This evening, in our sermon together, we'll consider Mark 10, verses 17 through 31. It's the well-known story of the rich young ruler and his encounter with Jesus. So I'd ask that you turn in your pew Bibles to Mark 10, verses 17 through 31. Hear now the word of the Lord. As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. Good teacher, he asked, 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 murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. Teacher, he declared, all these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lacked, he said, go, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said again, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. 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. The disciples were even more amazed and said to each other, Who then can be saved? Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. Peter said to him, We have left everything to follow you. I tell you the truth, Jesus replied, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me in the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields, and with them persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. The word of the Lord. And this evening, we will be considering our text from Mark 10 in conjunction with Lord's Day 2 of the Heidelberg Catechism. So I'd ask that you turn to the back of your Psalter hymnal. Lord's Day 2 will, I hope, provoke us to consider more fully what the Lord Jesus Christ was teaching the rich young rulers, the disciples, and then us today. And so we're going to read together questions 3, 4, and 5. I'll read the question, and you can read the answers together. Lord's Day 2, found on page 9 at the back of the Psalter hymnal. How do you come to know your misery? The law of God tells me. What does God's law require of us? Christ teaches us this in summary in Matthew 22. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the great and first commandment. and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Can you live up to all this perfectly? No, I have a natural tendency to hate God and my neighbor. If we confess that we come to know our misery through the law of God, which is summarized in the words of Matthew 22 that we must love the Lord our God and love our neighbors ourselves. And if we acknowledge in Scripture the reality that not one of us can live up to this law perfectly, shouldn't we also be asking with the disciples in verse 26 of our passage, who then can be saved? People of God, who then can be saved? The story of the rich young ruler powerfully demonstrates to us that those who seek to be saved in the keeping of the law, no matter what type of law it may be, will not find salvation in their efforts. In fact, what we see in this account, this story of the rich young ruler, is a Jesus patiently but completely crushing a man who sought salvation by law instead of by gospel. And so if we were to summarize the story of the rich young ruler, it is a story of Jesus crushing the self-hope and self-righteousness of a man who just didn't get it, didn't get the fact that salvation cannot be realized in oneself, but that it must be completely and entirely a gift from God. Now, you've probably heard a wide array of interpretations of this passage and a whole host of appeals made to this passage to confirm some type of social agenda or another. And yet it is crucial that we see and appreciate what the Gospel writer Mark is communicating to us about Jesus and the authority with which he delivers his message. For first, he highlights the man's misunderstanding. Then he exposes the man. And finally, he declares to the man that the only answer to this man's quandary was in Jesus himself. And we just read question and answer three of the Heidelberg Catechism. Boys and girls, you probably know it as one of the shortest and easiest questions in the Catechism to memorize. It says, how do you come to know your misery? And the answer is, the law of God tells me. How is it then that the rich young ruler became so confused about this? For when you look at his actions, when you look at his questions, his zeal to figure this eternal life thing out, he really doesn't seem to get it at all. He's convinced himself, it would seem, that he is on the highway to heaven and it is being paved with every good act that he's been doing, every deliberate action that he takes to keep the law, Every move that he makes that others may not be willing to do that gives him a special status as a law keeper. And at first glance in our passage, there doesn't seem to be anything amiss in the way in which he is introduced in Mark's Gospel. He's running to see Jesus. Well, that's a good sign, we think. That's a sign that he's so zealous to see Jesus, to see the Lord, he's not so concerned about what other people may be thinking about him. Well, then our rich young ruler runs up to Jesus, And he kneels before him. Well, that's another A plus for him. He's come right up to Jesus. And he prostrates himself right before Jesus in a position of humility and respect. This is our guy. Kneeling before someone was, and still is today, a sign of respect. And there was no doubt that this man was zealous to show honor and respect to Jesus. And then the first words out of his mouth are, good teacher. Well, now that's a fitting way to greet Jesus, isn't it? For Jesus alone is good and righteous, and he is also a mighty teacher of men who from the age of 12 in the temple and in the time that he was instructing his disciples, they gathered crowds in the stream of Pharisees and lawyers that have been trying to trap him in all of his teachings. We ask, is the rich young ruler doing okay up until now? Well, we have to see what Jesus says in response to him. Why do you call me good, Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone. This is the first correction which Jesus makes of this man. His first effort to show him his misunderstanding of himself. And so it should stand out to us for what Jesus is saying to him. Why do you call me good? Why are you addressing me this way? Why are you describing me in this manner? How do you see yourself? We ask, I mean, is addressing Jesus Christ as good teacher just a faux pas of standard conversational practice in first century Palestine? Or was it, is it, a problem of self-identification that comes with such a statement? For Jesus is exposing the rich young ruler as a man deluded by his own sense of goodness, his own moral uprightness, that permits him to say good teacher as a measure of respect from one good man to another. why do you call me good? And how quickly we fall into the same trap of believing our own lies about ourselves. Isn't it so easy to find our own respectability, our own standing in the community, our own morality, our standards of conduct to be the things that set us apart from the unwashed masses and permit us an entry into a higher class of Christians, into a better life now because of what we're doing or who we are. Rich young ruler, this man seems to be of the impression that he's a pretty impressive guy. He's a Bible thumper, a shining light in the religious establishment. And how easy it is for us to fall into the same trap, beloved, to linger just a while in the praise of others for being so pure, for being so sanctified and so hallowed. And the words of Christ, then, stand as a rebuke to our foolish and unwitting inner responses to the praise of others. For he calls the man out, saying, No one is good except God alone. Christ, the envoy of God, is directing the man's attention to God himself. It is, as one writer says, that everyone needs to know one thing in life. There is a God, and I am not he. And the rich young ruler here, chastised for calling himself good, in his extension of that term to Jesus, is still, as we can see, desiring to learn from Jesus how he can inherit eternal life. Remember closely in the text, what can I do to inherit eternal life? He's out to add to the checklist of rules that he can keep. He wants to know what the secret is, what the next logical step in his path to holiness is. What can I do? And Jesus answers him, you know the commandments, do not murder, do not commit adultery, Do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. The broad point is that Jesus is holding up the law, and by reciting several of them, I'm convinced that he's referring to all of the law. What can I do to inherit eternal life? Keep the law, all of it, and you will live. In fact, Proverbs 7 says, My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live. Keep my commands and live? This is a central teaching in Scripture that traces itself from Adam in the garden to Israel at Mount Sinai to the land of Judah under the prophets to the disciples walking with Jesus. The one who keeps the law shall live. But is our catechism wrong to say that our misery is made known to us by the law of God? And further, that we cannot live up to this law perfectly, but that we are rather, by nature, inclined to hate God and our neighbor? Absolutely not. For what follows in our text clears up this misunderstanding that plagues the rich young ruler, the disciples, and many today who cannot separate their love of law-keeping from the fullness of their own depravity and sinfulness and inability to keep the law completely. For the young man answered, Teacher, he declared, All these I have kept since I was a boy. Jesus looked at him and loved him. One thing you lack, he said. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. At this the man's face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth. What did Jesus see in this man? What was it that Jesus saw within this man's heart? Well, the rich young ruler had a problem. He was blind to his own sin. He was convinced that he was doing all right, though he was still somewhat perplexed by the whole thing, which is why he was asking what more he had to do or if there was anything more that he could do to inherit eternal life. He wanted to make sure that all of his bases were covered, that there wasn't any new commandments or super laws that he had to be aware of. And gently, with love, Jesus crushes him. He looks at him and patiently declares to the man, one thing you lack. One sin. One blasphemous word. One error. One wayward thought. One wayward glance. One bite of the apple. One thing you lack. In a simple statement, Christ crushes the rich young ruler and his belief that he had kept every single commandment. The man himself may not have understood that completely in that moment there, But Jesus Christ certainly did. And He still does. Why did Jesus understand so clearly the sin that this man was still harboring? Because Christ came to earth to die for every last sin of His people. He knew these sins intimately. He knew when they occurred and with what frequency His people fell into these sins. Because He bore them on His shoulders on the cross. He bore the penalty for every last sin of His people. For Jesus was crushed. He, the only perfect law keeper. And here he looks at the young man, loves him, and patiently says, one thing you lack. Christ could have gone after this rich young ruler for being uncouth and hypocritical, for being blind to his own sin, for being too boastful in his pride of having kept all the commandments by simply listing off every sin that this man had committed. But Jesus displays his gentleness, his love, by exposing the man's sinfulness one sin at a time. And the man's most cherished, deep-rooted sin was his pride of possessions, his attachment to what he had collected and earned. His great possessions were also his great downfall. And Jesus gently exposes him in his misunderstanding of his goodness. So what was that one thing that the man lacked? Well, it's like the times, boys and girls, when your parents say to you, I need you to do one thing more for me. I know for myself, I often wondered when I was a kid, how come there was always so many more things that I had to do after I'd done the one thing that my mom had asked me to do? Well, in the same way, in that moment, Jesus chooses the one thing that the man still lacked, which hit him the hardest, not the one last failure to keep the commandments that this man was guilty of. Do you see the connection? The rich young rulers, one sin was particular to him and it was ruling him, but it was not his only sin. He was as sinful as you and I are, corrupted by sin, destitute in sin, unable to do good works before the Father without the aid of the Holy Spirit who enables us to do good works in faith after we've been reborn. And there are two impulses that might emerge as we think about the words that Jesus uses next. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And then come, follow me. The first is the impulse of some to universalize this and to make it a new law, a new commandment that is being given by Christ here. A commandment to get rid of all of one's possessions in order to truly follow him. And then a curse be upon those who retain earthly possessions. You see, this was the spirit that marked the monastic communities, that in some among the emergent churches today who romanticize this whole view and try to make it universally applicable. And the other impulse is to say, well, this isn't specific to me in the sense that we have to get rid of everything. Judging by the number of vehicles in the parking lot, it's clear that we've decided we're not bound to this principle of selling everything we own and giving it all to the poor. Yes, we do continue to support many worthy causes and we make regular contributions to the church and And these are all necessary and beneficial. But the broader sense of what we are being called to is that we're being called here to examine our own hearts to see where our desires and loyalties lie. For we need to be exposed. We need to have our motivations exposed. Are we jealous of the riches of others? Are we miserly with our time, talents, and funds? Are we slow to help others out? Do we fail to give freely of the riches that God has blessed us with? Can you see yourself in this man? Do you see your own natural tendency to cling to what it is that you are doing? To somehow take satisfaction in being a pretty good person? How common it is to hear people say, Yeah, nobody's perfect, but still, I'm not so bad. Or, he was a good person. He should get a chance to go to heaven. But brothers and sisters, this is the same tired adage that's been used to sear consciences for centuries. The fact is, none is good. No, not one. Not you or I, not even the world's great leaders, or Mother Teresa, and not the rich young ruler, all have specific and general sins which are exposed by the law of God. For the law's task is to bring our satisfaction with this world to an end and to quicken within us a thirst for righteousness and life in Christ. And the Apostle Paul is powerful in his description of the power of the law to expose sin and to expose one's need for a Savior from the unrighteousness that mars us. In Romans 7, Paul said, I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said do not covet. And further, the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good. You see, the righteous and holy function of the law that Jesus points the rich young ruler to is the same function that we look to every time that the law is read to us. Every Sunday morning when the law is read to us or shown to us or when we read it in our Bibles, it exposes error and it saddens us. It lays us low. It strips us of our self-righteousness. And here in our text, Jesus is patiently crushing the man, showing him his misunderstanding of what it meant to keep the commandments perfectly and then exposing him in his sin. And Jesus gives him the command of life, the command that would mean life with Christ, take up your cross and follow me. What is involved in these words? And why was the young man unwilling to do this? We read that he was unwilling to do this for he had great possessions. Oh, how much more did he have to have his heart exposed. Jesus saw the astonishment of his disciples and he calls on them saying how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. And if the rich young ruler knew the Psalms as well as he thought he knew the law, maybe he would have been familiar with the words of Psalm 52. Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others. But I am like an olive tree, flourishing in the house of God. I trust in God's unfailing love forever and ever. I will praise you forever for what you have done. In your name I will hope, for your name is good. I will praise you in the presence of your saints. And the psalmist, entrusting in the loving kindness of God forever and ever, was being faithful to God and relying upon the grace of God to cover his sins. There is a rich young ruler and all the rich were trusting in themselves and in their riches. Jesus knew the rich young man's heart. He saw how he trusted in the abundance of his riches and he saw the deep sins that had power over him. Sins that others couldn't even see in him. Sins that the rich young ruler was blind to in his own heart. And Jesus could understand the astonishment of his own disciples over the striking comments Jesus had made to them. Take up your cross. And follow me. Abandon your riches. Abandon your desires. Your entrapment to the desires of the flesh. Flee to Christ. And follow His commands to love God. And to love your neighbor as yourself. How can you keep this law? You can't. You must see in Christ that He alone can bring the rich into the kingdom. He alone can bring the poor into the kingdom. Christ alone can turn the blind around and point them into the direction of heaven and give them a comforter, the Holy Spirit, to guide them there. He alone can bring the dead to life. And in verse 26 we read, The disciples were even more amazed and said to each other, Who then can be saved? And our catechism sets us up to ask this exact same question. Our misery is exposed by the law which God has given us. Our incompleteness, your incompleteness is centered in a failure to be holy as God is holy. Why must we be holy and righteous? Because God's justice requires it. And that's why the disciples are reacting in astonishment even here. In a sense, hearing this for the first time, having it sink in for the first time, Jesus was saying that no one could enter the kingdom of heaven, that the camel and the needle thing was applicable to all. And not just to the man who thought he'd kept every law, but was blinded to his own sin and attached to his possessions. It's not just the problem of the rich, though we know that riches can often prove to be a major barrier to self-knowledge and piety. But this isn't just the problem of the successful or the upper class. The problem rests in all. Who then can be saved? Can anyone be saved? Can anyone achieve this? If people who love money can't be saved, who then can be saved? I hope that you see that the way that the disciples are beginning to see the reality of their own sin and their need for salvation. And I also hope that you see, even in this passage, the folly of trying to pit rich against poor or young against old in this passage in terms of categories of likeliness to get into heaven. What Jesus is here teaching his disciples is essential to his whole ministry and message. Only those in Christ can be saved from their bondage to sin. It is the action of Christ. Christ Jesus, our Lord, which is the determinant, not social status or religious fervor or bank balances. Why, just a few verses earlier, Jesus is shocking his disciples when he instructs them to let the children come to him. Look at verse 13 in our passage. They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. Now Mark's Gospel gives us very few details about these children and their mothers as the other Gospels do, but consider the relationship between that incident and the one which immediately follows here in verses 17 through 31. Do we see what's going on? That Jesus' ministry is one of gathering people into him, not because of their characteristics and not because of their merit or value as kingdom citizens. Jesus Christ is seeking out his sheep, not recruiting for a political revolution, or trying to surround himself with the best and brightest for an upcoming reign in Jerusalem. Who then can be saved? Who then is being set apart by God? Who then is being found by Christ? Look at verse 27 and picture yourself standing there with Jesus and his disciples as this mighty man of external righteousness, a leader of his day, an impressive young man with a lot of potential as an elder, or even one day as a televangelist or a super apostle, here he's walking away in sadness, crushed by a law which he cannot keep, and exposed in his own distorted view of his own self-righteousness. This prime target, if you will, is in the view of many a perfect man is going away sorrowful. And Jesus has just said, 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. Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. And beloved, that is the grounds for our hope in Christ. With God, all things are possible. The hopelessness of the disciples, the realization that this prime candidate for evangelism was still not good enough, was still not guaranteed an inheritance in heaven, That was what prompted their forlorn question, who then can be saved? And our Lord reassures them in their weakness and confusion that the impossible is only so for men. They cannot live up to the righteous requirements of the law. But Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the promised Messiah has come to take away the curse of sin and to give to every child of God the robes of righteousness that He has merited because of His perfect and unblemished life which was then shed upon the cross of Calvary for our sake. With God and with the Son of God, all things are possible. The dead can be made alive, the unrighteous can be made righteous, and the sinner can inherit eternal life. But not alone. Never alone. And not on the sinner's own terms, but only in the blood of Jesus Christ and in faith in His name. Do you rest in reliance upon this good news? You, having been set apart by God, are co-heirs of the kingdom because of God's gracious act to fulfill the terms of His covenant which He first made with Adam by sending His only begotten Son to completely fulfill the holy requirements of the law and to die in our place on the cross to take away the curse which was our misery. Our misery, our failure to keep the law, our failure to abide in Christ, to love God and to love our neighbor, our ongoing life of being crushed by the law and exposed as frauds and hypocrites. It's all rendered of no account by the glorious act of God in grace to send a mediator to give us the eternal life that we have no right to inherit and no hope in ourselves of receiving. With God, all things are possible. Stand by that great truth as it shows you the power of Christ to overcome the sins of His people, to transform their hearts, and to bring them into new life in His heavenly kingdom. What can be said about you? You're in church this evening. Is it because you're keeping a law? Or you're being obedient to your parents' wishes? You're here in church this evening. Is it because you think it makes you a better person and that it doesn't hurt to give up an hour or two a week if it makes you stronger? You're here in church this evening. Is it because you have seen in your own heart that you cannot be saved from your sins by yourself, that you cannot hope for eternal life in your own works, and that you cannot lift up even a single good work to God as a pleasing sacrifice to Him. Many of you, by the grace of God, know your heart's depravity and your fallenness. And you know your weakness and you see your sin ever before you. The temptations of the flesh and the world always overwhelming you. Well, there is good news that whenever you come through these doors and whenever you turn in the Word, you have been set free. You are redeemed. You are, not because of anything you've done, set free by grace and chosen as a child of God by the will of God, our Father. For Christ has taken up the cross and prepared the way for us that we might follow Him in faith and love for the rest of our days even though we are attacked and flustered and tried every step along the way. And yet I hesitate for a moment to ask again, you're in church this evening. Is it because you're keeping a law or being obedient to your parents' wishes. For there is a great danger in empty worship. There is a grave danger in empty ceremonies and empty singing. Do not trust in your own efforts as the rich young ruler so clearly did when he failed to see Christ probing questions to him as a means of convicting him of his own sin. Your sin is exposed. It is known by Christ himself. if you are in church this evening with an unbelieving heart, with a dulled sense of conviction that you are a sinner in need of grace, then I plead with you, hear the call to repent of your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have all sinned, but not all have repented. Repent. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be granted eternal life in Him. to the praise and glory of our Father and for the internal peace and rest for your soul. And whether you are now outside of Christ or with Him in faith and true belief, I want you to see how this story closes and how it applies to you. For certainly we can all identify with Peter who for his own sake should have probably kept his mouth closed in verse 28. We read in verse 28, Peter said to him, We have left everything to follow you. Do you get the sense here that Peter gets cut off by Jesus? Peter began to say to him, and Jesus answered and said, Jesus is cutting him off before he can say anything more. What of Peter's comments here? Peter, you missed the point. With man, this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God. But we've left it all and did as you asked, Lord. Can we expect eternal life now? Peter's passion is misplaced rather than saying, my Lord and my God and speaking out in praise of what Christ has just announced. That in Him, God is saving people. Instead, Peter suggests that Jesus take another look at what the disciples have done and how they've even kept this new commandment which Jesus gives to sell everything, give to the poor and come follow Him. And for Peter's sake and for ours, we need to see that Jesus' response here is the most gracious and loving response that he could have given. He doesn't say, well, Peter, let's see. You've done this one good thing, but I'm pretty sure you're going to deny me three times. Even cursing to make your denial more plausible. You're also going to earn a stern rebuke from me where I compare you to Satan. Oh, Peter, do you really want to be evaluated and praised for what you've done? Does the good somehow outweigh the bad and foolish things that you've done? And yet it's so easy, even when we know all the good news of the gospel, to fall into that same trap. Even in my sermon notes as I prepared this passage, when I got here to Peter's statement, I wrote it provenly in the margin. Contrast this with the rich young ruler's statement. Really? Peter's statement is still operating out of the exact same law paradigm that the rich young ruler is. And in the man's absence, Peter is reminding Jesus that they've done the right thing, unlike that man who was walking away. Christian, your performance, your actions, your degree of following, your auctions of your belongings and giving to the poor are not the grounds for your merit before the Father. Rather, your merit is external, God-given, God-granted. The fruits of your rebirth in Christ are your actions and your heart motives that now reflect a foreign-to-you desire to serve God and your neighbor. But it's not something to boast in or show off. And we can picture it. Peter is interrupted. Jesus answered and said, I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me in the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age. Homes, brothers, mothers, children and fields and with them persecutions and in the age to come eternal life. Jesus really drives home his point. Peter, listen up. And all you disciples, pay attention. No one who for my sake and for the gospel has left what is dear to them shall come away empty handed both in this life and in the age to come. Why is Jesus reassuring him of this? How is he correcting Peter in his words? Here he's encouraging Peter and the disciples that they will never lack for any good thing which they need for God will always provide for them. And in the course of time, they will see their richness and realize that they never gave up anything to follow Christ for what they had was not really theirs to begin with. And for those who have been set free in Christ, for you who are redeemed in Christ and set free from the death which comes from the law's conviction of every one of us, know that you will receive from the Holy Spirit plentiful gifts along with persecutions in this life. Feast and famine, health and sickness, joy and sadness with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life. For the confusion of the rich young ruler is being replaced with a rich understanding of the salvation which comes in Christ by faith resulting in the salvation of your soul. For the law no longer condemns you for Christ has set you free from every last requirement of the law. Who then can be saved? All who are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. For with God all things are possible. So children of God, rejoice in your salvation in Christ the righteous who was sacrificed, poured out for a complete remission of all of your sins. Amen. Let us pray. O God, our Heavenly Father, we give you thanks and praise for your word and for the mighty deliverance that we have received in Christ Jesus. We were dead in our sins and you have made us alive in Christ, crushed by the law and raised up by the victorious one. Mercifully watch over us, we pray, and guide our hearts and minds that we might serve you with heart, soul, mind, and strength in the coming week. Strip us of our selfish ambition and boastful pride and clothe us, we pray, in the humility of the Spirit and the righteousness of Christ. We are your servants. We rest in your grace. In Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen.