From the smoke came locusts on the earth and they were given power like the power of scorpions on the earth You see the same thing happened with the color red in Uh the book of exodus in hawaii the wildfires not really wildfires.

It was space lasers Guys, I just got to work and on my way someone cut me off and I just feel led to pray for them because jesus loves them, too What's up guys?

I just wanted to share a little bit about how I have been giving.

I started tithing last week.

I can just feel the blessings are coming.

I put a promo code for my I'm in Matthew chapter 19 verse 16 through 25.

You can turn there, get ready.

Just celebrate because you survived the election.

The sky did not fall like you thought perhaps that it would.

God is still on the throne.

He's large and in charge.

His will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

But as I've gone through my thoughts over this election, I've thought about this is the problem with any election.

I mean, not only this year, but every year before.

What is our real problem when it comes to our leaders?

And when we're trying to vote and trying to elect the right people that we think will get the job done or will be the best for our country?

And it really comes down to one word, and the word is duplicity.

We simply are not sure that people will do what they say they will do.

We're not even sure people are who they say they are.

And so that makes it difficult.

There's a hiddenness in everyone's life that concerns us.

And there's a part of us...

that wishes we could go down deep inside a person in their soul, in their psyche, and discover who it is they really are so that we could determine whether or not they're going to be able to do what they say they're going to do.

So if somehow what is hidden could be revealed, we believe we could make a more educated decision.

So we're in a series this weekend, we began a series called Hidden Holiness, and it's crucial because those who follow Jesus Jesus tells them again and again that if you're part of his kingdom, you possess something deep inside that will eventually, not all the time, but will eventually express itself in some way on the outside.

So there's no duplicity between truth and our beliefs and our actions and attitudes.

Now, again, Christianity is not about being perfect.

That's true.

We are forgiven people, saved by grace through faith.

The reality is that sooner or later, as you grow in your walk with Jesus, this hidden holiness that is a reality in your life because of the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God, which is a deposit guaranteeing what is yet to come, somehow, sooner or later, over the course of your life, it's going to begin to express itself externally.

I don't know of a better illustration, although it's a long journey we're about to embark upon, I don't know of a better illustration...

of Jesus communicating this and in Matthew 19.

So here's the story.

I'm in verse 16.

Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, Teacher, what good thing must I do to inherit or to get eternal life?

Why do you ask me about what is good?

Jesus replied, there's only one who is good.

If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.

Which ones?

He inquired.

Jesus replied, you shall not murder.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony.

Honor your father and mother.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

And the young man says, all these things I've kept, what do I still lack?

And Jesus answered, 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.

When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth.

Verse 23.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, and they asked, who then can be saved?

Okay, go on this little journey with me.

Got a rich man or a rich young ruler, comes to Jesus, and he's rich in two ways.

Number one, he has moral wealth, moral excellence.

So he's worked pretty hard all of his life to be good.

And he's amazingly good.

And every time I read this, I go back to one of my favorite illustrations in a movie, Groundhog Day.

Bill Murray's trying to win the heart of the character played by Andy McDowell.

And he asks her a question.

Who is your perfect man?

And her answer is, well, he's too humble to know he's perfect.

And Bill Murray says, that's me.

He's intelligent, supportive, funny.

That's me too, says Murray.

He's romantic and courageous.

Me also.

He has a good body, but he doesn't have to look in the mirror every two minutes.

And Bill Murray says, me again.

This rich young ruler, when it comes to righteousness, comes to Christ.

Jesus says to him, if you want to be perfect, keep the commandments.

Keep all of them.

and then go sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

So first of all, he says, which commandments are you talking about?

And Jesus says, you shall not murder.

And he says, that's me.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal.

That's me again.

You shall not give false testimony.

Me again.

Honor your father and mother.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

All of these, he says, I've kept since I was a young man.

Me, me, and me again.

Jesus enumerates the commandments and he says, Bing, that's me.

That's why I'm so wealthy.

So first of all, the rich young ruler, as he comes to Christ, he comes with moral wealth, moral excellence, and second, he comes with financial wealth.

So in his mind, his moral wealth is the reason he is financially wealthy.

His money is proof of his goodness.

Now, just quickly, both then and now, there is this idea that the two things go together.

They're inextricably tied together, righteousness and wealth.

So if I do good, I will do well financially.

If you've done well financially, it's because you've done well or good morally.

In The Sound of Music, the main character realizes she's about to marry a rich man, and she sings a song.

And the words go like this, Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.

I must have been pretty good.

When I was younger or God would not be rewarding me like this.

That's the mentality.

When you look at Job's life, remember what his friends told him when his life began falling apart?

They basically said in summary, somewhere in your youth, you must have done something really bad.

Otherwise God would not allow this kind of suffering into your life.

The assumption again, is this, if you have a good life or if you live a good life, morally speaking, God will cause you to prosper financially speaking.

Now, if you know anything about the book of Job, just quickly, the first chapter of the book of Job debunks this entirely, because we read in Job 1, 1-2 that in the land of Uz, there lived a man whose name was Job.

This man was blameless and upright, and he feared God and shunned evil.

So, that throws that kind of theology right out the window.

Yes, a man does reap what he sows to a degree, but the only guarantee that you and I have in this life is that God is on the throne, and he...

the determining factor in all outcomes.

Righteousness does not always guarantee personal wealth, just as unrighteousness does not always mean poverty.

In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 5, you've heard it said, love your neighbor, hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

In other words, that you may be like God.

Well, what is God like?

He causes his son to shine on the evil and the good.

and sins rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." In other words, God gives good things to the righteous and the unrighteous.

But the rich young ruler's attitude is, I am very wealthy, that is proof that I have pursued and attained moral excellence.

Therefore, God has given me all this stuff.

I am righteous under the law, my wealth is testimony to that.

And yet, even though he says he knows that, he comes to Jesus and basically says, I feel there's still something lacking.

Jesus, can you help me?

And Jesus' response is, sure, I can help you.

Number one, you're not good.

And number two, you're not wealthy.

He says, there's no one good but God.

And you're not wealthy the way you think you are, because if you want to be wealthy, go sell everything you have and give it away to the poor.

And then in verse 22, we're told, when the young man heard this, he went away sad.

Interesting Greek word.

He's wounded in his heart, in his soul.

He's grieved.

Why?

Well, because he spent a lot of time and energy building his staircase to the top, he believes he's only one more step away, perhaps, from reaching the pinnacle of gaining certainty and security in acceptance before God.

He comes to Jesus thinking somehow he's going to get the final step.

What does Jesus tell him?

Basically, he says, you're on the wrong ladder.

You've got to start all over.

You've got to begin by doing what?

He says again in verse 21, if you want to be perfect, if that's your goal, go sell your possessions, give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come follow me.

Now, I want to just mention something.

So stay with me here.

We're building something.

Then we'll get into it, and it'll become much more clear.

When Jesus says, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor, in all of Jesus' one-on-one conversations with people in the New Testament, He never asked anyone to do this.

It's preposterous.

In fact, Zacchaeus, one of the best stories of greed surrendering to generosity after the point of conversion, only gave half of his stuff away, and he didn't give half of it because Jesus told him to.

It was his own idea.

There's no rule that says when you become a Christian, you've got to sell everything and give it away to the poor.

So the question is then, what's happening?

What's happening is Jesus sees right through this rich young ruler to the real issue.

The real issue is the rich young ruler's thinking is skewed.

And therefore, because his thinking is not right, his passion is misplaced, and his heart, therefore, becomes not right.

So the first step in the journey of discovery of the certainty for which he's looking is to admit that he's not good.

There's got to be some kind of soul change, some kind of spirit change.

There's got to be some kind of transformation that happens where you begin to realize that you and God, your acceptance before God is not based on some kind of goodness that you've achieved.

Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?

Why do you ask me about what is good?

Jesus replied, there is only one, notice in your Bible is a capital O, one who is good, and that obviously would be God.

Now for...

I've realized over the last, I don't know, probably 18 months that 60% of the people who attend One and All Church are brand new, and we're grateful for that.

But that means you may not be aware of some of our DNA, some of the things that make us tick around here.

And there are two graphs we often use because I'm assuming that there may be people here this weekend that still don't get the gospel.

And I don't want to pass up this opportunity, especially given that we're talking about this parable, to...

communicate with clarity what the gospel teaches.

So we use two graphs around here, two kind of visuals.

The first visual is this one.

And basically, this represents the gospel of morality, which is the greatest competitor to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And if you take the bottom line as zero goodness, and the top line is 100% goodness, most people think...

that the only way to be right with God is as long as you have more good in your life than bad.

So as long as you're above the 50 percentile mark, then God has to accept you because you have more good in your life than bad.

Now, of course, you don't find that anywhere in the Bible.

You only find it in religions or in people who are kind of interested in coming up with some kind of philosophy or theology in their minds that can make them or put them in a right place or position concerning their relationship with God.

So even though you find this nowhere in the Bible, nowhere in the teachings of Jesus, most of humanity lives by this.

As long as I have more good than bad, I'm good with God.

The second graph, or the second image, is this image.

The Bible teaches that you are over here, or in this slide, you're over here, God is over here, and there's this large chasm that separates the both of you.

And that chasm is sin.

Because God is extremely more holy than we could ever imagine, and you and I are less holy than we could ever imagine.

So that sin separates us from God, and the only way for that gap to be closed is through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because on the cross, Jesus takes all your sins, past, present, future, and pays the penalty that that sin deserves, so that you and I then can walk across the beam of the cross.

There is no other way to get to God.

You can't leap.

the chasm.

It is far too wide.

The only way, the only hope that we have is if God does something to bridge the gap between us and him so that our sins can be forgiven and so that we can have community and relationship with him.

Now, here's the thing about that.

When you discover the truth or the real Jesus, most people have one or two responses.

Number one, you'll either bow down, submit, and worship.

realizing this wonderful gift you've been given, or two, you will go away offended.

These two slides or graphs actually do offend some people.

And the reason is, is because they say to themselves, I'm not that bad.

I don't need that drastic of assistance.

I don't need God to send his son down and die on a cross for the forgiveness of my sins.

My righteousness, my goodness should be enough to put me in good standing with God.

So When you hear the message of the good news, and right now some of you hear this for the first time, there's going to be a little tension, turmoil.

You're either going to one, bow down, submit, and worship him because you understand the wonderful gift you've been given.

It's beyond your imagination, beyond what you thought God would ever do or could do for you.

Or two, there's a significant part of the population that will hear the gospel story and they will go away offended.

And the reason they're offended is because it destroys everything they've ever believed about goodness and righteousness, which is exactly where this rich young ruler is.

One thing, however, is certain.

It is impossible to meet the real Jesus and be indifferent.

When you meet the real Jesus, He's going to disturb you.

In fact, when you meet the real Jesus, you realize that He offers you more than you could ever imagine.

This wonderful gift of grace.

But you also, as you grow in your relationship with Him, you start to realize that He also demands more from you than you ever could imagine giving.

So a true encounter means that you're growing in both these areas.

So the hidden holiness in your heart for the true believer...

understands, number one, you're beginning to realize what Jesus truly has given you, and it's indescribable.

It's immeasurably more.

I mean, basically, he's put you in right standing with God, not on the basis of your righteousness, but on the basis of what he's done for you on the cross.

But the other thing, this hidden holiness expresses itself externally because you're beginning to discover what it is that Jesus really expects from you, not as a way to earn your salvation, that can only be given through the gift of the cross.

But in response to the gift that you've received, there is a calling, and make no mistake, there is a demand on your life.

These two things that God has given me much more than I could ever imagine, that God expects from me more than I could ever imagine, are again inextricably tied together.

And when you have one without the other, you have either grace abuse, and that would be...

an external proof that there's no hidden spirituality in your life, or you are so overwhelmed with what Jesus does require that you've never really come to a full and complete understanding of grace.

So, if you focus in your life in relationship with Jesus only on what He's done for you without asking the question, what does God require of me?

You've not yet met the real Jesus.

If you focus on only what Jesus requires from you without rejoicing in what He's actually done for you, you've not met the real Jesus.

So imagine you're the rich young ruler hearing the words, You're not good when you've built your entire life on the belief that you are good and as a result, you will earn eternal life.

Alright, stay with me.

That leads to the second truth.

The first is, if you want to be right with God, you must admit you're not good.

Second, if you want to be good with God, you must allow Him to smash your religious views.

That's going to be hard for a lot of people.

What was true 2,000 years ago is still true today.

The rich young ruler is looking for certainty.

He wants security, that he is good with God.

He wants to make sure that all is well.

And I think most of us can understand that because there are areas of life where we would prefer certainty.

For instance, if you are a nervous flyer, when you get on an airplane, you don't want the pilot to come over the intercom and say, hey, I think I know how to do this.

Sit back and relax and we'll figure it out together.

I don't think you want a brain surgeon before you go into surgery to tell you, you know, I've done a few of these, you know, I'm 50-50 here and I think I know what I'm doing now, so you should be fine.

You want someone that's going to assure you, I know how to fly this plane and I know how to do this surgery.

You relax.

This is not my first rodeo.

I am certain about the success.

Even in marriage, you want to know that the odds are heavily stacked in your favor.

So it makes sense where eternity is concerned that you and I would like some certainty because after all, eternity lasts a long time.

Quickly, this is what concerns me about our present generation.

I am discovering that the present generation has an idea that perhaps God exists, but their question is quite different than the question of the last hundred years, probably the last 2,000 years.

Their question is this, okay, God exists, what's he going to do for me?

What good is God is the title of so many books and articles that I've read over the last 10 years.

Now you think about the arrogance in this.

Basically you're saying this.

I believe there's a God who has made all things.

Who's responsible for the constellations and the billions of stars and the billions of galaxies and the depths of the ocean that have not yet been discovered.

I know that this God most probably is...

the first cause of all events, and he holds everything together.

So my question to God is, what can you do for me?

In the past, the question has always been, since God exists and He's more powerful and majestic than I could ever imagine, what is it that God wants from me?

And this is how religions are born.

It's the search from how can I be right for God or with God.

The rich young ruler asked the right question because that is his question.

How can I be right with God?

But it's built on two false assumptions.

One, the assumption that Christianity is something you can add, and two, that Christianity is something that you can do.

Something you can add or something you can do.

I had an Uncle Otis.

I'm from the eastern part of Tennessee, so Uncle Otis, that's a typical name.

And my father would take me up into the hills, the sticks, the mountains of Tennessee in the eastern part there, and we would visit my Uncle Otis probably two or three times a year.

But I noticed when we would visit, we would visit with Uncle Otis' wife and his three daughters in the house, but you would very rarely see Uncle Otis because Uncle Otis had decided to live his life in the red barn that was next to the house.

I'm not kidding about this.

He often slept on a haystack.

He had a moonshine still.

His gods were he loved to drink and he loved pornography.

Those were his two things.

We discovered that when we kind of...

sneaked into the barn one time and found out his little stash.

And that's all we'll say about that.

But we understood who Uncle Otis was.

Later in Uncle Otis's life, he started attending this church called Bramer First Baptist Church in Hampton, Tennessee.

And he would go in and sit on the back row right at the last minute.

You know, he would come a minute late and leave a minute early.

But he would go just about every weekend.

So one time, my brothers and I said, Uncle Otis, why suddenly After all these years, did you start going to church?

Why are you going to church now?

And he said, well, you know, I've had a good life, but I need to round it out a little bit before I die.

I need to make sure that I've covered all my bases.

So I thought I would add a little bit of religion to my life.

Now, he had no intentions of changing his life.

After all, he never did like, in his words, God's radical view of marriage and sex and money and service and sacrifice.

Uncle Otis would say, I like my beer and pornography.

So I'll keep my life the way that it is, thank you very much, but I thought I would add a little bit of Jesus to it to make sure all my bases are covered.

But the rich young ruler is not that different than Uncle Otis.

He comes to Jesus and he says, what else do I need?

I've done all of these things.

My wealth is evidence of that.

So what do I need to add to my present worldview to be right with God?

I've done this, I've done that, but something is still missing.

What else do I need?

Jesus' response, once again, is preposterous.

He says, okay, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

Now, let me say this one more time.

In all of Jesus' one-on-one encounters, he never asked anybody to do this.

It seems preposterous.

Part of what Jesus is saying to the rich young ruler is basically this, and I think he says it to all of us.

Christianity is not something that you just add to your life.

Christianity is something that causes an explosion and destroys everything you ever believed in, in order to make way for something entirely new.

You're not adding or doing something on top of what you think you're already doing.

You're not adding Jesus to your worldview or philosophy of life.

There's an explosion that destroys all of that, and a new belief system comes in.

Nicodemus was a rich...

old man, not a rich young ruler.

He also came to Jesus in John chapter 3, and he said to Jesus, basically, I know you're a good teacher, and I'm a powerful ruler in Israel.

I just feel there's something missing that I'm lacking.

And Jesus' response to him is, I can't work with what you have.

You've got to start all over.

You've got to be born again.

I can't add to your world view.

You've got to start all over.

And he says to the young man, you don't need to climb one more rung on the religious duty ladder to get over to the top of the mountain.

You need a whole new mountain and a whole new ladder.

Again, two wrong assumptions.

Christianity is not something you add.

Christianity is not something you do.

And yet all world religions are built on this exact premise, that if I'm basically good, if I'm relatively good, if I keep these laws and do these deeds, I'll be accepted.

Jesus is absolutely blunt here.

He says, there is no one good, no one measures up on the good and bad scale.

And then notice what he says to the rich young ruler.

Now I've added these words, but basically the tone of the text is, okay.

You've kept all the commandments, have you?

Well, let's begin with the first one.

Thou shall have no other gods before me.

Okay, go sell everything you have, give it to the poor, because I, Jesus Christ, the Lord, says so.

That's the insinuation.

If God is really first in your life, isn't it true that everything else is trivial?

Right?

So whatever God requires, you give.

Because you know that if you have Jesus, you've got everything, right?

The Christ follower says that.

Does he believe it?

If he is first and foremost in your life, everything else is subsequent.

It's secondary, trivial.

When Jesus asked this rich young man to go sell everything he has and give to the poor, he's basically saying, young man, who are you kidding?

Nobody loves God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

You can aspire to that.

Nobody does that.

And nobody loves their neighbor as themselves.

Your real problem is not that you need one more thing.

But your real problem is you're not good.

You don't even keep the law that you yourself have written, that you have to be righteous and good to be accepted before God, because you're not righteous, you're not good.

You can't even keep the first commandment.

No one does.

And the reason the rich young ruler comes to Jesus in the first place is because at some level he knows this.

He knows it.

So, I've been doing a lot of travel lately into London to do ministry with Premier Radio and UCB Radio.

And we always stay, we find the least, I can't say cheapest because nothing's cheap in London Central.

So we try to find the least expensive hotel to stay in.

So it's the Doubletree.

So we stay at the Doubletree, but we have to walk every day to our coffee past the Four Seasons Hotel.

I don't know if you know anything about Four Seasons, but it's not cheap.

And as we walk by, there are all these Bentleys parked out on the street.

And we see all these, you know, well-dressed, well-kept people marching in up the stairs to the hotel.

And there's always somebody to usher them in, to hold the door open for them.

And I think last I heard, it was like $1,000 a night.

So I'm not sure what all you get for that, because I've never stayed at a Four Seasons.

But I was reading an article this past time while I was in London about the Four Seasons Hotel, in fact, about a lot of hotels.

And I don't know why this gave me a lot of pleasure.

Maybe it's because I'm jealous knowing that I'll never be able to stay there.

But they had taken a blue light to the Four Seasons Hotel just like they do to a Motel 6.

And this light exposes all the things that are actually in the hotel room.

And I don't know why my heart was thrilled when I learned that this blue light exposed that the Four Seasons in their hotel room, when you go to stay in this room and you're paying $1,000 a night, that they're still...

Exists in the room human excrement, blood, bed bugs, insects, and vermin.

I don't know why it felt so good, but it's kind of like, ha ha!

And the point is, some things may appear to be good, but on closer inspection, we're all the same.

This is Jesus' message.

No one measures up, no matter how good you look on the outside.

You significantly underestimate God's holiness, and you significantly overestimate your own goodness.

Now, if you're listening to this, And right now there's a little anger in you, a little bit of frustration, a little bit of tension, and you're even irritable, and you're thinking about turning this off.

You don't want to hear anymore.

Can I just tell you something?

That's actually good news.

It means you're not too far gone.

It means that the conviction of the Spirit of God is still working in you.

It means God is at work trying to wake you up to the beauty of the gospel.

Because the beauty of the gospel gives you a choice.

Jesus says you can come to Him...

And you can trust in your efforts to save you or his.

Your efforts are weak.

His efforts are incredibly effective.

That you can trust in your goodness, which is volatile, or you can trust in the goodness of Jesus, which is perfect.

You can trust in your righteousness, which is lacking.

Again, nobody measures up.

Or you can trust in the righteousness of Christ to be your substitute, which is always sufficient.

You can relate to God, says Paul in the first chapter of the book of Romans, by the issue of law, or you can relate to God on the basis of grace.

By law, no man will be considered righteous, but by grace, all those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Now, the rich young ruler, by the way, just let me say again, we're talking about this hidden holiness.

Until you understand that all the goodness in the world does not give you the right to stand in the presence of God, you will never humble yourself.

to receive the gift of the Son.

And if you never humble yourself to receive the gift, then the Holy Spirit of God cannot come on the inside to create this holiness inside you that eventually will express itself externally.

As a result of what the rich young ruler hears, he goes away.

Grieving, why?

Because Jesus has smashed his assumptions.

Jesus has destroyed his religion.

If you go to any dinner on a Sunday afternoon, we will say that when families get together, there are two things you don't talk about.

You don't talk about politics and you don't talk about religion.

And the reason is both represent identity.

For someone who's a Democratic or Republican, to them, when you attack that, you're attacking their identity.

When you attack somebody's religion, you're attacking their identity, their certainty that they're good with God.

And that's exactly what Jesus does when you meet him.

So if you want to be right with God, you must admit you're not good.

Second, if you want to be good with God, you've got to allow him to smash your religious views, and now we come to the crux of the matter.

If you want to be good with God...

You've got to give him your dreams.

Oh, man, I wish somebody would have told me this when I was younger.

Here is the earth-shattering truth of this story.

This is how you know there's hidden holiness inside you that's going to express itself.

This is how you know God has placed his spirit in you to do some awesome work.

When Jesus meets the rich young ruler, it took me a long time to understand what's happening here.

He refuses that it's Jesus.

to remain academic.

The young ruler thinks his problem is an academic one.

I don't know why I feel this way.

There's something missing.

Something is not quite right.

What doctrine am I missing?

What project have I left undone?

What rule am I breaking that I don't know what's missing in my thinking?

But in reality, he's hiding behind academia.

Because he doesn't want to deal with the real issue.

Down deep inside, I think he knows what the problem really is.

And what does Jesus say to him?

One last time, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor.

Like we've said twice already, there is no hard and fast rule.

There's no message in the Bible that says in Old or New Testament, when you become a Christ follower, you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor to be right with God.

Folks, this is an intervention.

This is the way you treat an alcoholic or a gambler.

You've got to get right down to the real issue.

And Jesus says to the rich young ruler, I see you.

I see the real thing that's killing you.

You're going to have to get rid of all your money.

See, what most of us think is a barrier to our coming to Jesus really isn't the issue at all.

The real issue is this.

In every life, there is a real power struggle you have with God over your dreams.

I just spoke with a young man not too long ago.

We met in a cafe in mid-20s to late 20s, and I was asked if I would just spend some time with him because he was experiencing anxiety.

And when I hear those words, my heart melts because having experienced that myself, I just hope and pray that I can give some relief to some of these young men and women who are suffering.

So after I listened to him talk for a few minutes, and he looked all the right parts, you know, he had his Bible with him, which is a good thing, and he said the right things, but finally I looked him in the eye and I said, let me ask you something.

What is your greatest fear?

What are you terrified that will not happen?

He told me what it was, and I could tell.

He was telling the truth, just not deep enough.

It went far beyond what he was describing.

And then I looked at him and I said, What if Jesus said to you, I want you to never, ever receive what you think you can't live without and be good with it.

In his particular case, his greatest fear was that he would not find a love that would last forever.

His greatest fear would be to be alone.

So I said to him, what if Jesus said to you, my calling on your life is that you will be alone all of your life.

How would you respond?

You know, people kind of write long commentaries on why it would be that God would ask Abraham to take Isaac, his only son, the son that he loves, up on the mountain and sacrifice him.

And they say, well, it was just for demonstration for generations to come that God would provide the lamb.

But God also cares about the individual.

And as you look at the Abraham story, you have to wonder, Abraham was so desperate for a firstborn child of his own.

And he, in his mind, could never experience the promise that God had given him of descendants that were as numerous as the sand on the sea and the...

Stars in the sky, unless he had that firstborn.

So in a real way, Abraham's savior had become Isaac.

If I can have Isaac, I'll have everything for which my heart belongs.

It's almost as if God, never intending to slay Isaac, it's almost as if God reminded Abraham, the only thing you can't live without is not Isaac.

The only thing you truly cannot live without is me.

What Jesus says to all of us is, I want your dreams.

I want the most important thing in your life.

I want your Savior, the thing you think that you can't live without, the thing upon which you think your true happiness and joy is based.

I want that thing.

And until you've given that to me, you will feel that something is amiss.

Oh, I think all of us in our hearts, even though we know that it's not right, and even though we know that it kind of causes some kind of existential barrier between us and Jesus.

We kind of hope that even though Christ has given us salvation, forgiveness of sins, and eternal security, there's a real large part of us that's just holding out for the hope that Jesus will give us this thing over here that will make our life complete.

And so we're hoping somehow we can kind of, and we'd never say it like this, use Jesus as a means to our end.

And as long as we relate to Jesus that way, we may be forgiven, we may be good standing with Him as far as salvation is concerned, but there will always be a part of us that is missing something.

Because in your heart you know that in your relationship with Him, it's not the fact that there's some truth that you don't get, it's not the fact that maybe there's a truth you've not yet discovered, and it's not something that you're not doing.

The reality is far more simple.

It's the reality that you've never truly given God your dreams.

To allow Him to hear your passions, but to fully commit to Him where you allow Him to determine all outcomes.

To trust Him and His provisions by laying your dreams and your greatest desires at His feet and say, not my will, but yours be done.

To get to a point.

that the Spirit of God living inside you, that sometimes others can't see, begins to reveal itself because they know that you're the type of person that you know Jesus knows better than you how your life should be going.

And you submit that to Him in order that God might accomplish His purposes in your life and to secure you from the enemy.

Now, when you hear somebody say that, what do you mean?

Well, if God truly loves you, and he does, and has saved you, and he has, and he's going to protect you from the enemy till the day of redemption, and he's proven that by putting a deposit, his spirit, guaranteeing what is yet to come, then God, as your loving father, is going to weave a cord throughout your life.

And sometimes the thing you want most is the thing that would ultimately destroy you.

So he's going to send you over here.

Now that might break your heart, but Ultimately, you're trusting that his purposes will be accomplished in your life and that he's protecting you, he's keeping you, he's securing you for all of eternity.

Hidden holiness always reveals itself in this way.

Because when you've given God your dreams internally, external things appear.

It's just the way that it happens.

So, a woman who's deeply in love...

breaks off the relationship because she knows that this man does not understand the deepest parts of her life, her love for Jesus.

Even though she has fallen in love, she doesn't go through with the marriage because she knows, she knows this cannot be God's purpose for her life.

A man who's desperately lonely doesn't move forward with feelings that he has for a married woman.

The feelings are real, but they're not as real as his love for God and the sanctity of marriage.

So, against his feelings, he grabs his emotions by the scruff of the neck and leads them to what he knows to be objectively true, because there's a hidden holiness in him that expresses itself externally when he's faced with two options, one which is not holy, the other is.

A woman who is desperate, or a man, for power and position.

And they deserve it because they've worked hard.

The promotion should have been theirs, but it doesn't come.

It's given to somebody else.

Yes, they're set back, but they're not devastated beyond healing because they know ultimately they have given all of their dreams to God and they want His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Hidden holiness always expresses itself this way.

Always.

And so I ask you, what is your greatest fear?

What is your greatest fear?

See, the rich young ruler's greatest fear was losing his money.

He could do all these other things, but money was his God.

Had to keep the money, and that's why he went away sad.

But it's the reason Jesus went right to the heart of the issue.

He knew that where the rich young ruler was concerned, his trust, his security, his hope is in money.

What is yours in?

That's the question.

What is your greatest fear?

That if you lose it, you can't live without it.

You will know there is a hidden holiness in you when your demeanor and countenance remains high even when your dreams do not come to fruition.

So if you want to be right with God, Stay with me.

If you want to be right, you know, we can talk about the generosity.

It is true that greed surrenders to generosity at the point of real conversion.

So we could go down that road and say, here's how you know there's hidden holiness.

You're a generous person and there is truth in that.

In fact, when there's hidden holiness, you live like a tenant, not an owner.

You know that every good and perfect gift comes from Christ, so you use the resources He's given you for something bigger and beyond yourself.

If you're not doing that, it means perhaps there's no hidden holiness.

If you have hidden holiness, you live like a committed Christ follower, not a consumer.

So you're not a church hopper seeing who's going to offer the next best thing for you.

You realize that God has called you to a place, wherever it is, and you're using your talents and your gifts for a purpose greater than yourself.

You're much more than a sponge who soaks it all in.

You know the purpose of growth is so that you might invest in the vision God has given you.

You sow generously, not sparingly.

Because greed surrenders the generosity at the point of conversion.

And that's something the rich young ruler was not willing to do.

So stay with me now.

Let's bring all this together.

If you want to be right with God, you must admit you're not good.

If you want to be good with God, you must allow him to smash your religious views.

And finally, if you want to be good with God, or if you want to experience God, you must give him your dreams.

And finally, four.

If you want to feel God, your true treasures must reside in heaven.

Do you notice in the story, and let's wrap this up, do you notice in the story that Jesus says to the rich young ruler, you're not good and you're not rich.

You think you are, but you're not.

But you can have both these things in me.

In other words, I want you to see that when your treasures are in heaven, you're truly rich.

I know you have the greatest decision.

state, in town, and you're very wealthy, but that's nothing compared to me because the greatest treasure you will ever have will be me.

And he's not talking about eternal riches of money and wealth and big houses and nice cars.

He's talking about the things associated with the kingdom of God, heaven, true joy, hope, love, acceptance, security.

All of these things, Jesus says, that you're looking for, and you're using these other things to get them, all of those things are only truly found in me.

Again, you cannot fill an eternal void by temporary means.

Thieves can steal your money, moths can corrupt your houses, but nothing can destroy what I will give to you.

And so...

After you've given God your dreams, and after you've had your religion smashed, and after you've admitted that you're not good, somewhere along the line, if this hidden holiness is ever going to express itself the way that it should around others, you're going to have to recognize that your treasures are in heaven.

You're going to have to seek the higher things, but you're not going to do that until you realize what Jesus did to make you His treasure.

See, let me illustrate this and then we'll finish this.

When Michael Jordan retired the second time, he made twice as much in endorsements than all United States presidents combined.

He earned more endorsing Nike shoes than all the workers in Malaysia who made the shoes.

And he might have paid $200 for a round of golf, but while he was playing golf, he made $33,000 just by doing nothing.

So a society that values a basketball player who no longer plays more than it values teachers or first responders or policemen, firemen.

That society is all out of whack.

And unfortunately, our culture values the wrong things, and we've been doing that for a long time because our gods are money.

Again, that could be a rabbit trail that we could go down.

But here's the question for all of us, and it goes back to the story of the rich young ruler.

What do you value the most?

It's that simple.

Where's your treasure?

I mean, what in your life do you feel like, man, if I didn't have that, there's no use living?

And the only answer to that question, sufficient answer, is Jesus.

And even Jesus, when he sends out the disciples, they come back and they're celebrating, you know, we were able to cast out demons, people were healed.

And Jesus told them, don't rejoice that the demons are subject to you.

Rejoice that your names are written where?

In heaven.

Well, stay with me.

Come on now.

Where is your name written in heaven?

Well, the answer is the Old Testament, right?

The Old Testament tells us the high priest, before he went into the Holy of Holies, would have every name, every one of the children of Israel, engraved on the precious stones over his heart.

And then when you get to the New Testament, we're told that Jesus is our high priest.

And in Isaiah 49, we're told that Jesus has engraved our names, every single one of us, on the palms of his hands.

Now, why the palms of his hands?

Well, two reasons I think.

Number one, there's a lot of you that will hear this and have tattoos, and you've got tattoos in places that no one will ever see, and quite frankly, we don't want to see.

But if you engrave something on the palm of your hands, you're not going to be able to hide that.

Everyone is going to see it.

It's Jesus' way of broadcasting to you and me and the world that we belong to him, that you and I are his treasure.

The other part of that, though, is where was Jesus?

Where were the nails driven into Jesus?

You say, well, technically it was his wrist.

Okay, palm and wrist are part of the same thing in both Hebrew and Greek.

So, Jesus, the nails were driven through our Savior, and that's supposed to express to you how much you and I mean to him.

And the only way we will ever make Christ our treasure is when we realize what he's gone through to make us his.

What am I saying through this message?

Because I know hidden holiness is a difficult thing, and you're going to attack it from many angles.

But as you look for certainty in your life that you are good with God, I think this parable gives it to you.

And it tells you that...

If you come to Christ knowing that you're not good and you receive his goodness, that the spirit of the living God upon your conversion, when you call on the name of Jesus, bringing nothing of your own, depending on him completely, that the Holy Spirit comes into your heart and starts to change and transform, stir things up a little bit and starts to transform you from the inside out.

And you know that you're there, the beginning point of that.

is when you put greater value on Jesus and His provision than you do anything else.

So He becomes your righteousness, He becomes your holiness, He is your dream, and He's your certainty for eternity.

And that's how you know that this journey of hidden holiness has begun.

Because it will express itself in the external.

You will not trust in your own goodness to save you.

You will allow Jesus to shatter your worldview and religion.

You will give him your dreams and allow him to determine all the outcomes.

And somewhere along the line, I don't know where and when, but somewhere along the line, it may not be immediately after your conversion, your eyes will be open to everything Jesus Christ has done.

for you to make you his treasure.

And at that point, I promise you he'll become yours.

And things like greed, surrendering to generosity will not be an effort that you have to make.

It will be the natural outcome of hidden holiness.

Now in the series, we're going to talk about some other outcomes, but I want to encourage you.

If you heard the gospel today, and for the first time, your eyes have been open.

You've been depending far too much on your own philosophy, your own religion.

And suddenly it's dawned on you that what you need, Jesus Christ has already given.

And that if you receive that, there are going to be byproducts.

Your countenance is going to be lifted.

You're no longer going to be stressed because you're determining or leaving all outcomes to Christ.

There's no fear anymore.

Your only fear is losing Jesus.

As long as you have Jesus, He's the one that determines who gets what, who lives, who dies.

And when you make Him your treasure, when you understand what He's done for you, and everything that He's done, it will change you forever.

It starts on the inside like a seed and begins to grow until it breaks through and penetrates everything that would stand in the way until those around you see that there's something different in you and that difference is expressed every day in your life.

Father, thank you for your goodness and for your mercy.

Thank you for the truth of scripture.

And I would pray in Christ's name that those who have heard the gospel maybe for the first time or maybe...

Maybe those who have been Christ followers for a long time, but there's been no real transformation, that maybe today would be the day they'd be honest with themselves, that they would know that there's never been a time that they've come to Jesus with nothing else in their hand.

But there's never been a time when they stopped depending on anything they could do or add and gave completely their lives over to Jesus, trusting him for all provision.

And as a result, recognizing his provision, have fallen so deeply in love that now their lives look different than anybody else's life.

And they are that city on the hill that cannot be hidden, the light that shines in the darkness.

In Christ's name, amen.

I'm so glad you were here with us today to listen to the message.

If you have questions about what to do next, or maybe you really want to explore what it would be like to follow Jesus, we would love to come alongside you.

In fact, you can go to oneandall.church.com and we have a team that is especially prepared, ready to walk you through what that decision might look like.

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We hope this message blessed you and that you have a great week.

Let's go as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.