Series on Luke
IV The Imperatives of the Kingdom
B Instruction in Rejection
25 Salvation and Money
Text: 18:18-30
Introduction
When i first saw that this was the text for September 20th, I thought goody, goody, a story about stewardship and money and it came up on the Sunday of our congregational meeting. In fact this scripture does deal with the subject of giving but only incidentally. In reality it is about discipleship. It is a lesson in following Jesus, and I realized that the money is incidental not only in the story but in each of our lives. The important question in this text is will the rich young ruler follow Jesus. He did not because he was not willing to accept the terms of discipleship. So let us look today at discipleship: the aspiration, the action, the ability and the anticipation.
I The Aspiration of Discipleship
This was a young man rich and privileged, accomplished already a religious ruler of the Jews with sincere aspirations and desires but these things were controlled by the mistaken conceptions of his time and religion as is revealed in the opening of the conversation in verses 18-21, A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’” “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said. For example he addresses Jesus as good master or good teacher. This is no compliment and Jesus knows it. The Jews generally refused to call their rabbis good. It was an adjective reserved for God. but this young man has been so completely absorbed by the dark side of the Pharisees teaching that he has become a perfect product of all that was evil in their system and Jesus rebukes him. Jesus once said that the Pharisees spanned land and sea to make proselytes and when they found them they made them twice the children of hell that they were. This young man is an example and he doesn’t even know it. His attitude is, I’m good you’re good, I’m OK you’re OK. This Jesus found most offensive and yet he was patient. The young man’s attitude is further reflected in his answer to Jesus. After being told that the way to eternal life on his own terms is to keep the commandments, he replies I’ve done that. Somewhere in his heart he knew that was not enough or he wouldn’t have asked. His answer is just as sincere as Paul’s description of his early life when he says to the Philippians that he was, as to legalistic righteousness, faultless. But of course Paul adds in that same place, Philippians 3, that he regarded that faultlessness as rubbish compared to the excellency of knowing Christ. This the young man was not prepared to do. The first principle of discipleship then is that our hopes must not be built on the sand, that is, on our own goodness. The Bible says, There is none righteous, no not one, all have sinned. All true discipleship depends on recognizing that we are beggars, and that what we need from God is mercy, not approval.
II The Action of Discipleship
When the rich young ruler says he has done all that is required from his youth up it makes him look like a great disciple. so Jesus tells him to do one more thing. go sell all that you have and give it to the poor and follow me in verses 22 and 23, When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. He was very rich and he refused to do this. It probably seemed like an insane course of action. The point is that all his efforts were not enough, he needed a Savior and he needed to demonstrate that he was committed to that Savior in the same way as the other disciples. Notice that when Jesus gave the list of commandments from the second table of the law he omitted, “Do not covet.” This was the one commandment that focused on the heart alone. In Romans 7 Paul singles out this commandment as the one which taught him he was a sinner. It focused on his heart rather than outward performance. The rich young ruler was outwardly good but inwardly his heart did not belong to God. Now every commentator i have ever read on this passage said the same thing, namely that selling all you have and giving it to the poor is a requirement peculiar to this man and this time but it doesn’t apply to all Christians. That has bugged me for years. It is manifestly true and yet it has a hollow sound to it. Then I saw that what Jesus is really getting at here is allegiance. You may not have to give away all your money because your money may not be where your heart is, but you do have to give away everything that keeps you from being truly committed to Jesus. There isn’t room in your heart for Jesus and something else, surely not for Jesus and money. We can talk about money and stewardship until we are blue in the face and get absolutely nowhere if we have not settled this question. True discipleship involves not only a realization of our need for mercy, it involves an act of commitment in which we prefer Christ above everything else in our lives.
III The Ability for Discipleship
This upright paragon of religious virtue sorrowfully departs and Jesus makes some observations about being rich in verses 24-27, Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, 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.” Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus replied, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” The observation that it is extremely hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God is not because it is bad to be rich but because there is such an overwhelming temptation to let the riches possess our hearts. Other things possess other hearts, but the rich have a special temptation. The illustration of a camel going through the eye of a needle has been variously interpreted. For some it is trying to put a heavy rope through the eye of a needle, for others an actual camel going through a very small doorway. There is a gateway in Jerusalem called the eye of the camel for this reason, but in reality we may leave it as it stands and it makes little difference. The point Jesus is making is the extreme difficulty. The disciples say how can we? Who is sufficient? Who is able to do this? Jesus answer is excessively and intentionally simplistic. God can do it, but you cannot. There is a vast gap between human effort and God’s grace. There is a huge divide between the best that we can do and the least that God can do. Jesus loved us and gave himself for us to redeem us from our sin. When God truly works in the heart of a man he totally changes his orientation. If any man be in Christ there is a new creation. In this new creation the values change. Without God’s grace there is no possibility of changing. God says in Jeremiah, Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. So discipleship involves need, commitment and a change by God and finally anticipation.
IV The Anticipation in Discipleship
The question arises, why don’t we all do what Jesus says here? Why don’t we give him first place in our hearts? The answer in verses 28-30 is that we are living in the present only and not anticipating the future, Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.” Peter’s comment probably means he thought the disciples deserved an exemption because they had left all they had to follow Jesus. Jesus does not say, ‘Good boy you’re in, you’re safe at home.’ Instead He gives the principle. No one who leaves all because his heart belongs to me will be disappointed, he will receive all that he has given back and much more in this age and eternal life in the age to come. This does not mean we will get back all the money we give, but we will receive blessings which we regard as greater. Thus we have the incentive and the motivation in anticipation. When Jesus meets his disciples after the resurrection in John 21 what are they doing? They’re fishing and failing, and Jesus tells them let down the net on the other side of the boat and there is a miraculous catch. Make no mistake about it, these are men who were about to give something else first place in their hearts. What did Jesus say to them when he called them? Follow me and i will make you fishers of men. Is that what they were doing now? Then Jesus talked to Peter and said do you love me? Feed my sheep! At the end of this conversation he says the same thing he did at the beginning, the same thing he said to the rich young ruler. The conversation between Jesus and Peter in John 21 ends with Jesus saying top Peter, “Follow me.” Dear friends, they knew, the disciples knew, Peter knew what he meant. Give me first place in your heart again.
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