How to Inherit Eternal Life, Part 2

Thank you, choir. We trust that that's your prayer today, that you would want to follow the Lord Jesus Christ wherever he leads you. We have a wonderful opportunity to study the gospel, the gospel of Luke. And in studying the gospel of Luke, we come face to face with the identity of Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God. In studying Christ, we involve ourselves in the richest study of the Bible. Christology is a great study because it helps us come to grips with the reality of Jesus Christ, his nature, and all that he's about.

And we've had the beautiful opportunity over the last four years to study the first 10 chapters in the gospel of Luke, coming face to face with our Messiah.

And today, once again, we will see our Lord, encounter an individual, talk with him, and see how he deals with an individual who asks that most crucial question, a prevailing question, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Let me read to you our text for this morning.

It's in Luke chapter 10, verse number 25. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and 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 does it read to you? And he answered and said, 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. And he said to him, you have answered correctly, do this and you will live. But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

This question asked by this lawyer, this scribe, this religious man, is a question that was prevalent in the mind of a Jewish individual. God had given a promise to Abraham that they would have a land and they would dwell in that land forever. God had given a promise to David, King David, that they'd have a Lord who would reign forever. And the Lord God, through the pit of Jeremiah, had given a promise about a new covenant that would describe the love of that God who would reign and the land that he would give them.

So they were well acquainted with the unconditional covenants that God had placed on his people that they might always anticipate the future, looking forward to eternity. It preoccupied their thinking. If you talk to a Jew today, and we have spoken with many of them when we take our trips to Israel, that they have a preoccupation with the future. It's a land that's theirs. The Messiah will come and reign and they will worship him forever. Daniel 2, Daniel 7, Daniel 12 speak extensively about that eternal kingdom.

And if you're a Jewish person, you understand that, you believe that, you live for that. The current life didn't matter that much to a Jewish person as much as the next life mattered to them. Today, the question asked by this scribe is rarely ever asked by someone, what must I do to inherit eternal life? We have already seen last week in our study that several times on different occasions, people ask the question because it was the prevailing question of the day. How is it I inherit eternal life?

But today, that question's very rarely ever asked. We want to know how to have a better career. We want to know how to have a better marriage. We want to know how to enhance our financial status. And our emphasis is on the temporal, the superficial, that which doesn't last. And very rarely do we ever think about eternity. As I was thinking about that today, I went back in my mind to recall the day of my conversion. And I began thinking about the time in April of 71, 1971, that's not 1871, that's 1971, that my mom and dad came to me one day and said, you know, son, we want to know if you want to give your life to Christ.

Now, you must know that I was not raised in a Christian family. I was raised in a churchgoing family. And my parents made sure that I went to church every Sunday. They felt that that was the moral thing to do, the right thing to do. So we went to church every Sunday. I can't remember a day in my life where we didn't go to church on Sunday. And it wasn't until later in life when my parents really gave their life to Christ. And we had gone to all kinds of churches. We've gone to Methodist churches, Lutheran churches, Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches.

But one of the things that marked all those churches is that we never truly really ever heard the gospel. We would go and we'd sit and we'd listen.

And my parents put me in choir, children's choir. I sang in the children's choir, wore a royal blue robe with a white sash with gold letters on it and had my pins on. And I did all the church things that all the other kids were doing. And it was an American Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas. It was a huge church. And the pastor there, he bought a new car every January. I guess he paid him so much money he could afford to do that, I guess. But every January he bought a new car, drove it around. And we thought, man, this is church.

This is the way church ought to be. And we went there every week and he wore this big old black robe and he'd stand up on one side of the podium to give the announcements and the opening stuff. And then he'd go to the other side of the podium and that would be the preaching side. And we were there, but we never heard the gospel. Never heard the gospel. My parents got saved because God and His sovereignty chose to save them. And one day we moved to Delaware, found ourselves in a church that preached the gospel.

And one day my folks said, you know, son, we want you to think about giving your life to Christ. And I said to my folks, do you want me to do that? They said, we do. I said, okay, I'll do that. If you want me to do that, I'll do that. So I got down on my knees and I prayed a prayer. We call it the sinner's prayer. Oh, by the way, there is no sinner's prayer in the Bible, just in case you wanted to know that. No sinner's prayer in the Bible, but that's what I prayed. I prayed the sinner's prayer. And I thought I was saved.

I thought I was saved. Went on through life from April of 1971 all the way to March of 72. And in February of 1972, the pastor of our church began to preach on hell, began to preach on eternity. I was scared to death that I was going to go to hell. I had no assurance that I was going to go to heaven, but I was scared to death I was going to go to hell. And I would come home from church and ask my mom, am I saved? Oh yeah, you were saved. We were there when you prayed. Oh, okay. That must be it. You were there when I prayed, so I must be saved.

And we'd go to church the next week. And of course, the series was a long series. It was about hell and you could preach forever on hell. And he just kept on going on hell and eternity and where are you going to spend eternity? And I'd come home every Sunday afternoon. Am I saved? My parents would say, sure you are. We were there when you prayed your prayer. This went on for several weeks. Finally, one day I came home and I said, are you really absolutely 100% sure that I'm saved?

And both my parents said, no, we're not. And I said, you know, I don't think I am. I'm going to hell and I don't want to go to hell. I truly want to spend the rest of my life with Christ. And on March 19th, 1972, it was a beautiful sunny day, a lot like it is today. And I got down on my hands and knees in my parents' bedroom and I prayed and I gave my life to Christ that day. And from that day forward, from that day forward, I've never one time doubted my salvation. Not once. I knew that Jesus Christ took up residence in my life and I knew I was going to heaven.

I knew I was going to heaven because Jesus Christ saved my soul. I tell you that story because, you know, God was so good to me. If I had died between April of 71 and March of 72, I'd have gone to hell with the assurance that I prayed a prayer because my parents wanted me to go to heaven. And so I thought, you know, as an obedient son, I'd do what my mom and dad asked. But you don't go to heaven with your family. And one thing the lawyer asked is what must I do to inherit eternal life? He knew it wasn't a corporate thing.

It was an individual decision. Each man must stand before God alone to receive that which is done on his body, whether it be good or bad. And so he he began to realize that it was an individual kind of thing. You see, it's important to realize that that heaven's about eternity. Let me say it to you this way.

We have one message and only one message. That's all we have. Just one. We don't have a lot of messages. We have one message. So then why do you preach every Sunday? Because it comes at it from different perspectives. And we only have one message and that message is the gospel and the gospel is about eternity. The message we have is not for this life. It's not. It's for the next life. And I'm afraid that so many times the church today has missed the emphasis of the message of the gospel. If we were to say that sometime this week, maybe Thursday, we would have a meeting here and none of you would come, of course, because you're here all the time.

But on Thursday we would say, how to guarantee you're going to go to heaven? You come Thursday at 10 o'clock and we'll give you that guarantee. I would eventually say that most would never stop by. Or Thursday night. But if we said, you know what, we guarantee that we can double your income in a week. And put that sign outside, we get a lot of people here. Because that's where people are. What about today? How can I double my income? Forget about tomorrow. That's a long way away. Who's worried about tomorrow?

What about today? See the gospel is not about today. It's not. And that's where the evangelical church has missed it tremendously in the 21st century. And we need to go back to the grassroots to help people understand that we need to be consumed with the next life. I was thinking about that this week and in my own personal study, I'm in Luke chapter 12. So I want you to turn with me to Luke chapter 12 for a moment.

We might get to the question asked by the lawyer in Christ's response to that question this morning. Hopefully we'll get to it. But you need to understand this. You need to see this because it's so prevalent throughout the scriptures. The Bible says in Luke chapter 12, and under these circumstances, after so many thousands of the multitude that gathered together, that they were stepping on one another.

Now, can you imagine having so many people, they're stepping on each other? Well, they have to because, you know, there's no microphones. There's no big screen TV behind Jesus. So the people weigh in the back and see Jesus and hear his words. They want to hear everything he's saying. So they're stepping on one another. So many thousands of people. We get to the text. We're not just a thousand. This is more than 30 to 40 to probably 50,000 people, okay, that are looking to hear Jesus speak. And the Bible says he began saying to his disciples, first of all, now people would say, well, that's his 12.

No, it's not the 12. It's not the 70. We've told you throughout the study of the gospels that there were many would-be disciples, many followers, many learners of the Christ, that they fall in the category of the curious. They're still learning about the Christ. They're still learning about whether or not this is the decision they want to make. Do I want to follow this man as Messiah? Is he really the Messiah? There's a lot of questions being asked. Jesus begins with, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.

He gives them some warnings, because he's going to present to them the truth of the gospel. And what you really have here in the first 10 verses is an invitation from Christ as to why you need to give your life to him and forget about the influence of the Pharisees, because they're leading you the wrong way.

When you come down to verse number 13, he denounces covetousness, and then he gives this parable. He says, the land of a certain rich man was very productive, and he began reasoning to himself, saying, what shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? He said, this is what I will do. I will tear down my barns, and I will build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come, take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared? So is the man who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God. Jesus says, listen, you've got to be careful that you don't put everything into one basket.

That is, this life. You're a fool if you do that. You're a fool. This day, this night, your life is required of you. Who will take all that you prepared? And you did not lay up for yourself treasures in heaven. And then he says this, for this reason I say to you, for this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you shall eat, nor for your body as to what you shall put on. For life is more than food and the body than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, and they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them.

How much more valuable you are than the birds, in which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his lifespan? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why are you anxious about other matters? Consider the lilies, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. And if God so raised the grass, the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, O men of little faith?

And do not seek what you shall eat and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek. Jesus says this is what the world does.

The nations of the world, the pagan people of the world, they seek to eat, they seek to drink, they seek to be clothed, they think about today. They are enamored with today. That consumes their thinking. That's what the nations of the world do. And then he says this, but your father knows that you need these things. Here it is, verse 31. But seek first his kingdom, and these things shall be added to you.

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to charity. Make yourselves purses which do not wear out. An unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You see, Christ keeps taking them to another perspective. It's not about now, it's about eternity. Forget about today. It's about tomorrow. And that's the whole emphasis of the ministry of Christ.

It's the true gospel that says, you know what? It's about eternity. It's about life and death. And where will you spend eternity? And that's why he says in verse 35, you better be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps alight. Why? Verse 40. You to be ready, for the son of man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. Again, it's that heavenly perspective. Are you ready? The son of man is coming again. He's going to come again. And you had better be ready for his arrival. Again, it's that heavenly perspective.

And then Peter goes on a little later on and says, Lord, are you giving this parable to us? Is this about us? Or is it about somebody else? Because we think we're ready to go. We think we're ready to face you. But is this for us? And Christ gives the parable in contrast the faithful steward with the unfaithful steward. And the faithful steward is ready for the master when he returns. And the unfaithful steward, well, he's sliced into pieces when the master returns. Because Christ wants them to come to grips with eternity.

Because the gospel is about life and death. The gospel is about tomorrow, not about today. That's the message that needs to be preached. And so that heavenly perspective is so crucial. You know, this is a study of Christology, really, when you think about it. A study of Christ. A study of theology is a study of God. A study of Hamartiology is a study of sin. A study of anthropology is a study of man. A study of ecclesiology is a study of the church. The study of pneumatology is a study of the spirit of God.

The study of eschatology is a study of the last days. But you know what? If you go to seminary, there's not a course on a study of thanatology. Why is that? What's thanatology? It's a study of death. A study of death. How come we don't have a course in Bible college or a course in seminary on the study of thanatology? Because death is mentioned 924 times in the Old Testament, 432 times in the New Testament, over 1350 times death is mentioned. It's probably a pretty important topic to understand. Would you not agree?

And Solomon says, there's a time for everything under the sun, a time to be born, and a time to die. And when Christ came, He was the life. He wanted to give life to dead men, people who were spiritually separated from Him. He came to preach the gospel, to give eternal life. That is the message, the message that we preach. If you're a Jew, you have a system, a system of ritual, a system of ceremony, a system of methodology, a system that doesn't guarantee you heaven because it leaves you empty on the inside.

It gnaws on the conscience. Let me, let me say it to you this way. Whenever you're involved in an ism, you have a problem. Judaism, Buddhism, Mormonism, Catholicism, whatever the ism is. Because the ism stands for inappropriate, insufficient, inadequate security for man. That's what the ism stands for at the end of the Judaism or the Catholicism. Because no ism, no religious ism will ever guarantee you eternal life. They can't. They can't guarantee you eternal life, but Christianity can. These things are written that you may know for certain that you have eternal life.

Because when you embrace the eternal one, you have eternal life. But if you're involved in an ism, there is no security for man. It's inappropriate, insufficient, and inadequate security for man. That's what the ism stands for, just in case you were wondering. Say, well, how do you know that? Well, that's what I made up this morning on my way to work. Think about it. There's no security in Catholicism about eternal life. Even Time Magazine, when they talked about Mother Teresa upon her death, and all the insecurity she had about her future, she had no idea where she was going when she died.

And here was a woman who was, by all practical purposes in the Catholic Church, a spiritual icon. But she had no security about where she was for eternity. None. Why is that? Because a works-based system cannot give you the security you need, because you can never do enough to get there. And those who are involved in the isms realize that. And Judaism was one of those works-based systems. I've got to do this, and I've got to do that. So they had all these rituals, all these ceremonies, all these things you had to engage in.

And yet there was that gnawing emptiness about, am I really forgiven? Will I spend eternity with the King? The point is, to evangelize somebody, you must get them to understand the afterlife. You must. You must get them to come to grips with where they will spend eternity. If you don't do that, you will produce superficial converts. You will produce the converts of the sow in the soil, seeds two and three, where people jump on the Jesus bandwagon with joy. But during times of affliction and during times of hardship, they fall away.

Or because of the cares of this world and the seedfulness of riches, it chokes out the gospel, and they fall away. You must present the gospel for what it is, the truth about eternity. And where will you spend it? We must get people to understand the future. I had a friend of mine who I went to school with, who was asked a question. He was getting ready to graduate from high school, and they said, what are you going to do? He said, I'm going to college. That's great, man. You're going to college.

What are you going to do after you graduate? I'm going to get a job based on my education so I can pay off all my debts. Well, that's good. That's good. Well, then what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to get married. I'm going to find myself a wife, and I'm going to get married, and I'm going to live happily ever after. He said, man, that's great. Then what are you going to do? I'm going to have kids. You get married, you have kids, right? I'm going to have kids. I'm going to have a lot of kids.

That's good. Nothing wrong with having kids. Then what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to watch my kids grow, and I'm going to provide a home for them, and then I'm going to send them off to college so they can get an education, so they can get married. Well, that's great. Then what are you going to do? Well, then I'm going to celebrate my grandkids. Wow, wow. That's a lot of fun. Well, then what are you going to do? I guess I'm going to retire. That's good. Then what are you going to do? I guess I'm going to die.

They said, what are you going to do then? The guy said, what do you mean, what am I going to do then? What's going to happen when you die? Because death is just a doorway to eternity. Where are you going to spend eternity? The man began to think for a moment. He says, I have no idea. I have no idea where I'll spend eternity. And my friend said to him, well, I got good news, because the Bible tells you where you can spend eternity. If you give me a moment, I'll share that with you. And he said, sure, I'd love to know.

That man gave his life to Christ and has served the Lord for years, because somebody got him to think about tomorrow and forget about today. That's so important. The gospel is about eternity. Listen, the gospel doesn't promise success in this life. It doesn't. Don't be deceived by those TV preachers. When Joel Osteen wrote that book, Your Best Life Now, what is that? Your best life now? It's not about today. The book should be your worst life now and a better life tomorrow. But that won't sell. People don't know about today.

What's my best life now, today? What can I get today? The gospel is not about today. Why is that so hard for people to understand? It's about tomorrow. It's about eternal life. It's about the coming kingdom. It's about eternity. It's about a life forever with God, to be able to behold His presence and live and worship Him as we were created to truly worship Him. You know, remember back in Luke chapter 9? We told you Luke 9 was the apex of the ministry of Christ, the high point. The infamous question, who do men say that I am?

Well, some say you're Jeremiah, some say you're Elijah, some say you're one of the prophets. Who do you say that I am? Peter says, you're God's Messiah. You're the Messiah. We know who you are. And that was the pinnacle part of the ministry of Christ. And that would lead them into something that was very significant because Jesus says this in verse 23, if anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.

This is Christ's invitation. And whoever wishes to save his life today shall lose it. But whoever loses his life today for my sake, he is the one who will save it tomorrow. For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? Jesus says, this is what it means to follow me.

You've got to deny yourself. You've got to take up your cross. You've got to follow me. And you've got to do this on a daily basis. And if you really want to gain in this life, you're going to lose it tomorrow. Because the gospel is not about today. It never promises success for today. But if you're willing to lose it all today, you'll gain it tomorrow. That's the promise. That's the gospel. That's what it's about. And then Jesus says these words, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the father and of the holy angels.

In other words, in this life, if you want to save your life, you're going to be ashamed of me. And believe me, he says, if you're ashamed of me today, I will be ashamed of you before my father in heaven. But the son of man is coming in all of his glory. And then he says, but I say to you, truthfully, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God. And sure enough, eight days later, they're on top of the non-transfiguration. This was it because he was giving them a preview of the coming kingdom.

You got Moses and Elijah, the Old Testament saints. You got Peter, James and John, the New Testament saints. You had the Messiah in all of his glory and the voice from heaven. This is my beloved son. Listen to him. And this was, this was the apex of the ministry of Christ. This is what he took them to from here on. When they go down the mountain, it's a symbol of everything going downhill to the cross. But it was all about eternity. It was all about glory because he wanted them to understand that Peter, James and John, they were going to get a glimpse of the glory of Christ and the coming kingdom because that would motivate them to preach, listen, the true gospel to man about eternity.

They needed to know that. Folks, this permeates the text. And the Evangelical Church, for some reason, has completely bypassed the essence of the gospel. You know, we want to get people to listen.

So we reinvent the gospel and we reinvent ways to preach the gospel. So one day somebody asked me not too long ago about a church in our area who, when the pastor wanted to do a series on superheroes, he came flying down out of the rafters on a zip cord in a in a Superman outfit because his theme was superheroes. And he came flying down out of the ceiling to the stage to emphasize the supernatural heroes of the people of the Bible. And somebody asked me what I thought about that. And I never give my opinion unless I'm asked.

And so I said, well, that's not a church because the Church of Jesus Christ would never do that. They wouldn't do that. Why wouldn't they do that? Because the Church of Jesus Christ is about eternal things. It's not about entertaining the people in the crowd. And we focus on the superficial and the shallow and the temporal. And superficial, shallow, temporal people love that stuff. They just love it. They glop on to it. It makes them feel good. They can laugh and have a good time and go to church feeling good about that.

They like that superficial, temporal, shallow people like that kind of stuff. They just love it. You know, we could have had, you know, Jack Graham, chairman of the board, dress up like Cupid today. I mean, after all, it's Valentine's, right? Have him come flying down out of the rafters with a little arrow in his hand, you know, and talk about love things today, right? It's Valentine's Day. But see, the essence of the gospel is eternity. And where will you spend tomorrow? That is just so important.

And that's, that was the emphasis of Christ's ministry. If you want to gain your life today, then lose tomorrow. If you're interested in today, I got nothing for you tomorrow. But if you're willing to give your life away today, tomorrow's yours, in my presence forever. That is the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord. So this man comes and he asks the right question. Have you ever been asked that question? By the way, I've never been asked that question. I've been preaching for over 30 years, but no one's ever come to me and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

Nobody's ever asked me that question. And part and parcel to the day and age we live in, most people can't even get through today, let alone think about tomorrow, right? But this man would come and he would ask that question about the future. How do we get somebody there? So they come face to face, they come to grips with eternity. To do that, you must help them understand sin and its consequences, because the wages of sin is death. And that death is an eternal separation from God, if not rectified in this life.

And they must come to grips with the fact that they are sinners. This man, the Bible says in verse 25, and behold, a certain lawyer stood up.

Behold, Luke says, you know what? I want you to be surprised at this. That's what the word behold means, be surprised, stay amazed. Stay amazed. Why? This lawyer heard Jesus talking about eternal things. Remember, there were people following Christ all the time, thousands of them. And even when you come to Luke 12, and we said there were so many people following, they stood on one another. Remember, that was the hostile crowd. A lot of them were hostile toward Christ. Most of them were hostile toward Him, looking for ways to trap Him and to catch Him so that they might find a way to indict Him.

And so there was always people following the Christ. They were all over the place. And this scribe was listening. He was around. He heard. Because Jesus said, upon the 70 returning, and they came back with joy because they saw the effects of the ministry. And Jesus said, don't rejoice only in this, but rejoice that your names are written down in heaven. You see, Jesus had to keep His people on the right path to a heavenly perspective. Oh, you're excited about today because you saw some effects of your ministry.

Don't get too excited about that. It's going to go up and down like this. You get excited about the fact that you're going to spend eternity with me. You're going to heaven with me. That's what you get excited about. And the scribe said, Matt, listen, I wonder where I'm going to spend eternity. I wonder where I'm going to spend eternity. So the lawyer interrupts him. It's the lawyer's confrontation. It's the lawyer's interruption. He interrupts and he stands up and he asks, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

I mean, he just hears Jesus speaking about eternity and names written down in heaven. How do I get my name written down in heaven? So it prompts a question by the man. And so Luke says, behold, there's a certain spiritual icon, a scribe, a lawyer. He wasn't a lawyer. He wasn't well-versed in civil law. He was well-versed in religious law. And Pharisees and scribes, they would go along together because the scribes were the interpreters of the law and they would usually be seen side by side. But evidently, this scribe was alone by himself.

That prompted this confrontation with the Messiah. It does say that he's asked a question in order to test him, it says. And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put him to the test saying, teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? It was a test. He wanted to know if Jesus knew the answer. And so there was this confrontation. Interesting that even, even the rich man in Matthew 19, which is not a parallel account to this one, asked the same question. What shall I do to inherit eternal life?

As if there was something he could do. See, the premise was there's something I can do to get there. And if I can do it, tell me what it is because I want to go. What do I have to do to inherit eternal life? You know, it grieves me deeply. The condition of the church today and how so many churches accentuate the peripheral. They accentuate the temporal in the shadow. That grieves me. What grieves me more is when, when someone's been a part of our church for years and they leave and they go to a church like that.

That grieves me even more because they left the opportunity to hear the truth and, and they chose the superficial and the temporal over the supernatural and the eternal. That grieves me greatly more than any of you will ever know because they had the opportunity to listen to the truth about tomorrow and chose that which deals with today. I was sharing with our leadership on Monday night, that which I'll share with you this morning, about that theological nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty. You know the story.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. And all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again. That is the most theological nursery rhyme ever written. I don't know if you know Humpty Dumpty or not, but he was quite the guy. He, he had his act together. He, he was the man. And one day Humpty Dumpty decided to take a walk, climb a wall. But on the way up the wall, he slipped and fell into many pieces. And, and the key thing about, about the nursery rhyme is to ask, who came to help him?

It wasn't his family and it wasn't his friends. It wasn't even his work associates. It was, it was Washington. It was Congress. They had an emergency session. Humpty Dumpty has fallen. He is broken in so many pieces. Congress had an emergency session on how to handle the brokenness of Humpty Dumpty. Upon having an emergency session, they sent all the king's horses and all the king's men. They sent all the president's horses and all the president's men. And the tragedy was not that they sent the king's horses and the king's men.

The tragedy is this, that when they got there, they couldn't do anything. Because Washington was just as broken as Humpty Dumpty. But they didn't know it. Humpty Dumpty did. But they didn't know they were broken. And the reason they couldn't help Humpty Dumpty is because Washington can't deal with the sin issue. Congress can't have an emergency session and deal with, we got drug addiction, we got pornography, we got war, we got physical abuse, we got child abuse, we got pedophilia, we got all kinds of problems.

We got to deal with it. And people are broken because the real issue is never dealt with. The issue is sin. And man is separated from God. And man is bound for Christ's eternity unless somebody comes to them and says, you need to know the truth about eternal life. And the question is, who's going to do that? That's our responsibility to tell people about eternity. It's our responsibility to get them to think about tomorrow, not today. And so as a church, that should be our great passion. We have one message.

Don't multiply the message. Don't double it. We got one message. That's it. Only have one. And once the church decides to reinvent that message, to retool that message, to represent that message in a different way, it will produce, listen, shallow, superficial, temporal converts. It will. And that's what's happened all across the country, all across the world. How sad. How sad. We need to stay focused on what the Bible says.

And so the lawyer comes with this confrontation, this interruption, because he wanted to test the Messiah. What must I do to inherit eternal life? And from the lawyer's confrontation, you have the Lord's question. What does the Lord say? He says, what is written in the law? How does it read to you? You tell me. Now, what Jesus does is affirm the law of God. Because you see the scribes and the Pharisees would say that Jesus was against the law of God. But Jesus affirms the law. Remember, Matthew 5 says that he came to fulfill the law of the prophets, not to abolish the law, to fulfill it.

You tell me what the law says. Now, this is important, because you see in the ism of Judaism were all these commandments that were developed, 613 of them, 613 commands. How'd they come up with 613 commands? Answer, there are 613 letters in the Ten Commandments. And 365 of the 613 were positive commandments, because there was one for every day, leaving 248 negative commandments. And how do they come up with the number 248? All the parts of the body. I'm not sure they got that right, but that's how they came up with it.

So, the question is, which of the commands are non-negotiable? Some of them must be negotiable. If there's 613 of them, then what are the ones that are really important? What are the ones that I have to keep? So, when the scribe comes and asks the question, he wants to know, what must I do to inherit eternal life? In other words, what is the commands that I must keep in order to go to heaven? You got to tell me what they are. I got so many of them, I can't keep track of all of them. If there's 248 that are negative, and 365 that are positive, which ones are non-negotiable?

And Jesus says, you tell me, what are the ones that you recite every day? Better translation, what do you recite every day? Because the Jew would recite every day, Deuteronomy 6, 4 to 5. They would add Deuteronomy 11, verses 13 to 18. They also would add Leviticus 19, 18. You should love your neighbor as yourself. They would recite it twice a day. And you know, if you've been to Israel, you know that when you go to Israel, they have on the doors in Israel, these little mezuzahs. They're on every door in a Jewish home, except the door to the bathroom.

Everyone. Everyone has the Hebrew letter shin on it. Speak of the almighty power of God. Some of them have, like this one does, David's tower. Others have the city of Jerusalem, different things. Some just have the Hebrew letter shin on it. And it's right inside the doorway, on the right-hand side, when you walk in. And every Jew, when he walks into a door, he just brushes over it, just touches it. For protection by the almighty God himself. Every hotel has them. Every home has them. Every building has them.

On every doorway, except the doorway to the bathroom. And inside the mezuzah, there's a little blank spot in the back, and they put a little paper over it. Inside there, they put Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11, Leviticus 19, 18. And they close it over. And they put it on the doorpost. And if you've seen Orthodox Jew, they have these little phylacteries that they carry around. They have them on these beads, and they wrap them around their hands. They wrap them around their foreheads. And if you go to Israel today, you can see these Orthodox Jews with these little phylacteries that carry within them, these little boxes, the law of God.

And they recite them twice a day, religiously. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The ritualistic reciting of those verses every day. And they would take it to an extended view because Christ said that you should write them as frontlets upon your door. And so they literally put it on the door. The Lord God never meant that. He just meant that when you leave your house, don't leave your house and forgo the law of God.

Write them on your hand. Put them as frontlets around your head, so that whatever you think about, whatever you see, goes to the grid of the Word of God. But they would take it literally, and they would tie them around their head. They would tie them around their wrists and say, this is the law of God. I'm doing exactly what Deuteronomy 6 says, and I'm going to follow it explicitly. Not realizing that the intent of all that was to make sure you kept your mind focused on the things of God. And Jesus says, you tell me.

I mean, you recite it every day. You should know. So Christ answers the conversation with a question. And the lawyer then gives his explanation. He says very simply these words. By the way, there's no hesitation on the part of the scribe. What is written in the law? How does it read to you? And the answer is said, you should love the mind and your neighbor as yourself. No hesitation. He knew exactly what he was doing. Every single day, twice a day. And Jesus said, you've answered correctly. You do this, you will live.

You do this, you will live. The lawyer comes, has a confrontation to test the Messiah. The Messiah himself responds with a question. You tell me. The lawyer's explanation, spot on. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You got it right. The Lord makes a declaration. Do this, and you certainly will live. That's how you inherit eternal life. So I can't do that. Right? Can't. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. You see, the issue is not the law. The issue is loving God.

A man can't do that because he loves himself so very much. Man is completely in love with himself. He is so in love with himself. He can't free himself up to love God. And if he did, he couldn't love him with all of his strength, with all of his might, with all of his mind, with all of his soul, with all of his heart. It speaks of intensity. It speaks of totality. It speaks of perfection. With all that I have. And then once I've done that, I gotta love my neighbor as I love myself. And Jesus says, you got it right.

You do that, you live. And what's the scribe responded by saying? By the way, who is my neighbor? Who is my neighbor? He asked a question that really does not deal with the answer. But Christ will give him an answer in his question. He bypasses the loving God part because he knows he can't do that. Can't do it. But if you can tell me who my neighbor is, maybe my neighbor is my Pharisee friend. I can love him. Maybe my neighbor is my good buddy. If that's the case, I can love him. And of course, the way Christ describes it with that famous parable about the Good Samaritan will help him rethink his view of his neighbor.

But the point is, Christ got him to think about eternity because that was the message that Christ preached. Is that the message that we preach? God save us from the temporal. God save us from the superficial. God save us from the shallow. And may we continue to speak the truth about eternity because it weighs in the balance for every man. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for today and the joy of your word and pray that every one of us would recognize and understand the truth of the gospel that truly is about tomorrow and not today.

And that Father, we would live a life that honors and glorifies the name of Christ. And when we share Jesus with others, we would share the fact that you are eternal and that their eternal life weighs in the balance. And they must today understand that if they want to keep their life, they will lose it tomorrow. But if they're willing to give it away for the sake of Christ today, they'll have eternal life tomorrow. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.