Eyewitness to the Messiah
The Man Who Had Everything, Except . . .
Matthew 19:16-22
Many, many years ago I met a very successful young man who had an interest in spiritual things. He had actually come over to our apartment just after we had started our church to see about selling or leasing to us one of his company’s copiers. As we talked, it became evident that he was actually a manager or supervisor in his company and that he had come over to our house instead of a salesman because he wanted to check out the pastor and his wife before he tried out our church.
Well, apparently his impression was positive, so he began showing up at church every now and then. He was a big man, probably 6-5 or more, had been successful in athletics and was now making his way up the corporate ladder. He must have been making a lot of money, because he had big ambitions—he told me his goal was to buy and operate a fishing lodge in Alaska or Canada, and that in the future I could expect to come up to his lodge and experience some great fishing.
He also had some big friends whom he was used to rubbing shoulders with. I discovered that when I decided that the time had come to present the Gospel to him. He told me to meet him at the Eldorado Casino, and when I got there he had just finished meeting with two people whom he obviously knew very well, the owners, the father and one of the sons, whom he introduced me to. I wasn’t used to being with such high-falutin’ company, but I calmed my nerves and proceeded to share the Gospel with Mike, using my typical bad news, good news approach, presenting the Gospel as the free gift of salvation through Christ death for our sins, which can be received by faith and faith alone. And when I finished, sure enough Mike prayed the sinner’s prayer.
Mike continued to show up for church occasionally, and then gradually faded away. And I’ve always felt that there was something that wasn’t quite right with my presentation or Mike’s attitude when I shared the Gospel. Mike seemed to want Jesus, but on his own terms. He wanted Jesus to go with him and bless his plans, as a facet of His life. But He wasn’t at all thinking that he might need to follow Jesus and adjust his life plan according to God’s will.
That insecure feeling about my witness to Mike re-surfaced this week as I studied this morning’s passage, the story about the rich young ruler. He was a very successful up-and-coming young man as well who had so much of his life squared away, just right. He had everything going for him, except one thing—an assurance of eternal life. He wasn’t absolutely sure that he was right with God. And as I meditated on the passage this week, I’ve realized that Jesus approach to witnessing to this young man was completely different from how I handled my opportunity with my modern day rich young ruler.
So the question is: how should we present the Good News of Jesus Christ? Do we sometimes make it too easy especially for people who want life to go their way, and really aren’t willing to submit to God’s way? Does the issue of repentance, turning from our way and turning to God’s ways deserve a much more prominent place in our witnessing?
This is, of course, an important issue as we approach our "Fall for Jesus" outreach. As we have opportunity to speak to people about Christ, how will we present the Gospel?
Well Jesus is still ministering east of the Jordan, probably in Perea, when he is approached by the rich young ruler. Three of the Gospel accounts, Matthew, Mark and Luke include this story. And Mark gives us a little more detail about how the meeting took place. It tells us that this young man came running up to Jesus and kneeled down before. So he was obviously very ardent, sincere and concerned. All three Gospels present this young man as being rich, probably an owner of much landed property. He is called a ruler, and possibly in his younger years, He had become a ruler in his synagogue. So here is the young man who has experienced great success in every area of his life, seemingly. He had riches, respect, position, and he was also religious and moral. Given all this, we might anticipate a great outcome from his meeting with Jesus.
But there was something eating at this young man. The one thing he lacked was an assurance of eternal life. He wasn’t sure he would enter God’s kingdom. Obviously he had heard of the great teacher Jesus, and he rightly concluded that Jesus was the authoritative expert which he just needed to talk to in order to resolve his insecurity about his eternal destiny. Good move!
So he asks the vital question in verse 16: “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life.”
Now there are a couple things to notice in his question. First, he regarded Jesus as a teacher, and apparently only a teacher. That’s a major problem for anyone who wants eternal life. As long as they don’t understand or believe who Jesus really is, the only begotten Son of God, the God-man, having eternal life is going to be a real problem for them. For that is an essential non-negotiable belief for the true Christian--the one who is assured of eternal life.
The other thing is that he is expecting a works-oriented answer. “What good thing shall I do?” In other words, he expected that the key to assurance of heaven was some good work. This is another problem, from the Bible’s perspective.
So Jesus answers in verse 17 in what I suspect was an unexpected fashion. He answers with a question. But when Jesus poses a question, as rabbis often did, he was teaching. He was stimulating thought toward a particular conclusion. And I believe that’s what Jesus was doing on this occasion. Matthew records Jesus saying, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good, but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Now for the moment, I want to focus on only the first part of Jesus’ answer. Why does He ask this question? I believe it’s because He wants the young man to come to an understanding of exactly who it is He’s talking to. Jesus says, “Only one is good.” And there can be no doubt about who He was referring to. Only God is good. So if this young man were asking him about what was good, he needed to realize He was talking to the only one who was and is good—God Himself in the Flesh, Jesus Christ.
So from this, we gain our first point this morning about how to present the Good News. And it’s not anything really new. Let them know Jesus is both Lord and God. Let the person you’re witnessing know the Jesus is both Lord and God. He’s not merely a good teacher. He’s not merely a prophet. He is God Himself. And if a person does not come to realize this, he’s either got the wrong God, or no God at all, and therefore no assurance of salvation.
But there’s another implication here that I’m almost certain Jesus wanted the young man to consider. If Jesus is God, He’s also Lord, or master, or the boss. He calls the shots. If you come to God, if you come to Jesus, you must come to Him for eternal life on His terms, not on your terms. He’s God—He’s not about serving us; we’re to be about serving Him. This would be a crucial issue by the end of this short conversation.
Even so it should be an issue in our conversations with anybody we seek to lead to the Lord. They need to understand that part of coming to Christ is submitting to and following Him, not asking Him to follow them and bless our plans.
Then there’s another not-so-subtle implication in what Jesus has just said, when He said, “only one is good.” That implication is that everyone else, but God, is not good. Everybody else is sinful, and therein lies the problem with both eternal life and a right relationship with God. We have sinned, and we are indeed separated from God and liable to judgment, rather than eternal life.
This would be very important in this young man’s understanding of how to have eternal life. After all, as we shall very soon see, he was a very sincere and moral young man. He was hoping that he could somehow earn or deserve eternal life, but there was that gnawing sense on his part that he was somehow falling short.
And so we have a second point, common to our Gospel presentations. It’s this, that God is good and we are not. We need to explain that God is good and we are not. And there’s a very wide gap between the two—there’s no comparison. Of course, we always use Romans 3:23 to express this: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. I always explain to people that this is not only a declaration of the fact that all of us our sinners, but it is also an explanation of precisely how we sin. We sin in that we fall short of God’s glory, God’s holy and perfect character. The standard for God’s righteousness is God’s own holiness Himself, or that of His son Jesus Christ. It’s not a matter of our comparing how we’re doing with other people. We might be doing relatively well if we thought that way. No, it’s a matter of comparing ourselves to the ultimate standard, Jesus Christ. And then none of us are doing very well. And I illustrate this gap between our sin and God’s righteousness as like trying to jump across the Grand Canyon, or swimming across the Pacific Ocean. It’s absolutely impossible to bridge that gap by our own efforts.
So far, so good. But the rub comes in the next thing Jesus says. Remember, He’s just been asked about how to have eternal life. And how does He answer the question here. The rest of verse 17: He says, “But if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
Now I want to say, wait just one minute here. This is not the Gospel. This is a works-oriented salvation. We know from the rest of the Bible that Christ died for our sins and rose again and it’s through faith alone that we’re saved. So what in the world is Jesus doing here when he tells this young man it’s a matter of keeping the commandments, a matter of works!
I mean, I would expect Jesus to whip out John 3:16 here, or John 6:47, or Ephesians 2:8-9, or something which emphasizes that we are saved by faith alone through grace alone. This is where His presentation of the Gospel diverts from my presentation of the Gospel. How can this be?
Well, we’ll have to continue with the story before we discover the answer. The young man has a good question in verse 18: “Then He said to Him, which ones?” It’s a good question, because you had all the laws of the Pharisees and the rabbis and the Talmud. On the other hand, you had the commands of God’s Word. And as Jesus always and invariably does, He refers to those commands found in God’s Word. As we’ve read, He gives five examples from the Ten Commandments, the basic moral code of the Bible, and then He concludes with a brief recitation of the Second Greatest Commandment, found in Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Well, the young man said to him in verse 20: “All these things I have kept; what am I still lacking.” In other words, as far as he knew, he had kept these all these commandments, and yet there was still this gnawing sense of insecurity about his relationship with God and eternal life. So, he says, there must still be something wrong. Why is it that I feel like something is still wrong.
So Jesus tells him what is still wrong. And He doesn’t go easy on him, not for a moment. Verse 21: “If you wish to be complete” (and the word complete can also be translated perfect), go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me.”
Whoa. Now remember, Jesus is answering the question about how to have eternal life. And He tells this young rich man he must sell all that He has and give to the poor and come follow Him. Wow? First question you and I might ask is this, “Is this the requirement for all of us.”
Well, what helps is that we don’t find Jesus saying this to anyone else who is interested in eternal life. He says it only to this rich young ruler. So there must be something Jesus knows about this young man and what is keeping Him from a right relationship with God and eternal life.
And you know what is? It’s this--it’s that he’s an idolater. The thing that he really loves is his riches. Though he’s religious and he’s moral, he lives for his riches. His riches come before God and everyone else. Although he hadn’t realized it, He had neither really loved God as God requires by making God master and Lord of His life, nor had he really loved others as he loved himself, because he wouldn’t give of what he had to help the poor. He was not really all about God at all. What He was really all about were his riches and himself. And therein was his sin. Therein was the problem, the root of his insecurity. He wasn’t right with God, because his riches were his God. And as Colossians 3:5 puts it, believers are to “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”
In fact, the truth of the matter is, as James Emery White once wrote, “Whatever you love the most, serve most, seek out most, give to the most, worship the most and care about the most is your god. Your “god” can be your career, your bank account, the way you look, a particular position or degree, influence, power, or physical pleasure. It can even be something that is considered intrinsically good, yet you allow it to dominate your life more than God—such as your marriage or your family. Your “god” is whatever you allow to control you, to be the ultimate guide to decision-making, the place of your supreme loyalty, and the source of your self-worth.”
And so what was Jesus doing here with the young man. He was showing him how, specifically how He was not good enough for God. He was putting a magnifying glass on the sin that separated Him from God, and it was His greed, His idolatry with regard to the things He possessed.
Now I found myself wondering if Jesus ever had anyone ask nearly the same kind of question and how He handled it. And He did. It was in the question that preceded the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25. And Jesus did exactly the same sort of thing there. He pointed the lawyer who asked it to the Law, and asked what the Law required. The Lawyer astutely answered that it was summed up in Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. But the lawyer, wishing to justify himself, no doubt knowing that he didn’t love everyone he knew, asked the fatal question: Who then is my neighbor. And with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus showed him how not only he, but any of us with any prejudices fail in this regard, as it was a hated Samaritan, rather than the self-righteous Jews, who had demonstrated what it means to love your neighbor. It means helping anyone you come into contact with, even the ones you’re not supposed to like--anyone who needs your help.
So our third point this morning: Show them how they’re not good enough for God.
As I think back on my conversation with Mike, I realize that part of the issue I failed to confront Mike with were his ambitions in life. His plans for his life needed to be submitted to God if he were going to really follow Christ. He couldn’t just ask Jesus to come along for the ride, because Jesus is God, and Mike needed to turn from his way and to follow Jesus, not the other way around.
And so back to the story. Jesus has both pointed out exactly where the problem was in this young man’s lack of assurance of salvation. He had the wrong God—money. Anything you put in front of God is an idol. And verse 22 tells us what happened then—one of the saddest descriptions in Scripture: “But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.” He thought he could have his cake, and eat it too, but it just doesn’t work that way, when it comes to idolatry. When it comes to our money, or whatever we love. You’ll either hate the one and love the other, or love one and despise the other. And if it’s your possessions that you love, or anything else before God, you’ve made the wrong choice.
What Jesus had also told this young man in verse 21 was this: that the faith that saves is the faith that also repents and follows Jesus. The faith that saves also repents and follows Jesus.
There’s no question in the over-all teaching of Jesus that faith, trust, belief, reliance upon Jesus, and that faith alone is what saves us. Because we have all sinned. But the kind of faith that saves us is the kind that is at first repentant, the changes its mind about its devotion to sin or any kind of idolatry and instead begins to love, worship and follow the one true living God.
In fact, the testimony of the whole of Scripture is this: That it is repentant and then obedient faith that God honors and blesses. It’s those who demonstrate a repentant and obedient faith who will be saved. That’s why we see verses like II Corinthians 5:17 which says, “If any man is in Christ, in other words, a Christian, He is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold all things become new.” That’s why Romans 6 tells us that as true believers we must reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That’s also why the Apostle Peter writes in II Peter 1:9-10: “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble, for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”
So our final point this morning is this. When you witness, Tell them that the faith that saves also repents and follows Jesus.
It is this very issue that caused this young man to go away grieved. He was not willing to repent and demonstrate obedient faith by selling all he had and giving to the poor, and following Jesus.
So are we too easy on folks who want Christ but want their own way! I can’t speak for others, but I think so. Maybe this is the reason why the Barna Group and Back to the Bible’s surveys show that there are so many self-professed born again Christians who admit that their lives are no different from their unbelieving neighbors, and whose beliefs are more often conformed to this world, rather than this Word.
Yes, we need to include a place for repentance in our Gospel presentation. We need to witness that the faith that saves also repents and follows Jesus, no matter the cost.
