Increase Our Faith For Total Dependence

10.23.22 Luke 18:18–30

18 A certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 Jesus asked him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good, except one—God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother.’ ” 21 “I have kept all these since I was a child,” he said. 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 23 But when the ruler heard these words, he became very sad, because he was very rich. 24 When Jesus saw that the man became very sad, he said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25 In fact, 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.” 26 Those who heard this said, “Then who can be saved?” 27 He replied, “What is impossible for people is possible for God.” 28 And Peter said, “Look, we have left our possessions and followed you.” 29 He said to them, “Amen I tell you: Anyone who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will most certainly receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Lord, Increase Our Faith - For Total Dependence on You

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” I love the fact that the man is searching and he wants to know the answer about eternity. It’s hard to get people to think beyond the here and the now. What if you die today? Where will your soul go? Most people don’t think about such things. This is a great question he asks Jesus.

The jailer at Philippi asked a similar question. “What must I do to be saved?” But his situation was different. He had just witnessed an earthquake. He thought the prisoners had escaped. If they had escaped, he would have been put to death. He was about to kill himself, until Paul shouted at him not to hurt himself. This rich ruler wasn’t asking with such desperation and fear. He was asking with confidence and comfort.

Paul told the jailer to believe in Jesus and be baptized. He didn’t tell him to do anything. But here Jesus told the rich ruler the exact OPPOSITE. He laid out the Ten Commandments to him, then told him to sell everything he had and give it to the poor, and then come follow Him. He made it impossible for him. The rich man leaves very sad, and Jesus doesn’t seem to do anything for him but slam the door. It almost seems mean and cruel.

Why didn’t He just say to the rich ruler, “No worries! I got this! I’ll save you.”? Because the rich ruler actually thought he could EARN his inheritance. This man was convinced he had KEPT the law, when he really hadn’t. While slamming the door of heaven on the man, He was trying to show him that his way was completely wrong. He would need a miracle to be saved. He would have to be saved by grace, through faith in Jesus, not by works. The man wasn’t ready for that. He needed the door to be slammed in his face.

His wrong view of salvation stemmed from his wrong view of God. It stemmed from his wrong view of what good and evil are in the eyes of God. We tend to associate goodness with being nice and tolerant. But nice people aren’t always good. If you have a nice judge, he or she might be afraid to sentence criminals, so that they end up back on the streets doing more evil. Their niceness will only lead to more evil if they can’t make strong judgments on evil. And that’s what we’re witnessing in our society today. Everyone wants to be nice and tolerant, but when niceness and tolerance promotes wickedness and evil, then it’s no good at all.

Goodness is also a bit hard to gauge from a human point of view. Think of George Floyd. You have one group of people looking at George Floyd and saying, “He was a gentle giant. He read his Bible at home. He prayed with the people he was staying with. Yes, he had a drug problem, but he was trying to get better. Deep down he was a good guy.” Yet another group would see how he did drugs, resisted arrest, robbed a woman, and tried to use counterfeit money and say, “He had plenty of chances to get his life straight. Look at his criminal record. He may have tried, but he didn’t try hard enough! He was clearly a bad guy.” From a human perspective someone can also be good and bad at the same time. Paul said the same thing of himself.