Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Thank you for being here today. We're going to. We're going to be in the book of Matthew this morning.
[00:00:06] The book of Matthew, Matthew, chapter 19.
[00:00:21] In our study of the.
[00:00:26] In our study of the school of evangelism, we've been trying to look at various practical, both doctrinal and practical. We're mostly in the practical now, aspects of evangelism. How best we can present the gospel to people. How best we can explain the truths of scripture related to eternal life, forgiveness of sin. The gospel, of course.
[00:00:53] And so we've been through a number of things. And what I want to kind of turn to now is I want to do a case study. A case study using an example, a real life example where, in which our Lord, if we could say, evangelized or gave the gospel. I mean, I know these terms I'm using loosely, but I want to look at one case study to show and to study how the Lord dealt with someone who obviously needed eternal life. So we're going to be in Matthew, chapter 19. I want to start in verse number. Verse number 16, Matthew 19, verse number 16.
[00:01:36] The Bible says. And behold, one came and said unto him, good master, what things shall I do that I may have eternal life?
[00:01:47] And he said unto him, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one that is God.
[00:01:55] But if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
[00:01:59] He saith unto him, which Jesus said, thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
[00:02:20] The young man saith unto him, all these things have I kept from my youth. Up. What lack I? Yet Jesus said unto him, if thou wilt be perfect, go sell that thou hast and give to the poor. And thou shalt have treasure in heaven and come and follow me.
[00:02:40] But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
[00:02:47] Then said Jesus unto his disciples, verily I say unto you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
[00:02:56] And again, I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
[00:03:04] When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved?
[00:03:12] But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Isn't it funny how we take verses like verse 26? With God, all things are Possible. And we people in China take that verse and they put it on little note cards and pads. Y'all noticed what I just said, right? People in China, when they print these things that we buy, they don't even know what they're printing, but they put verses, nice little cutesy verses like that, on different materials that they sell.
[00:03:51] And the verse that says, with God, all things are possible, and it makes us feel nice and. And warm and fuzzy. But actually, in the context of this verse, we're talking about a rich man getting eternal life. That's actually the context of this verse. Now, we know with God all things are possible, but what he's talking about is not that thing that we want. You know, that pie in the sky, you know, desire of our heart. It's actually referring to. Related to an eternal matter. Not know, a Lamborghini that we want or whatever, you know, whatever thing that we are asking for. So this. I want to do a case study of the rich young ruler and how the Lord Jesus dealt with him. And I want to draw from it some principles and some guidelines to help us when we try to share the gospel with people.
[00:04:46] This particular account is kind of unexpected. The way the Lord dealt with this person is not the way we would normally deal with someone. So let's pray and then we'll. We'll look at this in more detail. Our Lord in heaven, thank you for your grace to us.
[00:05:04] Thank you, Lord, that you do the impossible. And Lord, we think of, Lord, one of the. One of the most impossible things that I can think of is changing the heart of a man who is hardened in sin and who is bound in vice and iniquity. And yet you do it because with you all things are possible.
[00:05:27] And Lord, help us and encourage us in that. Even as we pray for those that we love, those that we care about, those that we know who are totally disinterested in the Lord Jesus, Lord, in their hearts and in their lives. Do the impossible.
[00:05:43] Lord, show your power to turn people from darkness to light. Help us not to give up. Help us to pray in faith.
[00:05:51] And as we study this example that you gave us, this interaction you had with this young man, Lord, help us to see and understand these truths. And Lord, not only understand them in our head, but help us to apply them. Even as we try to tell people about Jesus, Lord, give us the boldness to open our mouth and to be an evangelist for you. And so we just commit this time to you. We ask your blessing upon it, but also, Lord, upon those downstairs who are In Sunday school, we pray for your blessing to be upon them, even as those kids learn the Scriptures and learn truths from your word. Lord, help those things to sink down deeply into their hearts and become a permanent part of their values and of their beliefs that that might bear fruit in their lives. So give grace to the teachers as well. In Jesus name. Amen.
[00:06:42] All right, so in Matthew, Matthew 19, verse number 16, notice what it says. And behold, there one came and said unto him, good Master, what thing shall I do that I may have eternal life? Now, what's interesting is in Matthew, this account occurs in all three synoptic Gospels. If you don't know what synoptic means, it refers to Matthew, Mark and Luke, which are the three Gospels that overlap the most. John's mostly totally different until you get to the very end and then it starts to be similar to the other three. But in the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this account is found in all three. And not all events in the Gospels are found in all three of them. But this is one that is in this passage in Matthew, notice in verse number 20, and then verse number 22, this person is referred to as a young man. So this is not an older gentleman. I don't know how old he was. Probably in his 20s. I'm guessing that would fit the description probably of a young man.
[00:07:51] And so he comes to Jesus and asks this question. And in Luke, in verse Number Luke, chapter 18, verse number 18, this man is also called a ruler. And we see in this passage in verse number 22, he had great possession. So here's where we get the term the rich young ruler. That's why they call it that. Okay. If you ever want to know, that's why. All right, so this is a young man, and he's a rich man. And he is a.
[00:08:23] He is a ruler. So he has some level of authority. Okay, Whatever that means. We don't know exactly, but he had some level of authority. Just as a side note, this might be of interest to you. I think I was talking to Sam. I was talking to Sam and his dad. That some people think that this rich young ruler is actually Paul Saul of Tarsus before he was converted. I don't know. I think there's some reason to think that, but I just leave that with you. And as you read, you can think what you want about it. It doesn't really matter, but it's an interesting idea.
[00:08:57] But notice what he says in verse number 16, just to lay some groundwork. In verse 16, he says, Good Master, what things shall I do that I may have eternal life? Now, interesting. He says, have eternal life.
[00:09:11] And then down in verse number the next verse 17, why callest thou me good? There's none good but one that is God. But if thou wilt enter into life. Okay, but in Mark and Luke, it doesn't say that. In Mark and Luke, it says not have eternal life. It says, inherit eternal life. Now, why does that matter? It's a different word, obviously. But why does it matter? Because by comparing the two, we sometimes, sometimes when we talk about, like we read in First Corinthians, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And people have. People have taken that. And they said, well, they'll go into the kingdom of God, but they'll not inherit the kingdom of God. That's not a proper way to understand it. To inherit something means it's your possession.
[00:10:06] That's what, biblically, what an inheritance is. It's your possession. So when the children of Israel went into the promised land and they received their inheritance, it was their possession. Right? That's what that means. So whenever that principle, we can see by comparing the different passages in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18 on this particular event.
[00:10:29] So this man wants to know how he can have eternal life. Now, I would say that this is a good question. Would you say this is a good question. In other words, he's not. This man is not concerned only with how he can have money. He already has money.
[00:10:47] Or how he can have a good life.
[00:10:50] In other words, his concern has transcended those earthly questions, Right?
[00:11:00] And would to God, there were more people that were concerned with eternal and spiritual things than being concerned with what's right in front of them, which is basically my job, my family, my money, my debt, you know, my health. It's not that those aren't important. They are. But those things tend to crowd our mind and our heart and are in front of us to such a degree that we have a hard time. I'm speaking of someone who doesn't know God. We have a hard time seeing anything else, anything at all.
[00:11:35] And so you say, well, what about eternal life? I don't. I don't know about that. I don't care about that. And that is an indication that somebody is not really awake to those matters. Right? And the Lord does a work to awaken them to it, to make them aware of it. Because, listen, before we knew the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, especially if you got saved later as, you know, as a teenager, maybe as an adult. I mean, you walk through life just like in a stupor, just reeling from pleasure to pleasure to pleasure, right? Just fulfilling the lust of the flesh. This is what the Lord describes. Person that doesn't know God. That's. That's just. That's just what it is. From one sin to another sin to another sin. And it was just about the earthly things, the temporal things, and that is all the concern was about. And one day, something came into your life. The Lord used some set of circumstances, maybe a Christian friend that you had, a family member, maybe a set of tragic circumstances or unfortunate circumstances, whatever.
[00:12:35] And all of a sudden, things you never thought about or didn't care about started to matter.
[00:12:40] Would you say that's true, Brother Loren? Was that the case when you were in the military before? You didn't care, whatever, living your life, whatever.
[00:12:49] And all of a sudden, by God's work in you, what you did not used to care about or was not on your radar all of a sudden was. And that is the thing, is it should have been on our radar the whole time, right? Of course, we all acknowledge that, but it wasn't. And the Lord puts it on our radar. That by itself is an act of God working in us. And here's the thing. God doesn't just do that with the chosen elect.
[00:13:17] No, he puts eternal things on the radar of many, many, many, many, many people that reject.
[00:13:28] He puts it on their radar. That's part of the reason why we. The Lord has commanded us. Let me say that again. He has commanded his people to give the gospel to others. You know, what we're doing, we're putting it on their radar.
[00:13:43] Is that not what we're doing, Brother Jim? Is that not what we're trying to do? Right? I saw Brother Jim downtown last night before we got rained out. And he's like, you know, we go down there, and those of you that have been down there know, you know, a lot of people don't want to talk about it. A lot of people don't want to talk about Jesus. But we go down there praying, lord, just give us one. Give us a few divine appointments. Give us a few people whose hearts will be open to listen so that maybe the truth can be put on their radar. And whatever happens after that, we commit that to God, we pray for them, and that's where our power ends.
[00:14:20] So our job is to make sure as a. Listen, as a child of God, and I'm talking to Adam as much as I am anybody in here, our job is to make sure that we are doing our duty before the Lord to put these truths on people's radar, doing our best.
[00:14:40] We have opportunities in our church to engage in evangelism. You have opportunities at work, in your family, you know, in your. In your doings throughout the day, throughout the week. You have opportunities. Are we taking those opportunities? That's. That's. We got. We have to be engaged in it. We have to be engaged in it if we're going to be faithful. But notice this man, this rich young ruler, he approached contrary to what I just said now. Right. Contrary to what I just said. Now, I'm gonna say something, I'm gonna contradict myself, then I'm gonna back up and I'm gonna fix it, okay? So just hang with me.
[00:15:22] This man approached Jesus now. This man approached Jesus now, in Mark, the Bible says that he ran to Jesus. That tells us something about his. That. That goes along with the principle in Mark. Mark is an action gospel. Does anybody know that? It's an action gospel. It's not a lot of teaching in Mark, but there are a whole lot of action verbs, and most of them are in the present tense. And so, obviously, for whatever reason, as Mark's writing the gospel, he's paying attention to people's actions. And what he notes is that this rich young ruler ran to Jesus and knelt down before him. And all it says here in Matthew. Notice it's a little bit different. It's not contradictory, of course, but it's different. It just says one came, verse 16. One came.
[00:16:13] Is that true in both cases? Of course it's true in both cases.
[00:16:16] But Mark reveals something about the man's demeanor and attitude. Right. How serious he is about this.
[00:16:25] Right. So would you say that this man was a serious and intent. A serious person and intent on getting an answer to this question? Yeah. This mattered to him. This mattered to him. It wasn't just like, you know, Jesus was passing by and doing his ministry, and he. Somebody said, oh, this is Jesus of Nazareth. And he says, you know, I've been. I had this thought, you know, I was thinking, if I ever saw him, I would probably want to ask him this question. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. He sought the Lord out, ran to him. There's a. You can see the emotion in that, the seriousness in that.
[00:17:04] But why? I just contradicted myself because I said, we need to put. You know, by giving the gospel to people, by handing out gospel tracts, by speaking of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to others, we are putting his name and his truth on people's radar. Right. I just got done saying that. Right. But this man sought Jesus.
[00:17:23] But my question is this.
[00:17:25] Why?
[00:17:30] Why did he seek Jesus? I don't know the reason. The Bible doesn't say the reason. But we can. I think we can. We can safely read into this enough to know something has happened that has put this question on the radar for this man.
[00:17:51] I don't know what it is. Maybe Jesus healed someone and had a conversation about eternal life and that maybe it was a family member of this rich young ruler. Maybe he had heard about Jesus. Maybe he was sitting in the synagogue when Jesus had taught.
[00:18:08] Maybe he had been reading the law or hearing the Old Testament law, and maybe he felt a ping of guilt. I have no idea.
[00:18:17] But here's what we can say. Something had happened to bring this man to the point where he's asking about eternal life. And this question is not a common question in the Gospels, is it? Ask yourself. Just do a survey of your Bible reading real quick in your mind. How many people ask Jesus about eternal life?
[00:18:36] It's not very many. Most people ask Jesus about.
[00:18:41] Who's that? Exactly? Physical healing.
[00:18:45] Most people ask Jesus about physical healing. And you know what he did? He took that and talked about eternal life. But most people are not coming to him with this question.
[00:18:55] Everybody with me.
[00:18:57] So something had happened to put the question of eternal life, an eternal spiritual question, on his mind.
[00:19:06] That is the work of God.
[00:19:09] Because, listen, if that had not been on his radar, he would not have sought out Jesus. And if he did not seek out Jesus, he would not have gotten this answer.
[00:19:19] He would not have interacted with the truth, both verbal truth and the truth, living truth. Jesus himself, none of that would have happened. And his understanding, he would not have come ever closer to eternal life. And yet he is.
[00:19:39] So pray for people.
[00:19:42] Pray for people. I know, listen. I know it's hard to pray for people for over long years of time who are not saved. It's hard to pray when it seems they're just not interested at all. And you knock on the door, you know, I just lost my word. Anyway, you knock on the door, you try to start a conversation with them, and they shut it down every time. It's hard to pray for them. But listen, by your prayers, the Lord can do something behind the scenes to put the truth on their radar.
[00:20:26] That's what we're asking for, right? Lord, do a work. I've said it over and over. When we talk about the school of evangelism, we have an important role, a necessary role. To play in getting the gospel to others. If we don't do it, we are unfaithful and disobedient. But this is a work of God.
[00:20:45] He has got to be involved every step of the way.
[00:20:49] And you know, sometimes one of the most frustrating things. I'm just speaking, just trying to be transparent with you. One of the most frustrating things with people that we, that we love who haven't yet come to the Lord Jesus is the feeling like, what more can I do? I've exhausted every avenue that I know to use, right? I've talked to them now. You know, I've talked to them such that now when I bring it up, they shut it down. They do not want it. They've made that clear. Listen, you have the power to talk to God about it, and he has the power to work in them, to put it on their radar.
[00:21:27] Let me just encourage you to do that with brother Mark, with your brother Ken.
[00:21:32] Ask God to put the truth on his radar.
[00:21:36] You know, just ask the Lord to really, really work and put it, you know, and it might take years, but even, you know, it will not be.
[00:21:49] Praying in this way is an act of faith. You know why? Because you can't see it. Nobody's going to come to you. None of your loved ones or your friends or coworkers, whatever.
[00:22:00] None of them are going to come to you and say, you know, you must have been praying for me because I've been really thinking about eternal life. That's probably not going to happen. I'm just being honest with you.
[00:22:12] If they eventually come to the Lord Jesus, often that comes out. But that tells us that even now, when they haven't yet been saved, even now the Lord is working, but you just can't see it.
[00:22:27] So you have to pray in faith, right, that God is working because his child is asking.
[00:22:35] That's what it's about.
[00:22:37] Almost every discipline, almost every duty, almost everything in the Christian life has to be done by faith, right?
[00:22:46] And so I don't know what happened to this young man. I don't know how he got to this point. I just know something has happened.
[00:22:57] And I thought about. Also, if you notice in verse number, verse number 20, the young man saith unto him. We're going to look at it in detail in just a minute, verse by verse. We will not finish this morning. Though the young man saith unto him, all these things have I kept from my youth, upon what lack I yet. Okay, so imagine this. This young man has come at it with an assumption, right from his Youth. This is another reason. They think it might have been Saul of Tarsus. But whatever.
[00:23:31] He was raised to obey the commandments of God. He is a faithful Jew. As far as we know. That's what he. That's how he viewed himself from his youth. He had kept God's commandments. Okay, so the question is this.
[00:23:46] If you have kept God's, you know, speaking to this young man, if you had kept God, God's commandments from your youth up, specifically the commandments Jesus lists. He lists, I think, five.
[00:23:56] If you've kept them from your youth up, why do you still feel something's missing?
[00:24:06] I mean, you've said it.
[00:24:09] What does that tell us?
[00:24:11] That tells us that in the conscience of man.
[00:24:17] In the conscience of man is a knowledge that he has not lived up to it. Now, very few people acknowledge that with openness.
[00:24:27] Now, you pin them down, you put your foot on their neck, they might finally yield and say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't do right. But very few people are willing to come to terms with that.
[00:24:39] Something's missing. I've tried to be a good person ever since I remember. I treat people kindly. But something's lacking.
[00:24:49] He recognized something was still lacking. That's not Jesus saying it. That's what he is saying it. And Jesus hasn't revealed to him anything about his own condition. He just said. He said, what must I do to have eternal life? Jesus said, you know the commandments, Keep them. And he says, I've kept them. And he says, something's missing.
[00:25:12] Something is missing.
[00:25:15] So again, the Lord is working in this young man. Now, Ms. Elsie and Ms. Brenda, Will, this will sound familiar to you because we discussed this matter before, but notice in verse number 16 what he says. And behold, one came and said unto him, good Master.
[00:25:37] Good Master.
[00:25:40] In all three accounts, the young ruler refers to Jesus as good Master.
[00:25:46] Now, this title, the Lord does two different things in this title.
[00:25:53] First of all, let's talk about the word Master.
[00:26:02] There were two ways, generally two ways that people address Jesus. Two ways. Number one, some people came to him and called him Master.
[00:26:12] And number two, some people came to him and called him Lord. Those are the two most common. Occasionally you'll see the word rabbi, but which is like teacher sort of. But usually it's Master and it's Lord. Now, what does Lord mean?
[00:26:35] Whatever you say, don't say master, because it doesn't mean Master. Okay? And this is significant. Now, I'm not belaboring an unimportant point. Here's what the word means. Master, I'm reading the dictionary now. One having authority, direction, or control over the action of another or others. A director, a leader, a chief, a commander, a ruler, a governor. Okay, that's fine. So the word master could be used in many different scenarios. Like a servant with his master. Like a boss at the job would be a master, right? A teacher at a school might be a master. A principal or, you know, the owner of a company might be a master. Right? So this is a. It just means someone who is in charge of others, who rules others, who is in a position of authority and has control over the actions of another. That's all that means. Okay, but what is a. What is a lord?
[00:27:33] A lord means not only master, it's inclusive of the word master. But a lord is someone who owns the thing.
[00:27:44] So what you'll notice is by comparing who it is that approaches Jesus with the title Master versus who approaches him with the title Lord, it's different.
[00:27:56] Unbelievers speaking generally now, unbelievers approach Jesus and call him Master.
[00:28:02] People who believe approach him and call him Lord.
[00:28:06] In the mind of the Jew, that is not the same. I know to us it sounds very similar, but in the mind of the Jew, it is not the same. A master is a title that can be given to a person. Like the servant is not above his master. Right? That's an example. But Lord is a word that is reserved for God and God only in the Jewish mind. In fact, that is the word that was used in place of the name of God, Jehovah. They would use that in place of that name, so they wouldn't say the name of God.
[00:28:39] So when a per. When. Just watch the disciples. From the earliest moments, you know, of course the disciples believe in Christ from the earliest moment they approach Jesus and they always refer to him as Lord.
[00:28:50] Always. Whether they're right with him or wrong with him. Always. Those who come to Jesus and believe and are healed and things like that, it's always Lord. It's always Lord. In other words, this title that this young, rich young ruler uses reveals something about what he thinks about who Jesus is.
[00:29:12] This young man does not necessarily believe and has not accepted or understood that Jesus is Lord, that he is God, very God.
[00:29:25] This is not something he's come to understand yet. At this moment, Jesus is not quite there, but he is someone who is, you know, in command, in charge. You know, he's. You know that. So he's here, but not where he should be.
[00:29:40] Okay, so that's the first thing I want you to See, the identity of the Lord Jesus matters, and here's why. Even when we're sharing the gospel with people, the Lord Jesus and what he says cannot be one of many ideas that might be true.
[00:29:59] He must be Lord. In other words, the way we receive what he says is. It is absolutely a fact, not something I'll consider.
[00:30:09] You see what I'm saying? It's a totally different. When we're witnessing to someone, we can't give them the impression this is something, you know, to consider. Of all the different worldviews, this is. No, no, no. You either receive this, the truth of the gospel, or you perish. That's it.
[00:30:27] But why? Because the Lord of heaven and earth is the one who spoke it. It is true. And so for a person to receive the gospel, there's that understanding of who's speaking it, and it is absolutely true. Right? Now, the other thing he says is the word good.
[00:30:46] The word good.
[00:30:50] Now he says, I imagine when he says in verse 16, good master, I imagine this young man is throwing around the word good pretty lightly. You know, we all the time throw around. You know, like we go to. You go to court and of course you call the judge your honor. I mean, he might, you know, he might be an adulterer and an idolater and whatever. And we call him your. You know, we throw it around, your honor. Of course, there's no way for us to know. But you know what I'm saying.
[00:31:14] Throw around titles like this. There are many, many. Think about all the people in the government who are the honorable so and so, and it's on their little name tag, and it's like, there is no honor.
[00:31:27] There is no honor.
[00:31:29] And that's. That's true.
[00:31:32] So I imagine this young man came to Jesus and he's not thinking. He's just saying good master. He's just saying whatever, like we do.
[00:31:42] So he probably wasn't referring to Jesus as good in the absolute sense. But what the Lord Jesus does is he takes the word good and he uses it.
[00:31:52] What do you mean by good?
[00:31:55] See what he does, he takes the word good, which just was a throwaway word for this young man probably. And he says, why are you calling me good?
[00:32:06] Do you know what good means?
[00:32:11] There is none. He says in verse 17, why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God.
[00:32:17] Now be careful.
[00:32:19] Cults use this verse all the time, right?
[00:32:22] Jesus is not denying that he is good.
[00:32:26] That's not what he's doing. He did not notice. He does not say, I Am not good.
[00:32:34] He says, there is one good, that is God. That's different than saying, I am not good.
[00:32:41] Just look at it and ask yourself. Because next time you have a conversation with someone who's in a cult who doesn't believe that Jesus is God, and they bring up this verse, well, Jesus said he's not good. You say, show me where he said I'm not good. It doesn't say that.
[00:33:00] Now, even though this young man was probably just throwing around the word good lightly, the Lord applies it in his conversation in the words true and absolute sense. Like, for instance, like if I was to talk to Sam, and I would say, hey, Sam.
[00:33:22] Like Devin, right? Is Devin a good man?
[00:33:27] See, you gonna be all spiritual on me. In our normal conversation, we say, devin's a good man. He's friends with Devin, of course, and Holly. And so if I say, is Devin a good guy? And he would say, oh, yeah, he's a good guy. But is Devin a good man?
[00:33:40] Well, he's good. But is he good? You know, there's good and then there's good, right? In the absolute sense, that's exactly what's happening here. He says, the rich young ruler says, good man. And the Lord says, good.
[00:33:56] Do you know what you're saying?
[00:33:58] And that would be the case where I say, devin, sorry. Sorry, brother, you're not good. You're not. There's none good.
[00:34:06] No, not one. So listen, in the absolute sense, there's only one that's good, right? Everybody agree with me on that?
[00:34:18] So if I were to ask you, are you good? The answer would be no.
[00:34:24] No.
[00:34:26] Why try to be a good person?
[00:34:29] I am so sick of hearing that. I mean, I'm just so tired of it, it's nauseating. I try to be a good person. All right, first of all, we're not talking about attempts, right?
[00:34:41] Number two, even with all of your attempts, you're not. Neither am I. Nobody is. There is but one good, that is God. Period.
[00:34:50] This is what the Lord says.
[00:34:53] Now, why is Jesus doing this? And I'll close here and we'll pick up next week.
[00:35:05] The problem with this man, his basic problem, and this is a problem we deal with with a lot of people, is he thinks he's good.
[00:35:15] He thinks he's good. That's the bottom line. He thinks he's good. That's why Jesus brought this up. He thinks he's a good person. How do you know? Because he talks about the commandments that he kept.
[00:35:28] He thinks he's good. That's why Jesus brought it up. So there are basically two primary questions that Jesus is dealing with now as we go further in this interaction, we'll see that the Lord deals with him in a way probably much different than we would deal with it. But he deals with it in this way because there are two primary things Jesus is driving at. Number one is he's challenging this man about who he is, who Jesus is. That's why he talks about good and he goes into that and because that touches on whether Jesus is Lord of all or whether he's not.
[00:36:04] And the second thing is he's challenging this man on what good means.
[00:36:08] In essence, this is the gospel version of Romans using Romans chapter three and Romans chapter two. To witness to somebody. That's what he's doing. He's saying are you good? Are you a good person?
[00:36:24] That's in essence what he's doing. He's challenging his self righteousness.
[00:36:29] All right, we'll pick up there next time. Lord willing. Let's pray.
