Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The Grace of Generosity

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

The gospel changes the way we look at our money and possessions. If we understand the gospel, we should have a radically different relationship with money than what our culture says is normal. To look at what the Bible says about this, let’s look at this very famous passage: Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler. From the rich young ruler, we can learn 1) that money has great spiritual danger attached to it, 2) how money is spiritually dangerous, 3) why money is spiritually dangerous, and 4) how to escape it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on December 6, 2015. Series: What We Are Giving: The Dynamic of Grace. Scripture: Luke 18:18-30. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to make a gift to Gospel in Life this Giving Tuesday, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/tuesday.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Today is Giving Tuesday and your gift to Gospel and Life will help more people, both here locally and in other parts of the world, discover the life-transforming power of Christ's love and mercy. As you may remember, Gospel and Life is now part of Redeemer City to City. Gospel and Life is excited to share with you that this year when you give, in addition to helping more people receive the teaching and resources of Gospel in Life, your gift will also be used to support the work of Redeemer City to City. Their mission is to grow Gospel movements in cities around the world by helping start and revitalize churches,

coach pastors, and train local leaders. This multiplies the spread of the gospel in cities where God is working to bring renewal. To make a gift today, visit gospelonlife.com slash Tuesday. That's gospelonlife.com slash Tuesday. The scripture reading is from Luke chapter 18 verses 18 through 30. A certain ruler asked him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good, Jesus answered, No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments.

You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor, or father and mother. All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "'You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" When he heard this, he became very sad because he was very wealthy.

Jesus looked at him and said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who was rich to enter the kingdom of God. Those who heard this asked, who then can be saved? Jesus replied, what is impossible with man is possible with God. Peter said to him, we have left all we had to follow you. Truly I tell you, Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come eternal life.

This is God's word. The end of the year, when you get near the end of the calendar year, your thoughts turn to giving. Do they not because not only is it a time for gift giving, Christmas, buying and giving and receiving gifts. But it's also the time of the year in which there are many appeals for good causes, appeals to please give, including to your congregation, the church that you go to. And therefore we thought it was a very appropriate, at the very end of the year, to spend a couple of weeks looking at what the Bible says in general about money possessions, giving and generosity.

The gospel changes the way in which we look at our money and our possessions. It radically changes us so that we should have, if we understand the gospel, we should have a radically different attitude toward and relationship to our money and our possessions, at least very different than the one that the culture puts out as normal. So, what we're going to do is look this week again at what the Bible says about this subject, and we're going to look at this very famous passage, which is Jesus encounter with the rich young ruler. Now by the way, and it doesn't say he was young here. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all give us, give the same basic story.

Only in Matthew does it say he was actually young. And so we're just going to mention that because I think in a place like New York in which so many people who do have wealth are young, it's actually quite appropriate. So we're going to take a look at the rich young ruler and we're going to learn this from him. That money has great spiritual danger attached to it. That money has spiritual danger attached to it. Then secondly, how money is spiritually dangerous. Third secondly, how money is spiritually dangerous. Thirdly, why money is spiritually dangerous.

And finally, how to escape it. OK? That money is spiritually dangerous. How money is spiritually dangerous. Why? The reason is spiritually dangerous. And then what to do about it? How to escape it?

So first of all, briefly, but very simply, the most famous verse in this very famous passage is probably here in verse 24 and 25 actually, where it says, Jesus looked at him and said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed it's easier for him to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Now, right off the bat, right there he's saying something that's very striking, of course it's really like I said the most famous verse. But what does it mean? What's the metaphor mean? Now the metaphor is a metaphor of impossibility. The largest land animal that anybody in Jesus' day in time would have ever known was a camel.

Largest land animal. The needle was the smallest human-made object that they would encounter as well. So to talk about a camel growing through the eye of a needle was a metaphor for impossibility. It's a little bit like saying a snowballs chance in hell or something like that. It's just a way of saying it's impossible. Now, is Jesus saying it is impossible, literally impossible for the rich to be saved? No, for a few reasons.

One is there is Abraham Isaac, Jacob, David Solomon, Joe, Joseph, and Mariam, Matthew. Lots and lots of people in the Bible who were in the kingdom of God, they were great in the kingdom of God and they were incredibly wealthy. But also even here, if you actually see the proposition and then the metaphor, the proposition is it's hard, impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. And even down where Peter says who then can be saved? Jesus says what is impossible with man is possible with God. By the way, when Jesus, notice when Peter says, well, then who can be saved?

That shows us that we have a tendency to read the Bible through our own cultural lenses. When you and I hear Jesus say, well, it's really hard for the rich to be saved. I think a lot of people today, especially if you live in America in the last decade, you'd say, oh yeah, yeah, the rich, they're kind of bad people, aren't they? They're the ones that are creating all the inequality. That's not what Peter is saying. Peter is saying, well, then who can be saved? We realize what he's saying? They thought that the rich were the blessed ones. They thought if you were rich, that meant you were good and you were blessed. I mean, how else did you get rich? But God blessed you.

So God must be favorable to you. So when Jesus says it's hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, Peter's question is, well, then how can anybody get in? See, that's not probably how you read it, is it? Beware. Beware of reading the Bible through your own cultural blinders. And just think immediately it assumes that the way you think is to see things, that that's what the Bible is assuming.

No, it's not. But see, again, Jesus says that again, in verse 27, well, what's impossible with humanity, with man is possible with God. And this is what he's saying. He's saying, look, the Bible says everywhere, it's impossible that anyone would be good enough to be saved. Romans 3 says, no one is righteous, no not one. And therefore, every person's salvation is a miracle.

Every person's salvation is a miracle. It's impossible that anyone would be saved. Notice it doesn't say what's impossible with the rich is possible with God. So he's not trying to say, well, the rest of us is possible to be saved, but not the rich. Jesus is simply reiterating what the rest of the Bible says, all salvation is a miracle. Well, then why is he picking on the rich?

Here's why. If you put it all together, I think about this over the years. I think this is what Jesus is saying. The things that keep us from God. The things that keep human beings from God. The things that keep us from God, the things that keep human beings from God, the things that keep us all from God, money accentuates them, money magnifies them, money amplifies them. So the things that tend to keep us from God, money makes worse and that is a really, really serious warning. So the first thing we see in this very famous place about the camel and the needle is

that wealth is spiritually very, very dangerous. Well, the question then is, how so? How does that work? How is wealth spiritually dangerous? And now, in order to answer that question, in a way, I think Jesus, when he makes his statement about the danger of wealth, is assuming knowledge of the Hebrew Bible. It's assuming knowledge of the Old Testament. And if you were in church last week,

we did do a kind of survey of one party of Old Testament Proverbs. The Old Testament says, an awful lot about wealth. In general, by the way, the Bible sees wealth creation in more positive light than socialistic societies do. And it sees wealth as a more powerful corrupting influence

than capitalistic societies want to admit. The Bible does not really, the Bible's attitude to our wealth does not really fit into a spectrum between free market capitalism and socialism. It sees it as so absolutely and crucial that and powerful that in a way it has more power. Basically I would say the Bible has a more positive and a more negative view of money than any of our existing economic systems because it sees the spiritual power of money. So the background is actually pretty rich, but all I can do here is to not look at the positive.

The Bible says plenty of things about positive things about the relationship of wealth to hard work, lots of positive things about the importance of wealth creation. I would like to show you because Jesus is highlighting it here, the negatives, the dangers. How is money a spiritual danger? Let me give you five ways that the Old Testament, the Bible, says money is spiritually dangerous and it's the background of what Jesus is talking about here. First of all, money has the possibility. Well, money is a huge, huge temptation to be dishonest.

And the more money you have, the greater the temptation. You understand that? I do know it went into the spectrum. In fact, Proverbs 30, verse 8 and 9, again, if you were in church last week, you heard about this. There is a danger that poverty does tempt people to steal. Proverbs chapter 30 verse 8 and 9 tells you so. But what's intriguing about this is that as money, as your wealth grows, the temptations

of dishonesty grow too. Why? If you're making hundreds of dollars, then cheating will make you hundreds more. If you're making thousands of dollars, then cheating will make you hundreds more. If you're making thousands of dollars, then cheating will make you thousands more. If you're making millions of dollars, then cheating will make you millions more. In other words, the more money you have, the more cheating, accounting, slight of hand, deception, the more money you, frankly, can make through dishonesty. And therefore, the pressure grows and grows and grows.

The more successful you are, the more pressure there is to be dishonest. And I'm not going to spend more time on that just to say that's just a fact. And that means, of course, if you are dishonest, what can that do to you? When you start to do things that actually aren't really up and on the up and up, it is making you money, whenever you lie, whenever you deceive other people, you always do some degree, justify it in your own heart, which means you never fool other people

without fooling yourself. You never deceive other people without deceiving yourself. You never lie to people without lying to yourself. And therefore dishonesty, deception, lack of integrity always is spiritually incredibly hardening and blinding. And the more money you have, the more successful you are, the more that temptation grows. So money can make you dishonest. Secondly, money can make you, well, money, here's why this is a perfect example of why money has some kind

of a dictating power. Money can make you an addict because it deceives you about how much you actually have. The more money you have, the more in denial you are about how much money you have. Look, it's a simple empirical fact that the more money you have and the more money you make, the smaller percentage of that income you give away. That's true across the board. All the studies, all the statistics, the smaller your income, the greater percentage of your income you give to charity.

The larger the income, the smaller the percentage of your income you give to charity. Did you know that? Why? It's addiction, it's denial. In other words, the more money you have, the less money you feel you have. That begins to show that there's something really bad about money spiritually when it comes to what it does to your heart. How does that work? You say, well, I'll say one way is whenever your income increases, you, in very small ways, usually very subtle, but inevitably you increase your expenses.

If your income increases, you increase your expenses. Well, I can afford this, and now I can do this, and I've always wanted to do this. And so as your income goes up your expenses, come up and what's that mean? You can be making five times more than you used to be making and you feel strapped. You don't actually feel like you have any more money at all. Wait a minute, you have five times more money.

You don't feel that way. That's the power of money to put you into an aisle. Or here's the other thing. Money always gets you into places, right? In other words, if you have the money to buy an apartment or a home in this particular neighborhood next thing, or in that building, you're hanging out with people from that building.

And inevitably, there's people in that building make a lot more than you. In other words, whatever socioeconomic rung of the ladder you're on, there's other people on that rung, you see, who actually are making more than you inside your bracket. And with this scary, if you're worth $10 million, and yet you're in a club with somebody who's worth $100 million, you don't feel like you have that much money. You say, well, I'm not rich. That guy's rich, man.

You want rich, look, I've only got this, but that person's got that, and that, and that. And so you don't feel like you've got enough money to give away. You don't feel like you're all that rich. You, and you feel kind of strapped. Do you know, that's addiction. Do you know the rest of the world is not fooled. They know how much money Americans have. They know how we live and when we say, oh, we

don't have enough money to give anymore way than we do, the rest of the world laughs. We're addicted. See? Money has the power to blind you to itself. Money has the power to make you dishonest. I give just give it a couple more. Money absolutely has the power to allow you into false security. Money, if you have savings and you have investments, there's very few things that can give you a greater illusion that now you're ready for life. If you just have this and you have this and you know you can lose your job and you know you'd be fine. You know, whenever you get to that place, I know I could lose my job and for a pretty good

period of time, I'd be fine. Wow, now you feel like you're ready for everything. There's a lot worse things in life than losing your job. And you're probably not ready for those things. See, money loaves you into thinking're probably not ready for those things. See, money looses you into thinking, I'm ready for life. Okay, are you ready for the death of a loved one? Are you ready for a debilitating disease? Are you ready for someone to say, you got a debilitating disease or you got a fatal disease? Are

you ready for a betrayal for someone who thought was your friend and that person just stabs you in the back? Are you ready ready for the disaffection of someone you thought loved you and now somehow they're alienated for you. Listen, the worst things in life, money is not going to stop any of them. They're coming. They're going to get through. And you may not be ready for them. Why?

Because it's not money that enables you to meet those things. It's character. It's faith. It's enough spiritual joy. And the problem, of course, is that money makes you, it takes so much time to make money that you don't have the time to develop character or relationship with God, or even get to know who you are.

So money can allow you into false security. It blinds you to its presence. It makes you dishonest, but lastly, and this is lastly, and very briefly, because it's actually what we're facing here with, it's rich and rural, and money can make you proud. The single most practical life skill is, you're not ready to take notes, where is it, aren't you should be getting your pens out here? Come on.

The single most practical life skill is, the ability to repent, the ability to admit you're wrong with it not being traumatic, the ability to admit you're wrong quickly without it being traumatic. The ability to admit you're wrong quickly without it taking like five years before you admit it. The ability to admit you're wrong, to repent. Eagerly, quickly. You know, without making the other person feel horrible

for making you do it. I mean, in marriage, it's maybe the key skill. In friendship, it may be the key skill. In decision making. I mean, unless you're able to do it, you don't learn from what you're going through. It's the key skill in developing wisdom, it's the key skill. And pride destroys your ability to learn that skill. And there's nothing I know that can create more pride than making money.

Because if you make money, you know what that means? It means you're smart about making money. Because if you make money, you know what that means? It means you're smart about making money. But that's not what your heart's going to say. Your heart's going to say, I'm smart. If you've made money, it means you've done better than many other people economically. That's what your heart's going to say. Your heart's going to say, you're better.

And that destroys your ability to repent and a lot of other things. So you see money actually, you know, can the rich be saved? Well, yes, they can be saved, but none of us can be saved without the miracle of God because of various things that keep us all from Him, but money makes those things worse. Thank you for listening to the Gospel Unlife podcast. Today is Giving Tuesday, and your gift to Gospel Unlife will help more people, both here locally and in other parts of the world, discover the life-transforming power of Christ's love and mercy.

As you may remember, Gospel Unlife is now part of Redeemer City to City. Redeemer City to City exists to multiply churches and Christian leaders committed to a shared vision of helping grow gospel movements in the great cities of the world. Gospel in life is excited to share with you that this year when you give, in addition to helping more people receive the teaching and resources of gospel in life, your gift will also be used to support the work of Redeemer City to City. Their mission is to grow Gospel movements in cities around the world by helping start and revitalize churches, coach pastors, and train local leaders.

This multiplies the spread of the Gospel in cities where God is working to bring renewal. Helping grow Gospel movements in global cities around the world was the type of opportunity Tim Keller believed would become a reality when Gospel in life became part of Redeemer City to City, in which Tim co-founded. And if he were here today, he would be thrilled to share with you how your partnership with gospel and life could have eternal value not just here in North America, but also for

the people and cities in other parts of the world. Your gift today to gospel and life helps shine the light of Christ's love into a world that needs it. To make your gift today, visit gospelandlife.com-stewsday because, as we continue to see over and over again, the Gospel truly changes everything everywhere. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's message. Okay now thirdly why? Why is money got this kind of power? Why can it addictus? Why can it blind us? Why can it puff us up? Why can it corrupt us? Why can it do these things? And the answer

we will find as we see how Jesus actually interacts with this rich young man. The first thing is, we're told that basically Jesus was at a theological Q&A. A certain ruler asked him, a young ruler, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now Jesus was a rabbi and so this guy's basically trying out his theology, he wants to say, he says, okay, what do you think I have to do to inherit eternal life? This, how can I be saved? It's a perfectly good question to ask any religious teacher, any religious professor, because it's a way of getting

to the heart of what their system of salvation, their system of theology is. So he asked Jesus. Now almost everything that Jesus says after this question, it's a kind of a surprise. If you've been reading the New Testament, you've been reading Luke 18, you get to this place, almost everything Jesus says for the next several verses.

It's just kind of like, what? Your first impression is, huh? And so he says, what must you do to do when you hear eternal life? Look, verse 20, you know the commandments. Don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't give false testimony, don't honor your father and your mother, no other's, obey the 10 commandments and you will be saved. Now, is that surprising that Jesus said that?

Yeah, especially if you've been reading Luke 18 because the very, just before this, like in Luke 9 to 14, just before this. Jesus has told the parables, called the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And it's the parable of two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector who go into pray. And the Pharisee says, oh Lord, I thank you that I'm not like other men. I thank you that I have not committed adultery and I'm not like the adulterers and I give my money away and I obey the commandments. And Jesus said, here's a person who's confident in his own righteousness. But then there was a tax collector and all he did was look to have it and say, well he

couldn't even look to heaven. All he did was call and say, Lord be merciful to me as sinner. And what does Jesus say is the lesson of the parable? He says, if you think that you are good, that you obey the commandments, if you're confident you're on righteousness, you will be lost because nobody's good enough to be saved. No one can be saved by their works.

But only if you ask for God's grace, only if you ask for God's mercy. Will you be saved?" And therefore, there's those two men. One is confident in his obedience to the law. One says just to be merciful to me, a sinner, and Jesus says, I say unto you, it's that second man. It's the tax collector. He went down to his home justified.

So Jesus is just that you can't be saved by obeying the ten commandments. Here's the guy who says, what must I do to be saved? He says, oh, obey the ten commandments. Okay. This is the joy who says, what must I do to be saved? He says, oh, obey the thank commandments. This is the joy of reading the New Testament. You're going along and Jesus says one thing, and almost the next moment says something that just totally seems to be wrong.

And it's actually one of the ways that Jesus gets you to think. Why is he doing this? Why does he say that? Well, here's why. He said, well, why didn't he say, oh, you need to be saved through grace and so receive me as your personal Lord and Savior because I'm going to the cross, and if you believe in me, then you'll get God's forgiveness.

Why didn't he say that? Isn't that the right answer? Yeah, it's the right answer. Why didn't he say that? Because the guy would have said, I don't need grace. You see, he's got the confidence that successful people often have because you notice what he says in verse 21? Oh, I've kept all these since I was a boy. I'm completely obedient. I'll be that sure, I'll bail the

commandments, okay? See, Jesus knew that if he actually told him, you need to be saved by grace, the guy would have just laughed because he says, no, I don't, he has no need to grace for grace. So what Jesus is trying to show him is that he does. And actually, he signals, Jesus signals his, as you might say, his purpose, where he's going up here in verse 19. The first thing Jesus says is,

why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Now again, at first sight that looks a little surprising, but watch very carefully, Jesus is extremely careful. He doesn't say, I'm not good. What he actually is saying is, why are you going up to a human being, at least as far as your concern,

just a plain human rabbi, calling them good, when only God in heaven is good. And so Jesus is actually doing nothing, but invoking a very important strand in Old Testament theology. Psalm 130 verse 4. O Lord, if you marked iniquities, O Lord, if you kept a record of iniquities, who could stand? See, even the Old Testament said,

nobody can be saved. If God really starts looking at everybody, nobody keeps the commandments, nobody keeps the commandments perfectly. So Jesus is trying to get there, but he starts by saying, well, obey all the commandments. And by the way, theologically, there's nothing wrong with saying that.

Sure. If you live a completely righteous life, if you obey all the commandments, absolutely fully, if you give God the life that God asks for for for me, human being, perfectly. Well, of course, there'd be no barrier between you and God. So what Jesus is saying is not actually wrong, but then he makes his move.

And here is what he does. And then verse 23, verse 22, he says, when Jesus heard this, he said to him, now what is he saying here? It's really kind of surprising. You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven

and then come follow me." See, I told you almost everything Jesus says here, you go, what? Is he saying that the only way for anyone to be saved and go to heaven is to give away all your money to the poor? Well, the reason he's probably, we can be certain that he's not saying that, is because he's often been confronting people. I mean, Nicodemus and the woman at the well, and we'll get back to her in a second.

And other people have come and asked a similar question, what must I do to be saved? He's never, ever, ever before said, give away your money to the poor. And therefore, so the real question is, why is he doing it for this guy? Obviously, it's not a requirement for salvation, but why is he doing it for this guy? And I think here's what's going on.

He's actually saying, oh, you'll pay the commandments to you. Well, well, then let's just take a look at one of those commandments. First, commandment. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. You should love nothing more than God. First commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. You should love nothing more than God. So let's just see how you're doing on that one. And the reason he brings up money

is because this is guy's issue. See, let's go for a moment to the woman at the well. The reason he goes after this guy like this is because he is the... Because Jesus Christ, we are already saying about it here, at least not me, excuse me, they are saying about it here. He is the wonderful counselor. He is a skillful surgeon. He knows what the tumors are in your soul that are destroying you and squeezing God out of your life. Now, the reason why he goes after money is because that's the tumor in this man's soul. Let me just to explain this or help you see this.

You remember Jesus Christ in John chapter 4, his encounter with the woman at the well. In John chapter 4, he meets a woman at the well in Samaria. How lovely is it that Jesus always contextualizes his message. He does not have a little formula that he always hits people with, never, never, never. You know, here he's talking about basically salvation and spiritual treasure because that's the guy's issue. With the woman at the well, she's drawing water and he says, oh, he says, I have a living water. I have a water that if you drink it,

you will never be thirsty again. It's the water of eternal life. And the woman says, oh, give me that water, sir. And he says, okay, go get your husband. Bring me your husband. And she says, I don't have a husband. He says, I know, you've had five husbands and the man you're living with right now is not your husband.

What is Jesus doing? I mean, that's just as strange as this one. Where is he going in the answer is this. The reason he doesn't talk about money to her is that's not her issue. What is her issue? Romance, love, men. Because you see, everybody's heart has to look to something for hope, something for its meaning, something for significance and security.

And everybody has a heart-faith in which the entire weight of your soul, your hopes, your dreams, your need for value and significance and security, it's all resting on this. In her case, it was romance and love. And what Jesus was saying is this, if Jesus had just said to her, or this guy, oh, you need to have faith in me as your Lord and Savior, and then you'll get eternal life. And if they said, you know, for all I know, both of them I said, oh, okay, but they don't know what that means.

And Jesus is telling them what that means. Jesus is saying, look, I don't want you just mentally ascent that on the Messiah. Do you not see that right now, it's romance and love. That's your living water. That's your salvation. That's your hope. That's your meaning. That's your significance.

That's your security. And if you want my living water, you have to transfer that heart trust from these things to me. You must not look to anything to give you what only I can give you. And Jesus is saying the same thing now to this guy. See? He doesn't bring up romance and love. With this guy, he doesn't bring up money to her.

But see, over the years, when people have said to me, what does it mean to be a Christian? I say, well, you have to have faith in Jesus Christ. Oh, I wish I had faith. I just can't believe it. So hard. You know say, well, you have to have faith in Jesus Christ. Oh, I wish I had faith. I just can't believe it's so hard. You know, you Christians, you have got faith. We great. I've had somebody who said, I wish I had your faith and you just want to strangle them. Because they said, listen, you haven't killed yourself, have you?

No, well then you got faith in something. Your heart is looking to something for meaning. And the point is, you've got faith. It's just in the wrong place Don't tell me you don't have faith And If you're looking to money if you're looking to romance and love if you're looking to your family If you're looking to a political if you're looking to anything but Jesus Christ to be your hope in meaning it will destroy you It will make you dishonest it will make you shall shallow, it will adept you, it will bring

false security. And if you succeed, it will make you incredibly self-centered. So you see what he's actually doing here, it's basically this. He says, hey, let me give you a thought experiment. You see all my disciples, Peter, Andrew James, John, they were fishermen. So they left their profession and they're following me. We're all living together and we're ministering to people

and we're living off the generosity of the people we're ministering to. And so I want you to do the same thing. I want you to leave your nets, but in your case, I want you to leave your wealth. I want you to love me enough to give up your wealth and to love the poor enough to give them your wealth and follow me. And he knew he couldn't do it.

He was sad. He was grieved. You know why? Because his money wasn't just money. His money was his identity. It was his living water. It was who he was. and he couldn't do it. It was too spiritually important to him.

Is money too spiritually important to you? You know, one of the tests, I have somebody once sent me these things or I found these things somewhere, one of the ways you know what money is too important to you is the envy resentment test. You see people around you, you're making a pretty good amount of money. Do you envy them? Did they get on your skin?

Another is the anxiety test. Are you always thinking about money? I was worried about money. Another is the spender or miser test. How that gets you coming or going. In other words, are you someone who actually feels better by shopping and buying new things? Or on the other hand, are you someone who actually feels better by shopping and buying new things? Or on the other hand, do you feel better by not buying anything at all?

For days and days. In all those cases, it could be the money's your issue. And if Jesus was here, he'd be talking to you about that. So how can we escape the power of money? The only way to do that is to look to the Richem ruler. You say, why? He was kind of a failure. He didn't get converted.

He was rich and he was young and he had the opportunity to love other people with his money, but instead he held on to it. Now, I wasn't talking about that rich young ruler. You know, there's two rich young rulers in this story. Didn't you see them? Didn't you see the other one? Jesus was 31 or so, probably, quite young.

And Jesus had been rich. Matthew and Mark tell us that before Jesus went for the jugular, before Jesus confronted him about this, it says he looked at him and loved him. So in a way, Jesus was probably, could have been saying this, in his mind, Jesus could have been saying this, he could have been looking at him saying, oh, my friend, I'm a rich young ruler too, or at least I was. But for the love of people like you, I let go of my glory, I became mortal.

I was incarnate, that's what Christmas is all about. I was born and human being born in a manger. But he says, oh, my friend, he might have been thinking his heart. I've already been stripped of my glory, but I'm about to go into the depths of poverty. I'm going to go to the cross. I'm going to be stripped not just of my glory,

but of my friends. I'm going to be stripped of my garments. I'm going to be stripped of every single possession I have. I'm going to be stripped of my father's love. And I'm going to be stripped of my life. And I'm going to do it all for the love of you. You wouldn't love others enough to give your money away,

but I'm going to love you enough to give away the most incredible wealth anyone's ever given up. So that you can have the only wealth that lasts. God Himself, eternity, forgiveness. Now, what is He saying? Look, do you believe that? By the way, if you don't believe that yet, if you say, I'm not sure I believe in the incarnation, the deity of Jesus and the retonement and all this, I'm not sure I believe that.

Do you see the resources for deep infinite comfort and joy that are there? Then learn, explore, come, figure it out, and believe it. But if you do believe it, friends, those of you who do believe it, are you thinking about how Jesus Christ, the rich young ruler, gave up everything for you? Do you think about that till it makes you weep until you begin to say there's security that he would love me like that? And there's significance, there's value

that he loves me like that. And when that begins to sink in, your money will become just money. It won't be your identity anymore. It won't be all the other things that it is right now. And you'll be able to give it away and you'll be able to heal the world with it. Somebody says to me, typical minister, you know, you're kind of up here, generalities, how much do I have to give away, they really be generous.

Come on, just tell me. Give me practical, will you for once? I know you're a liberal arts major, but be practical. And the answer is, first of all, it's not the right question. It's not the right first question, excuse me. The first question should be, why don't I want to give away more than I do? Well, I've answered that.

I took the entire 30 minutes to answer that, because you're not looking at the ultimate richum ruler who says, I gave my enormous all away for you, because I loved you now. Why don't you take your little all? And be willing to treat it is not yours for the love of me, and for the love of your neighbor, yours for the love of me and for the love of your neighbor and for the love of others.

So, I mean, so the first question is, why don't I want to give away more? And the answer is you're not actually looking into the gospel until it catches fire begins to melt your hard heart. But then the second question is, well, how much do I have to give away? In the Bible, there are basically two rules of thumb. There's the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Old Testament, you put them together, it's powerful, and also practical.

The Old Testament, the Old Testament, was 10% atithe. What percentage of your money should you give away to ministry and charity and to the poor? In the Old Testament, it was 10%, minimum, 10%. And by the way, if the Old Testament was 10%, minimum 10%. And by the way, if you today, as a Christian, are giving away 10% of your income every year, congratulations, you just come up to the level of the Old Testament, which means don't pat yourself on the bat, because the New Testament has an additional guideline. And that guideline is this, sacrifice.

Jesus did not tithe his blood. He sacrificed. And therefore, what this means is that, anyway, you can tithe your blood and still survive, but you can't do what Jesus did and survive. And what that means is whatever you're giving is, even if it's 10%, if it's not cutting into how you live, if it's not creating a measurable sacrifice and where you go to eat and where you go for vacation and what you buy for clothing,

if it's not making a sacrifice, it's not enough yet. Oh my goodness, you say, how could we give that much away? It will be a joy to the degree that you grasp what the ultimate rich and rule it did for you. Let us pray. to the degree that you grasp with the ultimate rich and will it did for you? Let us pray. Thank you, Father, for your generosity to us. Lord, you did not, Father, you did not begrudge giving us the most infinitely precious thing in heaven, your own son.

And O Jesus Christ, God the Son, He did not begrudge giving us your greatest good, your most infinitely precious possession, which is your very life. But because you were so generous with us, now we pray that you would make us generous people. And you'd break the power of money in our lives so that it would not make us dishonest,

it would not blind us, it would not corrupt us, it would not woo us into false security, it would not make us proud. We pray that you would protect us from all the spiritual dangers of money through the blood of your son Jesus Christ and the inspiration from our spirit. We pray that in Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for listening to Tim Keller on the Gospel and Life podcast.

Today is Giving Tuesday, and this year when you give, in addition to helping more people receive the teaching and resources of Gospel & Life, one of the ways your gift will be used will be to support the work Redeemer City to City is doing to help grow Gospel movements in cities around the world. To make a gift today, visit Gospel & Life.com-tuesday. That's Gospel & Life.com slash Tuesday. That's gospelonlife.com slash Tuesday. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you