The Gospel of Luke 18:15-27 – Rich young ruler
Luke 18:15-27 · Vern Peterman · May 8, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 69
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926532543101

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We're going to be stepping our way here through Luke 18, 15-27. So we'll start by just kind of revisiting where are we in the big picture in terms of Jesus' earthly ministry. By the end of this month, we'll be going into Luke 19. We'll begin there with the account of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector.

That will take place about a week before Christ's crucifixion, just to give you an idea. So right here where we're at, we're getting close, getting close to the time of crucifixion week. The most recent chronological studies have set the date of the crucifixion, okay? It's April 3rd, 33 AD, and so that gives us a more particular time that we're getting close to here.

There are two parts in this particular passage. The first part, and shorter, is about people bringing babies for Jesus to touch and bless them. And the disciples say no, and Jesus says yes. He outvoted them. Anyway, so we'll read about that. And then the other part is what's called the rich young ruler, although the idea of being young is actually not in this passage, but in the parallel account in Matthew. And he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, right? And so we'll take a look at that. Jesus' answer actually just blows this young man away. So he becomes very sad, and we'll see what that looks like here.

Here's Luke 18.15, and they were bringing even their babies to him so that he would touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. So here's the parents bringing the babies, and he's saying, no, no, no, is what the disciples are doing.

So it is actually somewhat of a tradition for people to bring their children, babies even, to the rabbis, and the rabbis would bless them. Of course, rabbis have to have a blessing for everything, you know. That's the tradition. Because everything's got a special blessing for it, including babies. The New American Standard uses the word babies. Several other translations use infants. You get the idea, basically. So they're bringing very tiny ones, very young ones, ones who are in arms for Jesus to bless them.

While bringing the children to be blessed by a rabbi was indeed a good Jewish tradition, that was fine, can you imagine having Jesus, the healer and miracle worker, blessing your babies? Wouldn't that be cool? Actually, maybe it wouldn't. There might be a reason you wouldn't want Jesus to bless your babies.

Think about this. Remember in Luke 9, we had Jesus presented with just two fish and five loaves. And what did He do with them? He blessed them and all of a sudden there was lots of fish and lots of loaves. You can imagine what's happening. He blessed the baby and pretty soon he got a whole room full of babies. What are you going to do with 50 kids?

So maybe you wouldn't want to have Jesus bless your babies. You'd bless too much. So he would touch them. That's actually a euphemism, a figure of speech, for placing his hands usually on the head and saying a blessing, but he actually would hug them. For a rabbi to bless the children, that was a fine tradition.

But they, that is the children, didn't have any status in the Jewish culture. So that's one reason that some of the rabbis would just kind of say, no, I can put my time into that. And I think the disciples were probably keying off of that. Because the children didn't have any status. Yes, they're cute. Both love them, but no social status.

The disciples began making priority decisions for Jesus. We've got a busy rabbi here and we don't want to take up his time with just all these babies. We don't want time for that. So they thought that the children were low priority because everybody else did. So here's Mark 10, 13 through 16, which is a parallel account, and it adds this feature that touching them also means blessing them. So in verse 16, And he took them in his arms and began blessing them, laying his hands on them. So the laying on of hands or touching included the blessing idea. As the parents brought their little ones to Jesus to have Him bless them, the disciples, viewing this activity as a waste of Jesus' precious time, began telling the parents not to bring their children. No, no, no, no. Stay away. Don't bring your children here. He doesn't have time for that. Right?

No, no, no, no, no. So the disciples had forgotten that Jesus had taken a child. This was earlier in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 9. and put Him next to him, telling the disciples, whoever receives this child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me, he goes on.

And so, here it says in Luke 9.46-48, an argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest. So that gives us the context here. But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by his side. and said to them, whoever receives this child in My name, receives Me. And whoever receives Me, receives Him who sent Me.

For the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is the greatest." Now they were slow to understand both this lesson and the one who is least among you is the one who is the greatest because they started arguing about that right before the Garden of Gethsemane. So this was a lesson they were slow to learn.

So here in Luke 18, 16, and 17, Jesus called for them, saying, "'Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.'" So, permit and do not hinder. Jesus told His disciples to reverse their thinking and their actions regarding the parents and children. You can imagine, for a moment it was a little confusing. Here's the disciples, they're saying, don't bring the kids here. And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, don't discourage them from bringing the kids here.

So, oh, alright. So they're figuring it out. So, permit the children to come to Me. So you know what the disciples did? They started writing out permits. No, no. Anyway. No, do allow them was His intent. Do not hinder them as you have been doing. So he has to go and state it positively. Yes, permit them. Don't hinder them. To get it clear. Because he has to completely reverse what they've been doing. But he also has to reverse their thinking. What caused them in the first place to do this. So there's a very important reason that you must allow them and not hinder.

And that has to do with the Kingdom of God here. The Kingdom is the yet future reign of Christ as the King of Israel and the King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentile nations. So those are two separate titles. And He will come as King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentile nations at the same time.

The message that Christ taught that the Jews found shocking is that entry into the kingdom was qualified. A great many of the Jews thought that just because I'm Jewish, of course I'm going into the kingdom. They had a myth that Abraham was going to stand at the gates of hell to make sure no Jew ever went in.

So that was their thinking. These children naturally had qualities that were required for Jews in order for them to enter the kingdom. So he says, not only should you bring them here and let me bless them, but they should come here. They are of value. As a matter of fact, they exemplify the very characteristics necessary for the Jews to get in. So that's also the reason why you need to have them here, and you need to let them come here, and you need to let me bless them. When we say the kingdom, we want to be clear about what we're referring to in that.

Stepping through a timeline wise, we have the first coming of Christ, and we're reading about that in the Gospel of Luke, right? And his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension from the backside of the Mount of Olives. And then you have the church age, which we're living in now. And then the next prophetic event is the rapture, the taking up of the church, those who are believers from Acts 2 until the time of the rapture, the taking up of the church to be with the Lord and to be away from this earth during that following period, which is the tribulation period, a seven-year period of time, at the end of which will be the second coming of Christ.

He will come again then and he will take us with him when he comes again. When he comes again, we'll begin the time of what's called the millennial kingdom. Other words and phrases that are used, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, or sometimes just kingdom.

It's that future period of time. It hasn't started yet. The church is not the kingdom here and now, right? Believe it or not, that idea is of pagan origin. So to be clear about the kingdom, the millennial kingdom or kingdom or the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, those are all equivalent terms.

We'll follow Christ's second coming to earth when we will come with Him. Our entry into the kingdom will be on the basis, our entry, will be on the basis of just one question. Just one. Do you believe that Christ, the Son of God, died for your sins, was buried, and rose again? That question. If the answer is yes, then you'll be in the kingdom, right? You'll be in the coming kingdom when you come with Christ.

Now you may recall, this is Luke 18, 14. This is what we looked at just last week. Jesus said, I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. And so we see an example in these children here.

The little children having no social status in the Jewish culture. represented humility rather than the typical pursuit of personal status. Among the Jews, when they were adults, it was a very high priority to go and try to find your way up the status ladder and to fight your way up that ladder and to try to get yourself as far as you could up it. He said, but the kids, they're humble. They're not a part of that whole system.

Yes, they grow up into it, but when they're young and born, they don't have any part of that. In a loving home, the little children represent the trust that one is to place in the Lord Jesus. It is only as people grow older that they learn not to trust and what to trust and where to trust, but naturally trusting is typical of these infants. In addition to that, the little children are dependent upon their parents. In fact, what do we do when we raise kids? We bring them from a place of complete dependence to hopefully a place of complete independence, right? So they're not reliant upon the parents. But these children are an example of complete dependence, and that's exactly what the Lord wants us to do, is to be completely dependent upon Him.

Now we turn to the account as it's called, Jesus and the rich young ruler, right? Jesus and the rich young ruler. Again, we make the point that Matthew and Mark and Luke, all three, have as part of their record this account of what's called the rich young ruler. It is the account in Matthew that brings up the fact that he is young. What we find out here in Dr. Luke's account is that the focus is on his being rich, wealthy.

So, here's Luke 18.18, a ruler questioned him saying, good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

So, you may recall a very similar question asked in Luke 10.25, a lawyer, and in those days a lawyer meant someone who was an expert in the law and very likely a scribe as well, stood up and put him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And so now we have something to look at.

This is not an honest question. It's not an honest question. He put him to the test. He's trying to needle him and get some answers. Right. So when we go back into this account of the rich young ruler, this guy is not sincere. And we'll see that as we get to it. All right, so this is a rich young ruler. It's made of gold, it's brand new, and it's a ruler. Anyway, okay, enough silliness.

Okay, we're not told by Dr. Luke what kind of ruler this man was. We don't know whether he's head of a synagogue, for example, but more likely he is some sort of a secular official, particularly indicating that he's wealthy and probably made good of that position.

The ruler addressed Jesus as good teacher, to which Jesus responded. It's one of the reasons why we see this as a test, is Jesus keeps coming back to this guy and not just giving him some sort of a straight answer. And then he asked what he must do to inherit eternal life, very similarly to the lawyer or scribe that we saw earlier there in chapter 10. It would have been seen as kingdom resurrection, that is, resurrection back into the kingdom, this coming kingdom in which the Messiah would reign.

So here's Luke 18-19, And Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. So this man called Jesus good teacher. And by the way, this is the only instance or the only person in the Gospels that comes up and calls Jesus good teacher. We don't have any other record that he did so, that anyone else did so. This man sees Jesus as a teacher.

He does not recognize, hey, I am talking to the eternal Son of God. He doesn't see that. Good teacher. And by the way, by the way, this rich young ruler is looking for an affirmative answer that would confirm him, oh, you're on the right path. That's what he's looking for. He's not going to get it, as we'll soon see, right?

Jesus asked why the man would call Jesus good. He asked the man this rhetorical question. Notice there's no response. because he wants to stimulate this man to think about who he, Jesus, is. Why do you call me good? Only God is good. The Bible teaches that God is three personal beings, one essence. We have this diagram and table in your handout there on page three.

And let me explain what some of these things are saying. The Father is not the Son, as demonstrated in John 18, 1-11, when the Father and the Son are shown to be two separate persons. The Son is not the Holy Spirit, as shown by Acts 10.38.

And the Holy Spirit is not the Father, which is John 14.26. So they are three separate persons. But they are all three God. So this is something that's kind of hard for us to wrap our mind around. We're used to one person, one essence. But God is three persons, one essence. There's only one God, not three gods. One God is three personal beings, one essence.

The first place that this is brought up in the Bible is where God says, let us make mankind in our image. So we have some reference examples in the table off to the right that shows the Father to be deity, the Son to be deity, and the Holy Spirit, and I'll leave it to you to follow through on that if you like. Here's Luke 18, 20-21, you know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and he said, all these things I have kept from my youth.

Here, maybe for the first time in years, is the Ten Commandments right in front of you. Is that heresy at Holly Hills? Anyway, there it is. Okay. So the Ten Commandments, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol. And by the way, these are shortened in general from the full explanation, but nonetheless they're there. So you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

The next Several of them relate to other people. Starting with the commandment number five, honor your father and mother, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, and finally you shall not covet.

Very interestingly, the Jews, the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox churches, and by that I mean like Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, etc. And the Protestants, who pay any attention to this, all break it down a little differently. So it's very interesting. But it is these here, over off on the column to the right, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, that Jesus brings up with this man. They are all ones relating to your relationships with other people.

So Jesus comes off. You know this, right? Because remember, this guy's question is not a sincere one. So Jesus is, you know, just kind of, you know this stuff, right? Yeah. Jesus told the man that he knew the commandments and listed the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th commandments of the 10th. The man claimed to have followed them all since his youth, and this was common.

As a matter of fact, we find the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3.6. As to the law, it was found blameless, right? I followed them too. Jesus did not bring up the man's responsibilities before God in the first four commandments, nor did he bring up coveting, the last of them. Hmm. Why? We'll see.

Luke 18.22, when Jesus heard this, He said to him, One thing you still lack, sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven. Come, follow Me. By the way, this is very shocking for this guy to hear this. You still lack. You still fall short.

Knowing that this man was very wealthy and knowing the man's heart, Jesus told the man to sell all of his possessions. How many? All of his possessions, and give them to the poor and then follow him, Christ. Now, Jesus told him that in selling everything and giving it to the poor, the man would have treasure in heaven. and then he should come and follow Jesus as a disciple.

So Luke 18.23, But when he, the rich young ruler, had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

The man's wealth may have been apparent from some outward evidence, and his wealth may even have become known to others. Ever see some of these, you know, magazine articles and they'll list, you know, the richest people, you know, and the richest in each state and things like that? This guy may have actually been someone that, oh yeah, that's the rich guy, you know. He's the richest guy in this county or whatever it is, right? And so that may have been evident to everyone. But unlike the society and the way we talk, This man knew Jesus' heart. He knew the heart of his request and the heart of his question. So, was there essentially a problem with this man being extremely rich? Not by itself. Think about this.

Abraham. Was Abraham saved? Was Abraham a man of God? Yes. Was he rich? Yes. Now, Joseph, once he got through being You know, sent to jail and all those kinds of things. I'm talking about Joseph, the son of Jacob. He was made second in command in all of Egypt. And then he was very rich. Was he a godly man? Yeah. Godly man.

And you can have other examples of someone who was wealthy and it wasn't necessarily a problem. In this guy, wealth was a problem. And in the culture, wealth was a problem. This man's heart connection to his wealth was a big problem, as we'll soon see. And Jesus knew that right at the outset. He knew the question that was coming to him was not a sincere question.

The problem is this man broke the first and the tenth commandments. All right. So the man could claim to have kept other commandments, but he could not claim to have kept the first commandment because his money was an idol. Right? He couldn't claim to keep the tenth commandment. Why?

Because as soon as he sold off all of his goods and gave the money to the poor, he would be coveting all the goods he just sold off. Oh, I wish I had that thing that I sold off. Right? He would immediately fall into that. The man put his wealth as a god, lowercase g, ahead of God, uppercase G. And the man could also not sell all of his possessions and not covet everything that he just sold off. So the first and the tenth were a problem for him. You shall have no other gods before me, even your goods that you make gods. You shall not covet. Oh, I hate selling this stuff. Then I'll get money, but then I'll give it away. Oh, I can't do that. The man put his wealth as a godhead of God, and the man could also not sell all of his possessions and not covet all the things that he just sold.

There are two cultural insights that are very important for us to properly understand and interpret this parable. By the way, this has been badly interpreted a number of times. It was popular to say, in the culture of the time, that if a man were well off, it was because the man had followed the law of Moses, and was therefore blessed in material ways. Deuteronomy 28, 1-14 says, if you do this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and you do the law of Moses all correctly, then I will bless you, and I will bless you in this way, and it's all earthly material ways. So people therefore concluded that if someone was well off, if they were physically wealthy, that they must be blessed by God and they must be doing things right. As a matter of fact, the rich were assumed to be the most certainly saved of anyone, especially if you were a Jewish rich man following the law, as far as everyone else could tell.

Another thing, the rabbis said that one should not sell everything and give it to the poor. So what did Jesus just done? He had just told them to do what all the rest of the rabbis said, don't do this. It would be considered irresponsible to do that because then you would lack later support.

So what Jesus said to do was just shocking. It was not at all the answer He was expecting, the rich man was expecting. He was expecting a very confirming answer, an answer that would say, hey, you're doing great. Instead, He got an answer that just stunned him and made him extremely sad. He, I am certain, wished he had not asked the question.

Here's Luke 18, 24 and 25, and Jesus looked at him and said, How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. For 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. Now, a lot of people read that and say, ah, it must be bad to have wealth. That's not the point. The point, remembering that the Jews thought that if you were wealthy, that certainly it must be because God blessed you and you're doing everything right.

Now, in order to have a camel go through the eye of a needle, you either have to have a very large needle, right? or very small camel. One way or the other, because ordinarily that's not going to happen. And by the way, the needle going through the camel, don't go there. How many camel herders does it take to get a camel through the eye of a needle? How many? Forget about it! The camel does not want to go through the eye of a needle, okay?

That's the other problem, right? It's not just a size problem, it's getting the camel to want to go through the eye of a needle, no matter what the size is of the camel or the needle. Okay, Jesus' point here is not to make a difficult figure of speech or illustration.

His point is not that, but to say it's impossible, okay? What this guy had asked is, what can I do to inherit eternal life? What can I do? Do-it-yourself salvation is not going to work. That's what Jesus is telling them. You don't make homemade salvation. Not happening. That's his point. It is impossible to get that camel through the eye of a needle. And it is impossible to make homemade salvation. What can I do? Nothing. Not a thing.

Right? So it's not just a little difficult. You know, you really got to work at it. It doesn't require some extraordinary effort or diligence or persistence. It's impossible! That's the point. It's simply, absolutely, humanly impossible. You cannot make do-it-yourself salvation. You cannot make homemade salvation. Not happening. That's Jesus' point here.

So Luke 18, 26 and 27, They who heard it said, Then who can be saved? Why did they say, Then who can be saved? Because they assumed that the rich man especially one following the law like that, was blessed by God, and certainly they're saved. So to say that the rich man can't enter the Kingdom of Heaven, they're thinking, oh, if he can't, then nobody has a chance. That's what they're thinking. And Jesus is trying to get it across. There is no way that homemade, do-it-yourself salvation is going to work. It's impossible. But he said that things that are impossible with people are possible with God. God can save you, but you cannot save yourself. Not happening, okay? Not happening.

So who can be saved? They reasoned that this man was rich because he was being rewarded for following faithfully the law of Moses. It's impossible for the rich man to be saved, and nobody has a chance. But they understood it wrong. Who can possibly be saved at all?

So that's when Jesus says it is impossible for men, just like trying to get that camel, get that camel to want to go through the eye of the needle, and then to go through the eye of the needle, not happening. But it is possible for God. Only God can save. Period. There's nothing we can do that will cinch it. Only by trusting in God can one be saved.

I grew up in a Christian home where my grandmother had been a missionary to the cannibals in Fiji, and she stopped over in Hawaii and was a missionary there for a time. My grandfather was a pastor all his career lifetime. I had two sets of aunts and uncles that were missionaries initially with new tribes for decades and decades and decades in Latin America. I grew up in a Christian home with lots of background. And it was good to have all that background.

But you know what? It doesn't do anything to save me. With all that background, there's still no homemade, do-it-yourself salvation. And Christ died for my sins. For me. Only by trusting in God can one be saved. Not one's background, not one's wealth, not one's activity level. Nothing, nothing will make it humanly possible to pull off your own salvation.

It brings a question for us, where is our trust as believers? Both the example of the children in 15 through 17, where the children were very trusting of their parents and others around them. And the rich young ruler in verses 18 through 27, where his trust was in his wealth, bring up the question of where is our trust? Where is our trust? Each day, where is our confidence?

Certainly we trust in people, and we should. And in things, numerous times a day, you're sitting in pews, you trust the pews. The pews are sitting on a floor that, by the way, is suspended above the ground, so you must trust the floor. So, yes, we trust things every day, but ultimately our trust needs to be in the Lord.

For everything in life and beyond life, this man was thinking that somehow his being wealthy guaranteed something beyond this life. And it didn't. And it doesn't. We also depend upon people and things every day, but the Lord intends that our ultimate dependence is upon Him. Our ultimate dependence is upon Him. He wants us to trust Him, not just for our initial salvation, but He wants us to trust Him for things here in this life and beyond. He wants us to depend upon Him. every day until we see him face to face.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your lessons here. And while we see that these two illustrations of the babies and this rich man are in some sense opposite, they point to the same thing. They point to where do we trust, and where do we place our trust every day, and where is our dependence? In our heart of hearts, where is our reliance? And so, Lord, we just pray that you would teach us these lessons deeper and deeper still. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.