Following the King

[0:00] Luke chapter 6 verses 37 to 49. He also told them a parable.

[0:34] Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

[0:46] Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye.

[1:00] When you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

[1:13] For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.

[1:26] The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good. And the evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.

[1:40] Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.

[1:52] He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.

[2:04] But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.

[2:21] This is God's authoritative word. Heavenly Father, we come to you now wanting to hear from you. Lord, apart from the humility that Christ exemplified for us, we cannot rightly hear this message.

[2:42] To peel back our self-righteousness, our pride. To humble ourselves. To follow you, who alone is the true teacher. That can lead us to eternal life and salvation.

[2:55] So won't you please lead us, speak to us through your word. Humble us and help us to believe and obey.

[3:08] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Last week we studied the core of Jesus' ethical teaching.

[3:19] And the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. And the command even to love our enemies. And do good even to those who hate us and who do no good to us.

[3:30] And in today's passage, Jesus concludes teaching by really calling for self-examination. That are we true followers of Christ or not? What do true followers of Christ look like?

[3:41] And the main point of this passage is that we should follow Christ, who is the good teacher that saves us from our sins. And we'll just go through the sections.

[3:52] Forgiveness of Christ, follower of Christ, fruit of Christ, and the foundation of Christ that Jesus talks about in turn. And in the first section that I'm covering, verses 37 to 38, I read it last week because it's actually really part of last week's passage that I read.

[4:07] It fits better in that context. But because the sermon was getting too long, I didn't preach that. So I'm just going to tack this on to the last week's message if I can and go with the rest of it.

[4:21] Because in the preceding passage, Jesus taught us to love our enemies and do good even to those who are evil because we're imitating our heavenly Father. And verse 36 ended by saying, And so 37 and 38 are really continuing that thought, explaining what being merciful looks like.

[4:48] And Jesus explains that command to be merciful by giving two further negative commands and two positive commands that go with that. So he says, Judge not, and you will not be judged.

[5:00] Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. This is a favorite verse that non-Christians like to quote two Christians.

[5:18] Maybe you've had this quoted to you before. Didn't Jesus teach you not to judge? Stop telling me that what I'm doing is sinful. You're so judgmental.

[5:31] However, the command not to judge here does not mean that we cannot form any kind of moral judgments. If you believe in any kind of morality, you have to form moral judgments in order to function in society, right?

[5:45] You have to be able to say that some things are morally right while other things are morally wrong. That kind of judgment is fundamental to and necessary for anyone who has a conscience.

[5:56] So the command to judge not does not mean that you shouldn't form any moral judgments. If that were the case, there would be no rule of law, no courts, no church discipline, which blatantly contradicts the teaching of Scripture from other places.

[6:11] So the command to judge not is rather more helpfully explained by the parallel phrase in verse 37. Condemn not. There's nothing wrong with calling sin a sin, as long as that moral judgment is shared with love and an earnest desire that that person would repent from his or her sin and turn to God for forgiveness.

[6:34] But when we judge, not inviting them toward God's mercy, but instead shunning them with condemnation, we're disobeying Jesus' command. If we're self-righteous, if instead of mourning over people's sins, we are gloating over their sins and eagerly pointing the finger of condemnation toward them, then we're disobeying Jesus' command.

[6:58] So in that case, we're placing ourselves in the seat of God's judgment where only He deserves to sit. And if we presume to sit on God's judgment seat by condemning others, God Himself says that He will condemn us.

[7:12] The assumed subject of the passive verbs in verses 37 and 38 is God. Judge not, and you will not be judged by God. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned by God.

[7:26] Forgive, and you will be forgiven by God. Give, and it will be given to you by God. This is what Greek grammarians call the divine passive. It assumes that God's the one who's acting and working in us and doing these things.

[7:40] And earlier in verse 31, Jesus commanded us, As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. And so here in verses 37 and 38, God promised that as we do to others, He will do to us.

[7:55] This does not mean that we are saved by our good works. Salvation is a gift from God. We are saved by God. We are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

[8:05] But those who are saved do good works. You guys see the difference? And because those who are saved do good works, our good works become the basis for God's judgment in the end.

[8:18] We are saved by grace, but judged by our works. This is why we are commanded in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32, to forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.

[8:34] It's because God has already forgiven us. We are to forgive one another. And God's forgiveness is the basis for our forgiveness. And for this reason, when we don't forgive one another, God will judge us as unforgiven people.

[8:51] We will not receive His forgiveness on the day of judgment. That's the meaning of condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. And because forgiveness involves bearing the pain and really the cost of that person's offense against you, it's naturally connected to the idea of giving.

[9:12] And verse 38 says, Give, and it will be given to you. In the same way that we generously offer forgiveness to those who wrong us, we are to give generously of our finances as well.

[9:24] And Jesus promises this to those who are generous. He says, Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

[9:36] This is an illustration from kind of farming and commerce of agricultural goods. For example, when selling corn kernels in this day and age, they would really pour a measure into a container.

[9:49] And they would shake it up to make sure that it occupies all this, there's no empty space in the container. And they would press it down to make sure that there is no extra room. They'll pour some more, then they shall get some more.

[10:01] And then they'll literally, in order to give a full measure, keep on top of it so that it's overflowing, and then pour that into someone's lap to ensure that they are not getting deprived or cheated in any way.

[10:14] So that's a way a very generous seller would pour, lavish this thing that they're getting from them. And that's what God promises. If you give generously, if you give to others, I will pour back to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over onto your lap.

[10:33] And then for with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And this is consistent with the way God has taught us throughout Scripture. In Proverbs 11, 24 to 25, It says, To give to those who don't do evil to us, and to lend to those, give to those who have no way of returning the favor in any way.

[11:22] Because the reason, the basis for this is that God will reward us. If you give to poor who cannot repay you, God will reward you for that. And so entrusting ourselves to God's repayment is what enables us to give selflessly and sacrificially in this life, without expecting anything in return.

[11:39] And so then that tells us that the key to Christian generosity is not wealth, but faith in God's generosity. We give not out of the abundance of wealth, but out of the abundance of faith that God, who is generous, will give.

[11:58] That's the first point. And the second point, we see what it means to be the follower of Christ, the forgiveness of Christ. It goes with last week's passage.

[12:10] And here, Jesus really is concluding His main ethical teaching, and starting in verse 39, He calls His followers to self-examination, and He exhorts them to respond to His teaching by following Him and obeying His commands.

[12:23] So He begins in verse 39. He also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?

[12:34] So Jesus uses two illustrations here to make the point that His hearers should follow Him. First illustration is one of a blind man, right? Following a blind man. And of course, it's absurd for a blind man to try to lead another blind man.

[12:48] And Jesus uses this picture to warn His disciples that they should be careful whom they follow. Because following someone who is spiritually blind will lead them to fall into a pit.

[13:01] And as I mentioned last week, Jesus' teaching here is directed primarily at His disciples. But there is a larger crowd, those who are around Him, that are not His disciples, which includes probably His critics, the Pharisees and the scribes as well.

[13:14] They're part of the great multitude of the people who are not His disciples. And especially because Jesus' teaching was preceded by, His sermon on the plain was preceded by His confrontation with the Pharisees.

[13:26] It's hard to ignore the fact that Jesus has the Pharisees in mind in the background as He says this. And in Matthew 15, 14, actually Jesus explicitly calls out the Pharisees as blind guides.

[13:39] So He says, If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And Jesus makes a follow-up point in verse 40. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.

[13:53] In the ancient world, the teacher-disciple-student relationship was much more personal and intimate than it is now. Nowadays, there's a lot more self-study, right?

[14:04] Because there's an abundance of books and other digital resources that we can access so readily available. But in the ancient world, they didn't have that, so the students follow their teachers around everywhere, and they would watch them and learn from their example, and they would learn through oral instruction primarily, if the teacher is teaching them in what they say to them.

[14:23] And so given that background, Jesus is teaching His disciples that the teacher sets the upper limit, the ceiling of what the disciples can learn and become. And so because of that, they should be all the more thoughtful and careful about whom they choose to follow as their teacher.

[14:41] The implication. The implication, of course, is that they should not follow blind guides like the Pharisees, but that they should follow Him and seek to become more like Him.

[14:52] So who would you say are the people in your life that you follow? Who are the teachers in your life? The one you tend to rely on for guidance in life.

[15:05] Maybe it's a college professor, a pastor, or a community group leader, an author, a YouTube personality? Whoever it might be, you should make sure that your teacher is following Christ.

[15:22] Because you're going to end up where he or she is. And if you are someone that others look up to and follow, then you should make sure that you are not blind and that you are faithfully following Christ.

[15:35] As Robert Murray Mishane, he's a 19th century Scottish pastor, he once famously said this, the greatest need of my people is my own holiness.

[15:46] Your followers will become like you. That's a sobering thought that should make any aspiring leader tremble.

[15:58] Makes me tremble. Continuing the theme of spiritual sight, Jesus says in verses 41 to 42, Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

[16:15] How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye. When you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

[16:32] The word log refers to one of the main beams of a house. When you're building a house, like that cross beam that goes through the entire structure. And speck refers to a small flake of wood, something like sawdust maybe that you've seen before.

[16:48] And so imagine two construction workers building a house together and one of them has the cross beam of the house sticking out of his eye. Obviously, that's not even possible. He'd be dead, right?

[16:59] But just imagine the scene. And this is supposed to be funny. And he looks at his co-worker who has a little sawdust in his eye and he looks to him and says, Hey, man, hey, you have sawdust in your eye.

[17:11] Come here. Let me get that out for you. It's ridiculous, right? It's Jesus using a humorous illustration to expose our prideful human tendency to be hyper-aware of the shortcomings and sins of other people but unaware of our own shortcomings and sins.

[17:32] That's a natural human sinful tendency. Jesus calls this man with the log in his eye a hypocrite, which in the Greek means actor or pretender.

[17:45] The man is a pretender because if he were really serious about dealing with sin, he would have dealt with his own sin, own graver sins, before confronting his brother.

[17:57] But instead, consciously or not, he pretends to be concerned for the holiness of his brother when he is really primarily concerned with elevating himself above his brother.

[18:09] It's so easy to fall into this kind of hypocrisy, isn't it? A boss at work berates an employee for a small mistake that he made, pointing out the fact that he has no attention to detail and that he is incompetent and wasting his time and pay.

[18:32] But as he does this, he fails to see that his self-righteousness, unrighteousness, prideful judgment, excessive anger, and harsh speech are far bigger problems than his employees' lack of attention to detail.

[18:51] A wife seems lonely and depressed and asks her husband to stay home one evening to spend time with her instead of going out to the work social.

[19:02] The husband responds by trying to remove the speck from her eye, giving a sanctimonious lecture on how much he sacrifices for her, telling her callously that she just needs to be more joyful in the Lord, and finally accusing her of being selfish and needy.

[19:24] But as he does this, the husband fails to see the log in his own eye, that because of his daily evening ritual of sports watching and video gaming, and because of his weekly weekend ritual of golf outings with his buddies, that he has hardly nourished and cherished his wife as the Bible calls him to, and his selfishness and neglect of his wife are far greater faults before the eyes of God than his wife's despondency.

[20:01] He's like an ophthalmologist trying to perform a delicate eye surgery while he himself has a golf ball-sized cataract in his eyes that prevents him from seeing clearly.

[20:15] Now, all this to say, this doesn't mean that, as Christians, we can never bring correction to a fellow believer. Colossians 3.16 tells us, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.

[20:35] We're commanded, every single believer, to admonish one another, to speak the truth in love to one another. The Bible commands this. But it does mean that we should examine ourselves and acknowledge our own faults and confess our own sins before confronting someone else.

[20:58] Our own shortcomings and sins can blind us from seeing other people's shortcomings and sins clearly. So what are some logs in your life? Of course, the trouble is that for some of us, we have had these logs lodged in our eyes for so long, it's hard for us to see it.

[21:19] Lorraine Quig, who was an FBI counterintelligence operative, an undercover agent for 25 years, knows something about deception. And she writes in her book that the most difficult kind of deception to uncover is actually self-deception.

[21:36] She says, we've carefully, she says here, we tell ourselves we want to know the truth, but we're very selective about the kind of truth we seek.

[21:50] About others? Yes. And usually about world events and situations that impact us directly. But we are less receptive to revelations about ourselves. We've carefully packaged ourselves to look and act in a manner that ensures success in the world.

[22:07] Our ego has dressed us up for so long that many of us don't even know how to begin to peel back the layers of illusion, to expose cold, hard facts about ourselves.

[22:21] That's why we need help. So take time this week to ask a trusted Christian brother or sister to help you identify any logs in your life that you're oblivious to but it's obvious to others.

[22:39] The existence of logs in our eyes necessitates mutual admonishment among church members. But before admonishing one another, we should examine ourselves. That's the call.

[22:52] And having spoken of the blind, leading the blind, and a man whose sight is obscured by a log trying to help another man with a speck in his eye, Jesus explains the need for self-examination further in verses 43 to 45.

[23:05] This is where he talks about the fruit of Christ. We know that this passage is a further explanation of the preceding verses because it begins with the word for. He says, For, no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.

[23:20] For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.

[23:32] And the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Once again, the theme is self-examination.

[23:44] This time, Jesus begins with the very simple observation that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. This is an impossibility.

[23:54] A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Likewise, thorn bushes don't produce figs, nor do bramble bushes produce grapes. Figs are a delicious, nutritious fruit that grow in the Middle East, and of course, you wouldn't expect to find that among the thorn bushes.

[24:07] And the bramble bush, likewise, has prickles and thorns, and its leaves are serrated. You can get cut by the leaves as well. So it might make a good alternative for a barbed wire, but you're not going to find any grapes growing on them, and this is the obvious observation.

[24:23] But from this, Jesus makes the insightful spiritual observation that the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

[24:39] There are several things that are very interesting about this, about verse 45. First, Jesus doesn't use the same absolute formulation that he used in his illustrations.

[24:50] Notice that Jesus doesn't say the good person does not or cannot produce evil. He does not say the evil person does not or cannot produce good.

[25:02] Instead, Jesus rewards it in a general positive formulation. He says, the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.

[25:15] This is a general truth. It's not that this is what is generally true of good people and good evil people, that you can tell by their fruit what they do in their lives.

[25:28] We saw earlier that Jesus called his disciples to do good even to their enemies. So the same idea here of doing good refers to doing something that's morally good, something good works, what we might call good works.

[25:41] And so he makes the point, it's not that a good person can never do any wrong, but that there's a consistency there and a pattern there that a good person does good things.

[25:52] Because what the person does flows out from the treasure of his heart. This is an extremely important principle because our actions and speech are not caused by our circumstances or our environment, but by our hearts.

[26:10] it's our sinful human tendency to blame others. And so we say, well, if my roommates weren't so lazy and incompetent, then I wouldn't be so frustrated and angry.

[26:24] It's tempting to think that way, but the sinful anger comes from your own heart. If only I made more money, then I wouldn't be so greedy and stingy.

[26:40] It's tempting to think that way, but greed comes from your own heart. The circumstances provide the context for your behavior, but they are not the cost.

[26:55] After a concrete floor is laid in a building, on a building, sometimes engineers do a load test to investigate its structural integrity. If there's not enough compressive strength in the concrete, it will crack under the weight.

[27:10] And when concrete fails in this way, the cause of the failure is not the weight, but the concrete's lack of structural integrity. It was already defective, and the weight merely exposed that defect.

[27:25] And that's the same thing here. This calls for honest self-evaluation. We should look around ourselves, look at the fruit of our lives, in our families, in our church, in our workplaces.

[27:35] Am I bearing good fruit or bad fruit? Because the fruit we produce outwardly reflects what's inside our hearts. While this is true generally of all behaviors, Jesus has a particular emphasis, focus in this passage on our speech.

[27:57] He concludes verse 45. This is the second surprising thing about this verse. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. The heart is the fountain of the mouth.

[28:11] What comes out of the mouth comes up from the heart. This focus on speech connects this passage back to verses 39 to 42, where Jesus mentioned a teacher who misleads his disciple and a man who brings misguided correction to his brother.

[28:29] There's a particular warning here to those who aspire to teach others, those who speak a lot. For out of the abundance, the overflow of the heart, your mouth speaks.

[28:41] So we are to guard our hearts, guard your inner life, guard what you love and cherish in your heart, and make sure that you examine the fruit of any teacher you acquire for yourself.

[28:53] who then is the teacher that we should follow? That's the main point that Jesus has been getting at all this time, and he makes it explicit in verses 46 to 49, when he talks about the foundation of Christ.

[29:10] He says in verses 46 to 47, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.

[29:25] What's the point of calling Jesus Lord, or Master, Teacher, or God, if you don't do what he tells you? The repetition of the word Lord is emphatic, and it kind of almost suggests this kind of insincere servility.

[29:42] It's someone who is fawning over Jesus. Oh, Lord, Lord, teach us. Lord, Lord, lead us. Lord, Lord, speak to us. But it's all a show. It's a hypocrisy. Because they don't do what he says.

[29:59] Earlier in chapter, earlier in this chapter, Luke 6, verse 18, before Jesus began the sermon, we are told that a great multitude of people came to hear him.

[30:10] The word come and word hear, these two words are repeated in verse 47, as Jesus brings this sermon to a close. But he adds a third word, a new word. He says, everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.

[30:28] It's, yes, they've come to hear him, but coming is not enough. Hearing is not enough. You must do what Jesus has taught you to do. As Christians, we love to pray for discernment and guidance in our lives, don't we?

[30:44] I'm the same way. And it's good and right that we desire to figure out what God's will is for us so we can follow him. But for every decision where his will is not perfectly clear and we need to exercise discernment and wisdom and prayer, for every one of those, there are hundreds of decisions where God's will is perfectly clear and revealed to us in his word, the scriptures.

[31:12] believers. You might not know what your long-term career is supposed to be, but you do know this from Colossians 3.23, that whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.

[31:27] You might not know exactly who you're supposed to marry, but you do know this. 2 Corinthians 6.14 says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.

[31:38] 1 Thessalonians 4.3 says, abstain from sexual immorality. You know these things which refers to any sexual immorality outside of marriage. You want to know more of God's will in your life.

[31:50] Are you obeying what you already know about God's will in your life? We always want God to speak to us, but if God were to speak right now in an audible way, would you obey Him?

[32:08] Because God has spoken to us. through Jesus Christ. And God's word has been recorded and preserved for us in this book. Maybe there's a lack of clarity in our lives regarding God's will because there's a lack of obedience in our lives regarding what God has already revealed.

[32:32] God's need for obedience is the point of the illustration that Jesus uses in verses 48 to 49.

[32:43] He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock and when a flood arose, the stream broke against the house and could not shake it because it had been well built.

[32:54] But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great.

[33:10] The person who obeys Jesus' teaching is building a house on the rock, on a foundation, which will withstand the floods that rise up against it. But the person who disobeys Jesus' teaching is building a house without a foundation, just on the dirt, which will collapse immediately into great ruin when the judgment of God's flood comes.

[33:31] This image is an allusion to Ezekiel 13, 9-14, where God denounces the false prophets of Israel. He says this to the false prophets, My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations.

[33:47] They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel, and you shall know that I am the Lord God, precisely because they have misled my people, saying, Peace, when there is no peace, and because when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, say to those who smear it with whitewash, that it shall fall.

[34:13] There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out, and when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, where is the coating with which you smeared it?

[34:29] Therefore, thus says the Lord God, I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end, and I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare.

[34:56] God's judgment was at hand against sinful Israel, but the false prophets of Israel were giving them false assurances, proclaiming peace when there is no peace in sight, and by doing that, they were basically smearing whitewash on a wall that was about to crumble.

[35:14] Instead of fixing the cracks on the wall, they masked it with whitewash, and pretended like everything was okay, and God promised to send a flood of rain that will tear down the wall and expose their hypocrisy.

[35:27] Jesus making a similar point. If we hear Jesus, but don't obey him, we are whitewashing our walls that are crumbling down. We're building a house without a foundation.

[35:39] We're pretending that obedience doesn't matter. We're pretending that our sins are not serious, and Jesus warns us, if you do that, the house of your life will fall into great ruin on that day of judgment.

[35:55] Our sins are grave, and they have eternal consequences. You must repent and turn to Jesus for salvation. You must turn to him in faith, cling to him, and follow him in obedience.

[36:13] This is an urgent and desperate situation. exactly a month ago, a mining dam in Burmadino, Brazil, collapsed due to structural failure.

[36:33] And the New York Times posted a frightening video of the incident. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's like a tidal wave of mud. The collapse released 11.7 million cubic meters of toxic mud and buried more than 150 people alive.

[36:53] And this sent a chilling fear throughout Brazil's mining heartland because there are 87 other dams like this one, which is held up by little more than sand and silt.

[37:08] 83 of those 87 dams have been rated by the Brazilian government as equally vulnerable or worse. This highlights the mortal danger of building a house on dirt without a foundation.

[37:26] And it's a good illustration of the eternal danger of refusing to follow Christ. The situation for sinners is far more precarious than that of the Brazilian residents living right near those dams.

[37:49] Let me ask you, are you a good person? Jesus said earlier in verse 45, the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.

[38:02] Are you a good person? That's a trick question. Christian ethicist Louis Smedes wrote a brilliantly titled book called A Pretty Good Person, pointing out the fact that most people in this world see themselves as a pretty good person.

[38:22] But this is the most dangerous delusion that the devil has ever duped humanity with. Because later in Luke 18, 18-19, a self-righteous ruler asks Jesus, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

[38:41] And Jesus replies, why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Jesus is not denying that he is good.

[38:54] He is good because he is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. But Jesus is challenging the rich young rulers shallow understanding of moral goodness.

[39:06] As we see later in that passage, when the ruler claims to have, he claims to have kept all the Ten Commandments, he thought he was a pretty good person. And he thought that he was being deferential toward Jesus by calling him good.

[39:19] Hey, I'm pretty good. Hey, good teacher, let's have a conversation. But Jesus exposes the man's deficient understanding of goodness. You think you're good?

[39:30] there is no human being that can rightly claim to be good. No one is good except God alone because every single human being has rebelled against God, has sinned against him, and deserves eternal punishment.

[39:50] We're not good people. but the good God sent us a good teacher to instruct us in the way of salvation.

[40:04] So are you following Jesus Christ? Following Jesus Christ means we follow him to the cross where Jesus out of his love for us in order to save us out of his love and obedience to the Father, he dies to pay the penalty of our sins.

[40:25] Jesus was good, he was perfectly righteous, yet he met the ruin and calamity of the cross that should have fallen on us, that we deserved, so that we might be spared from the wrath of God.

[40:41] That's the good news of Jesus Christ. Do you believe it? have you renounced your sins and have you pledged allegiance to Christ the King?

[40:59] That's the most important question. We should follow Christ who is a good teacher that saves us from our sins.

[41:14] Take a moment to reflect on that. You can close your eyes if you prefer. How is the Lord Jesus calling you to follow him today?

[41:26] Amen.