But this morning, Matthew chapter nineteen. Verse sixteen behold, a young man came up to Jesus saying, teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? Jesus said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good. If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments. He said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and your mother. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, all these I have kept. What do I still lack? And Jesus said, if you would be perfect, go. Sell what you possess. Give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Come follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. This is the Word of God. I pray that he seals it on your heart. I want you all, if you would for a moment imagine your ideal evangelism encounter. So often our evangelism encounters are kind of forced, aren't they? Like maybe you brought your neighbor cookies and you're trying to remember their name, and then you hover there awkwardly at the door. What? You're not going to ask about the Jesus fish in my car? You try to turn a conversation to the gospel. Hey, you know, there's an election in the next few months. Can I tell you about the only election that really matters? You have faith in the Nats this year. Oh, let me tell you what true faith is. I know they're getting more and more strained. This is as good as it gets. This is a person running up to you and asking you, what must I do to have eternal life? I mean, imagine somebody running up to you at giant and saying, I saw the Jesus fish in the car. Please tell me, what must I do to be saved? This is that conversation. And it appears on first reading that Jesus messes it up. I mean, you want to talk about low hanging fruit. This is a guy who says, what do I have to do to get saved? And he goes away sad. Something else you might notice reading this carefully. Not only does it go away sad, but he goes away without having heard what we would call the gospel. The gospel hangs over this conversation like a cloud, but it never rains. The guy asked, what must I do to go to heaven? And Jesus responds with the law of all things. This is the story of the rich young ruler. Matthew calls him young. You'll notice Luke calls him a synagogue ruler. Jesus calls him rich. That's where the title comes. You take Jesus, Luke in Matthew together you get the rich young ruler. Rich, of course, means he's wealthy. Young synagogue ruler is probably thirty. The guy is probably younger than Jesus, even. Ruler. He's what we would call a lay elder. In today's terminology. He's not a rabbi. He's not a professional scribe, but he is wealthy and he's been made a ruler of a synagogue. A lay elder would be our church word for it. How does one become a a lay elder? That young isn't the language of elder meaning somebody who's older? Well, well, yeah, but money doesn't hurt. This guy has it all and he comes up to Jesus and asks for the gospel. How Jesus responds Reorients really the point of the law around Jesus, the point of the mission of God around Jesus. It reorients so much around Jesus. This is just an incredible story that if you've grown up in the church, you are so familiar with it, you might lose sight of how jarring this story is, how counterintuitive it is, how world shifting it is. In fact, this story is recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It's in all three synoptic gospels. It's not an exaggeration to say that this story was radically confrontational to not only the the Jews of Jesus's lifetime, but to the disciples, this is not what the disciples expected at all. First, the story shows that when it comes to religion, there are limits of accomplishment. When it comes to religion, there are limits to accomplishment. The man asked Jesus, what shall I do to have eternal life? What good deed shall I do? And as I mentioned, this is a man who has everything going on. He has all that Americans aspire to, doesn't he? He has. I mean, what do Americans want? They want wealth. They want power. And they want youth. Not like tricycle riding youth, but like forty year olds wearing skinny jeans, kind of youth. That's what Americans want. That's the demographic we're after. That's the the target spot with advertising and appearances. This guy has it all, but he's missing eternal life. He's missing being in a right relationship with God. He's educated and religious enough to know that he's missing it. That is what is astonishing about the story. In a sense, this man is the contrast or the foil of the kids who were in the paragraph before. Remember, the disciples are trying to launch Jesus's messianic ministry and the kids are being brought to him, and the disciples make a blockade to keep the kids away. The kids are not their target demographic. They hardly give anything. Those kids. But here comes the rich young ruler. This is exactly the kind of person Jesus needs to draw if he's going to get this Messiah thing off the ground. He's ushered to the front of the line, it seems. Mark says he ran up to Jesus. That would be so unusual for somebody to run a wealthy, prominent Jewish man to run. Draws the attention of the gospel writers. His question reveals the hole in his heart. To use our own American terminology, he has accomplished in his mind what the law demands. He has arrived in his mind where culture wants him to arrive. He's influential and powerful. Perhaps you've heard it said. Maybe you've even thought this. Have you ever thought of that politician got saved? What? What an impact it would make. How different the world would be if that politician got saved. You recognize that only people in the Washington, DC area think like that. Like in California. If that movie star got saved, what a difference it would make. I think the rest of the country is probably athletes. But here, if that politician got saved, man, the world would get turned upside down. This is that guy. All eyes turn on him. He's bold and confident. Nicodemus came to Jesus at night. This guy comes in broad daylight, running to the front. He's so desperate, he doesn't care who sees him. He comes to the right guy and he asks a right question. So many other the Pharisees are going to see later on in Matthew's gospel waste their question with Jesus. Like the far fetched thing about marriage and that kind of stuff. Man, you got a question for Jesus and you wasted on something dumb like that. Not this guy. He goes to the right person the right way with desperation and ask the right question. I mean, he's not called the rich young ruler for nothing. His question is sad, though. He has desperation and absence in his life. Jesus has sympathy on him. He wants to know how to have eternal life. The man is sad because he's the kind of person who would make his parents proud, and it doesn't mean anything. He's wealthy, he's powerful. But it doesn't matter and he knows it. It's sad because he's achieved all that he's set out to achieve, and he doesn't have the one thing that matters. It's really sad and I'm sure you can resonate with Jesus. A sympathy for the guy. It's a tragic story. He's done it all, but he hasn't done anything that matters in terms of eternal life. Well, Jesus responds. Oddly. Why do you ask me about what is good? And Mark and Luke, Jesus says, why do you call me good? And you have to remember this with the synoptic gospels. Uh, all three of them tell the same story. This conversation had more words than are just here. So Mark has some of the words. Luke has some of the words. Matthew has some of the words. You put it all together. You get a better picture of the conversation, but they don't even have all of the words. Like there was probably a longer conversation than what is here. Understand that. So in Mark and Luke, he asks good teacher. And Jesus says, why do you call me good? Here he says, what good deed was I do? And Jesus says, why do you ask me about what is good? Both of these things happened and recognize that if you just had Luke and Mark, it might seem like Jesus's response is overboard, right? Good teacher. Why do you call me good? You know, you're walking in your neighborhood in the morning and you say good morning to your neighbor that passes. It would be odd if your neighbor said, why do you call this morning? Good. No one is good except God alone. It's just a pleasantry. I didn't even mean it. You know, when he calls Jesus good teacher, Jesus is forcing him to reckon with that. Like, is it a pleasantry? Do you actually think he's a good teacher? Is that just your way of greeting a respectful rabbi? Who knows? But when you get Matthew's account, you start to get a fuller picture, right? What good deed must I do to be saved? So now you're realizing, okay, when he's tossing the word good around, he actually means something important by it. The story shows you that when it comes to morality, there are limits to the word good. Why do you ask me what is good? There's only one who is good. Notice that Jesus is not just quibbling with his adjectives here. He's taking aim at the fact that this guy is considering himself to be a good person. It's going to be so evident in a few sentences. Jesus is already reading the guy's heart. He knows how the guy views himself. He views himself as a good person. And why wouldn't he be a good person? He's a synagogue leader. Of course he's a good person. In the Jewish mind, wealth usually accompanies moral goodness. It's not that you do good in order to get money. And the Jewish mind, God often validates your character by wealth. Not a guarantee, not health, wealth, prosperity style, but just a general principle. Rich people are experiencing some measure of the favor of God, probably because they did good things. That's the idea. And so this guy, of course, thinks he's a good person, and Jesus is taking issue with that in his heart. You think you're a good person. What are you talking about? Agatha's is the Greek word for good. Here we get our word Agatha or name Agatha from it. Greek has two words for good, and it's an important distinction. You know, if your wife makes a meal and sets it on the table, you might say, that looks good. Then you taste it and you say, oh, that tastes good. It's the same word in English, but there are two different words in Greek. One word in Greek is it looks good on the outside, and the other word in Greek is it's good by its own nature. Its own quality is good, not appearance, but it is intrinsically good. It's that second word Jesus uses here. No one is good except God. No one is intrinsically good. In other words, everybody uses good as a relative term. That was a good movie. That was a good meal. That's a good conversation. That's not how Jesus uses it. And that's not what it means in terms of eternal life. When it comes to eternal life, good is an absolute term, not a relative term. It is absolute and there is only one who is good. There is only one source of goodness, and that is God. This is hard for us to understand. So I have an analogy for you. Life. We generally get this with life. God is the fountain or the source of life. Everyone who is alive has life that has been loaned to them from God. We don't make life. God gives it to us. We use it. We give it back. The same is true with goodness. Goodness is not something we can manufacture or produce ourselves. Goodness comes from God. It is not that there aren't good things in the world. Of course there are good things in the world. When God made the world, he declared that it was good, in fact, very good. Once Adam and Eve were together. Very good. So there is goodness in the world, but it is good, relatively in comparison to God. Absolutely. That's the point. Or to say it just directly, there are no good people on their own rights. Goodness comes from God alone. Every good gift comes from God. James one says, so if anything is good, it's because it conforms to God's character. You know, some people are better than others. They do less wicked things. It's a very common American phenomenon for somebody to say, I'm going to heaven when I die. I don't know if I believe in God or not, but if God exists, he will let me into heaven because I'm a good person. You recognize that's what almost everybody says. Like every neighbor in your street would say that the word good has lost all meaning. If everybody says they're good compared to everybody else, then the word doesn't mean a single thing. It's like orange slices with little kids soccer. You know, everyone gets one. Even the kids that didn't play are sucking down orange slices. That's the way we use the word good. Everybody is good. Why not? That's not how it functions biblically. And even somebody who does morally good things, like you might think of the person. Oh, there was an old lady trying to cross all of her over groceries across Braddock and Backlick, and she didn't see the turning cars and it was going to be bad. And so I got out and helped her across the street. Is that a good deed? Well, I mean, sort of, I guess. Maybe you had some mixed motives in it. Maybe you were glad to see be seen by others. Maybe you were confirming in your own heart that you're a good person, independent of God. You think I don't need God because I'm a good person? Look, I helped the lady across the street. My neighbor forgot to take her trash out. I took the trash out. I rolled the trash can up the driveway for her and everything. I don't need God, I'm a good person. So you see how that good deed is no longer good because it's helping you rebel against God? That's the idea. So if you walk up to Jesus and say, what good thing must I do to have eternal life? You are fueling your own heart. You're saying I do good things. I've kept the law. I am a good person, Therefore I don't need a Savior that is taking goodness and contorting it to ugliness. Goodness comes from God. God is absolutely good. Every borrowed ray of goodness is just that borrowed from God. Even conformity to God's laws. Like I'm good because I keep the Ten Commandments. That's a borrowed goodness. I mean, who taught you what good is? And that is a very powerful evangelistic question, by the way, when someone says that they're a good person, they're going to heaven when they die because they're a good person. Maybe not for everybody, but if you're talking to somebody who's more intellectual and is a thinker, you might ask them who taught them what good is. You think you're a good person? Who taught you you're a good person. Like who taught you? Taking out your neighbor's trash was good. Helping the lady across the street was good. Who taught you that? There's a story in the news this week about a chick fil A worker who found ten thousand dollars in cash in the bathroom at chick fil A, and he went and got the manager and looked into the security footage and found out who it belonged to and gave it back to him. And I'm reading that story thinking, who has ten grand in chick fil A? Probably don't give it back to them. Is the DEA involved? But that wasn't the point of the story. Not the point of the story. Don't sue me. I don't know who it was, but the reporter asked a very good question to the chick fil A worker asked the chick fil A worker, why did you think that was a good idea? Was the question. And this is like yesterday. I'm like, ah, sermon prep. Why was it a good idea? And that kid hit it out of the park. He said, because I knew Jesus wouldn't have want me to keep the money. Money does you no good if you don't have character. The seventeen year old kid says hello. Goodness is only good if it conforms to God and no one is good except God alone. Goodness is absolute and it comes from God. Third, when it comes to evangelism, there are limits to the law. Jesus tells the man, if you would enter eternal life, keep the commandments. Eternal life for the Jews was a quality of life you have now that carries over into eternity, very much like Christians understand eternal life to be. The Jews understood eternal life was a rescuing from sin, a freeing of judgment. You deserve judgment for your sin. God rescues you from it. They quibbled over how? Like through a mediator, through the Messiah, through atonement, through sacrifices. But they all had the concept eternal life meant to have salvation. You experience it now and it goes into eternity. That's what he's asking. Jesus says, if you want that, keep the law. Alright, now here's a live wire question in Judaism, a big debate at the time of Christ. You know, evangelicals now will debate about predestination and free will or premillennialism or amillennialism. That kind of debate was going on in Jesus's lifetime over what it means to keep the law. When you say keep the law, does it mean love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself? Two commands. Does it mean keep the Ten Commandments? Does it mean keep the six hundred and forty plus commands of the Torah? That was a impassioned debate in Jesus's lifetime. So when he says keep the law, that is touching that debate. And so the guy asked the most obvious question to Jesus. Like I said, this guy is using good questions. He says, Jesus. Which ones? What do I have to do to have eternal life? Six hundred and forty plus things. Ten things. Two things. What are you talking about now? Jesus answers with the Ten Commandments at first, but you will notice that he gets them wrong. And that's so infuriating. He enters in with commandment. Notice in verse eighteen which one? He enters in with commandment number six. You shall not murder. Number seven. You shall not commit adultery. Number eight, you shall not steal. Number nine, you shall not bear false witness. And number five, honor your father and your mother. What? I don't want a kid would feel that. Why would you go? Six. Seven. Eight. Nine five. And which one is missing? Obviously, there's two things missing. The Ten Commandments are split into two tablets. The first tablet is about your relationship to God. That's commandments one through four. Jesus skips that. The second commandment is about your relationship with neighbour. Love your neighbour as yourself is a summary. Jesus hits that one does all of them except ten. The reason you need to go six seven, eight, nine, five is to highlight that you're skipping ten. That's the point. If you just did five through nine, you'd think that he was just letting it all stand in for itself. Like of course ten is implied, but by doing six through nine and then five, it's making it inescapable. He is skipping number ten now. he's not leaving it on the cutting room floor. He'll get back to it in a second. The second tablet is summed up in verse nineteen. Would love your neighbor as yourself. So this rich young ruler was not at the sermon on the Mount. Of course, he's a late arrival here because he says all of these. Verse twenty, I have kept. And Marcie says, I've kept from the time I was a youth. Okay. That's how you know he missed the sermon on the Mount. Imagine looking at Jesus. And sincerely saying, you know what? I actually have kept all the law. I mean, has he ever lied? Has he ever looked at a woman with lust? Has he ever hated somebody in his heart? Has he ever failed to love his neighbor as himself? Of course he has. Of course he has. He's not sinless. But this exposes that the concept of goodness has so eroded in his life that he can look at the Ten Commandments and legitimately say, I think I'm pretty good at those. I've done them since I was a little kid. Oh my goodness, this guy is so lost. The law is given by God to convict us of sin, and he looks at it and checks off all the boxes. This is something that I think our culture often gets wrong. We tend to think that religious people are better than non-religious people, generally speaking, like it's a big it's a big mind game for us, like especially new believers. What about somebody who's part of a different religion that doesn't believe in Jesus? But they're very good. They're a good person and they follow their own religion very closely. I mean, do you understand that in the Bible, the religious people are the worst. They're so far from God and we tend to say, oh, that person is so religious, God must give them some credit. No religion drives you away from the Lord to the point where this guy is looking at the actual Ten Commandments and comes away saying, I'm pretty good. That's so far from God. You're supposed to look at the Ten Commandments and come away broken and say, like Paul did, I wouldn't have even known what coveting was, except the Lord told me not to do it, and now I can't stop it. Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body? Doomed to sin and judgment. That's what you're supposed to do when you read the Ten Commandments has come away just weeping and being like I am the worst. It takes a lot of religion to read the Ten Commandments and come away going, I'm actually pretty good and have been since I was a wee little rabbi. But that's what he does. It's so sad. So sad. What happened? The first table of the law. Only one God. Don't bow down to idols. Don't take the Lord's name in vain. The sky is living for himself. He has no fear of the God who gave the Ten Commandments. Whatever God he's worshipping, it's not the God who gave the Ten Commandments. The first table of the law is in ruins at his feet. It's broken down, shattered at his feet. He stomped it to death. The first table of the law means nothing to him. He is his own God, functionally speaking. Money is his idol. Which brings us back, by the way, to the tenth commandment. Don't covet. So Jesus goes back to that. The guy says, I've done all the all the law. Jesus doesn't argue with him. That's amazing. Like Jesus doesn't go away the master on him and be like, you tell me you've never lied, not even one time. He doesn't do that. He lets his hypocrisy just be evident to us. Jesus said, if you want to be perfect, sell what you possess and give to the poor. Then you'll have treasure in heaven. Come and follow me. So now Jesus is hitting the tenth commandment because this guy says he's kept all of them. Let's go. Number ten then. Do you covet money? Now, please don't misunderstand this and say Jesus is teaching. The way to heaven is by a lower checking account balance. That's insane. That's not what he's teaching. This conversation started with what good deed must I do to go to heaven? Imagine if Jesus's answer was, there's no good deed you can do to go to heaven. Oh, except for this one. No, he's saying God alone is good. You can't do anything good to get to heaven. And the guy saying, yeah, but I'm good. By the Ten Commandments. All right, let's choose one. Coveting. Get rid of your money. This guy has an idol in his life. Let me say it this way. You're not saved by poverty. You're not saved by a lower checking account balance. You are saved by breaking your idols. And this guy is holding on to his idols so tight. He loves money. Does he believe in Jesus? Sure. He came to him. Does he believe in God? Absolutely. Does he believe in the law? Totally. Has he repented from his sins? No. He has no repentance, no repentance. And that's what's so sad. And so he goes away sad. He goes away sad. And Jesus is sad for him. Jesus loved him. Mark tells us that he went away sad. So many possessions. The main point here is that the law reveals God. The law, when used rightly, reveals the holiness of God. You're supposed to look at the law and be broken and cry out to God for Savior. If you look at the law and you say, I'm pretty good, then you have no need for a Savior. If you look at the law and say, I'm actually as close to good as you can get, then you have no need for a Savior to take your sins and to lead a holy life in your place. Ultimately dying for your sins. If you're not aware of your sins, why would you need Jesus? Die for them? If you think you're a good person, why do you need a perfect person to live a life in your place? The whole point of the law is to make you afraid of God's judgment. If you read it and turn it into a checklist and walk away. The law doesn't work on you, then that's what I mean by the limits of the law. It's designed to break you. I want you to notice one final thing here. We can pick up the rest of it next Sunday. But just one final thing. Do you notice how Jesus makes himself into God in this statement? There's only one who is good God alone. And at the end of it concludes with sell all you have and follow me and have eternal life. It's as if he's making himself out to be God. Now we're back to the first four commandments again. The point is, it doesn't matter what prayer you pray, what good things you've done, or what bad things you've done, it matters as if Jesus is the center of your world. You repent from your sins. You let the law break you and convict you. You repent from your sins and you ask the Lord to save you. That's the gospel. Jesus doesn't give him three spiritual laws. He doesn't draw the cross in the napkin. You know, I've drawn that before. Man's over here and we're sinful and God's over here and he's holy. And how do you get between the two? And you draw a cross and you get through. He doesn't. It's like Jesus doesn't even know the cross diagram. It would have been perfect right here. The only way to eternal life is through to the narrow gate of the gospel. Jesus makes the law all about himself. Jesus stands in in the place of the law and basically tells the man, if you're going to be calling me good, you better stop and think about the implications of that. If I am good, then you better leave your life to follow me. Enough of the pleasantries. If you think Jesus is good, then drop it all and follow him. The list of people who are good enough to go to heaven when they die has one name on it Jesus. Jesus reads the law and is vindicated. We should read the law and be broken. It should drive us to Christ. Lord, we're grateful that the word shows us the narrow way to life through faith in you. I pray for anyone here this morning that has never given their life to you. I pray that they would be convicted by their sins, confess their sins to you, and have their hearts changed. We're thankful for the law, which is good and holy and breaks us. We know that you repair us and restore us, and we give you thanks for that. In Jesus name, Amen. And now for parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to TMZ dot edu. Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel. I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service, but no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now, may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly. Serve the Lord faithfully and share the gospel boldly.