The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on June 25, 2023. The Bible verses used are Matthew 19:16-30.
The passage we read tonight is one that I think gets
misinterpreted sometimes. Or maybe “misinterpreted” isn’t the right term–it’s
just that I think there’s more to it than we might think at first glance.
This passage starts by telling us about a rich man.
The man comes to Jesus asking what he must do to be saved. Jesus tells
him to follow the commandments and the man says he already does. So Jesus
tells him that what he needs to do is sell everything, give the money to the
poor, and follow Jesus.
The man walks away, sad. And that’s when Jesus says
what he says in the first verse of our reading for tonight, about it being
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go
to heaven.
And a lot of times, that’s where we stop. And we talk
about greed, and about how we need to be willing to give and so forth.
But I don’t think that’s really what this story is about. I think it’s
about the next two verses.
First, we’re told, the disciples were “greatly astonished”
at what Jesus said. See, the common belief at that time was that wealth
was a reward God gave you for having lived a good life. There were
exceptions of course–the tax collectors, for example, or thieves–people who had
clearly gotten their money in bad ways. But for the most part, the rich
were admired and were considered to have found favor with God.
So what Jesus said about the rich not being able to get to
heaven, well, that just did not compute. That made no sense to
them. Their response, “Who then can be saved?” basically means, well,
good grief, if this rich man–who not only has obviously found favor with God
but, who, by his own account, has kept the commandments faithfully–if this man
cannot go to heaven, then who can? What chance do any of us have, if this
guy cannot even make it?
And Jesus answers them. He says, “With man this is
impossible, but with God, all things are possible.”
Jesus answers the question “What chance do we have” by
saying “None.” You have no chance whatsoever–if you’re going to rely on
yourselves. The only chance any of you–any of us–have of getting to heaven
is through the grace of God.
That’s what this passage is really all about. It’s
not about how hard it is for the rich to go to heaven. It’s about how
hard it is for anyone to get to heaven. Unless. Unless we
truly believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior.
And that’s where the rich man got it wrong. Look at
the question he asked. “What good thing must I do to inherit eternal
life?” He thought that he could earn his way into heaven. I mean,
look at what he was willing to do. He was willing to do more than just
follow the commandments. He said, yeah, I’m already following the
commandments, but I’m willing to do more. Just tell me some good thing to
do, and I’ll do it.
When Jesus responded the way he did, telling the rich man
to sell everything, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus, I don’t think
Jesus was setting a standard that everyone has to follow. What Jesus was
doing, really, was showing what the problem was with trying to get to heaven by
following the law.
Remember, before Jesus came, that’s how the people of
Israel thought you got to heaven. You followed the law. If you
followed it perfectly, you got to heaven. You made sacrifices, asking God
for forgiveness for all the times you failed. And then you started trying
to follow the law perfectly again. You were trying to earn your way into
heaven by how good you were.
But it did not work. And it could not work.
Because, as Jesus said, the only one who is good is God. Humans cannot
possibly be good enough to go to heaven. The rich man who talked to
Jesus, who followed the commandments perfectly, was still not good enough to go
to heaven. The disciples were not good enough to go to heaven. It’s
impossible for anyone to be good enough to go to heaven. It’s impossible
for us.
But with God, all things are possible. That’s why God
sent the divine Son, Jesus Christ, to earth. Whoever believes in Him
shall have salvation and eternal life. By sending Jesus to earth, God
took the impossible and made it possible. It’s not possible for us, by
our goodness, to go to heaven. But when we have faith in Jesus Christ, we
have God’s goodness imputed to us. And in God’s eyes, we are good enough
to go to heaven, even though we clearly are not. It was impossible for
us. But with God, it was possible. In fact, it’s more than
possible. It’s a sure thing. If we believe in Jesus Christ as the
Savior, we are saved. Period.
When Jesus tells the disciples all this, Peter, of course,
has to have something to say about it. Peter says, “We have left
everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
Jesus tells them they will receive a reward. He tells
them that everyone who has given up things for Him will receive a reward.
But again, it’s not because of their goodness. It’s because of their
faith.
Think about when Jesus first called the disciples.
Did Jesus choose them because they were the best, holiest people around?
No. If Jesus had been looking for the holiest people around, he probably
would’ve started with the priests and the Pharisees, right? Did Jesus
choose them because they were the richest people around? No. They
don’t appear to have been living lives of poverty before they met Jesus, but
they were not the richest people. If Jesus had been looking for people
like that, he’d have looked in palaces, not along the lakeshore.
And when the disciples responded to Jesus, did any of them
ever ask what they were going to get out of it? When Jesus said, “follow
me”, did any of them respond, “What’ll you give me if I do”? No.
The disciples did not follow Jesus for what they could get out of it. In
fact, a lot of times what they got was hardship. But they followed Jesus
anyway, because they believed in Him.
The disciples believed that Jesus was the divine Son of
God. They did not know what that meant, exactly, especially not at
first. I don’t know if they ever fully understood what it meant.
For that matter, I don’t know if we fully understand now what it means.
But that’s okay. It was okay for the disciples. And it’s okay for
us.
The disciples did not fully understand who Jesus was, but
they understood enough. They understood that they were following Jesus,
not because of how good they were, but because of how good and how great Jesus
was. They understood that, as Peter once said, Jesus had the words of
salvation and eternal life. They were following Jesus because, despite
all the times they tried to tell Jesus what to do and all the times they tried
to push themselves forward, the disciples knew they were sinners, and they knew
that only Jesus had the power to forgive their sins and to save them. And
they knew that salvation, above all else, was the one thing they needed most.
That’s all you and I need to understand, too. We
don’t have to understand everything about Jesus. I don’t even know if
that’s possible. But we need to follow Jesus anyway, just like the
disciples did. We need to follow Him, not because of how good we are, but
because of how good and how great Jesus is. We need to follow Him, and
read His message, because Jesus had and still has the words of salvation and
eternal life. We need to follow because, despite all the times we try to
tell Him what to do and despite all the times we try to push ourselves forward,
we know, deep down, that we are sinners. And we know that only Jesus has
to power to forgive our sins and save us. And salvation, above all else,
is the one thing we need most.
It
is impossible for any of us to be good enough to go to heaven. For
humans, it’s impossible. But with God, all things are possible.
Including our salvation.
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that
whoever believes in Him shall have salvation and eternal life. It was
impossible for us. But it was more than possible for God.
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