You're listening to Heed the Word with our pastor and teacher Ken Davis. Pastor Ken is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Southwest Metro in Burleson, Texas. Please join us as we study the Gospel of Luke, verse by verse.

Can we say that all our ways are mercy and truth? They're not, are they? Because we're unmerciful. We don't like to forgive people, and we're far from truthful. We bend the truth. We often shape it to meet our own needs and our own purposes, or we handle it very loosely, don't we? As human beings, we have the tendency to do that very thing. Psalm 34:8 tells us, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him.

The Gospel of Luke is the third account in the Gospels of the life and teachings of our Savior, Jesus Christ. As believers, there are few studies that will benefit us more spiritually than studying the life and teachings of the Master. The world would like to believe that everyone has some good in them, but sadly, this is not true. God's word teaches us that there is no one that is good. We can never do enough good deeds to make ourselves righteous in the sight of God. It's only through living a life of belief in the Lord and obedience to his word we have any good in us. Don't forget to stay with us after today's message to hear more information about He the Word, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 18, verse 18, as we join Pastor Ken.

Now, as you'll remember, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and as he travels, he has a very interesting encounter. Now, a certain ruler from the other Gospels we know that this was a rich and a young ruler, a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? That's a good question. You know, I love the fact that he's asking Jesus about something that is eternal, about something that has real and lasting significance, about something that really has meaning, and it's a question that we ourselves could ask today. I love the fact that he isn't saying, Lord, what must I do to be prosperous? Or what must I do to be healthy? Or what must I do to be successful in this life? He's not asking any of those questions, is he? He's asking a question that is much better than any of those, that is much deeper, that is a question that we ourselves should be focused upon, and that is on the eternal and on the nature of eternal life and how that life can be acquired. He says, again, good teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? It's an interesting paradox because while it is a good question on a good topic, it's poorly phrased because it really contradicts itself. If you inherit something, what does that mean? It means someone else earned it, someone else had it, and someone else gave it to you. Now, do you do anything in order to inherit something? No, someone else has to, right? What does someone else have to do in order for you to inherit something? They have to die, right? They have to die for you to inherit something. And so it's kind of a wonderful question, but it's phrased in sort of a ridiculous manner as we look at it. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? He says. Now, Jesus' response to this man is classic. First of all, he does not immediately answer the question, but brings to point an issue of this man's heart. When he says, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one that is God. When he says, No one is good but one, he alludes to the greatest of the commandments, which is, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Those were the two greatest commandments we hear Jesus saying earlier in other parts of Scripture here. And as he says this, no one is good but one that brings that to mind. That is God. Now, why does Jesus bring this question out? Why does he say, Why do you call me good? Is it because he suspects or knows that this rich young ruler actually believes that Jesus is God? No. Because there's nothing here to imply that he would believe that. He's calling him a good teacher, right? And so Jesus is bringing him to the point and he's saying, Listen, why do you call me good? There's only one person, there's only one who is good, and that's God. Am I God? He's asking this man to come to a point where he will acknowledge who Jesus is, and yet this man is by no means prepared to do that. And I think there's something deeper that Jesus is doing here too. You see, when this man comes to Jesus and he calls Jesus good, now he obviously at this point does not believe that Jesus is God. So he is making the statement this young man is that there can be those who are good besides God. And Jesus is calling him to the point, saying, no, there's only one who's good, and that one is God. And the thing is, is the reason I believe that this young man is able to come to Jesus and call him good is because this man ultimately believes that he himself is good, you see. And so by calling Jesus good, he's opening up the door to say that others could be good as well, and not God alone. And Jesus is holding him to this point, forcing him to see the fact that only God is good, hoping, I believe, that in the realization of the fact that only God is good, this young man will have to concede the fact that he himself is not good because he's not God. And so Jesus asks him, he says, Why do you call me good? No one is good but one that is God. And then he goes on to answer initially the question that the man had asked. You know the commandments do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother. And he said, the young man said, that is, all these things I have kept from my youth. Now, first of all, I think he's probably bearing false witness right now, because I don't think there's anybody who's kept all of those commandments from their youth. I think at one time or another, we've all broken them. At least we have if we look at them in the context of what Jesus says that they are. You see, when we look at ourselves and we try to measure ourselves by other people, then we can say that comparatively speaking, I'm a good person, right? A lot of times people don't want to receive the gospel or don't even want to hear the gospel because they believe in and of themselves that they are good people. That, yeah, you know, believing in Jesus is great for that guy who's on death row or for that guy who was an axe murderer or for that drug dealer or this person or that, because boy, their lives were really messed up and they really needed Jesus. So yeah, that's good that they got religion as they think of it. But me, I'm a good person. I'd never bother anybody, you know. I mind my own business, I pay my taxes, I don't steal, I don't cheat, I don't murder people or hang around with people who do any of those things. So I'm a good person, right? And so they trust in their own righteousness, failing to realize that they are good by comparison only when they compare themselves to other people. But when they compare themselves to God, they're not good at all. Psalm 25, 8 through 11 says, Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he teaches sinners in the way. The humble he guides in justice, and the humble he teaches his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. Can we say that about ourselves? Can we say that all our ways are mercy and truth? They're not, are they? Because we're unmerciful. We don't like to forgive people, and we're far from truthful. We bend the truth. We often shape it to meet our own needs and our own purposes, or we handle it very loosely, don't we? As human beings, we have the tendency to do that very thing. Psalm 34, 8 tells us, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him. You see, if we trust in ourselves, then there's no promise of blessing, because we are doomed to fail ourselves. I warrant that you have failed yourself more than any other person has ever failed you. I would warrant that you have broken more promises to yourself than any other person has ever broken promises to you. We cannot trust in ourselves because we betray ourselves all the time. But Nahum 1 7 tells us that the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knows those who trust in him. You see, this rich young ruler was not trusting in the mercy of God. He was not trusting in God at all. He was trusting in himself and in his own ability to keep the commandments. That's why he comes to Jesus and says, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Because he sees eternal life as something that he can attain or that he can earn or that he can work towards himself. If you examine the various religions of the world, you'll find that every one of them talks about what man must do for God. But Christianity, having a relationship with Jesus Christ, is all about what God has done for man. What Jesus has done for you. Now you might say this morning, well, I don't want to believe in Jesus because boy, there are all those rules and I don't want to have to follow those. And he talks about not sinning and about repenting, and I don't want to have to do all that. Well, you know what? Here's the thing. When we come to Jesus and we confess our sin before him, and we acknowledge that he is right and that we are wrong, and we ask him to forgive us for our sins, then he forgives us utterly. He wipes the slate clean, he makes it just as though we had never sinned, and suddenly something happens. The Bible says that those who have forgiven much love much. And so when we have been forgiven and the weight and the burden of sin has been lifted from our hearts and our lives, then suddenly we are filled with the love of God, and the love of God motivates us to be and to do all that the law could never equip us to do. And we become obedient to the Lord out of love rather than out of requirement. We cannot earn our salvation. We can only receive it. And Jesus has paid the price. Now, it's interesting to me that Jesus actually pointed this young man toward the law at this point. The young man had asked a very good question. He said, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And so Jesus says, You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not commit murder, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother. What's interesting here is Jesus is giving him the list of the horizontal commandments. He doesn't once mention any of the vertical commandments. Now, what do I mean by horizontal versus vertical commandments? Well, you remember I told you earlier that Jesus had said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength, and that the second is like to it to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, Jesus himself said that upon these two things hang all of the law and all of the prophets. That means that if you do everything that's in those two commandments, then you'll by default fulfill all of the others. Now, most of those initial commandments, those vertical commandments have to do with how we relate to God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, you know, the idols he's talking about. Don't take the name of the Lord your God in vain, honor the Sabbath day, all those things, those are vertical commandments. Those are commandments that relate to how we honor God. But then the others don't steal, don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't do all those things. Those have to do with how we relate to our fellow man. And as Jesus is giving him this list of commandments that he has to keep, he never even gets to the vertical. Because this man, though he thinks he has, has not kept even those that relate to other people. But the young man does think that he has, and he said, All these things I have kept from my youth. Now, if we cannot be saved by the law, why is it that Jesus points this man to the law? Here's the thing if we keep all of the commandments, then we will enter in to heaven. Yeah, we will. Leviticus 18, 5 says, You shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. So God has said that if we keep his commandments, if we do everything he has told us to do, then we will live by that law. But in Ezekiel chapter 20, verse 21, God says, Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me. They did not walk in my statutes and were not careful to observe my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them, but they profaned my Sabbaths. You see, the fact of the matter is that none of us can keep the law of God. We can't do it. Because if we break any one part of it, we're guilty of the entire thing. And there is none of us who has kept all of it unto this day in our lives. And if you have, I guarantee you you won't for the rest of the time that you're here. Galatians 3 10 tells us this in the writings of Paul for as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident. For the just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not of faith, but the man who does them shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now, as Jesus has listed these commandments, do not commit adultery. Is it possible that this young man had been sexually pure and had never committed adultery, physically speaking? Yes, that's possible. Do not murder. Is it possible and even quite probable that this young man never took the life of another human being? Yes, it's possible and again quite probable. Do not steal. Is it possible that this young man had never stolen anything? It's very unlikely. But yes, it is possible. He might never have had a real opportunity to steal. It's possible. Do not bear false witness. This is getting a little less believable. Had this young man been so honest that he had never once told a lie, very unlikely. Very unlikely. And yet we couldn't prove that he had, could we? And he says, Honor your father and your mother. And he says, All these things I have kept from my youth. When we look at the law in a literal sense, in terms of have I kept it in a physical way, there are some commandments that we might be tempted to say that yes, we have kept. I seriously doubt. In fact, I know for a fact that there's no one who could have kept all of them perfectly. And yet, even in a superficial way, could we say that we've kept some of them? Well, this young man felt convinced that he had kept them. That was because he had a cheap view of what it meant to keep the law. Jesus did not hold that cheap view. In Matthew 5, verses 21 and 22, and verses 27 through 28, Jesus says these words. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother Raka shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says, You fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Now we've often talked about, you know, Jesus says, you know, to hate somebody is the same as murdering them, but here he's saying, even just calling them a fool say, Oh, you fool, you know, you're in danger of hell fire from that, because that is, in essence, the attitude and spirit of murder in your heart as you're rebuking them in anger and frustration. Sometimes you just like to separate their breath from their body, right? You feel that way. We do, don't we? That's murder. Jesus goes on to say, You've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now, when we raise the bar to that level to say that if you have thought it in your heart that you have as good as done it, then how many of us stand guilty? Every single one of us, including this young man. And so when Jesus brings out these commandments, his intent is to point out to this man his own sinfulness. His own need for a savior. Because it's only by receiving that savior that we can inherit eternal life. And yet the man doesn't see it. All these things, he said, have I kept from my youth. Now Jesus knows this young man's heart. He knows where the missing part is. In fact, he left it out of the list. There is a horizontal commandment that would have gone in the same list of the ones that Jesus gave to this man, but Jesus left it out. I believe that the reason Jesus left it out was because he knew that this was the area where this young man was most likely to stumble. That this was, as it were, the chink in this young man's armor. And so he saves that shot, that arrow, that statement, for the proper time. So when Jesus heard these things, he said to him, You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. Exodus 2017 says this. Thou shalt not covet. You see, this young man was rich. He was attached, as it were, to his possessions. And the idea that in order to inherit eternal life, he would have to go out and sell all of these possessions that he had worked so long to acquire, perhaps, and to then just give them away to other people was incomprehensible to him. Because you see, it wasn't so much that these things were things that he possessed, but rather these were things that possessed him. He coveted them. He had more than enough. You see, someone who had truly kept all of the commandments as it relates to other people, when he sees the poor and the sick and the lame, and has within his own resources the ability to minister to their needs, he'll be moved to do so. And yet this young man had not. Because it says in verse 23, but when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. And we're told in the other gospels that he went away sad. He left, he walked away. Now, what happened down the road to this young man, we don't know. Maybe he was eventually one of those believers in the early church. I don't know. But I do know that at this moment he did not heed the calling of God in his life. Because he was too caught up in his own possessions and in his own covetousness. And so he had not kept that commandment. Even just in the horizontal, he was disqualified. But we are witnessing even now in the text another commandment that this young man is breaking. Exodus 20, verses 2 and 3 says, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

Do you ever feel like the circumstances you're going through are more than you can bear? That God is in some way punishing you? Well, consider the words of Paul, and we know that all things work together for the good. To those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. So we learn from this verse that all things, not some, but all things work together if we love God and are called according to his purpose. Just something to think about from your friends here at Heed the Word. Heed the Word is the daily Bible teaching ministry of Ken Davis, Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Burleson, Texas. There's a great deal more that Pastor Ken has to share with us from the Gospel of Luke, so please join us again. Now, maybe you'd like to add today's message to your study library. Our online media is always available and free of charge. CD copies are also available upon request for free, but supplies are limited, so order today. To order a CD, simply log on to heedtheword.org and select the order a message option. There you'll find a convenient order form to fill out. The only information you need to remember is today's date. This ensures we get you the right teaching. So log on to heedtheword.org and place your order today. Or better yet, join us this Sunday for worship at 10.30 a.m. Directions are available on our website. That's heedtheword.org. Well, we've run out of time today, but tune in next time as Pastor Ken will continue teaching verse by verse through the Gospel of Luke. That's next time on Heed the Word.