you to act in every aspect of your life. Give it all over to him. Sacrifice all the stuff that you have. Now this is hard for us because we, well, we love ourselves, don't we? We're always very happy when we do things well. I studied music for a long time. My life was music. All I wanted to do was music. I had a career plan that started when I was in the fourth grade. I worked really hard at it. From an outside perspective, it looked like I was having all of the success and blessing that one would expect. And it crushed me when God decided that's not what he wanted for me. Crushed me for years. It was hard. Hard to trust God. I had thought that that stuff was mine. Musical ability, musical passion. I was passionate for music. In college, I studied in classes and then practiced nine hours a day. I thought it was mine to do. And that even as a Christian, and I do believe I was a Christian because I was raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I just ran away from him very violently. I thought someday God would use that for his glory. I didn't know he'd have to take it away completely to then use it, use my life for his glory. But this is what we can do, brothers and sisters. If you think that the riches that God has given you are somehow for your own glory, somehow for you to have the life that you think you deserve, a life that the world would look at and say, what a success, what a wealthy person, then understand that you are in danger. You're in danger of abusing what God's given you for your own glory and not to use it all for his. And the reason that we have to understand this is because if we are trusting in our stuff, or our intellect, or we are trusting in our possessions, our homes, our family, do we look at our family and say, well, God must be pleased with me because he's blessed me with this beautiful family? Or God must be pleased with me because he's made me pretty smart. I really understand a lot of stuff. What happens when it goes away? Do any of you have Any familiarity with family members with dementia? Boy, if it's our intellect that we need to have to be blessed by God, those poor people, they've lost it all. If it's intellect that you need to be blessed by God, what about for those who are in the womb? They don't know very much. Can they still be blessed by God? Do you trust in stuff? Not just money, but any stuff. Trust in your good looks? Do you trust in your talents? Do you trust in your training? If God were to take it all away, what would happen to you? Would you find yourself like Job's wife, telling yourself, curse God and die? because there's now no reason left to live? Would you be like his friends? Do you remember what Job's friends said to him? Obviously, you are the most wicked person in the world because God doesn't do this to people that aren't as wicked as you are. We will not understand our life. And beloved friends, we must rely on God to save us. You must rely on him for he alone can save you. It may be impossible. You might be able to improve your worldly situation, but you will never be able to earn salvation. And so you must trust in God. Trust in the only one who can save you. Trust in him to bless you with all that he wants to give you in this life, but most especially in the next. It is impossible for you, but all things are possible with God. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are often confronted by your word with characters that remind us of ourselves. And though few of us have enough riches to be like the rich young ruler, to have confidence in our vast wealth, we are all like him in that we try to save ourselves through doing, through being. Father, we find ourselves in a similar situation to the disciples. wondering who can be saved? If it's so hard to be saved, who can actually be saved? And we rejoice, Father, that in your word, you have shown us the truth. It is a vastly difficult thing to save sinners. It is so difficult that it is impossible for human beings to do it. And that is why you have sent your Son. God, forgive us that it does not blow us away every time we think about it, that you took on flesh, and in that flesh you took our sin, and you killed it on a cross. Lord, forgive us for not having the astonishment that the disciples had when they hear you saying that rich people will have a hard time giving up their sense of self, their sense of importance because of all their riches. Lord, we ask you to forgive us for treating the stuff that you have given us like it belongs to us, to do with as we please. And we ask you, God, that you would empower us to sacrifice what must be sacrificed to share what should be shared, to get out from under the burden of stuff. We pray, Father, that you will help us as we move forward from this place to look at our lives as you see it, to rejoice when you have chosen to withhold something from us that we wanted, to rejoice that you know better than we do what we need to serve you. Help us. Help us not to be angry with you. Help us not to be angry with others. We praise you, God. We thank you. that though there is nothing in our hands that we can bring, that you have made a cross to which we can cling. We thank you that even sorrow for our sin, though we could cry every second of every day for the rest of our lives, it would not be enough. We thank you that you have done all that is necessary to save your people. We praise you and we beg you that you would not let us stay long under the cloud of depression and darkness when things are not going our way. That you would remind us you are God. You are strong. All things are possible with you. Father, bless us this week as we seek to live for you, as we seek to serve our Savior, and as we want to share the truth of redemption, the gospel, the good news. Bless us, Lord, in our efforts. May we diminish so that you would increase. May we be seen as fools so you would be seen as spectacular and majestic as the king of all the universe. We love you, Lord. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Let's stand together and close our service by singing our final hymn, Rock of Ages. as we receive a benediction from God's Holy Word from 2 John verse 3. Grace, mercy, and peace will be with you from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. There is a meal following the service. Let me go ahead and just pray quickly for the food. Almighty God, thank you for your provision. Thank you for the great riches you have given us here at this church. We ask, Lord, that you will bless us to use it for your glory as those that you have moved to serve us tonight have used their gifts, their stuff, their talents to serve this body. Oh, Lord.