The young man in our story, you could say along with Matthew there in verse 23, he had great possessions. Here was a very wealthy man. Here was a man who was used to having his wealth open many, many doors in his life. Wealth was like that for him. Wealth would have opened the door to him for a good education, healthcare, travel opportunities, a good seat in the synagogue, wealth opened doors for that man.

It was a shock to this rich young man when he came to one door that his wealth would not open. Some of you are old enough to remember the MasterCard commercials. Remember the commercials? There would be an experience there, the young guy gets to drive the zombone and there's that little phrase, events in life are priceless, these great experiences, and then the word priceless. And then at the end of the commercial were these words, the hook line, There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's Mastercard.

This man's wealth couldn't buy an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Entry that for each one of us is by God's grace alone through Christ alone. Here he was, you could say with MasterCard in hand, knocking at the door of the kingdom, but his wealth was not enough to bring entry into the kingdom. What a contrast when we look back to last week when we thought of the little children. We are called to enter the kingdom of God by humbling ourselves, by acknowledging that we have nothing that we can bring to gain entry into the kingdom.

This man here believed his wealth could gain entry. Jesus in this passage begins to address the relationship between a person's wealth and the path of discipleship in Christ Jesus. It's the story of one man who wanted to have it all and could not. It's the story of of one man who came to Jesus and who walked away still lost in his sin. It's the story of one man whose assets proved to be liabilities.

That may not be about money for you this morning or wealth, but what is it that perhaps you are trusting in to gain entry into the kingdom of God? Let's look at the story this morning. We're gonna look at two parts to the story. First of all, we have man described there in verses 16 to 22. And then secondly, we'll look at Jesus, the son of man, how he responds to this man and his wealth.

So if you have your Bibles open there, join me as we look together verses 16 to 22. We're gonna look at this man, his arrival at Jesus and his departure from Jesus. Let's begin there, verse 16, his arrival. And behold, a man came up to Jesus saying Matthew tells us two things about this man. He is wealthy and he is also a young man.

Luke's Gospel tells us that he was a ruler, may have been a ruler in the Jewish synagogue. Imagine how delighted Jesus' disciples were. Here is this young man. He's rich, he's young, he's a ruler. To them he would have been an ideal candidate for entry into the kingdom of heaven.

You can imagine someone drives into church parking lot in a Lexus. Maybe that's some of you today, I'm not sure what's out there, but imagine the impact there, oh, someone's coming in, they look the part, they're wealthy, Let's bring them in. This man's arrival was marked by a certain urgency. Mark chapter 10 verse 17 describes it there, a man ran up and knelt before Jesus. So there's urgency here.

He has three clear questions in mind here as he comes before Jesus. Question one, verse 17. Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life? Now there's the key words right there, just two words. What must I do?

I do, he says. Could Jesus direct his quest for eternal life? What good deed could he do to secure his entry into the kingdom of God? Was there a pilgrimage he needed to make? Was there a synagogue needed to be rebuilt?

Was there a charitable donation that he should make? What was it? What is this elusive one thing? His assumption is clear, there must be something more than just simply a life of obedience to God's commands that would secure salvation. His mistaken assumption is one that is fueling many, many of the world's religions today.

World religions that are grounded on this idea of performance. What must I do? I was reminded of this yesterday when I was watching a English soccer game and I think it was around twelve, thirteen minutes into the game, they had a break. The crowd didn't seem to understand what was going on. The break was for the Muslim soccer players to break fast and to get some liquid gels, some fluids into their body.

So it was a reminder again of how important in Islam is that fourth pillar, which is that obligation to fast for that month. Again, reminding us that it is all about performance. It's all about earning God's favor and many, many other religions fall into the same category. Christianity is unique. Our salvation is by God's grace alone.

Trusting not in what you and I can ever do, but in what Jesus Christ, the son of God has done. There is the distinction. Grace truly does change everything. So what about this man here in the story? He's trying to earn God's favor.

George Whitfield, a preacher back in the eighteenth century, once said that a person could more easily climb to the moon on a rope of sand than to do any good works that place him in right relationship with God. It's amusing in one sense. Try to bridge that 384,400 kilometer bridge between earth and man with a rope made of sand. He says, you've got a better chance of doing that than to put yourself in the right relationship with a holy God. It's that clear.

But this man in her story didn't get it. He didn't realize that a person can only be saved by God's grace through faith in the complete and finished saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross. So he turns to the man's question there. Look again at verse 17. He answers the man question by turning him away from what to who.

Hear Jesus' words, Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. So what he's doing here, he's simply directing this man away from his own good deeds to the God who alone is truly good. This man who is confident in his own goodness needed to trust in the one who alone is good today.

Only then would he realize that his best good deeds could never merit his entry into God's kingdom. Like us, he could never perfectly keep the commandments of God. You and I, like this man, we need a substitute. Jesus Christ, who perfectly in his life of obedience to the Father, kept all of God's commandments. Our failure rate is 100%.

His success rate was 100%. So that's his first question. He goes on, question two, as you read down the passage then he says, well, these commandments of God, which ones should I keep? So Jesus answers there. He probably looks at the man thinking, do you really believe you can keep God's perfectly?

But anyway, says to the man, he gives them commandments six, seven, eight, nine, back to number five, and then the second great commandment to love his neighbor as himself. Look at the more details there, verses eighteen and nineteen. And you can picture the man. You can picture this rich young ruler. He's going down the list.

Check, check, check, he says. And you kind of read the story and you say, who does he think he is? Verse 20, he says, all these I have kept. And you say, did he ever lie to his parents? Of course he did.

Did he lust after a young woman? More than lightly. Did he break God's law in many, many other ways? Absolutely. Did he love his neighbor fully as himself?

Absolutely not. He just didn't get us. Do we? Do we realize that none of us can perfectly keep the law of a holy God's? Yet despite his confidence and his ability to keep God's law, he goes on, there's another question nagging at him.

Look at verse 20, he says, What do I still lack? He's got youth, which is tremendous. He has wealth, which is amazing. He has position. He's a ruler.

And despite all of these things, there's just like a niche that he is not able to scratch. That mosquito bite in the small of your back feels like this for this man. Simply questioning, have I done enough? Some of you like myself have been probably watching some of the Winter Olympics over the last couple of weeks. We won't talk about hockey here, but we've been watching all our sports there and the motto of the Olympic Games used to be just three words in Latin, Sidious, Altius, Fortius.

Faster, higher, stronger. So those athletes would have spent four years and many, many more years training hard, and in the midst of the training, they could never be sure that they had done enough, that they were strong enough, that they were fast enough, that they could attain that gold medal. This young man's problem was similar. He could never be sure that he'd done enough. Now you may struggle with this truth this morning.

You say to me, look, I'm basically a pretty good person. I've lived a pretty good life. Does that not count for anything? Well, the simple truth of the story is that you can never have certainty that you've done enough to gain that prize of eternal life. If it is your works, your self righteousness, it's never enough.

Let's look then at how that plays out now, his arrival, and then look verse 22, we see his departure. He went away sorrowful. You can insert a sad emoji here as a tear trickling down his cheek as he leaves Jesus' presence. Every step that he takes away from Jesus, every step as he walks away is one more step of confirmation that he is trusting in his wealth, that he is resisting Jesus' call. His wealth, Jesus exposes it there in verse 21.

He says to the man, If you would be perfect, go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. So what's Jesus doing here? He's combining the tenth commandment, you shall not covet, and then he's combining that with the first great commandment to love God with his whole being, and as he does so, he shows this young man that if he is to be perfect, meaning complete or mature, he has to be willing to give up his wealth and come and follow Jesus. To give it away was a sign of his absolute allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord. You see, discipleship here, verse 21, is the real issue.

The invitation is come follow me. It's all about discipleship. Now the only person that can command you and I to do that this morning, the only one who has absolute authority to make that command is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who can call you to surrender your whole life to him and follow him. Has your wealth become an idol to you?

Has it become a functional God in your life? The quote from the Canadian actor Jim Carrey, he said this, I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, So they will know that it's not the answer. It's not the answer. Maybe you hold wealth, possessions, money lightly, but your grip on another god or idol today is very, very firm. That idol, that God make him be so many things.

It could be the idol of control. You've got to be in control of situations or other people. It may be the idol of approval. You need, you live for the approval of friends, family. It may be the idol of sex or pleasure.

Maybe the idol of power, of comfort. How do you recognize what that idol is? Well, you'll recognize that idol when someone takes it away from you. When you're not in control of that person or that situation, how will you respond when you do not have the approval that you so desire from your peer group? When you don't have the finances to afford that pleasure that you long to pursue.

This young man's departure, what a contrast with another very wealthy man in Luke's gospel. The story is of a very corrupt tax collector who was visited or who invited Jesus to his home, a little man called Zacchaeus. Remember his story? He let go of his wealth. He promised half of his capital to the poor and he was willing to pay back four times the amount he had defrauded from other people.

Instead, this rich young ruler, we read here, it's sad departure, there's no suggestion here in the text that he ever did return to meet with Jesus. There's no suggestion that his wealth or his self righteousness earned him a place in God's kingdom, nor does Jesus pursue him. Doesn't pursue him, much to his disciples' horror. Let's move from the man, let's look at secondly, the son of man. Let's look the one who refers to himself, verse 28, the future reign of the son of man.

Here is this potential disciple disappeared over the horizon, much to the despair of the disciples, Jesus turns his disciples' minds and he talks to them about suffering and rewards. Sacrifice, wealth and rewards. So let's look together a few of your Bibles, let's turn to verses 23 to 26. Let's see Jesus teaching here on wealth. The disciples, like most of their contemporaries, would have believed that this young man was truly blessed by God, because like their contemporaries, they saw wealth as a sign of God's blessing.

Kind of a early form of the prosperity gospel that plagues the church today. Imagine their shock when they hear Jesus teaching in verse 23. He says, Only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. And then Jesus illustrates memorably this principle with the illustration there, verse 24, he says to his disciples, think about a camel. One hump or two, not told, picture a tiny eye of a needle, says.

Picture that eye of the needle. Picture this huge camel trying to squeeze through the eye of the needle, he says. This shows you how impossible it is for the self righteous, the self reliant to enter into the kingdom of heaven, to have eternal life. Now how, how is wealth such a stumbling block? How can wealth be such a difficulty for entrance into God's kingdom?

Listen to these words from the book of Proverbs chapter 18 verse 11. Kind of helps us here to understand. There the writer says, A rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination. So picture that high wall, strong city, my investment accounts, my RSPs, my health plan, my retirement policy, my career path. See how it all adds together?

I could trust in that, I could find security in one of those things. Wealth, you see, can be so intoxicating, it can be so deceptive to us. Picture Jesus' eyebrows, or the disciples' eyebrows being raised as they hear Jesus' teaching here. Look at their question there, verse 25, who then can be saved? They're just simply saying, look, if there's no hope for the wealthy, there's no hope for us.

Yet a person's wealth can be a hindrance to their turning from their self reliance and coming to faith in Jesus Christ. It can be a hindrance, but as we see, it does not necessarily have to be a barrier. Jesus said to them, verse 28, truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit in his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit in royal thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. There is entrance there for them. How is that possible?

Well, Jesus spells it out there. For God, all things are possible. Look at the words there, verse 26. With man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. That was the story for Zacchaeus, the tax collector.

Remember what Jesus said to him? Luke nineteen:nine, Today salvation has come to this house. He is the Lord God Almighty. He is a God who is able to save. We think of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary, explaining to Mary how she would give birth to the son of God.

How could this happen? She asks. And the angel says, Nothing will be impossible with God. From a human viewpoint today, our situation is absolutely helpless. Absolutely helpless.

But God in his grace is able to draw us to himself, give us a new heart and that gift of saving faith as we repent and turn from our sins, as we trust in Christ's finished work upon the cross. Let's say to you, if you're a believer here this morning, if you're a Christian, this is your true wealth. It's found not in anything you have in this world this morning, is found in this gift of eternal life. How do we know we have this gift? How do we know that God has done the impossible in our hearts?

Very simply this, we are day by day, moment by moment, trusting in the finished saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross, bearing our sins in our place, clothing us with his perfect righteousness. So we have there the wealth. What about the reward? Let's look down to that last little section there, verse 27 to the end. Again, Peter has performed, he's the first to blurt out some words there, verse 27, look at what he says.

We have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? So the word we is emphatic here. He keeps remembering perhaps Peter that day when he and his brother Andrew walked away from the family fishing business to follow Jesus. He says, what about us?

Now the question may seem a little self seeking, but to be fair to Peter, Jesus is not afraid of answering his concern about rewards. He recognizes, yes, Peter, Andrew, James and John, the 12, they had made immense sacrifices to surrender their lives to follow Jesus. And the reward we read there is out of the world. Again, look at the words of verse 28 there. They have this great promise of the new world, literally that means the regeneration.

We're going back in time to Daniel seven thirteen-fourteen anticipating the final enthronement of the Son of Man. The new heavens, the new earth, where Jesus will reign in all his power and his glory with his disciples, with the 12, reigning alongside Jesus. Look at the words there in verse 29, will inherit eternal life. And again, this is a reminder, you can never earn an inheritance. The nature of the word, the definition of the word reminds us that this is a gift that we cannot earn.

This heavenly, eternal inheritance, it's all of God's grace. And for the Christian who has made great sacrifices in this life, there is an assurance of eternal rewards, blessings in the age to come, but also look at verse 29. There are blessings also in this life. Jesus uses a word there a 100 fold. Those who have left home, their families, their city, their career to advance the gospel.

There is this promise, they will have a new family, new brothers and sisters in Christ, the local church, spiritual fathers, spiritual mothers to mentor them. But most of all, most important of all, they will have and they will enjoy eternal life now as well as in the future. So we live in this world as we think about wealth this morning and discipleship. We live in a world that you could summarize with the phrase tap and go. We started with the MasterCard, let's end with it there, tap and go so handy, tap there on the little device, purchases completes, tap and go.

Perhaps in your case, the tap is good works. Maybe it's membership of a church, maybe it's trusting in baptism, maybe it's being a good neighbor, maybe it's charitable donations that you say, if I tap using this, the door will open to the kingdom of heaven. Let me tell you with love, none of those will open that door. Instead, as we hear the question of this man, what must I do? The answer to his question is simply this, nothing.

Nothing as you turn from your sin, as you put your trust in the saving work, you do so in the work that has been done for you. Salvation is received. It's not achieved. It's not about doing, it's all about what Jesus has done on the cross, his saving work, that we would be clothed in his perfect righteousness. What an encouragement that is to you as believers today, when your progress is slow in the Christian life, it seems just incredibly slow to remember, God's love for you today is not based upon your performance in this past week.

No, you can never lose his love in Christ. It's all about his grace. It's not about our doing better. It's all about what Christ has done. Let's pray together.

Father God, we rejoice in this story of your amazing grace. We recognize in this story also, Lord, your call to discipleship, to repent of our sins and to put our trust in the saving work of Christ Jesus and to profess him as Lord publicly, Lord, as part of your church here in this world today. Lord God, we are thankful that you do not base your love upon our performance over these last days, but we praise you, Lord, for your grace that enables us to walk in a life of holiness and obedience as we respond to your love for us in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.