I’m going to tell you what I think the main point of this text is so that as we move through the text you can put it to the test. I want you to be asking as we work our way through this text — eyes on God’s word, to test my word — “Has he got it? Is he onto Luke’s point? Or has he imported this from his own ideas into the text? Is it coming out of the text as Luke has written the story?” Luke is the inspired writer here, not me. Can we see the point in this story as Luke has written it? And then, if it’s here, how shall we live?

The main point of this text is this: God does the humanly impossible to save sinners by turning sadness at losing money into gladness at gaining Jesus.

I think the story comes to a climax with this main point in Luke 18:26–27:

Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

In verse 26, the people say, “Jesus, if what you just said is true, then salvation is impossible for everybody. Who can be saved?” To which Jesus did not reply in verse 27, “Oh you totally missed the point. I didn’t mean to give the impression that salvation was impossible.” No. In fact, that’s exactly the impression he meant to give, and he confirms it by saying, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” And if you prefer, you can switch out the word “saved” in verse 26 with the phrase “enter the kingdom of God” at the end of verse 25. He says, “For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25).

In this story, being saved and entering God’s kingdom means the same thing. When you enter God’s kingdom, you are saved from the consequences of not being in God’s kingdom — namely, bearing the penalty of your own sin in hell. That is the opposite of eternal life, which is what this text begins and ends with — how to inherit eternal life.

Valley of Dry Bones

Someone might be saying at this moment, “Then what are we here for? And what are you preaching for? If there’s nothing we can do to enter the kingdom, then what’s the point of you even telling us that?” I spoke like that once upon a time, 57 years ago. And I have some precious people in my life who think that way. Here’s the answer, and it is very simple. (Isn’t it wonderful and amazing how some very great things are simple?)

“God must work a miracle, the impossible, to change what makes us sad and what makes us glad.”

The answer is that God has planned that through the preaching of his word he would do the impossible in the lives of sinners by giving them life, opening their eyes to see the beauty of Christ, and changing their hearts so that instead of being sad at losing money, they would be glad at gaining Jesus. If I thought every one of you was spiritually dead and blind and deaf to the truth and beauty of Christ, I would not think my preaching was pointless.

Do you recall what God said to the prophet Ezekiel? He showed him a field of skeletons and said,

“Son of man, can these bones live?” And [Ezekiel] answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then [God] said to [Ezekiel], “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. [And God said to the bones:] Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” (Ezekiel 37:3–5)

It’s not pointless to preach to dead people. It’s not pointless to say this morning to any of you who is spiritually dead, “Live!” because God makes the word of God the means of the miracle of new life, of salvation, of entering the kingdom of God. We’re not wasting our time this morning, whoever you are.

So, let’s walk through the text and test this main point: God does the humanly impossible to save sinners by turning sadness at losing money into gladness at gaining Jesus.

Good Teacher

A ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18). And surprisingly, what Jesus picks up on in this request is the word good. Luke 18:19 says, “And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’” There are at least three surprising things about this response. First it seems uncalled for, because the rich man is probably going to respond, if he had a chance, “I was just trying to be nice. I didn’t mean any big theological statement.” That’s probably true.

The second surprising thing is that Jesus himself called other people good. In Luke 6:45, he says, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.” Luke 19:17 says, “Well done, good servant!” He knows there’s an ordinary use of the word good for human beings. That’s not mistaken.

The third surprising thing is that he doesn’t give any time for this man, or anybody else, to answer his question, but just moves on with the first question about how to inherit eternal life. If you take verse 19 out, verses 18 and 20 flow naturally: “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, [and so on].’”

What’s going on here? What’s the point? Here’s what I think Jesus is doing. That little phrase at the end of verse 19, “except God alone,” occurs two other places in the New Testament. One of them is the parallel to this text in Mark. The other one is when Jesus said to the lame man, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” and the scribes objected, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5, 7). And everybody got the point — a point that would get Jesus crucified — namely, “I do claim for myself what belongs to God alone because I am the Son of God. There it was forgiveness; here it is goodness. I claim the divine privilege of forgiveness; I claim the divine attribute of goodness.”

So, I believe what Jesus is doing, out of the blue in verse 19, is taking this man’s words (“good teacher”) and planting the thought in his mind that the one he was dealing with is good beyond anything he could imagine. He is saying, “I am infinitely good, rich man.” Jesus is planting the thought his mind that could prepare him for the choice he’s going have to make between money and Jesus.

He is saying, “Do you think money is good? Do you think wealth is good? Let’s start this conversation with what is really good. I’m as good as it gets. You want a treasure. I am an infinitely good, true, valuable, desirable treasure. God alone is good. And I am good. Let that sink in.” It’s a statement, not a question. So he doesn’t stop for an answer.

You Know the Commandments

Now, in verse 20 we go back to the issue of how to inherit eternal life. Jesus directs the man’s attention to the Ten Commandments and mentions commandment 7, commandment 6, commandment 8, and commandment 5. There’s no biblical order, no interpretation, and no explanation. He didn’t say, “This is how you get eternal life” or “This is how you show that you have eternal life.” He just threw it out there. And the man says in verse 21, “All these I have kept from my youth.”

Why didn’t Jesus respond by saying, “So you know the answer; why are you asking me?” He didn’t say that because it’s not true. This man did not believe that law-keeping could get you into eternal life. If he had believed that, he wouldn’t have come to Jesus because he knew he was a good Ten Commandment keeper before he asked the question. And he knew that commandment-keeping doesn’t get you into the kingdom of God. And he knew it because that’s what the Old Testament teaches, and he was a good Old Testament Jew.

Justification — getting right with God — happens through faith (Genesis 15:6), and the law, coming 430 years later, doesn’t change that (Galatians 3:17). And the law itself taught that substitutionary blood sacrifices are the way to have forgiveness of sins (Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22). And all thoughtful saints of the Old Testament knew that the blood of bulls and goats could never take aways sins (Psalm 51:16; Hebrews 10:4). That’s why they looked to that glorious chapter 53 of Isaiah, where God’s servant the Messiah (not an animal!) would be “pierced for our transgressions; crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5) — namely, the one called mighty God, everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6), who must die to take away sins. There’s no reason to treat this man as if he didn’t know that.

This rich man had done his best to be a moral, law-keeping follower of God, and he knew something more was needed in order to inherit eternal life, and he was simply asking, “Good teacher, what is it?” Jesus was happy to give him the answer.

One Thing You Lack

Luke 18:22 says, “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, ‘One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’” Don’t get sidetracked about whether you need to give away all your money in order to be a Christian. You don’t (probably), and we know that because in the next chapter, we read about that glorious conversion of Zacchaeus, who was also rich, illegally rich. But something changed when Jesus came into his life:

Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.” (Luke 19:8–9)

So, he is saying, “Rich man, you give away everything. Zaccheaus, you give away half. And we will know that salvation has come to these men.” It will be plain in a moment what Jesus has to say about your money. But for now, you can see that what you do with it is a big deal.

So, what did Jesus mean when he said in Luke 18:22, “One thing you still lack,” and then tells him three things to do? First, “Sell all that you have.” Second, “and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Third, “and come, follow me.” I have a picture in my mind that I think makes sense out of this.

Picture this rich man’s heart as my fist. It is closed around his riches. And Luke 18:23 says he was “extremely rich.” And we know that “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). His heart was firmly gripping these riches. When Jesus says, “Follow me. I’m the ultimate treasure, and I’m the ultimate good. Take me into your heart as your supreme treasure” (Luke 18:19) — for that to happen, he needs to open his heart. And what happens when he opens his heart to Jesus is that the money falls out, and when it falls it should fall on the poor. Don’t let it fall in the river. It’s supposed to bless people and show them the triumph of Jesus over money in your life.

He is saying, “And now follow me and close with me as your treasure and your good. That’s how you have eternal life. That’s how you enter the kingdom of God. That’s how you are saved. The only thing you lack is me as your greatest treasure.”

How Difficult for the Rich

Now comes his response. Verse 23: “But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.” Notice, it doesn’t say he walked away. In both Matthew and Mark, when they tell this story, he walks away. That’s not what Luke is focusing on. Luke is focusing on the condition of the man’s heart. He is “very sad.”

It’s supposed to be shocking. Standing in front of him is infinite goodness, who says to him, “If you follow me, you will have treasure in heaven (verse 22), eternal life (verse 18), entrance into the kingdom of God (verse 24), and infinite goodness in the person of the Son of God as your King and your friend. And all you will lose is money.” And the last thing we hear about him is that he was very sad (Luke 18:23–24). The prospect of losing money and gaining Jesus made him sad. What makes you glad — having Jesus or having money?

And now, in verses 24–25, Jesus interprets what just happened and applies it more widely.

Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth 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 person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:24–25)

Notice that he’s not saying the love of money makes it difficult to enter the kingdom of God, but money. “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” That’s most of us in this room, by global standards. And notice the shift from difficult to impossible in verses 24 and 25. Verse 24 is difficult. How difficult? Verse 25 says it’s so difficult that it’s impossible. A camel cannot go through the eye of a needle.

The audience hears this and throws their hands up in verse 26: “Those who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’” The crowd concluded that nobody could be saved if this man can’t be. Why? Because he was a moral, law-keeping, sacrifice-making follower of Moses — and he was a rich man, which was often a sign of God’s blessing.

Jesus did not disagree with their conclusion that salvation is impossible for everybody if we are left to ourselves. So, he says in verse 27, “You’re right, but what is impossible with man is possible with God.” Who then can be saved? Nobody, left to themselves. It is impossible to give yourself life, to make yourself see if you’re blind, or to make yourself glad in the worth of Christ when you are sad at the prospect of losing your money.

God’s Power for Man’s Impossibility

That’s what the issue boils down to in this text and in our lives: the presence of sadness at losing his money (verses 23–24) and the absence of gladness at gaining Jesus. That’s the condition of every person until God does the impossible. The heart that has sadness at losing money and no gladness in replacing it with Jesus is the camel that cannot get through the eye of the needle. God must work a miracle, the impossible, to change what makes us sad and what makes us glad.

I think the interchange with Peter at the end is added by Luke to drive home the point that when God really does work this impossibility, which he has for Peter and the apostles, it really is a matter of great gladness, in spite of all losses:

And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:28–30)

It would turn this text on its head if you took verse 30 (“You will receive many times more in this time”) to mean this: “If the rich man will temporarily lay down his five-million-dollar stock portfolio and follow Jesus, pretty soon in this life he’ll get back a fifty-million-dollar stock portfolio. It says so right there: ‘many times more in this time.’”

“If you love Jesus more than anything this world can offer, you are a walking miracle, an impossibility.”

It would turn this text on its head if you gave it that meaning. The point was to show him that his treasure and his heart are in the wrong place. What verses 28–30 mean is that whatever losses God calls you to endure for the sake of the kingdom — for the sake of being with Jesus — it will be worth it now (there will be many blessings now, like Acts 20:35), and it will be infinitely rewarded in the coming kingdom. Walking with Jesus on the hard road that leads to life is a far greater blessing than to walk without Jesus on the easy road that leads to destruction.

Sadness to Gladness

So, here’s the main point: God does the humanly impossible to save sinners by turning sadness at losing money into gladness at gaining Jesus. This implies:

1. If you are a Christian — that is, if you love Jesus more than anything this world can offer — you are a walking miracle, an impossibility. Be sure the miracle worker gets the thanks.

2. Money is dangerous. Put governors on your spending, and as you make more, give more. Those who desire to be rich fall into ruin (1 Timothy 6:9).

3. Don’t fall for the prosperity gospel, which puts a dollar sign over every promise of blessing (including Luke 18:30) and preaches that the only thing you should expect in this life is financial profit, not loss.

4. Finally, let Jesus, who loved us and gave himself for us (as we will now see in this precious ordinance of the Lord’s Supper), show you that he is the greatest treasure in the universe.