Transcript

Grab your Bibles, and let’s go to Luke 18:18-27 as we pick back up in our study of Luke. Luke 18:18-27. I have one other Sunday that I am going to spend helping one of our church partners. I’ve had a little more time out of the pulpit, I guess, since January helping our plants and partners than I normally do but I have one other before my extended break in July and thank you for being patient with me. Only two of you have complained, so that’s pretty good so far. No, they were more tongue in cheek than anything. But when you voted unanimously 30 years ago that God might let us be a Biblical church that He would use to impact others, He is doing that. And with that vision is you’ve got to have a little unselfishness toward your senior pastor to mentor and encourage these folks and a lot of them have come a long way. We have seen some fantastic things happen in these church plants and church partners that we have developed through the years. But they face warfare, and battles, and difficulties, and we know what that feels like, Amen? Those are tough days. And so, my heart goes out to them, and I like to help some. You’re my priority. Please understand that, but I’m not just goofing off every time I’m gone. Usually, I’m preaching more times than I would preach if I was here. I did take one Sunday because my baby girl is home from college for a short stay, and we wanted to do a vacation week together. So, anyway, I’ve cleared my conscience now, so I’ll go further.

Alright, Luke 18 beginning in verse 18.

“A ruler questioned Him, saying, ‘Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.”‘ And he said, ‘All these things I have kept from my youth.’ When Jesus heard this, He said to him, ‘One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’ But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. And Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They who heard it said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But He said, ‘The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.'”

I’ve entitled this “The Foolish Worldling.” The foolish worldling. Now, a worldling is that one who only functions by worldly wisdom, wisdom that comes from man, out of the earth you might say. And that is in contrast to true wisdom, or heavenly wisdom, which comes from God, or in effect comes out of heaven. An example is James 3:15. James refers to a wisdom that is not that which comes from above, that would be true godly wisdom, but it’s a wisdom that is earthly, natural, and demonic. It’s actually not wisdom at all, he’s using it as a figure of speech. There’s the wisdom of man in the earth that’s foolish, and then there is the true wisdom of God that’s always, of course, all wise.

1 Corinthians 2:14, “But a natural man,” that’s one who is not born again, one who cannot receive the true wisdom of God yet, the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” So he shows the two great contrasts. And there is a great gulf between them, earthly wisdom and heavenly wisdom. Now look folks, a lot of folks who are functioning only in worldliness and earthly wisdom are very religious and wear the tag Christian, but they are still just in earthly, or worldly, wisdom. They just put a cosmetic of Christianity on the outside of that worldly wisdom. You see, proud worldlings, like this rich ruler, we find out he’s young from another Gospel account, this rich young ruler is a proud worldling and he assumes that he knows and understands the things of God and the way to God, but in reality what he knows is foolishness. He knows, really, nothing at all.

Now let’s look at some things together. I. Let’s understand something of his foolish and false view of Jesus. That’s one reason why he’s a worldling. Now, being a worldling doesn’t mean that he is knowledgeable, as a mat