SPEAKER_01: Let's stand together.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna read Luke eighteen together.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask our brother to come and read God's word for us.
SPEAKER_01: Luke eighteen, let's stand.
SPEAKER_00: Luke eighteen, fifteen through thirty-four.
SPEAKER_00: People were also bringing babies to Jesus, to him to place his hands on them.
SPEAKER_00: When the disciples saw this, they rebuked him.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus called the children to him and said, Let the children come to me and do not hinder them.
SPEAKER_00: For the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
SPEAKER_00: A certain ruler asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you call me good?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered.
SPEAKER_00: No one is good except God alone.
SPEAKER_00: You know the commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and your mother.
SPEAKER_00: All these I have kept since I was a boy, he said.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Then come, follow me.
SPEAKER_00: When he heard this, he became very sad because he was very rich, very wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looked at him and said, How hard is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Those who heard this asked, Who then can be saved?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied, What is impossible with man is possible with God.
SPEAKER_00: Peter said to him, We have left all we had to follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I tell you, Jesus said to them, No one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters, 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.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus took the twelve aside and told them we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: He will be delivered over to the Gentiles, they will mock him, insult him, and spit on him.
SPEAKER_00: They will flog him and kill him.
SPEAKER_00: On the third day he will rise again.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples did not understand any of this.
SPEAKER_00: Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_01: And let's do what we should always do when we read God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray and let's ask God's Spirit to speak to us through this text.
SPEAKER_01: God, we want to ask that you would work in our midst by your Holy Spirit to speak to us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, that you would take the words that are on the page that were written by Luke, recording what you said when you were in your earthly ministry, and we pray that these words would hit us and divide between soul and spirit, between bone and marrow, that there would be this work of your word in our life.
SPEAKER_01: That God, we would encounter the living God through this text this morning.
SPEAKER_01: You know the baggage that we have, you know our story, Lord, you know our brokenness, you know our sin.
SPEAKER_01: And God, we would just ask that you, by your Holy Spirit, would speak to us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Where we are sad, we pray that you would comfort our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, where we need to be repro reproved and corrected.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we give you permission to speak to us this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, where we need wisdom and we need your light to just direct us in the right path, Lord, we want that from you.
SPEAKER_01: So we just commit this time to you and we pray it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We've been going through the book of Luke for the last year, and we've been specifically in this middle section of Luke.
SPEAKER_01: It's ten chapters, and Jesus is teaching his disciples how to be followers of him.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was not looking just to draw a crowd.
SPEAKER_01: He was looking for adherents.
SPEAKER_01: He was looking for apprentices, people who would make a decision to follow Jesus with their whole life.
SPEAKER_01: And for us, we want to be those people as well.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be a people who are following after the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_01: So last night I had this wonderful meal with a beautiful family that's uh they're refugees from Pakistan, um, they're uh they're Muslims, devout Muslims.
SPEAKER_01: And so much of their life was is just as we were talking, so much of their life is just dedicated to um just laws and structures, and and even so the I met them because he was my Uber driver, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and um he used to be a chef, and I have this hobby that I like to cook Indian food, and he used to cook Indian food, and its worlds collided, and so it's perfect.
SPEAKER_01: It was like a match made in heaven, right?
SPEAKER_01: So it took us a month and a half to get together, but what I had where we had their family over last night, their kids are about the same age as mine, and um and they took over my kitchen and they cooked this wonderful Indian meal for us.
SPEAKER_01: It's just it was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: It was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: But as we were talking and and listening to them talk about how they practice their faith, it was just so fascinating to learn um how much structure is in their life and how much their their life is um just bound up by their the the religious system that they're that they're under.
SPEAKER_01: And even to the point where when they got out of the car, I went to go and and um shake her hand, the the wife's hand, and and she says, Oh no, I can't I cannot touch you, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Um and that's just their religious practice.
SPEAKER_01: There's no physical contact between men and women unless um you're married.
SPEAKER_01: And so as I was thinking about that encounter and just looking at our text, I and how Jesus, Jesus wants um followers, he wants people that are radically dedicated, and and this family's radically dedicated to a faith that I believe is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: But yet Jesus's followers, and the contrast that I was seeing last night, we as Jesus' followers are set free, we're liberated to live this just life that flourishes in this beautiful way.
SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's what we're gonna see in our text this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is such a radical figure as he comes onto the scene.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at verse 15 through 17.
SPEAKER_01: That's the first pericope that's there in the text.
SPEAKER_01: And what we see in verse 15 through 17 is that Jesus is doing his ministry and parents are bringing toddlers, very little children, to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And they're having Jesus lay their hands on them.
SPEAKER_01: In another version, it says that Jesus is laying his hands on the children and praying for them.
SPEAKER_01: And the disciples rebuke the parents and try to push these children away.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus corrects his disciples and he says, no, no, no, let the little children come to me, for such is the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus goes on and he says, not only do these little children have a place in God's kingdom, but then he kind of doubles down on the thinking and says, unless you welcome the kingdom of heaven like a little child, you cannot have entrance therein, or you can't get in.
SPEAKER_01: So once again, Jesus, as he is helping his followers understand the kingdom, he has to kind of flip things on its head.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the one of the realities about culture is that the further culture gets away from God's kingdom, the less it values children.
SPEAKER_01: The way that a culture um deals with and treats children reflects um its proximity to God's moral standards.
SPEAKER_01: Now you don't have to be a Christian in order to treat children well, thank goodness, right?
SPEAKER_01: We call um the um uh the the breaking in of kind of God's kingdom into normal day life, uh common grace, right?
SPEAKER_01: That God's grace is available for people who aren't even Christians, they are able to do some things that reflect God's nature in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But it's easy, it's easy to um, as you move away from who God is and his kingdom, it's easy to start thinking that children are not as important as adults.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has to correct this mistake in his disciples, and he says, no, no, no, let these little children come to me.
SPEAKER_01: I know that for me, as as simple as this passage, these three verses are, it's um it's devastatingly convicting because um I'm I'm with there with the disciples.
SPEAKER_01: I'm easily a goal-oriented person.
SPEAKER_01: I easily am like, let's just worry about the crowds, you know, forget the kids, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just kind of do life.
SPEAKER_01: And and Jesus, he he is he is the authority, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, and in his kingdom, he's saying, no, what's important in my kingdom is these children.
SPEAKER_01: And what's going on, this isn't detracting from the furthering of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Like, good stuff is going on right now as these children are being brought to me and I'm praying for them.
SPEAKER_01: And and can you relate to the disciples in this text?
SPEAKER_01: Can you relate to this idea of like, well, you know, I don't know if this is the you know most important thing.
SPEAKER_01: Um let's just let's just kind of focus on what's going on what's happening with the adults.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus says, no.
SPEAKER_01: Nope, that's not how it works.
SPEAKER_01: There's a different set of values in my kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: The text that we're going through today, the whole text, is going to speak to us about um a particular thing called spiritual disciplines.
SPEAKER_01: Once you um come to Jesus, that's kind of like the term we use, like you surrender your life to Jesus, you become a Christian, there are particular things, there's activities that we do in our life to grow in the ways that he wants us to grow.
SPEAKER_01: We don't do those spiritual disciplines to make God more happy with us or to get God to bless our life.
SPEAKER_01: No, we do the spiritual disciplines so that we can participate in the shaping process of God in our life.
SPEAKER_01: So when you and I come to the Lord, we give our life to the Lord, he takes you as you are, right?
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say you need to go and clean up your act, you know, you need to kick this addiction over here and change your outfit and stop using this kind of language in order to come.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say any of that.
SPEAKER_01: None of those prerequisites exist.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, I will take you as you are.
SPEAKER_01: You are welcome to come in, just like a little child.
SPEAKER_01: You're welcome into my kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: But then when we come in, he then wants to shape us into the image of his dear son.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it says in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_01: So he's picked us, he's chosen us, he wants us to have a relationship with him, and then he wants to shape us into the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And that shaping process takes place as we do particular things on a regular basis in our life.
SPEAKER_01: And we call those things spiritual disciplines.
SPEAKER_01: Some of them are disciplines of abstinence, and others are um actions of commission where we are actively engaged.
SPEAKER_01: So, like uh disciplines of abstinence is like silence and fasting, um, simplicity, frugality, um, chastity.
SPEAKER_01: Those are things where we're deciding for a time, like we're gonna skip a meal, right, so that we can pr we can spend more time in prayer and we can experience the weakness that comes through an absence of food.
SPEAKER_01: Um Paul talked about watchings, where he would go without sleep at night so that he could spend more time praying.
SPEAKER_01: It was a part of the spiritual disciplines in his life.
SPEAKER_01: So those are the disciplines of abstinence.
SPEAKER_01: Then you've got this the disciplines of commission or where you're actively engaged.
SPEAKER_01: That's like worship, coming to church, being a part of Christian relationships, fellowship, prayer, um, giving, um, witnessing, all of those are spiritual disciplines that we're engaged in as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: So as we're doing all that stuff, right, we're reading our Bible, we're praying, the Holy Spirit is at work in your life and in my life to shape us into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Are we tracking here?
SPEAKER_01: So, what Jesus is doing is he's teaching, he's teaching his um disciples what it means and what this process looks like.
SPEAKER_01: And the spiritual discipline that kind of comes to the surface here is this idea of simplicity, um, a welcoming.
SPEAKER_01: Because remember, he says, I think it's in verse 16, unless you welcome, 15 or 16, he says, unless you welcome the kingdom like a child, you can't have entrance therein, right?
SPEAKER_01: So there's a sense of wonder that a child has.
SPEAKER_01: I think all of those are the the um qualities that Jesus is trying to elevate in a child.
SPEAKER_01: So for us, we want to step back from a passage like this and and and say, you know what, maybe I'm too much of an adult.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe there is an aspect where not like be goofy like Will Farrell, but maybe there's like this simplicity, right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's a simplicity that I need.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's just a sense of of being um of putting away the iPhone uh for a day.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's a uh, you know, just putting away the technology for for just you know a little bit of time and just going, you know what, I want to focus um on the Lord and and be simple.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's I just want to have this um sense of wonder towards uh the Lord and and just an amazement, just like a child would with a s a rock that he finds, you know, going along the street, like, oh, look at this rock.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: For us adults, that simplicity, we don't really care.
SPEAKER_01: But for those of us that are um that can take on that childlike nature, we're able to um, I believe, embody the qualities that Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's go on to verse 18 through 30.
SPEAKER_01: 18 through 30 says this.
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, actually, let's go back here.
SPEAKER_01: I want to, I just want to summarize this section because it's so large.
SPEAKER_01: We have a ruler who asks this question.
SPEAKER_01: It all starts with a question, and he says, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: So this whole section starts with this question, and it's a there's some prerequisites here that exist in this question, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, or or some presuppositions, as I guess the word that I um intended to use.
SPEAKER_01: Basic beliefs that are assumed.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, the ruler's assuming that Jesus is good.
SPEAKER_01: He's assuming that there's eternal life, and that eternal life can be inherited, right?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus challenges, Jesus challenges and pushes back even on the question, and he says, wait a second, why are you calling me good?
SPEAKER_01: There's no one that's good.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is keying in on morality.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a rich man who's a leader.
SPEAKER_01: He's also very moral, we see, because as the story plays out, he's saying that he keeps these commands that Jesus refers to.
SPEAKER_01: So he's a ruler, he's rich, and he's moral.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us think that if we could just take on more of a leadership role or have more control in our life, that that would be life.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us think that, you know, if we just could get a bigger paycheck, if we could just have the wealth, that that would be that would be truly living.
SPEAKER_01: Others of us think, well, if I could just get my act together, you know, I wouldn't feel so condemned.
SPEAKER_01: If I could just clean myself up and be a more moral person.
SPEAKER_01: But notice this man, this ruler, he has the money, he has a leadership position, and he's doing the commands, and yet he still asks a question.
SPEAKER_01: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: It's easy in our human condition to think that we can save ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to think that we can inherit eternal life if we just get our act together.
SPEAKER_01: We have money, or you know, we just could maybe have a different position or the power dynamic in our life could be changed.
SPEAKER_01: It's really important to just see that embedded in this ruler is this question, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: Now there's related terms in this text.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you have the term eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus talks about having treasure in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: The people are gonna ask, the people are gonna ask, what well then who can be saved, right?
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard the word saved?
SPEAKER_01: Like you just need to get saved, right?
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, we use that slang term.
SPEAKER_01: Here it is in the text.
SPEAKER_01: What must uh, you know, how can people be saved?
SPEAKER_01: All of those terms are related, um they're uh they're similes, essentially.
SPEAKER_01: They're related to one another in this discussion that Jesus is having with the rich young ruler or rich ruler here.
SPEAKER_01: He's not said to be young in our text.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus points this man to the commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_01: He says, eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: How can I inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus points him to the commands.
SPEAKER_01: And so the question we've got to ask is why can obedience to the law give this man eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: So so here's a guy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you've got friends around you, and you would be like, this would be like the best day ever.
SPEAKER_01: You've been praying for them, maybe you're they're they're your family members, and they come up to you and they're like, How can I have eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: Like, that's the best question, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Like, well, we want to witness to our unsaved, our non-saved friends, and here's somebody who's like, How do I get it?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, Well, there's the commands.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that weird?
SPEAKER_01: Why why does he do that?
SPEAKER_01: Why does he do it?
SPEAKER_01: Because what he's doing is he's he's bringing the man through a process.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus isn't afraid he's gonna miss an opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a he's got the audience.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Well, you have the com you have the commands.
SPEAKER_01: So can can this man inherit eternal life by following the commands?
SPEAKER_01: The answer is theoretically, yes, but has he already violated the commands by being human?
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: So practically, no.
SPEAKER_01: But isn't it interesting?
SPEAKER_01: He responds, when Jesus says, Well, you have the commands, he says, Well, I'm good there.
SPEAKER_01: I've done the commands, but even he, by doing the commands, knows something's missing.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: In our human condition, we know that doing the moral law is only pointing to a bigger picture.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: When we do what's right and wrong, when we Live by the law, it only anticipates something greater.
SPEAKER_01: I think of like the again, the Lego movie, the better, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's something better there, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're doing what's right, we're doing what's good, but it it points to an ecosystem that that we don't have, the the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: So practically, the commands aren't good enough.
SPEAKER_01: He hasn't perfectly fulfilled it.
SPEAKER_01: He says he's done these things since he was a child, but we know that Jesus goes on.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You lack one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you love that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, here's here's what the Spirit of God where is it in here?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, let's see.
SPEAKER_01: All these things I've done.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus heard him say this, he said to him, You still lack one thing.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody who's in the process of being saved, of becoming a Christian, has to get to that point.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: As you're sharing, right?
SPEAKER_01: As I have my Muslim friends over to my house, I spent most of the time listening.
SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit about Jesus, but there was no blatant, like, here's the gospel plan of how you pray and you give your life to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Like, that didn't happen last night.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just listening because this is what I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for like the chink in the armor, the piece where it's like you lack this one thing.
SPEAKER_01: And it's this is this is what we talk about on the back of your bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a bulletin with you?
SPEAKER_01: Janine has one.
SPEAKER_01: Here, look on the back.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, on the back of your bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: This is printed on every one of our bulletins.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is your secret on how you're gonna, your friends are gonna get saved.
SPEAKER_01: Number five, look for opportunities to share the gospel with them.
SPEAKER_01: Since my bulletin is so small, I don't get to like write a whole paragraph about that.
SPEAKER_01: But essentially, this is it.
SPEAKER_01: You're doing life, like you're doing life with your friends, your five that God's put in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You're doing life with them, and they share with you something, and it's like, oh, that's the gospel, that's the opportunity to share the gospel with them, right?
SPEAKER_01: They let you be a part of their life, and all of a sudden something comes up.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, that's a that's an opportunity to apply the gospel to their life.
SPEAKER_01: Here, Jesus says, you lack one thing.
SPEAKER_01: And he calls this man to surrender what was most dear to him, his wealth, and to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: There's no command against being wealthy.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, as you go through the New Testament, God, it's very clear that there are some in the church that are blessed with wealth.
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about this here in this setting.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes Christians get it wrong, and they think that there's something inherently ungodly about being wealthy.
SPEAKER_01: Other church traditions will sometimes teach that there's something inherently ungodly about being poor.
SPEAKER_01: And neither are true, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's a way to be ungodly and poor, and there's a way to be ungodly and rich.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is trying to teach this man about how to be godly and rich.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Spirit through Jesus, Jesus, like just one of the things I love is that as Jesus is doing this, he is only saying the things that the Father leads him to say, right?
SPEAKER_01: So the Trinity is going on, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Trinity is three persons in one, and God is speaking right into this man's life through Jesus, who is God, saying, You lack this one thing, you need to surrender.
SPEAKER_01: So what does the Spirit say to us?
SPEAKER_01: Like, what is the one thing that you and I have to, that we have to let go in order to let Jesus have his rightful place in our life?
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's what the text kind of, that's the question it asks us, right?
SPEAKER_01: What is the one thing that we lack that we need to do in order to be able to follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: You can't, this man couldn't have held on to his wealth and simultaneously followed Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The two were in conflict.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is what this man needed to say.
SPEAKER_01: It's not normative, it's not for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Not everybody has to go sell everything they have.
SPEAKER_01: This man needed to.
SPEAKER_01: And so the case for you and I, as the Spirit is shaping us into the image of Christ, the Spirit says to us, you lack this one thing.
SPEAKER_01: And that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's not Jesus being mean, he's not trying to beat you up.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to answer that question in your life of how you can have entrance into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to be saved from from judgment.
SPEAKER_01: But he is he is not gonna let another authority um be present in your life when he wants to take the lead over you or in you.
SPEAKER_01: Family, maybe it's family.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you need to surrender your family in some way and you need to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's you need to surrender your freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Our culture is so big into autonomy, self-expression.
SPEAKER_01: You need to you need to surrender your for the idol of freedom and follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He knows God knows what we prize, he knows what we cling to in our hearts, he knows what we are holding on to, and his spirit speaks to us and says, You lack one thing.
SPEAKER_01: God wants Jesus followers and he wants for us to inherit eternal life, to have this treasure in heaven, to be saved, but we must surrender the kingdom we have built in order to receive the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes on.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and it uh he says, This is why, because the man, what's his response when he hears this?
SPEAKER_01: He's sad, right?
SPEAKER_01: He's sad.
SPEAKER_01: Like that's that's that's bumming him out.
SPEAKER_01: And and Jesus says, How hard is it for the rich to enter the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's easier, just practically speaking, this is why it is easier for the poor, the weak, the lowly to enter the kingdom because they have less to surrender, right?
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you this verse.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just go forward here in some slides to 1 Corinthians 1, 26 through 29.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says this to the church.
SPEAKER_01: He writes this letter 30 years later to the church in Corinth, and he says, Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called.
SPEAKER_01: Think of who you were.
SPEAKER_01: Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong, God chose the lowly things of the world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
SPEAKER_01: The reality is, is that in order to accept God's kingdom, you have to let go of your own.
SPEAKER_01: So the bigger your own kingdom is, the harder that is.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus just points this out to his disciples and he says, Look, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's comparable to a camel going through the eye of a needle.
SPEAKER_01: That's how hard it is for a rich person to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: And the disciples respond, he's like, Well, then, who can be saved?
SPEAKER_01: The disciples are recognizing not just the rich, but who can be saved.
SPEAKER_01: If salvation means letting go of your kingdom, who can be saved?
SPEAKER_01: And there is this reality that salvation is an impossible thing.
SPEAKER_01: We as humans are screwed up.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't realized that, keep doing a little bit more life and come back next week, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We are messed up, right?
SPEAKER_01: We can't save ourselves and we don't turn to God well, right?
SPEAKER_01: We just like bury our, we like knock our heads against a wall, we dig our own holes that we fall into.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we are messed up.
SPEAKER_01: Who can be saved?
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: The salvation process is impossible.
SPEAKER_01: God has to be involved in it.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you two things.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the church has debated for centuries how the process of salvation works.
SPEAKER_01: There's this teaching uh called regeneration before faith that precedes faith.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's not a term that I use and will use.
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't believe you're regenerated before you're saved, but I do believe that God definitely works in you before you get saved.
SPEAKER_01: Because look at these verses.
SPEAKER_01: In John 16, 7 through 11, Jesus says, he's talking about the Holy Spirit, and he's teaching his disciples about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He says, But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I'm going away, unless I go away, the advocate, that's another word for the Holy Spirit, the advocate will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.
SPEAKER_01: When he comes, he will prove the prove the world to be in wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment, but sin because people do not believe, about righteousness because I'm going to the Father, where you can see me no longer, and about judgment because the Prince of the world now stands condemned.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus says the Holy Spirit is going to be sent into the world, and he's going to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is at work in your friends, on your five by five.
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'm gonna borrow this real quick.
SPEAKER_01: Your five by five, right now, the Holy Spirit is convicting them of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
SPEAKER_01: That's the promise that Jesus gives.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the second thing that the that uh God is doing in your non-believing friends.
SPEAKER_01: Or if you if you yourself have not yet come to Jesus, this is what God needs to do in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Uh 2 Corinthians 4, 3 through 6 says, And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as servants for Jesus' sake.
SPEAKER_01: Now, verse six, look at this.
SPEAKER_01: For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory displayed in the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So God is the one who causes the light to shine in our hearts and give the knowledge of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: All that to say, if you are yet not believing in Christ, what has to happen?
SPEAKER_01: There's a blinder that's over your eyes and over the um the heart, the ability to see and spiritually perceive God's work, and God has to cause the light to shine out of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't use the word regenerate, but there's definitely a significant spiritual work that God does in someone's life to bring them to a place where they are like, oh, Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_01: I need to surrender my life to God.
SPEAKER_01: So you may be in process.
SPEAKER_01: You may be somewhere in that point where you're sensing the Holy Spirit convicting you of, like, man, I'm a sinner, I'm screwed up, or maybe there's a coming judgment, or man, God is way more righteous than I am.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Holy Spirit at work in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's all of a sudden this sense of the light goes on, and it's like, wow, Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_01: I need to, I need to follow Him.
SPEAKER_01: All of that is what God wants to do in the life of the individual.
SPEAKER_01: So we go back over to our text in Luke, and Jesus responds back to this statement about how impossible it is for people to be saved, and he says, sure, what's what's um impossible with man is possible with God.
SPEAKER_01: God is the one who is involved in the salvation process.
SPEAKER_01: He's involved in our shaping process.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to do the work.
SPEAKER_01: He goes on to encourage Peter, who says, Hey, Lord, we left everything to follow you.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says this beautiful thing to them.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Um, well, we'll get to 31 in just a second.
SPEAKER_01: He says to Peter, he says, Nobody's left.
SPEAKER_01: Family, house, job, nobody's left those things and will not be paid back.
SPEAKER_01: God's got your back, right?
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus has just kind of dropped this truth bomb on this rich young ruler, and he's all bummed out, and Jesus is like, well, we, or Peter's like, we did it.
SPEAKER_01: We did it.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, well, you're gonna get it back.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get it back.
SPEAKER_01: This is the this is the cycle of the whole Bible is always like, we give it up, and then God gives it back to us.
SPEAKER_01: We give it up.
SPEAKER_01: Like even in heaven, we're gonna get these crowns, you know, as our reward for the things we do on earth.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna take the crowns, we're gonna like toss them at Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_01: Then we're gonna get them back, right?
SPEAKER_01: And then we're gonna toss them at Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_01: There's this whole cycle that is uh that we find throughout Scripture where God is like um, where we're giving stuff up and God's giving it back to us.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, look at verse 31 through 34.
SPEAKER_01: It's it Jesus says this Jesus took the twelve aside and he told them, We're going up to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: He will be delivered over to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, they will flog him, kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the disciples did not know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know what he was talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus has called us to not just be in the crowd, not just be here Sunday, but to be followers of him.
SPEAKER_01: To be followers of him.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you and I to follow him.
SPEAKER_01: And what that looks like is that he has said, look, if you want to follow me, you need to take up your cross and follow me.
SPEAKER_01: So if your conception of being a follower of Jesus is anything other than this road that Jesus is talking about to a cross, you need to know that that is the path of discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But what happens?
SPEAKER_01: Here it is again.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus goes to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Does he stay dead?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: He's raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: There it's that pattern again.
SPEAKER_01: You give up, you take up your cross and you follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You let him lead you into deaths in your life because the resurrection power of God can be, so it can be put on display in your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to display his resurrection power in our life.
SPEAKER_01: So these spiritual disciplines here in this second story with the rich ruler, we see again the idea of frugality, not holding on to wealth, but being willing to give up, give up the excess, and let God and really surrender that identity and follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So I just want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: This week, Jesus is shaping you.
SPEAKER_01: It's on us to participate, to participate in the shaping process.
SPEAKER_01: We do that by reading our Bibles, we do that by praying, we do that by being in our small groups, our our home fellowships, we do that by um sharing the gospel with the people around us.
SPEAKER_01: All of that is a part of this shaping process, take Jesus taking us and forming us into his image.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God, we want to, we want to be followers of you.
SPEAKER_01: We want to be a people that really um that we're yielded to you.
SPEAKER_01: So, Lord, as we um just sing this last song, would you receive from us hearts that are full of worship, that we would be worshipers of you.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand together, stand together, and we will sing this last song.