Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRODUCTION:

“What must a person do to go to heaven?”If we were to walk down the streets of any city in our country and ask people this question, we would come away with many different answers.

If we also went to different churches today and asked the very same question, I can assure you that we would also come back with many different answers.

Some answers will be right and some will be wrong.

This is the most important question with which every human being will have to wrestle.

That is because our eternal destiny depends upon the answer we claim.

Folks, let me ask you, what must a person do to go to heaven?

Do you know the answer to this question?

In Jesus’ day, a rich young ruler was also wrestling with this question.

1. THE RICH YOUNG RULER QUESTIONS JESUS (VV.

17).

THE RICH YOUNG RULER QUESTIONS JESUS (VV.

17).

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?”

As Jesus started on His way to Jerusalem, a man raced up to Jesus, fell on his knees and asked Him, “Good teacher, what must I do so that when i die, I can go to heaven?”

Notice that this man thinks like many in our culture today.

That is for Him to inherit eternal life or go to heaven, he thinks he must work his way there.

He really wanted to know what he had to do to spend eternity with God.

In , we learned from Jesus that if we are to inherit eternal life, we must come as children depending upon Christ for our salvation.

Because of our sinfulness, there is nothing we can do to get us into the kingdom of God.

Since we inherited our sin nature from our first parents everything we try to do will be corrupted and will be offensive to God.

This rich ruler who I believed was influenced by the pharisees of his day, thought that a person could attain eternal life or go to heaven by their works, or by doing something.

2. JESUS’ RESPONSE TO THE RICH YOUNG RULER (VV.

18-20).

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered.

No one is good-except God alone.

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, you shall honor your father and mother.”

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

A. “Why do you call me good?”

Within the Jewish culture, it was very unusual to call anyone good.

The word “good” was reserved for God alone.

Was Jesus distancing Himself from God? Jesus was in no way denying His deity.

Rather, He was saying to this man, “do you realize what you are saying?

Do you know how close to the truth you are?”

This man was speaking to the incarnate God, the second person of the Trinity.

Jesus wanted to be sure that this man knew what he was saying.

There are times that Jesus would ask questions not because He did not know the answer.

He asked because He wanted to draw something out of someone.

For example, there was a woman with the issue of blood who touched His garment.

B. To answer the man’s question, Jesus said, “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.’”

Jesus quotes the last six commandments.

To the list was added “defraud” instead of coveting.

This I presumed is because this man was rich and may have defrauded people on his way to wealth.

The six commandments Jesus quoted have to do with our relationship with one another.

For the second time, the rich young ruler refers to Jesus as “teacher.”

He said, “Teacher all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

The phrase since I was a boy referred to the age of thirteen, the time when he would have become accountable, the son of the commandment.

In , the rich young ruler states, “All these I have kept, the young man said, “what do I still lack?”

This man was aware that keeping the laws were inadequate for his salvation.

He was hoping that there was something else he could do to qualify him for eternal life.

He must have missed the Beatitudes.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus taught that “evil intent is the same as deed.”

The 10 Commandments speak only about acts which could be kept.

This man is pointing out that he kept the laws listed by Christ.

He was saying to Christ, give me something more.

I have kept everything you listed perfectly from the time I was a boy.

I have kept all the commandments relating to loving others.

The idea that a person possessed the ability to keep the law was fairly rooted in rabbinic teaching.

In his testimony in , Paul states, “…as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.”

Paul is stating that he could perfectly keep the law.

We must not fool ourselves into ever thinking that we can faithfully keep the commandments of God like this man thought.

Edwards, J. R. (2002).

The Gospel according to Mark (p. 311).

Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos.