What must I do to be saved?

 

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?

Among the scariest words in the Bible are the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 7:21-23. The scene is the final judgment when some will stand before the throne of God and say, Lord, we prophesied and performed miracles and exorcisms in your name; and he will say to them, “Depart from me you workers of lawlessness!” “I never knew you!” These are people who apparently trusted that Jesus would save them but will undoubtedly be shocked and terrified to find that they are rejected because of their lifestyles.

Not too long ago, there was a very influential and well-known, conservative evangelical seminary professor and editor of a best-selling study Bible. In one of his popular books, he wrote that you don’t even have to have a willingness to obey Jesus in order to be saved![1] You just need to believe that Jesus is God who died for your sins and rose again.

There was also a pastor of a very large and influential independent Baptist mega-church, with a reported membership of 100,000 people. This pastor placed a huge emphasis on evangelism in his ministry. His website tells people that in order to be saved all they have to do is pray this prayer: “Oh God, I know I am a sinner. I believe Jesus was my substitute when He died on the Cross. I believe His shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection were for me. I now receive Him as my Savior…”

No mention of repentance. No indication of love for Jesus. No intention of turning from the sin or idols in our life. Just acknowledgement of some key doctrines and a statement that I receive Jesus as my savior.

They are just a small, but influential, tip of a very large iceberg. Numerous churches and denominations all over America have used prayers just like this to assure people that they are saved.

One problem with this, however, is that many, MANY people who prayed prayers similar to this, go on to live a lifestyle characterized by the kind of lawlessness Jesus says will result in him disowning them. And in Galatians 5:19-21 Paul gives a list of sins or what he calls “works of the flesh” and says, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” So important is this warning that Paul repeats it in his letters to the Ephesians and the Corinthians: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

A 2021 Pew survey said that 63% of Americans claim to be Christians.[2] How is it that so many people claim to be Christians and yet seem to live lives of total indifference to Jesus, or even delight unrepentant lifestyles that Jesus and Paul say will result in hell? For example, I’m quite sure that if you went to churches where they proudly and actively promote behaviors that the Bible condemns, they would say they believe in Jesus and have a relationship with Jesus!

The problem is our definition of saving faith.

Unfortunately, what so many Bible teachers have done is to begin with what Paul says about being saved by faith, but then come up with their own definition of what they think saving faith is—for example, saying a prayer to receive Jesus like you would receive a gift, or trusting Jesus like you would trust a chair to hold you up.

The problem is that they started at the wrong place! Paul was a servant of Jesus Christ—as Paul himself insisted—not the other way around. So if we want to know how to be saved, we need to start with Jesus first and let Jesus speak in his own context without re-interpreting him in light of Paul. When we do that, we find that Jesus and Paul are in perfect agreement, and all the “problem passages” about sin and works, make perfect sense! If none of what I just said makes any sense to you, I hope it will by the end of the sermon.

      There are two places in the Gospels where someone specifically asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. The first one is in Mark chapter 10. This story is also recorded in Matthew 19 and Luke 18, but I’ll just focus on Mark.

In Mark 10:17-22, Jesus was specifically asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life.” Let’s start reading in Mark 10 verse 17:

 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

So someone comes to Jesus saying, “Good Teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus responds, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” As we will see from the context, Jesus is actually testing the man, as if to say, “Why do you call me good? Are you coming to me as a good teacher who can answer your question, or are you coming to me as the Good One (God) who can give you the eternal life you seek?”

Jesus doesn’t wait for an answer. After Jesus recites some of the commandments, the man responds by saying “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” The text says, Jesus “loved him” and told him he lacked one thing: He needed to sell what he owned, giving the money to the poor, and then follow Jesus.

Jesus’ instruction for the man to sell everything is puzzling because Jesus didn’t tell other people to sell all they had in order to follow him. Why was Jesus asking this man to sell everything?

The answer is that because the man had claimed to have kept all of the commandments, Jesus was testing him on the very first Commandment— “You shall have no other gods before me.” Jesus was asking the man to demonstrate that he valued Jesus (the Good One, God) more than he valued his possessions. In this man’s case, if he wanted to “have treasure in heaven,” that is, to have eternal life, he had to demonstrate that he had no other gods before God by abandoning his possessions and following Jesus. Jesus doesn’t test everyone that way, but if he did, would you give up everything to follow Jesus?

The man’s response indicated that he valued his possessions more than he valued the Good One, God, who was standing before him. Contrary to the man’s claim to have kept all the commandments, Jesus demonstrated that the man failed on the very first one. He did not love God more than he loved his possessions and he would not sell his stuff to help the poor. So how, according to Jesus, does one inherit eternal life? By having no other gods before Jesus and loving your neighbor as yourself, which, after all, is a summary of the Ten Commandments.

The other time Jesus was specifically asked how to have eternal life is recorded in Luke chapter 10.       Luke 10:25 and 26 say, And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” Now I want you to notice that in both this passage and in the one we just discussed, when someone asked Jesus how to inherit eternal life, Jesus pointed them back to the Law of Moses; and that makes perfect historical sense, since Jesus was thoroughly Jewish, and the Old Testament was his Bible.

But Paul says we are not saved by the law! Is Paul contradicting Jesus? Not at all. Paul is addressing an entirely different situation. He is arguing against those, like many Pharisees, who think they are saved by what they do—by their good works or their meticulous obedience to all the Law’s commands. In Titus 3:5 Paul insists that we are not saved by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.

      Anyway, the lawyer or expert in Jewish law asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life and Jesus puts the question back in the man’s lap asking what the Law of Moses says. In verse 27 the man answered Jesus by quoting two Old Testament passages, Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” In verse 28 Jesus told the lawyer, “You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live,” in other words, you will have eternal life.

      But after reading Paul’s letters we might have expected Jesus’ to say you have eternal life by faith. Instead, Jesus says that the way to have eternal life is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength—and love your neighbor as yourself! Is Paul contradicting Jesus? Of course not!

Darrell Bock is a conservative, Evangelical professor of Bible and theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, and one of the world’s leading experts on the Gospel of Luke. Bock says that Jesus’ approval of the lawyer’s answer is, quote, “because at its heart the answer is an expression of total allegiance and devotion that in other contexts could be called faith.”[1]

Bingo! According to Jesus, saving faith is a

heart attitude of total allegiance and loving devotion to the Lord! Jesus’ teaching that eternal life comes through a heart of loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself is supported throughout the Gospels. For example, in Mark 12:28 to 34 a scribe asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.  And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

      In other words, Jesus says, in effect, You’re right! If you indeed love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself—you will inherit the kingdom of God and be saved.

      Now many scholars would say that it is impossible to truly love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself, therefore Jesus is simply pointing us to our need for him as a savior. But that idea is entirely foreign to the context of any of the Gospels. That is re-interpreting Jesus to fit our interpretation of Paul. In other words, they are trying to force Jesus to fit their own made-up definition of faith. Judging solely from the context of the Gospels, Jesus seems to expect that people can love God with all their hearts and their neighbor as themselves—certainly not perfectly, of course. No one is perfect. Christians still sin—sometimes terribly!

But when Luke chapter 1 says that Zechariah and Elizabeth observed “all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly” that does not mean they were sinlessly perfect! No one is. It means that God was first in their life. They had no other gods before God. It is entirely possible to love God—to Love Jesus—in such a way that he is first in one’s life so that there are no gods coming before Him.

      This idea of faith being a heart of loving devotion and dedication to Jesus above all else is also found in Matthew 10:37-39 and Luke 14:26-27 where Jesus demanded allegiance to him even above family or one’s own life. In fact, in John 12:25 Jesus says, “He who loves his life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” The idea of hating one’s life in this verse is a Jewish figure of speech for being willing to give up your life for Jesus. When Jesus says those who love their life will lose it, if he was just talking about physical life, he was clearly wrong. Many people down through the ages have truly loved their life and did not lose it prematurely. No! Jesus is saying that if you value your physical life more than you value him, you will lose your soul. “Life” and “soul” are the same word in Greek.

So on the subject of how to inherit eternal life, Jesus gives a very consistent answer: Have no other God’s before God; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, have a heart of total allegiance and loving devotion to God—and Jesus includes himself in his definition of God—and love your neighbor as yourself. The Gospel of John refers to this heart attitude as “believing in Jesus.” Paul refers to it as “faith in Jesus.”

BUT in both Matthew and Mark, the very first words of Jesus’ public ministry were a call to repentance. And in the book of Acts both Paul and Peter called people to repentance in order to be saved. So are we saved by faith or by repentance?

The Greek word for repentance literally means “a change of mind,” or as we might say today, “a change of heart.” Repentance is a change of heart in which we no longer want to live in rebellion against God. We want to turn TO Jesus FROM our sin and the idols in our life. If you’re not sorry for your sin and don’t want to turn from it, you don’t have biblical repentance.

So repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin. Repentance is a heart attitude that turns FROM our sinful rebellion against the Lord, and faith is turning TO the Lord with a heart attitude of total allegiance and loving devotion.

This explains why Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and Jude all insist that people who delight in unrepentant sinful lifestyles, will not be saved unless they repent. In other words, you cannot truly have a heart of total allegiance and loving devotion to Jesus Christ, and at the same time unrepentantly delight in a lifestyle of rebellion against him. That is as incompatible as hot is with cold, as light is with darkness, as love is with hate. And that’s why Jesus will tell those who practice such lawlessness to depart from him. And why Paul would say that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Those who unrepentantly delight in their sin, demonstrate that they have no true faith or allegiance to Jesus.

The idea that faith is a heart of total allegiance and loving devotion to Jesus also explains passages that seem to teach we are saved by works. For example, in Matthew 7 Jesus says it is the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven who will enter heaven. Or Matthew 12:37 when Jesus says, by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Or in Matthew 13, Mark 4, Luke 8, and John 15 where those who do not bear fruit are thrown into the fire where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If you are totally committed to Jesus and truly love him with all your heart, that loving devotion cannot help but bear fruit in your life. Sometimes the Bible looks at the faith or believing as the means of salvation. Other times the Bible just looks at works as the result or evidence of faith or salvation.

The bottom line is that saving faith is not just believing that Jesus is God who died and rose again for our sin—as important as those doctrines are. Faith is not just trusting Jesus to take us to heaven like we would trust a chair enough to sit in it. Faith is not just about receiving salvation like we would receive a gift.

Saving faith is about a Holy-Spirit produced heart of repentance which abhors the sinfulness and idols in our life, coupled with a heart of total commitment and loving devotion to Jesus above all else. I’m sure Paul would agree, since in First Corinthians 16 he says, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed!”

Notice that faith is about the attitude of our heart and not about any good works that we do. As Paul says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Genuine faith, a heart of loving devotion and total allegiance to Jesus, always produces fruit.

Unfortunately, pastors and Bible teachers have produced generations of people who have no loving devotion or commitment to Jesus, and yet they think they have faith, often because they said a prayer. John Calvin would say that all Scripture cries out against this notion! This doctrine of salvation I’m preaching is not just mine. Godly pastors and theologians have been teaching it for hundreds of years—just not in most of the churches I’ve attended.

If you don’t have a heart of faith or loving devotion and total allegiance to Jesus, I urge you to renounce your sin and commit your heart and life to Jesus Christ in faith. Then if you are truly serious about this commitment, you will publicly declare your allegiance to Jesus as your king, by baptism. Baptist doesn’t save us, but the New Testament knows nothing of an unbaptized Christian.

As I’ve said before, this faith does not guarantee freedom from trouble or tragedy in this life—in fact, it may sometimes make life harder—but it does give forgiveness of sins and peace with God, a purpose for living, a sense of stability in a turbulent world, and a bright hope for life after death.

 

 

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[1] Charles Ryrie. Balancing the Christian Life. Chicago : Moody Press, 1969.

[2] https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/12/14/Pew-poll-religion/4101639510653/

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[1] Bock, Darrell. Luke, 1027.

Russia vs Ukraine: A silver lining?

If there is one tiny silver lining in Russia’s war with Ukraine it would be my hope that maybe some on the Left would finally wake up.

Generally speaking, people on the Left tend to have a naïve, Pollyanna view of the world: i.e., that people are basically good, and if they’re not it's just because they lack education or lack self-esteem, or live in poverty, or in a bad environment, or have been oppressed.

Therefore, if we were just more sensitive to their needs and implement social justice programs and outlaw guns, and defund the police and the military, and destroy all our nuclear weapons, and negotiate endlessly— the rest of the world would follow our lead and we could all sit down in a big circle and sing naïve, feel-good songs like, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company.”

But along comes Russia which invades Ukraine, a smaller country with a significantly smaller military, that posed no security threat to Russia. In fact, Ukraine even gave up all is nukes—just like the Left has urged America to do!

Ukraine believed the West’s empty promises to defend it—because the Left (Bill Clinton at the time) was so naive he never dreamed that Ukraine would ever need defending. Just like the Left believed North Korea’s lies about just wanting nuclear power for electricity, and how the Left now thinks that’s all Iran wants!

The Left is now confronted with the harsh world of reality. Russia invades Ukraine, shelling civilian neighborhoods and even a nuclear power plant, killing hundreds of people, sending millions into exile, and even threatening nuclear war!

Why? All of Putin’s lies aside, it was for no other reason than because Putin and his oligarchs covet the rich resources Ukraine has to offer—and they don’t care how many people they have to kill to get it!

So, I hope Russia’s invasion will lead some on the Left to wake up, look evil in the face, and understand that destroying our nukes and laying down our weapons does not lead to peace.

On a smaller scale, defunding the police and handing out more lenient sentences does not lead to less violence. Weakness and appeasement lead to violence and war!

Many would argue that this is precisely why, after four years of peace, we now face the possibility of World War III after only one year of the current Leftist regime.

In theological terms, people are not basically good. As the Apostle Paul wrote, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” There are “none righteous, no not one!” We are “dead in trespasses and sins!”

It was this reality—that all are sinners, and that power corrupts—that led our forefathers to want a limited government with checks and balances. It is this reality that leads many on the right to want a strong military.

It is a denial of this biblical truth by those on the Left that brings us to where we are today, with rampant violence in the streets and the possibility a much larger war.

The True Meaning of Christmas

 The following is a devotion I gave in Church after our annual kids' Christmas program:

I bet just about everyone here this morning has watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special at one time or other. At one point in the show, Charlie Brown yells out “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas all is about?” And Linus responds by reading the Christmas story out of the Gospel of Luke. This morning our kids have reminded us of what Christmas is all about.

I’d like to take just a few minutes now to put that story in a broader theological context. The Christmas story actually begins with an unfathomably powerful, intelligent and loving God who created human beings for mutual love and fellowship with Him.

Unfortunately, people—without exception—rebelled against their Creator by their thoughts, words, actions, and attitudes; destroying the very purpose for which they were created. You might almost say that human beings collectively extended their middle finger in God’s face saying, in effect, “We’re going to do things our way!”

So in his wrath, God did one of the worst things he could have done to us. He let us have our own way! He gave us up to follow our own desires, to live as we pleased, and to reap the natural consequences of our own rebellion. You might say he allowed us to stew in our own juices.

The result was generations of what has often been called, “man’s inhumanity to man”—murder, torture, slavery, rape, robbery, corruption, extortion, adultery, pornography, hatred, racism, drunkenness, physical and emotional abuse, vindictiveness, arrogance, callousness, lies, bitterness, greed, envy, gossip, self-centeredness, self-righteousness, refusal to forgive—and failure to show empathy, compassion and generosity. And above all else: failure to love, worship and give thanks to the God who created us and provides for us daily.

Our rebellion not only destroys human relationships; it destroyed our relationship with God. It destroyed the very purpose for which we were created! And every one of us have contributed to this stew to varying degrees. God allowed this insurrection in the hope that people would acknowledge the disastrous results of their rebellion and turn back to him.

But not so fast! The relationship was broken. Mutual love and fellowship are impossible when one party is in rebellion. Besides that, no amount of philanthropy or other good works could ever make up for rebellion against a holy God, or for the utter destruction that rebellion caused to God’s originally perfect creation.

And that’s where Christmas comes in! Rather than destroying his rebellious creatures—which may be what many of us would have done—the Gospel of John says that God became flesh and lived among us. God—in the person of Jesus Christ—was born as a baby in a manger and grew up in a world of corruption and oppression. On that first Christmas day he entered the stew of suffering that we created; and suffered right along with us. He willingly submitted himself to mocking, beating, and torture on a Roman cross as a sacrifice in our place. Jesus did this to save us from the eternal consequences of our rebellion; and to restore us to the purpose for which we were created. The good news is that all those who turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith will have their sins forgiven and be reconciled with God.

But there is a dark side to this “good news.” Those who persist in rejecting the love of God that was born in a manger on that first Christmas Day; and was later poured out on a Roman cross—those who unrepentantly continue in rebellion against their Creator; will face God’s wrath at the final judgment. The Gospel of John says, that "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on them."

All that is necessary to be saved from that wrath, is to renounce or “repent” of our sinful rebellion against God; and commit our life to Jesus Christ in faith. This faith is not about something we do. It is about having a heart of loving devotion dedicated to Jesus Christ above all else. Such faith—if it is genuine—always produces a desire to follow and obey him. If you have no desire to obey Jesus, you don’t have biblical saving faith. As the book of James says, faith without works is dead.

This faith does not guarantee freedom from trouble or tragedy in this life—in fact, it may sometimes make life harder—but it does give forgiveness of sins, peace and fellowship with God, a purpose for living, a sense of stability in a turbulent world, and a bright hope for life after death.

In the words of the Gospel of John, Christmas is the time when we remember that God—The Word—became flesh and dwelt among us. And that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

According to Acts chapter 2, Peter had just finished preaching to a large crowd when he concluded by telling them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the forgiveness of sins…” To anyone here this morning who has not committed their life to Jesus Christ in faith, that would be my plea to you as well.

 

The Gospel According to Jesus

 The following is a sermon preached at Randolph Baptist Church, July 25, 2021

We’ve been studying the book of Genesis for the past several weeks and one thing that keeps coming up is Abraham’s faith. My question this morning is, What does Abraham’s faith have to do with us living 4,000 years later? This morning I’m going to take a tangent for just one Sunday to talk more in-depth about faith.

      Among the scariest words in the Bible are the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 7:15-23. The scene is the final judgment when people will stand before the judgment throne of God saying, Lord, we prophesied, and performed miracles and cast out demons in your name; and he will say to them, “Depart from me you workers of evil. I never knew you!” These are people who think God will welcome them into his kingdom. They will undoubtedly be shocked and terrified to find that they have been rejected!

      Way back when Moses and I were in high school, I remember thinking that if heaven and hell are real, there could be nothing more important than for me to know for myself how to go to one and avoid the other. I mean, someday we will all stand before the judgment throne of God and give account of our lives. The most terrifying thing in the world would be to hear him say, “Depart from me…I never knew you.”

That began a lifelong study—off and on—of what it means to “believe” or have “faith” in Jesus.

I’m now 67-years-old. After a lifetime of study, and listening to countless salvation sermons, I have come to the conclusion that much of what I was taught growing up was confusing or misleading at best, and sometimes flat-out wrong.

One problem is that most of the well-meaning preachers I heard, started with what Paul says about being saved by faith, and then they came up with their own definitions of what faith was—like “asking Jesus to come into your heart,” or “trusting Jesus to save you like you would trust a chair enough to sit in.” They were then puzzled when the Gospels seemed to teach something different. So in many of the churches I grew up in, the preachers rarely preached out of the Gospels. In fact, one of my pastors said, “There is precious little gospel in the Gospels!”

      But Paul called himself a servant of Jesus Christ! He based his theology of salvation on the on Jesus, so if we want to know how to be saved from the wrath of God at the final judgment, the place to start is where Paul started—and that is Jesus! If you start with Jesus, you will find that Paul’s theology of faith fits like a glove. Before we delve into this further,

LET’S PRAY

      There are two places in the Gospels where Jesus was specifically asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life? One of them is in Luke 10:25-28. Starting in verse 25:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

So in a nutshell, the expert in the Law of Moses asks Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus asks this expert in the Law of Moses, What does the Law of Moses say? And the man says, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbors. Jesus says he has answered correctly. That is what you must do to have eternal life.

But what does that have to do with faith? One of my favorite Bible scholars is Dr. Darrel Bock from Dallas Theological Seminary. He is an expert on the historical study of Jesus and on the Gospel of Luke. Dr. Bock writes that verse 27 is an expression of total allegiance and devotion that in other contexts could be called faith. Bock continues, “At the heart of entering the future life”—i.e. eternal life—"is a relationship of devotion, a devotion that places God at the center of one’s spiritual life and responds to others in love…”^[1]  According to Bock, that is “faith.”

Bingo! Bock hits the nail on the head! According to Jesus, if you want to have eternal life, you need unqualified loving devotion to God that springs forth in love for others.

The twist in the New Testament is that Jesus says, “I and my Father are One.” To truly love God is to love Jesus with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. And that is exactly what we see in the next passage where Jesus is asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  We find that story in Mark 10:17-22. This same story, by the way, is also found in Luke 18 and Matthew 19, but we’ll just focus on Mark this morning. Mark 10 starting in verse 17 says:

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone.

Now when Jesus says, “Why do you call me good?”… “No one is good except God alone” Jesus is saying that no one is always, absolutely good except God. Reading between the lines, I think Jesus is implying, “Are you just coming to me as a good teacher who can give you an answer to your question? Or are you coming to me as the “Good One” who can grant you the eternal life you seek?”

Jesus doesn’t wait for an answer. He continues in verse 19, You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth.

This command to sell everything is puzzling because Jesus did not tell everyone else to sell all they had in order to follow him. For example, in Luke chapter 8 when Jesus cast demons out of a man, the man begged to follow Jesus. Jesus didn’t tell that man to sell everything, or even to leave his home. In fact, Jesus told the man to return home and tell all the good things God had done for him. Jesus apparently didn’t tell Mary, Martha and Lazarus to sell their home either, since their home always seemed to be available to Jesus when he came to Jerusalem. Other examples could be cited but the question is, Why did Jesus tell this man to sell everything when Jesus had not made that demand of others?

The answer is that Jesus was testing this man. The man had claimed to have kept all of the commandments, so Jesus tested him on the very first Commandment which says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Jesus was asking the man to demonstrate that he valued Jesus (the Good One, or God) more than he valued his possessions. The man’s response indicated that he valued his possessions more than he valued Jesus, the Good One. Contrary to the man’s claim to have kept all the Commandments, he failed on the very first one—he had other gods before Jesus.

So how, according to Jesus, does one inherit eternal life? By having no other gods before Jesus. In other words, by loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself—which is exactly what Jesus said in Luke 10.

But that’s just two passages. Is this interpretation supported in the rest of the Gospels? Indeed it is. Let’s look at Mark 12:28-34, on page 1005 in your pew Bible. In Mark 12:28-34 a scribe came up to Jesus and asked, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” In verse 29, quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 6, Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” 

Actually, Luke’s version is more clear. Jesus responds saying, “do this and you will live.” On the subject of how to inherit eternal life, Jesus gives a very consistent answer: Love God—and Jesus says that he and the Father are One—Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And that is exactly what the Old Testament taught.

And by the way, loving our neighbor as ourselves does not necessarily mean having warm fuzzy feelings for our neighbors. It is a heart attitude that leads to behaving longingly toward others—Treating others the way we would want others to treat us.

      Now many scholars would say that it is impossible to love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself, therefore Jesus is simply pointing us to our need for him as a savior. But that idea is a misunderstanding of Paul, and is simply not found in any of the Gospels or the Old Testament. Jesus fully seems to expect that people can and should love God with all their hearts and their neighbor as themselves—not perfectly, of course. Only Jesus was perfect. And as we’ve seen in Genesis, even Abraham’s faith faltered at times and had to grow. But it is entirely possible to love God in such a way that he is first in one’s life so that there are no idols coming before Him. This is not an isolated teaching in the gospels. It is also found, for example, in Matthew 10, Matthew 16, Mark 8, Luke 9 and John 12 among others.

      Finally, in Luke 7:36-50, Jesus accepted an invitation to dinner with some religious leaders. They were probably eating in an open courtyard when a woman came in. She was known for her sinful lifestyle. In fact, her sinfulness is emphasized 4x in this short story. She comes to Jesus crying with tears streaming down her cheeks. She wet Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, anointed them with perfume and kissed them.

The host—a religious leader named Simon—was indignant. If Jesus were really a prophet as people claimed, he would know what kind of woman this was and would not let her touch him! Sensing the host’s indignation, Jesus asked him whether someone would have more love for a creditor who forgave a debt of 500 denarii, or a debt of 50 denarii. The host, Simon, said the one who had been forgiven most would love the most. Jesus said that Simon was right. Jesus then pointed out that when he came to Simon’s home, Simon, a religious leader, had not even shown him the common courtesies that would be shown to any guest in that culture—some water to wash the feet, and a kiss on the cheek. But this sinful woman had shown amazing love and devotion by wetting Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, anointing them with perfume, and kissing them continually.

Jesus then says, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much” (ESV). In other words, because of her repentant heart and the loving devotion she demonstrated toward Jesus, her sins were forgiven. When Jesus then said that her faith had saved her, he was defining “faith” as her repentant heart coupled with her loving devotion to Jesus.

Passages like these and others are why I define saving faith as a repentant heart attitude of loving devotion, dedication or allegiance to Jesus as our savior, lord and king above all else. But that’s a mouthful! Instead of giving such a wordy definition each time, the New Testament just uses shorthand words like “faith” or “believe.” So when the Gospel of John talks about “believing” in Jesus, or when Paul talks about faith in Jesus, that is kind of a shorthand for what Jesus taught about a repentant heart attitude of loving devotion to Jesus as our savior, lord and king above all else. This is why Paul wrote in First Corinthians 16:22, that “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.”

Perhaps Darrell Bock even put it better when he wrote, “At the heart of entering the future life is a relationship of devotion, a devotion that places God at the center of one’s spiritual life and responds to others in love…”^[2]. Bock said that in other New Testament contexts that heart attitude of devotion is called “faith.”

This raises some questions. First is, “Why should we love Jesus?” The biblical answer is because he first loved us. He died a torturous death on a Roman cross to pay the penalty for our rebelliousness and sin. Jesus himself said that his death would be a ransom for many. In other words, his death was for you, and for me! Our reasonable response should be loving devotion or faith in him.

My next question is Why would we believe someone who would demand absolute devotion and allegiance to himself? —Someone who claimed to be One with God! This sounds like a malignant narcissist or megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur! So why would anyone believe someone who talked like that? The fact is that most people didn’t believe him. Some thought he was nuts. Some thought he was a blasphemer. Some thought he was demon possessed.

But he did have a lot of followers, so why would ANYONE believe him? First, they believed because he didn’t talk or act like a crazy person. He was a very good teacher and could hold his own and even defeat his very educated opponents in rational debate.

      Second, they believed because they were convinced that he had fulfilled prophecies about a coming Messiah—Prophecies written long before he was born.

Third, they believed because of the phenomenal miracles he did—things that no one had ever done! No one in Jesus’ time denied that he did such amazing miracles. Those who did not believe just tried to explain them away as sorcery or demon possession, but no one denied that he did them.

Finally, they believed because they saw him alive after his death—in a fully healthy, resurrected, physical body. In fact, they not only saw him; they touched him, talked with him and even ate with him. They were saved because of their heart of loving devotion, dedication, or allegiance to Jesus. In other words, they had faith. They believed in Jesus.

      This is the kind of faith or belief a soldier has when they have a deep devotion and respect for their commanding officer and would willingly follow him anywhere—right into the valley of the shadow of death if necessary!

      So back to the question I asked at the beginning of this sermon, “What does Abraham’s faith have to do with us today.” The answer is that it is the same kind of faith. God came to Abraham, living in one of the most advanced cities of his time, and told him to go to a land of uncertainty. And Abraham believed God—and went. His faith moved him to obedience. Abraham’s faith journey had ups and downs, was often scarry and sometimes life-threatening, and his faith was not perfect, it sometimes faltered.

God is calling us to follow Jesus as he called Abraham. The journey will be uncertain, often scarry, and maybe even life-threatening. Like Abraham, our faith will not be perfect either. It will often falter. But according to Jesus, if you want to have eternal life, you need unqualified loving devotion to Jesus Christ that springs forth in love for others. The Bible calls that “faith.”

I’m not preaching this sermon because I think you all need to get saved. I’m preaching it because the better you understand the Gospel the better able you will be to share it.

But it is likely that in any group this size, there will be some who have never turned their hearts and lives over to Christ. I urge you by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for you, confess your sinful rebellion to God, and give your heart and life to Jesus Christ in loving devotion—as expressed on the back of your bulletin. In other words, repent and believe in Jesus. And then be baptized to demonstrate that you mean business with God and that your faith is genuine.

If you have questions or want to know more, please ask. If you’re not comfortable coming in person, my email address is in the bulletin.

LET’S PRAY

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[1] Bock, Darrell. Luke, 1024-1025.

[2] Bock, Darrell. Luke, 1024-1025.