We're going to be looking at Mark chapter 10. Mark 10, verses 13 through 31. We're going to be reading two scenes from the life of Jesus which are connected together. Mark 10, 13 through 31. And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them. And the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, let the children come to me, don't hinder them. For to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them. laying his hands on them. And as he 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 Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and your mother. And he said to the teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. And Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, you lack one thing, go, sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come, follow me. disheartened by saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, how difficult it will be for all those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. And they were exceedingly astonished and said to him, then who can be saved? And Jesus looked at them and said, with man it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God. Peter began to say to him, see, we have left everything and we have followed you. And Jesus said, truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first, May God bless this reading to us and to our souls. One of the more popular questions to ask, I think, and I'll ask you maybe afterwards whether this is true, to ask or to assume Maybe. What do I have to do to get into heaven? I think a lot of people would have an answer to that. I think a lot of people assume an answer to that. And usually the answer goes something like this. Well, I have to be a good person. I have to be the person who helps the old ladies across the street, doesn't fake my tax returns, make sure that I'm not impolite to anybody, and maybe then I will get into the kingdom of heaven. Have you heard that? I think it's pretty common. I will also tell you it's completely wrong. And so we're gonna think a little bit today about what the true price of admission to heaven is. Because I would tell you today that every person does have a desire for heaven. And the reason we have a desire for heaven is we see things in the earth are not as they should be. And God has planted it in our hearts to desire something more. Something that solves the problems that we see in front of us. That takes all of the things that are causing us trouble. By the way, a lot of the trouble we have is our own fault too. And solves these things. And so I think the first pushback I'll give here is to ask the question a little differently. People might say, what do I have to do to get to heaven? And the word do there might not be helpful. I think there's an assumption that if you simply do the right things, then heaven will be yours. And you know, I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time today talking about what heaven is like. I'm going to refer you to the other teachings of Jesus on that. and the other teachings that are in the scriptures about what heaven is truly like. I will just say one thing, which is that there is the idea of a feast together. We gather together as people. Heaven is not a solitary place. And I would also say that you might get some idea of what you really believe when you examine what it is you think heaven will be like. You know, the vision that people have of heaven, and many religions have some idea of what heaven is, depends a great deal on what you believe. There are visions of heaven that have to do with fighting all day and then drinking all night and being regenerated the next day. There's a vision of heaven that says that you need to give up yourself and lose yourself in order to obtain some sort of nirvana. But Jesus teaches no such thing. Jesus teaches of a heaven where our bodies will be and where we will, resurrected in the body, enjoy a fellowship with each other and with Jesus. So what's the first lesson that we have? And I'm going to tell you two lessons today about how to obtain the kingdom of heaven. And I'm going to follow in Jesus's words here. One is the lesson of the children, the other is the lesson of the rich man. So first, children. Who is Jesus talking to here? Well, this is a very interesting scene because the children that we are talking about are the paideia. They are very young children. Our word children in English covers a lot of ground. It's anybody from an infant all the way through, let's say, high school. But the word here is a much narrower meaning. It might include somebody who is below what we might call today the age of reason. Now, I'm not sure anybody really enters into the age of reason, but we'll just leave that aside for the moment and say, well, it's about kids up to age six or seven. Think, you know, kindergartners, first graders. These are the children that Jesus is talking to. These infants, toddlers, kindergartners, What an amazing scene. Here's the great teacher himself, and by this point in his ministry, the people really know it. Going back a few verses in verse 10, what was Jesus just doing? He was just giving a very heavy teaching about divorce. This is theologically complicated stuff, and Jesus teaches about divorce to the people, and they learn it. And now Jesus is going to teach again. But he doesn't go to the university students. He doesn't go to the Sanhedrin. He doesn't go to the seminary down the street and say, I have a lesson for all of you because I am the greatest teacher of all time, which he could certainly have done. Instead, he goes to the children. And the mothers and fathers that are here are certainly aware of the fact that Jesus wants to bless the children because they are the ones that bring the children to him. Somehow they have this understanding, this great teacher who can give great lessons about great and difficult things in life is concerned with the smallest, the least of these, the children, the small children. And so they brought children to him. The previous scene talking about divorce is of course related to this, but I think it has a meaning that's more like this. Jesus teaches not only the adults, but he teaches the children because he wants them to grow into a life of following him. Now the disciples object. Why do the disciples object? Well, that's not really said here, but the disciples rebuked the people bringing their children to Jesus. Jesus has more important things to do. What are you doing? We don't want this place to be cluttered up with a bunch of kids. Well, that seems a little rude, doesn't it? Well, that's because you might understand a little something about children, that children are pretty important. And in fact, it's great. I'm looking out right now and I see people who could be called children right now in front of me. And that's exactly how it should be. But the disciples object. The teacher has more important things to do. How does Jesus respond? Jesus is indignant. Jesus says, you've got this completely wrong. I want to speak to the children. Well, is Jesus going to tell them some rich theological point that they will understand for the rest of their life? No. Jesus holds them. He touches them. You know, it's not always true that in order to communicate with somebody, you have to use words. And Jesus understands with children. Do you think that your average two-year-old is going to understand a paragraph from Sophocles? No. This is exactly the way Jesus works. He touches the children. Jesus loves to bless the children. And this is no less true today than it was in that time. Now why is it so important to include the children in this ministry, which is an important ministry with great theological points and enormously important teaching? Why is it important to include the children in this? Well, there's a point for us who are sophisticated adults. And there's a point for the children as well. It might work something like this. You know, there was a philosopher who got something right and Christian teachers in the days after that adopted this point. It goes something like this. Give me a child until he is seven. Ah, that's our paideia. And I will show you the man. That's the point for the child. The idea is if you can educate a child from the very earliest age, there is a tremendous power in that. And you can lay down things in the life of that child that they will adopt as their own in their heart in a way that is even below the level of rationality. And they will grow older in that understanding. It's a tremendous thing, and anybody who has a stable life where they can live it with other people has benefited from a parent, a mother and a father who have taught them in ways that don't necessarily involve reason, and in fact, seldom do in some ways. They grow older, and if they grow older in Jesus, they are doing it because their parents have taught them. What do the parents want from Jesus? They want Jesus' touch, they want his blessing. And this is the point for us maybe, maybe a reminder to us. Where did we first know God's blessing? And I think the answer for most people would be, and this is almost universally true, the place we first knew God's blessing was from our mother and father. Now this is true whether or not our mother and father were believers, isn't it? Because that touch and that togetherness as a family is something that God has put together so that we will benefit from it. And this is the first place that we see the love of God is from mother and father in a family. And seeking God's blessing is something that we did instinctively because that's the way God built us. God built us to seek the blessing of our mother and father. And so the mothers and fathers here in this particular passage are seeking Jesus's blessing by bringing their infants to Christ himself, who will touch them and bless them through his touch. And the parents are doing something that should come naturally to all believers. They want their children to be touched by Jesus. They want them to know, they want their children to know that Jesus brings provision and comfort, spiritual food. Jesus is as necessary for their upbringing as their mother and father are. That's the lesson here. Now, how do parents today do this? I'm gonna mention several ways, and this is not an exhaustive list, but let's just make the list brief and to the point. Baptism. The first way that you bring your child to God is you have them baptized in the church, and this happens at a very early age. A few days old, you bring in a small, does the kid know what's going on? All they know is they got wet. But they also know that there's a tremendous crowd of people who are all watching this, and their mother and father are there. And they have no memory of it, but they can be told, you were baptized, you were claimed by Christ. How else do parents today do this, bring their children before Christ? They bring their children to the worship service and they keep them in it. You know, there are some places where children come to the service and at a certain point they say, oh, the children are dismissed, go play. And then the adults do the real thing of having the sermon and singing the songs and all that sort of thing. That's not the way that we want things to be. We want children to grow up knowing the blessing of being in the worship of God. Yes, I know they won't understand everything they're hearing. That's fine, but they'll understand little things here and there, and the older they get, they will be trained to understand more and more and more. How else do parents today bring their children to Christ? You know, parents can simply do something as being dependable. Be a parent the kid can depend on. You are showing something of Christ in simply being a dependable parent for your child. The number of people I have talked to in my life who object to the idea of God as Father is rather striking and sad. We first learn of our fathers through our earthly fathers, don't we? And the good thing is that God is the perfect father. So even though our earthly fathers are never perfect, God is perfect. But how much more difficult it is to learn about God the father if your own father has not provided for you in the way that he should. And I'll tell you what, this is very common, I'm afraid. Here's another way parents today can bring their children before Jesus. They can stay married, or they can just be married. You know, something as simple as that can actually give a child a fighting chance at developing a lifelong faith. And educating the children in the Lord, well, I tell you what, this can take many forms. It should begin in the home. And I will say, even in a secular sense, you cannot possibly educate a child who's not been educated at home. And this is doubly true in the church. The church cannot, educate a child that has not first been educated at home. And education can so easily become the vehicle of falsehood and corruption. And there are people today who are trying very hard to make this so, who are trying very hard to twist an education toward what is false instead of what is good. And you as a parent have a tremendous amount of power to twist that back to the right place so that we can experience the reality of Jesus and we can be before Jesus as children before our Heavenly Father. The second part of this lesson is for us as adults. We need to receive the kingdom of God as a child. You know, I started off with a very common question that people ask, which is, how do I get into the kingdom of God? And getting is not really the story, is it? Because Jesus says, truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. What do you receive? You receive a gift. That's something that's given to you. It's not something that you go out and claim because it is your right. You receive it. So this is the first thing that Jesus wants to communicate to us when Jesus says, you have to become like a child to get the kingdom of God. You have to receive the kingdom of God. It has to be a gift to you. And you know, kids and gifts are just a lot of fun. Adults with gifts get a little funny, I gotta tell you. It's been a little bit crazy growing up and realizing that there's this theory of gift giving where if I give a gift, you have to give a gift back and there's a reciprocity to it. But children don't have that, do they? When you give a three-year-old a gift, they receive it with joy. They don't say to themselves, oh, I have a burden on me, now I need to, no, they receive the gift with joy. And that's the sort of thing that we need to do as well. We receive the gift of the kingdom of heaven with joy. You know, kids are accustomed to being less, to being overlooked, to being seen as a burden sometimes. And I remember discovering this as a kid and being a little bit insulted. Like what you think of me as a burden? Okay, let's see if I can be useful. Okay, maybe I'm not all that useful. Fine. Okay. But I'm growing up. I'm trying. I really am. You know, it's interesting. You think, will I ever get there? Will I ever be that adult that's useful? Yeah, you will. I, you know, it usually happens, but you're used to being thought of as less, you know, We aren't all that as adults, actually. And think of ourselves a little more as that child who is less than God would really be good for us. We are the children of God. We are less than God. And thinking of ourselves as less is humbling. You know, being a kid is a humbled experience. These infants were brought to Jesus. They didn't walk there even on their own two feet. Some of them were too young for that to happen. And I wonder how many of you remember resenting older people who were allowed to do something you couldn't do. You know, that's part of being a kid. All because you weren't old enough. There's a humbling aspect to being a kid. You know the other thing about being a kid that's interesting that comes out in this little passage is why did the parents bring their kids to Jesus? They brought them to Jesus because they wanted Jesus to touch them. Jesus took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them, physically putting his hands on them. And kids have the ability that adults don't always do, to seek touch. What's really interesting is that kids can do this in a way that's just natural. They wanna touch everybody. I'm gonna go hug everybody. I was amazed when one of our older daughters was very young, still age two, she taught me to hug because she just insisted on it all the time. And that insistence on being close to people without suspicion of them and with a certain amount of innocence can be quite scary for parents, believe me, because you need to teach them to choose and to be careful about that. And at the same time, there's a real joy and exuberance in that touch and that seeking of being around other people that we need to seek as well. And this is not a complete list for us. We might note that there are plenty of benefits for adults to put the priorities of children as very important to us. Children are a necessary and good antidote for our self-centeredness in so many ways. Where do people learn self-denial? Well they learn it as parents, they also learn it as children. And one of the best places to learn that is marriage and parenthood and being a child. And at some point you're gonna be one of those. All these things form our hearts before God. The experience of being a child is something that I want you to remember. And Jesus wants you to remember. Because it teaches us something of what it is to be ready for the kingdom of God to be given to you. Receive it with joy, receive it with the sort of joy that you would find on a Christmas morning when God says, here, here is the gift for you. And now we turn to the second lesson, we turn to a young man who is not a child, who is most certainly not a child and has forgotten some things about being a child, you can tell. And yet he's still a man who has a tremendous amount to give the world and to gain from Jesus. What do we know first about this rich young man? Jesus set out on a journey and a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, good teacher, what must I do? Well, we know this man is very earnest. Who runs after Jesus and seeks Jesus in his own place and kneels before him? Who finds Jesus in public? You know, there's an interesting contrast with Nicodemus. Nicodemus is, far more sophisticated an adult than this man because he seeks Jesus in secret where nobody will see him, right? This man goes right out in public. Jesus, I want to talk to you. So far, so good. This is exactly what he should be doing. He kneels before him and then in response to Jesus's question, as if this weren't enough, in response to Jesus's question, he confesses that he has lived an exemplary life. He has done everything. This guy has done everything right. He's the star of the glass. Surely he would be first in line for heaven, the heir of the kingdom. And yet Jesus is about to turn this all on its head. What has this man done? Well, the commandments are listed. And interestingly enough, when the commandments are listed here, let's just go through that, this is verse 18. The commandments, Jesus says, these are Jesus' own words. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. You notice that that is a summary of the second table of the law. So these are all the things that you do to your neighbor. It's out of order, isn't it? I find that kind of interesting. I'm not sure there's enormous significance to the fact that it's out of order. There is one that's very interesting in this to me, and that is the one that says, do not defraud. You know, it's interesting to think about fraud as opposed to coveting. We think of coveting as something that goes on your head. Jesus is extending this a little bit. Coveting actually covers a lot of ground. It's not just the gateway to sin, it can be a sin in itself as you begin to acquire these things that are not your own and defrauding people thereby. The man claims he has done them all. Has he? Well, certainly not. But Jesus doesn't call him on this. You know, it's interesting. There are some verses in the New Testament that are a little bit unsettling on this subject. I've just gotta tell you. I'm gonna tell you one of them. This would be a whole sermon in itself, but 1 Corinthians 4.4. A clear conscience doesn't mean that God won't judge. In other words, just because you think you haven't sinned doesn't mean you're not gonna get judged for some sin. That's a little bit disturbing. Jesus could have gone there, but instead he takes the claim at face value. Jesus knows this man, he knows he's rich, he knows he has sinned. What's Jesus' response? He loves the man, he loves him. What an interesting response to take. He knows that things are about to turn. but Jesus loves him. And Jesus, knowing this man's heart, identifies what is the thing that might be the stumbling block, his stuff. So Jesus has a very simple thing to say. He says, well, okay, let's find out whether you really are ready for the kingdom of heaven. Sell your stuff. You know, I have known people occasionally who can see through me and see the things that are really going on in my heart, but Jesus is, of course, the champion of such things. And Jesus sees right through this rich young man who's done everything right. By the way, the image that's in my head is of some kid that goes to the Ivy League, right, and has gotten all the good grades, who's getting the best job at the end, all that sort of thing. That's this guy. He really has done everything right, and he's fed the poor, and he's done all these great things in his life, and everything is grand, except he doesn't wanna give up his position. He doesn't wanna give up those things that make his life pleasant, at least as he's seeing it. He doesn't wanna give up all the things that are around him, and there's devastation in his heart. I'll do anything for you, Jesus, just don't touch my things. Now why would this, go sell your stuff, why would this be Jesus' commandment? Is there any commandment in the Ten Commandments that says you must sell all your possessions? No, there's not. And I'm not gonna tell you that's the message of this today either. I'm not gonna say that you should go out and sell all your possessions. I will tell you that this commandment reveals something about the young man that I hope is not revealed about us. It reveals about the young man that he holds so tightly to these things that he can't possibly let them go. Jesus is not saying go give them away. He's saying sell them, get the money for them. Don't hang on to them. And the rich young man can't do this. His heart is hanging on to the things in the life. And money is often a window to the soul. Our possessions are often this window to the soul in this way. How we get our things and how we use our things that God has given us tells a great deal about our priorities and therefore our heart and therefore our eternal destiny. That's the scary part of this. Matthew 6, Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. What are the two masters? Money and God. Now there are probably some other masters we could talk about, but those are two really big ones. And if you're gonna choose between money and God, choose God. So the rich young man goes away disheartened. He went away sorrowful. He had a great many possessions. And Jesus looked around at this point and says to his disciples, it's really tough for anybody that has wealth to get into the kingdom of heaven. By the way, in verse 24, do you notice what, Jesus calls his disciples, he says to his disciples, children. This is a way of tying together the previous lesson with our current lesson, isn't it? Previous lesson was about children, how you have to become children. So Jesus says to his disciples, by the way, children, use the same word, paideia. Well, his disciples are certainly not seven-year-olds. His disciples are perhaps young, but they're not that young. They're independent. They're out there earning their living. They're young men. but they're certainly not paideia. Jesus calls them children. He also says there's some interesting things you need to know. 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. In other words, it's impossible. And whatever this idiom is actually referring to, there's a number of theories about this, you know, some gate in Jerusalem or, well, I just think Jesus means it's impossible for camels to go through eyes of needles, right? That's all there is to this. And the disciples reached the correct conclusion. You know, there are a lot of rich people in the world, actually. I know nobody thinks they're rich because there's always more riches you could get. Riches are an interesting master that way. They're never quite satisfactory. Somebody asked Andrew Carnegie, okay, Mr. Carnegie, how much is enough wealth? And of course, the answer is, well, I don't have enough. There's always another dollar to be earned somewhere. Just give me another dollar and another dollar and another dollar. How much can you have? Well, the sky's the limit. So we don't think of ourselves as rich, and yet, boy, you look around, the riches that are around in the world are tremendous. And you can learn all sorts of things from the secular authors about how to invest and how to be rich and all this sort of thing, and they're all probably correct. And you and I here, I'm gonna say every person that's sitting here is officially rich. Okay, so if that is our place in life, how do we get the kingdom of God? Because the disciples are right. If what you're saying is true, Jesus, about camels and needles, then nobody can be saved. By the way, here's another interesting thing about this. In Jesus' time, certain religious leaders said that the spirit of God resides with rich men. Jesus is explicitly denying that. I'm definitely glad that Jesus continues. Jesus continues on. After the disciples say, who can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, with man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. Isn't it wonderful that God continues? Yes, you may be a rich man, but you can be saved. Even rich men and women can be saved. How? Well, loop back to the beginning of this passage. How do you be saved as a rich man or woman? Well, you have to become as a child. You have to realize that you came into this world with nothing except what God gave you. It is a truism that every child is born into the world that they did not make. In fact, they don't get to choose their parents even. Wouldn't that be a different world where you could sort of say, select through the book, okay, I want, these parents look pretty cool, I'll go there. That's not how it works. God gave you the parents you have. They might be great parents, they might be terrible parents, but God gave them to you. You didn't get it on your own. No, God gave it to you. And so it is as children. We realize that God's given us what we have. We should realize that God has given us the wealth that we have. And not say, I earned this because I am great. Become like a child, realize that when you come into the world, you don't come in with anything except what God gives you. And you need to have the same attitude even now. What God gives you is what you have. And hanging on to this as if it is your own and your identity, because it's so easy for money and possessions to become identity, isn't it? That is me, I am this person who lives in this house, who has this car. who has this much money in my retirement account. Oh, aren't I sophisticated? It doesn't matter in the end. Guess how you leave? The same way you came in. And so if you have this in mind your entire life, you know, in the medieval times, the scholars used to keep a skull on their desk. It was the memory of death, memento mori. I remember, I will die. Keep that memory. We asked at the beginning how to get to the kingdom of heaven, and it's simple. It's not a matter of what we do or what steps we follow. It is a matter of faith in Jesus. Once we have that faith in Jesus, we must do what he asks and be responsible to the responsibilities that God gives us and trust that God will provide for us. You know, it's interesting that Peter, who gives a response that actually sounds a little bit like he's trying to defend himself, he says, Lord, we've done all these things. We have given away our stuff. We've followed you. You know, we could have had this great business fishing and been kind of wealthy, but we're standing here in front of you listening to what you're saying, because it's better than being a fisherman. And Jesus doesn't rebuke Peter. Jesus is quite free to rebuke Peter. He rebukes Peter many, many different times. But this time he doesn't. He doesn't rebuke him at all. Jesus said, truly I say to you, there's no one who has left house or brothers or sisters for my sake who will not receive a hundredfold now and later. In this little picture of heaven, these things that you appreciate now will be in some sense part of heaven as well. I don't know how because there will be no marriage. We know that in heaven. How can you have brothers and sisters? Well, it's because there is a wider brotherhood and sisterhood that is being knit together in the church as a training ground for what will happen later. So now we have brothers and sisters that are biological. We're gonna have brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers in heaven that are just as real to us as these human relationships we know now, that are relationships in the spirit. that God will give us. And Peter is not rebuked. Lord, we've done this. Jesus makes the point even stronger. Anyone who's given up these things will see these things return in the life to come. And we end with a great inversion, a turning of things over. Now, who is first in our life right now? Well, in life, there are winners and there are losers, right? And we can think of people who have been successful according to some idea of the world. This rich young ruler was definitely first. Is he going to be first in the kingdom of heaven? Well, if he thinks about it, and you know, it's not recorded for us whether he actually gave up his possessions and followed Jesus' teaching. I hope he did. If he did that, and God grants to him the kingdom of heaven, he will not be the first. He was first in this life, but he will not be the first. Many who are first will be last, and the last first. The great inversion of things. You know, we don't know right now who is wealthy. In a true sense, right? Because where are our treasures really being stored? They're not in your retirement account. Your true treasures are being stored in heaven. And you can't go to your Vanguard account and check that out. But God knows. Things have been turned on their head. And I think we will discover that the people that we least suspect of being wealthy will be the truly wealthy ones. You know, the disciples don't quite understand this at this point. They're still in God's school. I think it's great that we have the example of the disciples in the Gospels. Because so often we hear these things and we don't understand them until we've lived a lifetime before God. And maybe at that point we don't quite understand it. You know, James and John are going to argue about who's first in the kingdom only a few verses later. So they don't quite get this point about first and last in the kingdom of God. But I will merely say this, and I think this is a good place for us to close. We don't know how things will turn out at the end, truly, but we do know one thing, which is that God is faithful to his people. And God has promised an inheritance for those who become like children and listen to him and receive the gift of heaven and receive the gift of faith and receive the gift of being able to do what is right as we live before him right now. That's what we're looking for. We're looking for people who are able to receive these gifts. And the disciples didn't quite understand it. We don't quite understand the whole thing right now either. But I pray that God in your lives will be working in your life so that you will understand this. And let's say also at the end here that there is one enormous illustration that we have of someone who gave up everything to become nothing. That is Jesus himself. You know, Jesus did not think equality with God a thing to be claimed as his own, a thing to be grasped. I mean, who has greater authority to claim that first position in heaven as Jesus does? And yet he did not claim that as his own. What he did was he became a human being. He lived for a while among us. And then, as if that weren't enough, he died a death that was reserved for criminals. Talk about giving up everything. He gave up his position. He gave up what is arguably the greatest wealth anyone can ever know, which is being God himself, in order to become man. And though he was still God, while he was man, being man had great limitations. And then, as if that weren't enough, he subjected himself to people he knew were his inferiors. Can you imagine going before the leaders of the temple? Jesus knew his theology far better than they did. He knew everything in the scriptures far better than they did, and here they were condemning him to die. And then he died. But the great inversion, if you think it's amazing that the first will be last and the last first, let me tell you about the great inversion that happened as this criminal Jesus died. He was raised from the dead. That's not supposed to happen. When you die, secular people around you will expect you to stay dead. Christians know a greater truth. we trust in the resurrection of the body, which will happen at the end. And Jesus has shown that this is true, that the dead will be raised. And as we look forward to this last great day, let's look forward with the eagerness of receiving a gift from God himself, knowing that we are children before him. Let's not hang on to things so tightly that we deny ourselves the receipt of that gift, if such a thing is even possible. Amen. We're going to turn to the Psalms, Psalm 90b.