Matthew 19:16–22:

“Now someone came up to Him and said, ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘Why do you ask Me about what is good? There is only One who is good. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ ‘Which ones?’ he asked. Jesus replied, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.’

The young man said to Him, ‘I have wholeheartedly obeyed all these laws. What do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.’ But when the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful, for he was very rich.”

My concern, exploring this passage, is to warn those who want to say Jesus does not really mean what He said to this rich young man, this rich young ruler. That is my concern. And I’m going to take this passage verse by verse in the next few days.

It’s my concern that you will come to this passage and, out of instinct, say that Jesus doesn’t really mean what He said. Why? Because you love money. Because of the love of money in people, because they cannot imagine it, because they think the gospel is about money, because they think the gospel to the poor is about money in the bank account.

Because they have turned the words of Jesus upside down; because they have been deceived by generations of false teachers who come telling them about “money for blessings,” who tell you that this is a “new revelation” that has come down from somewhere, that this is what the children of God are supposed to be: “They’re supposed to be richer than the world,” and so on and so on.

So we come to this passage with that blindness, and we say, “Jesus can’t possibly mean what He said. He cannot.”

But we see Peter leaving everything to follow Jesus, leaving his business, his fishing trade, to follow Jesus (Luke 5:1–11; Matthew 4:18–20). But we still say, “He cannot be talking like this. It cannot be true. Jesus cannot say it.”

We see John and James leaving their father and everything to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:21–22), and we still say it cannot be true that Jesus would demand that this man sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and follow Him.

We destroy this passage. We make sure it has no effect on people's lives. We blunt its force—and we do the same thing to the words of Jesus in other places, too, but my focus is on this one here.

Jesus said that is what the Pharisees did to the words of God: they blunt the force of God’s commandment. “For the sake of your tradition you have nullified the word of God” (Matthew 15:3–6). This is what we are doing. For the sake of our “money for blessing” arrogance and falsehood and deception, we blunt the force of God’s word, the divine demand on people here.

So verse 16 says, “Now someone came up to Him and said, ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?’”

And Jesus went to his level. He did not start at a high level. It was a conversation with this man, who came to Him. It was almost like this was an opportunity for Jesus to evangelize. You don’t have to go and meet him—he has come to you. The man is saying, “I want eternal life. I’m ready to do anything.” That is the posture: “I’m willing to do anything.”

At the end of the day, Jesus will reveal to him that he is not truly willing to do anything, because that is not the heart of man. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we are willing to do everything, but we are not. It is not true.

And later on, some people will ask Jesus about this, and Jesus will say that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God—that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:23–24). And people deceive themselves that “the needle” is some fabled gate. No: the needle is just a needle—the needle you thread. Jesus is creating a strong contrast, a powerful picture, that it is going to be hard for the rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

Instead of us humbling ourselves and saying, “God, what are You saying here?” we also blunt the force of that word of Jesus and say He doesn’t really mean what He said. We do everything else except take the words of Jesus seriously.

I want, in the next few days, to explore this passage, focusing on helping us break away from the blindness that has covered our eyes and kept us from appreciating the words of Jesus in this passage—because it’s hard. It’s hard. That is the whole point. To blunt it and say, “It’s not that hard,” is doing an injustice to the word of God, in my opinion.

So this is verse 16 of this passage. He came to Jesus, saying, “I am willing to do anything.” But as we will see, not so fast, my brother.

God bless you. See you later.