A key verse in Matthew is 4:17 “Change your thinking, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

So when we ask the question who can join the kingdom of heaven expect Jesus to disturb your thinking. The kingdom of God is not like anything the world has ever created, least of all church institutions which reflect the point of time of their creation more than the living resurrected Saviour.

 

Today God’s word can be seen in 4 sections

Jesus Blesses Little Children             13-15

The rich young ruler                         16-22

Wealth, a barrier to the kingdom      23-26

The blessings of joining the kingdom 27-30

In them we get a growing understanding of  ‘Who can join the kingdom?’ The same question comes up in Acts 2:37 “ Brothers, what shall we do?”  where the answer is “change your thinking and be baptised”

Also in Acts 16:31 “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” where the answer is “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved”

As we have seen Jesus spoke much about the kingdom of God or Heaven as Matthew chooses to call it. Salvation is moving into the kingdom. It is a change of allegiance, depending on Jesus and accepting his rule for our lives rather than the many dead-end alternatives.

 

Today God’s message to us is about two aspects of the ‘Who can join the kingdom?’ question.

 READ Matthew 19:13-30

We begin with

Jesus Blesses Little Children in verses 13-15. .Note that the parents came with an expectation that Jesus would want to see and bless their children. Matthew is quite explicit – to lay hands on and pray.  What are you expecting of Jesus? Well, you clearly think it is worth turning up to church! But are you expecting him to bless you? He wants to.

 Secondly, the disciples get it wrong, again! They think they are being helpful by filtering those who Jesus can bless. Do you do that? We are human and we all to easily fall into the trap that Jesus only wants those who fit in our comfort zone. So we quite easily, avoid different people, whether they are children, ethnic minorities, gay, criminal, or just not nice! That is wrong and we need to repent of the sins of only reaching out to those who we find acceptable. If we are to represent the kingdom of God here we must be open to everyone Jesus was open to, children, ethnic minorities, prostitutes, collaborators, and so on.  

 Jesus says Permit and do not prevent them for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

 

The first challenge to our thinking is Ageism. In our society, it is the old that are marginalised and not respected. In Jesus’ day everyone who was not quite like ‘us’ was inferior. Things have not really changed. The idea you should become like a child in matters of faith is counter our ideas. We value maturity (but not old-age) we value, knowledge, we value experience and a child has none of these.  Yet Jesus sets a very different concept. He says you the kingdom is for people with child-like qualities. Maturity, knowledge and experience count little, what matters is being like a child.

So the question has to be what qualities of being a child is Jesus looking for.

I believe Jesus is looking for trust in him. A child trusts and it takes some effort to destroy that trust. You do not come to Jesus because you are now old enough, you have studied the Bible enough or you have enough experience of life, but because you discover a Saviour who loves you and you want to respond to that love. When he says that he has died for you, we believe him. When Jesus says he forgives, we believe him.  When Jesus says you accept him as a child, you accept him, trusting that he has no sinister motive, that there is no catch, what is offered is what you get.

I believe Jesus is looking for joy. Children enjoy life because they do live for today not for tomorrow. Jesus promises to be with you for life and for you to be with him for ever, so enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit, today and leave tomorrow to worry for itself. A child recovers from disappointments more rapidly than we do. Each day is a new adventure. Live in Jesus as a child does. Expect to receive a blessing from God, trust him if it is not quite what you anticipated, enjoy his presence. Live like a child!

 Before we move on, note that Jesus does exactly what the parents ask for. He acts and the children receive the blessing. Jesus does not let anyone down.

 The scene changes. We are introduced to a rich young ruler – we get the ruler bit from Luke 18:18. Now here is someone who would be good for the kingdom. Young, with leadership potential and rich, he would be good for the church, he is moral, knowledgeable,  gifted, surely he would be welcome. Well he is but The Kingdom of Heaven is about changing your thinking, so we have to get our heads round Jesus’ response and understand the implications.

 

 The discussion  runs briefly through a few stages.

 

“What good must I do to get eternal life?”

“Why ask me?”

“Doing  good is already known – it is obeying the commandments.”

“I’ve done that”

“Perfection is not just sticking to the rules”

“The kingdom is about investing in heaven”

 

We all start by thinking that doing good is what gets God’s blessing. We aspire to God’s standard but fail even our own meagre standards. Eternal life obtained by what I do is inevitably going to fail, not least of all because you can’t make yourself eternal. You cannot make yourself deserving either.

Jesus then throws in the comment. Why ask me? He directs the young man to the revealed word of God, the Torah, which he knows. Asking Jesus is the right thing to do because this young man knows Jesus has the answer. He is God, so he knows what is good. Jesus was never backward in claiming he had authority to speak as God.

He directs the young man to the law. Do it! But the young man knows that is not enough. And that is what Jesus guides him to. It is not enough to know God’s word and even obey the commends, what is needed is one key step more. It is an all or nothing step. In this young man’s case it is.

 “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Would you do that if Jesus asked you? Our society makes it very difficult to see this. Jesus is saying giving to the poor is clearly investing in heaven. It is not the giving up on wealth alone, it is the active seeking others welfare that is called for. Then, having given to the poor, he is to follow Jesus, just as the disciples were. This young man could have been a disciple. That is what following Jesus means. He could have been caught up in the fear and anguish of the garden of Gethsemane, the confusion of the first Easter Day but he would have had the joy of meeting the risen Jesus.  What he had to do was give up on what he depended now.

Are you following Jesus or are you depending on your pension plan, your career plan, your strength or intellect or skills to get you through life? Jesus’ rule is to love your neighbour as you love yourself. If you like having money in your pocket, then your neighbour also should have money in their pocket. The church is being transformed by society because we see the followers of Jesus investing in the poor in a way that has not been seen before. The church is challenging the nation about its lack of care for the vulnerable poor. We are the ones who called by God to care in a society that wants wealth for me not for those who fail to get a job or are unable to make ends meet for a whole raft of reasons. Are we up to it? Are we transformed by the Holy Spirit to reflect is grace and mercy? Do we care for our own but not for the poor and the marginalised? Are we investing in heaven or are we investing in us? Is our money invested in us?

 

If Jesus asked you to sell all you have – your house, your car, your pension, and give it and your savings and investments to him, would you follow or would you walk away, sad?

 

This confrontation between wealth and the kingdom is clearly quite shocking to the disciples. The follow discussion suggests that they felt like you, remember these were a bunch of fishermen, tax-collectors, who would have had assets to dispose of. And the culture of the day was that land was your right, handed down from generation to generation.  The early church used the sale of land to finance itself. We all are bedded in an ownership culture.

 

So

 ²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

 

So we are still on the question of who can join the kingdom?

The answer is part of the change of thinking we need to have to understand the kingdom of God.

 

²⁶ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

 

This is both encouraging and uncomfortable. It is encouraging because Jesus says it is possible! It is uncomfortable because it is impossible for you and me to be saved without God doing the impossible.  Your salvation is not what good you do but what good God does. It is not your sacrifice but the death of Jesus on the cross at Golgotha. You cannot gain eternal life unless God does the impossible and transform your decaying body into something eternal. You cannot live as God intends without the presence of the Holy Spirit to do the impossible in your life and produce perfection in you.

 

If you want eternal life, if you want to be perfect there is nothing you can do of yourself, God has to do it for you. The good news is that is what he loves to do. That is why Jesus came, that is why we have hope. God does the impossible in your life.

 

Do you believe it? Have you received it? That God has given you eternal life, that perfection is not an impossible dream but a work in progress through the work of the Holy Spirit. You will be perfect for eternity, your struggle to overcome temptation which we prayed about for you will one day be over. Jesus has paid the price, your sin has been removed, your guilt atoned for. Enjoy the impossible today!

Peter still seems to be off the point

²⁷ “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

 But Jesus is gracious and promises that the blessings  you give up in this life will be far outweighed by the blessings that you have in Christ. I don’t think Jesus is doing an accounting exercise here. I think he is trying, within Peter’s vision, to  say the blessings of the Kingdom are immense and given by grace from the Father who loves you and the Son who died and rose again for you and the Holy Spirit who is guarantor of the love and joy and peace that we can enjoy both now and so much more in eternity.

 

 Who can be saved?

Those who have

Childlike trust,

total dependence on God,

 accepting what God gives rather than trying to do it for yourself.

You cannot gain eternal life by age or experience or knowledge, you cannot buy into the kingdom, in fact your wealth is your worst asset, it distracts you from depending on God.

Receive eternal life as a gift;

Live as if you have nothing;

be generous to the undeserving poor, as you received undeserved grace;

look forward to the glory that is to be revealed.

Return to top