The sermon begins with the narrative of Jesus and the rich young ruler who asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. The young man claims to have kept all commandments, but Jesus tells him to sell his possessions and give to the poor to have treasure in heaven and follow Him. Saddened by this, the young man leaves because of his wealth. Jesus then explains to his disciples the difficulty for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of God, using the analogy of a camel passing through the eye of a needle. The sermon emphasizes that entrance into God's kingdom is impossible for sinners unless God intervenes, making it possible through His grace. The disciples are amazed because they associated wealth with God's blessing, but Jesus clarifies that the heart's idolatry, not wealth itself, is the issue. The sermon calls believers to come to Jesus with empty hands, forsaking idols and trusting solely in Christ for salvation. It underscores the necessity of divine intervention for one to enter the Kingdom of God and urges repentance and faith in Jesus.

Beginning in verse 17. As he, Jesus, was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him and asked him, 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 murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not bear false witness do not defraud honor your father and mother and he said to him teacher I have kept all these things from my youth up. Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, one thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and give to the poor.

And you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me." But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property. And Jesus looking around said to his disciples, How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples were amazed at his words, But Jesus answered again and said to them, Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God. 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 were even more astonished and said to him, then who can be saved?

Looking at them, Jesus said, with people it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God. This is the word of our God. May God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for this your word. We ask Lord that what we do not know, you would teach us and what we are not, that you would make us, Lord, where we have sin, that we must confess, that we would confess it, that we would walk out of these doors with a smile on our face, not because of something within us, but because of Christ Jesus, who lived and died to take away our sin, to conquer our condemnation, that we would be amazed that indeed our Savior bled and died for me and for my brother and sister in this church, that we would praise you, that the nations would praise you, that the peoples of the earth would be glad starting here in Erlem. We ask that you would win Erlem to Christ, that indeed those in our town, those in this state would submit to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, that they would not go away sad, but that they would leave with Christ and have everything for eternity. We pray this in Jesus' name, help us. Amen.

You may be seated. I'm really thirsty, all that good singing. I'm really thirsty yet. All that good singing. Those were wonderful songs to sing with you this morning.

You'll notice in our passage this morning, again we're going to be keying in on verses 23 through 27, There are three identical phrases in those verses. Do you see those three identical phrases? What repeated phrases there? Look at the end of each of these verses, starting with verse 23. What does it say there?

Enter the kingdom of God. Verse 24, enter the kingdom of God. What does verse 25 end with? Enter the kingdom of God. Do you want to know what this passage is all about this morning?

Entrance into the Kingdom of God. How do you get into the Kingdom? How do you inherit? How do you receive? How do you get into God's kingdom?

That's what the disciples are asking in verse 26. Who can be saved? Who can possibly get into the kingdom if rich people have such a hard time with it? And Jesus answers in verse 27 with the point of the passage. How can you get into the kingdom?

With you? With man? With people? It's impossible. But not so with God.

For all things are indeed possible with God." So here it is this morning. Entrance into God's kingdom is impossible for sinners, except for those whom God makes His children who come to Christ with empty hands. Entrance into God's kingdom is impossible for sinners, except for those whom God saves and makes His children as they have come to Christ with empty hands. God must do the work of granting you citizenship into His kingdom in order for you to enter His Kingdom. Who can be saved?

Nobody. Unless God saves them Himself. That's where we begin this morning. Entrance into the Kingdom of God is impossible with man. It is impossible for people.

Impossible for sinners. Jesus has just finished speaking with the rich young ruler. He has offered this young man a place in his kingdom, give up what you have, go and sell your possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and you can follow me. Give all that you have up and you can have me you will have entrance into my eternal kingdom Jesus tells him but you must come you must follow me with empty hands now you need to remember what Jesus has already taught the disciples in Mark's gospel. It's not an accident that this passage comes right after Mark chapter 9.

Jesus in Mark 9 has told his disciples that sin is deadly serious and that rather than perishing in hell because of your sin, it would be better to cut off hands, pluck out eyeballs, it's better to give up what causes you to stumble and enter into the kingdom without those things than as a result of those things to enter into hell you remember that right one chapter ago getting some blank stares it's reminding me of eighth grade mathematics it's only been about five weeks since we've covered that go back and read that cut off your hands if it will drag If your hand will drag you down to hell, rid yourself of what will keep you out of the kingdom because The kingdom of God will make any loss that you experience here on earth look as but nothing in comparison to what you gain in the glory of Christ's kingdom. Cut off hands if it gets you glory. And then Jesus right after that says in Mark's Gospel, come to me like a child. Come to my kingdom like a child. Cut off what makes you stumble.

Forsake anything that will hinder you. And then come to me like a child with nothing in your hands And now we see this rich young ruler ask the question What shall I do to inherit eternal life? What shall I do to get into your kingdom?" Jesus and Jesus repeats what he's already said in Mark chapter 9. Come to me like a child with empty hands. You have something in your hands right now that has become number one in your life.

You have something that is making you stumble in your hands. Cut it out. And then come to me like a child. Your wealth, your possessions, they have become lord over your life. If you're to be a citizen of my kingdom, I must be your king, Jesus is telling this young man.

Right now, your wealth is your king. If you are to belong into my kingdom, I must be your king. So follow me. Become like a child. Come to me with empty hands.

Let go of your false God. Cut it off. Pluck it out. Come to me like a child and you will have the kingdom. These things are all fitting together.

And The rich young ruler, it says in our passage, with his hands full, unwilling to pluck out and to cut off what will drag him down to hell, says to Jesus, I can't come. My hands are full. I will not cut off that which keeps me from your kingdom." And how does he leave Jesus? He goes away sad. And Jesus looking around in verse 23 says to his disciples, how hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.

Now hear this. What was the issue with this young man? Was it his riches? Was it this young man's wealth? Was it the number of zeros in this young man's bank account that kept him out of the kingdom?

No. The issue with this rich young ruler was his heart. His heart was full of idolatry. He had broken God's law, namely the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. And Jesus reveals this young man's idolatry by tugging at his wealth, by pointing to his wealth.

One thing you lack, this young man thought he had kept the second table of the law. Commandments five through ten. I've kept all these things since my youth. And rather than rehashing the first four commandments of the ten commandments, Jesus simply pulls on a thread that reveals to this young man, you have kept none of them. You have broken the very first one.

Give up what you have for first place in your heart. Give up what you currently trust in. And instead of trusting in your wealth, instead of boasting in your wealth, instead of taking refuge in your wealth, stop trusting in those things and trust in me. And the young man, this is so, this makes me tremble in verse 22. He went away grieving.

He went away sad. Now that should just make you pause and say, I don't want the story of my life To be summed up in that phrase, I went away sad. Don't let that be your story. Well, if you look at verse 24, the disciples were amazed at his words, the words of Jesus, how hard it would be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. They were amazed, the text tells us.

Why were they amazed? Well, they were amazed because in their minds wealth was a mark of God's blessing. You just think about all the heroes in the Old Testament that these men have grown up thinking about, looking up to. Abraham, David, Job. These were rich men materially.

They had many material possessions. Men with great wealth. And these men truly are held up as studs in the Old Testament. And so them, and so to these disciples they are amazed. They think well surely the wealthiest were the most likely to enter the kingdom of God.

They were the most important ones. But what has Jesus already said? Jesus is turning that completely on its head in chapter 9 and in chapter 10. He said it multiple times already. He will continue to say it further on in Mark, the first will be last and the last will be first.

The rich young ruler, he's out. Poor blind Bartimaeus at the end of chapter 10, he's in. Jesus has been explaining The nature of his kingdom from quite some time now in Mark's gospel the kingdom is for children Children are poor helpless financially Dependent they are needy. They can't even put a seat belt on in their car You have to do that for them. They are completely dependent, the opposite of rich, the opposite of powerful.

But though they are often treated as last and least and unimportant in the world. And if you doubt that they are unimportant in the world, just look at our modern day view of abortion. Though children are least and last in the world, they are first, Jesus says, in his kingdom. Jesus is saying wealth has the potential to be a great stumbling block into the kingdom. Wealth, and we see this in Proverbs, can be a great snare to anyone, like this rich young ruler.

It can keep them from trusting and depending like a child on someone outside of themselves. It can keep them from taking refuge in a savior. I don't need you. I've got what I need in my hands already." And this is blowing the disciples' minds. They are amazed.

If the rich can't get in, they're thinking, who possibly can? Which, by the way, I just need to point this out. This is the exact opposite of the health and wealth prosperity gospel movement that is all over the place in our nation and in the world. It's the exact opposite of what false teachers teach regarding health, wealth, and prosperity. What Jesus is saying here is the opposite of the teaching of so many charismatic prosperity gospel teachers.

The prosperity gospel says wealth, prosperity is evidence of belonging to Christ's kingdom. But Jesus says here, actually wealth can be a mighty hindrance to kingdom belonging. The disciples, they don't understand it either. And they thought that surely the wealthiest were the most likely to enter the kingdom. They were the important ones.

And yet Jesus has already said, oh, contraire. The first in my kingdom are those like children. And then look at what Jesus calls the disciples in verse 24. Children. Children.

You do not have worldly riches, disciples, but you follow me. This rich young ruler, he does not have me. He has his material possessions. He goes away sad, but you children, you have me. You have me.

You have what matters. You are mine. The disciples are amazed that the rich are at a disadvantage. And again, what is that disadvantage? Well, the disadvantage, what snare can wealth become?

Well, I think the King James Version is a really helpful tool here, the authorized version. Let me read it for you in verse 24. The King James Version is really helpful to get at the heart, the heart of the issue here. Verse 24 in the King James reads this way. And the disciples were astonished at his words, but Jesus answereth again and said unto them, Children, how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.

How hard it is for them that trust in their riches to enter into the kingdom of God. The issue here in this passage is not ultimately this young man's wealth. The issue is not the amount in his bank account. The issue is that his bank account is master and lord over him. What is this young man trusting him?

What is this rich young ruler depending on? What is he relying on? His riches. His riches are his fortress. His refuge is his money.

Not Christ. This rich young ruler, he does not go away singing, A Mighty fortress is my God. He doesn't go away singing that No, his song is a mighty fortress is my wealth This rich young ruler does not sing the song When all around my soul gives way, Christ then is all my hope and stay. He doesn't sing that song. No, his song is, if all around my soul gives way, if my riches give way, I lose all my hope and stay.

The issue is not wealth. The issue is not trusting in, or the issue is trusting in that wealth. The issue is that his wealth is his God. The issue is his heart in idolatry. So do not get confused by this passage.

You need to understand, I need to be very clear about this lest you go away confused. Being wealthy is not a sin. Having riches, having money is actually receiving a gift from God. James 1 tells us every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from God, the Father of lights. Think about Mark's Gospel.

Jesus has already taught on this, though not explicitly. If you think about the woman with a discharge in Mark chapter 5, based on the indications that we have in the text, she spent 12 years, Year after year, month after month, spending money on physicians to heal her, she seems to have some measure of wealth. But she was not condemned for her wealth in Mark chapter 5. Neither was the woman who poured out costly perfume on the feet of Jesus. She being materially rich was not condemned for her wealth.

Think about Joseph of Arimathea in Mark chapter 15. At the end of Mark's Gospel, it is said there that he was a wealthy man and member of the Sanhedrin. He was wealthy enough to stand before Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus and upon receiving the body of Jesus to go and buy an expensive linen cloth and then to go and buy a tomb hewn out of the rock for not his body but Christ's body. That is some wealth. And far from being condemned, Joseph of Arimathea was given an eternal place of prominence in God's inspired Word.

That's the opposite of condemnation. So clearly having wealth is not the problem. What is the problem that we've seen time and time again in Mark's Gospel? The heart is the problem. Within.

The woman with a discharge, the woman with an alabaster vial who gives it all up for Jesus, these rich women, they come to Jesus with empty hands. They clutched, not at their possessions, but what do these women clutch at? They clutch at Christ. You see that? Think about the woman with the discharge in Mark 5, she's clinging to Christ.

This woman with the alabaster vial, she's clinging to the feet of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, he uses his riches for the Lord, wealth was not his master, Christ was. Wealth, money, riches, power, sex, those are not the problems. Ultimately the heart is the problem. Idolatry is the issue. The heart twists and perverts the good and gracious gifts of God and takes a good gift from God, turns it on its face, and says, now the gift is the giver.

The giver is lesser than the gift. You take a good thing, as one brother says, and you make it a God thing. And you have an idol in your heart and you break God's law. That's why Jesus has twice said now in this passage how hard it will be, how hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom because wealth to so many in their hearts becomes a snare it becomes a God in whom they trust because Their heart is wicked and it takes the kindness of God towards them and perverts it. So dear ones I want to ask you a question.

Do you agree with your dollar bills? Do you look at your dollar bill and agree with it that indeed it is God, it is Jesus Christ in whom you trust. Do you trust in the giver? Do you hold your hand out openly to both receive and to give away as the Lord Jesus who is Lord over you and all things, including your money, sees fit to direct you to give or to take. Or you take the gracious and good gifts from God, and turn the gift on its head and make it your God.

Dear brothers and sisters I need you this morning to hear this. Guard yourself from idols. Repent this day from glorying in material possessions rather than glorying in God. Jesus points to this man's material riches not to condemn the riches itself, but to condemn and to reveal something about this young man. This young man's bank account is his god.

He checks his banking app more than he opens his Bible app. He checks the stocks more than He spends time on His knees pleading with God. He loves His riches. Wealth and comfort are His gods. And He cannot leave them.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me, God has declared. And this young man has a god called Mammon, called riches, that will not be unseated as his lord and master. You'll remember what Jesus says in Matthew Chapter 6, will you not? No one, Jesus says, can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth. And we see this play out all the time in our own children and in our own lives, do we not? One of my daughters just recently, very recently, was playing with some of her toys. And she asked me for some food. She was very hungry and yet when I went to hand her the very thing that she craved the most, sustenance, her hands, she came up to me with hands full of toys and she looked up at the treasure that I was offering her, sustenance, And she looked down at the trinkets in her hands, and she simply could not let them go.

She looked up at me, looked at the trinkets, and then she began to cry because she was trying to reach. She couldn't do it. And she just stood there and ultimately, this is a true story, with her hands full, she went away with a heart sad. Now we had a teachable moment there. I preached this sermon to her a couple weeks ago.

When all she had to do was let go of those things that mattered so little to grab a hold of that which was much better, she would have gone away happy rather than sad. Brothers and sisters, children of God, keep yourselves from idols. Forsake their inferior pleasures and embrace the superior pleasures of God in enjoying Him more than His gifts. There's of course the story of the man walking along the beach. Many of you have heard this.

He's collecting seashells. And he collects shell after shell. And they are very pretty and gorgeous shells. God made those shells. Beautiful shells.

And there's nothing wrong with collecting shells and there's nothing wrong with seashells. And so this man, shell after shell into his arms as he's walking and then he comes upon a large and beautiful white pearl gleaning in the sunlight on the beach. And there he was with his seashells mounted over in his arms worthless in comparison to that pearl on the ground. But his hands were so full with shells that he could not reach down and take up the pearl of great price. And so because he would not let go of that which was far lesser, for that which was so much greater, the story goes he went away sad with his seashells.

Dear ones, we agree that that is ridiculous. But will you fall into the same snare with something else just as shiny as seashells. You cannot serve God and wealth. You cannot have more than one Lord and Master. There's nothing wrong with seashells and collecting seashells.

But everything is wrong with not letting them go to get the pearl of great price. There's nothing wrong with dollar bills, beloved. There's nothing wrong with collecting dollar bills. I think you should do it. But everything is wrong with making those dollar bills the objective in your life.

Everything is wrong about not letting them go when Jesus says to. Will you love your money and your possessions more than the one who gave those very gifts to you? Will you hold on to those very things as more precious than he who could require your life this very day? Will you go about your life like that fool who decided to build bigger barns without regard for eternity? Without regard for the day of judgment before God Almighty when God will require your soul.

When on that day all of your goods will be unable to save your soul. Friends do not be like that fool in the Gospels who treated his riches and hoarded his storehouses of wealth as a way to find peace and comfort in this world. Nothing wrong with riches, nothing even wrong with the storehouse, but the moment that they become your hope and stay, the moment that they become your peace, Your soul will be required of you and you will have no peace. You cannot take those things with you. You will be left with nothing.

Your riches will not count for one iota in purchasing citizenship into Christ's kingdom. You cannot take them with you. They cannot, they do not have the capacity to buy peace with God. Rather, if you trust in your riches, Your riches, if they be your trust, will only serve to reinforce the truth that you stand justly condemned before God Almighty as one who has broken God's law by trusting in riches rather than Christ Jesus. And you will stand justly condemned, for money was your God, and the one true God will cast you into outer darkness.

You who were rich unto yourselves, but not rich towards God, you robbed God of His glory and rightful place in your heart. You who had every earthly prop you could think of, if you trust in those earthly props, you will be the fool who has found, who has nothing in eternity but hell. Friend, the truth is that you will be that fool. You will have a heart full of idolatry. Your heart will work idolatry until the cows come home because you are a sinner.

And it is impossible for you to change that. As John Calvin puts it, your heart is an idle factory. It produces idle after idle after idle quite efficiently. Take one idle away, another one springs up. You will be the one who wastes his life on trinkets and is never rich towards God who will never let go of the seashells of his life to grab the pearl of great price which is Jesus Christ.

You cannot. You cannot stop this factory in your heart. It is impossible for you to do so. No man, no person can be saved in and of himself. The question that the disciples have there in verse 26, who can be saved?

If the rich can't get in, who can be saved? The answer to that is nobody. That's Jesus' answer. With people, with mankind, it's impossible. It's impossible for you sinner.

You can just as easily change your heart and cease your idle production in there. You can just as easily do that as you can stop the rotation of the earth on its axis. It's impossible for you to go in and reorient your heart. Jesus says in verse 25, 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. You want to know how hard it is to take out this factory of idols.

You don't want to know how hard it is to fix your greed, to rid yourselves of your lusts for more and more and more, so that your trusting in your wealth and your lusting for more and more and more would be conquered, you'd be better off trying to fit one of the largest animals in Palestine through one of the smallest openings in Palestine, a sewing needle eye. It's ridiculous. I talked to my girls about this. You have a giant camel. It's huge.

And it's about an opening this big. And I asked my oldest, Can you do that? She looked at me. No doubt in her mind. No.

Not possible. We would label that as, it's ridiculous. You can't do that. And of course that's the point that Jesus is making. Sin runs deep in you.

Idolatry runs deep in you. You Friends have got strong man gods in your life that will not let you unseat them. Try as you might. You think I'll just try a little harder. They laugh at you.

Do you not know how weak you are? You get rid of one lust for an even greater lust. One lust goes away, seven more enter into your life. You've got a problem, just like this rich young ruler, that cannot be solved by yourself. As capable as the man is to put a beast through the hole the size of a mustard seed, is the man who may enter the kingdom and be saved on his own merit and in his own efforts.

You just can't do it. You aren't mighty enough. You aren't strong enough. But God is. God can.

It is impossible for you, but not so for God. Entrance into the kingdom of God is made possible by God and indeed it is not just made possible, it is actually secured for His children. The Pharisees, think about this, Think about what the disciples are going through. They're trying to figure this out. The rich are going to have trouble entering into the kingdom.

The Pharisees with all of their righteous acts, they're out too. Who can be in? You cannot be good enough to enter God's kingdom. You cannot have, it's not possible for you to have enough righteousness in and of yourselves to reach the level of perfection that God demands for entrance into His kingdom. You cannot have enough riches.

You cannot have enough might. God demands perfection to enter into His kingdom. The truth is there is a great chasm that separates you and God's kingdom called sin and condemnation. It's a great chasm. There is a great wall that stands between you and the kingdom of God called enmity and idolatry that finds its origin deep within your heart.

But God, praise God, he has bridged that great chasm. God has in his kindness to sinners torn down the dividing wall of hostility. God, all the way back in the day of David, the ark of the covenant goes before that idol, Dagon. And what does God do with such a mighty idol of the Philistines? That idol falls on its face, breaks.

Up until that moment, up until God defeated Goliath. It was impossible. You found yourselves to be like the other Israelites cowering in the corner waiting for a mighty champion to go and fight for you. And God did that. The one speaking here is the mighty champion.

With man it is impossible, but not with God. Who is talking here? God is talking here with me. I'll go and secure it for you at my cross. Jesus was good enough.

Jesus is righteous enough. Jesus is righteousness itself. The Bible says none are righteous, no not one. And you go, oh my goodness, what hope is there for me? And the Bible says none.

It's impossible. But there is one who is not just righteous, there is one who is righteousness itself. And He has come to conquer the Goliath. He has come to topple idols and hearts. He will not share his throne with others.

He will not be mocked. He has come to crush idolatry. I submit to you dear ones that you must trust Him. You can trust Him. You must.

Entrance into His kingdom is letting go of your rebellion. It is to fly away from idolatry. It is to come to Jesus with empty hands to trust Him as Savior and Lord, to no longer trust in anything but Him. Entrance into the kingdom is to look outside of yourself, to no longer look at what you have to offer or what you possess or what you have done, but at what Christ has accomplished in dying in your place on His cross, suffering under the wrath of God for your pardon. Brothers and sisters, if there is anything that keeps you from fellowship with Jesus, if there's anything that keeps you from fellowship with the one who loved you and gave himself for you, I exhort you, in the power of the gospel, Cast it away.

Throw it away. Pluck it out. Cut it off. Stop acting like the little idols in your life are okay. They aren't.

Those little idols are parasites that will kill you forever. You need to put them to death. Repent this morning and do some pruning in your life. You need to take the hidden laptop out of the closet and crush it to pieces with a sledgehammer or smartphone. Take a hammer to that thing.

Take a hammer to those images on that screen that keep you from seeing Jesus. You do that, you will no longer go away sad. If money is your idol, listen to Jesus' remedy. Start having fun giving it away. Do you have some other idol in your hands?

Well, why don't you fast? Why won't you really pray? Pray all night if you have to. You are praying to the one and the only one who topples dagons, who topples idols with God, with Christ. Such victory of idol smashing is possible.

Beloved, I am a living testimony that God can take idols like pornography and crush them. Crush them. And to make you look foolish with that sledgehammer in your hand as you're outside with a laptop in smithereens. And the biggest thing is you leave with a smile on your face. I will have more of Christ.

Victory in Jesus is possible. Anywhere else, no victory. It's fake. Entrance into the Kingdom of God is found outside of yourself. It is found in God.

It is found in the truth of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. It's impossible for you to enter his kingdom yourself.

It's impossible for idols to be smashed in your life. Unless God performs an act of mercy in your life, it must all be from God. You are desperate for Jesus. It is impossible with man, but not for the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

Children, I want you to think of something. Think on this young man. Children, here was this young rich person. How many times do you think this rich young ruler sat in a synagogue, sat in a church like you, and listened to sermon after sermon about the snares of wealth, about how the heart can be hardened, about how you must not put any other God above God Almighty. How many sermons do you think he listened to, children?

A lot? I didn't hear a single kid. How many sermons do you think he listened to? Thank you. A lot.

A lot. Children, I love you. I love my children. You hear me every week say the same thing. I'm just like a, on a reg, on a skip.

This young man heard sermon after sermon about the dangers of idolatry. And you have heard sermon after sermon about the dangers of idolatry. Children, if you just keep waiting, if you keep hardening your heart, what makes you think you will end up different than this guy? He went away sad, And he heard sermon after sermon, and he even went to Jesus and got a sermon. So, children, I plead with you that if you are hearing this sermon this morning, to hear this really clearly, You may this day, before the roots of your idolatry go any deeper, you may cry out to Jesus to sever those roots.

Before your heart is hardened even further, I urge you not to wait till next week. I'll think about these hard things next week. Children, stop that. You deal with this today. You are not right with God, but you can be.

If you would turn from your sins and trust Jesus who will, I promise you, topple idols in your life. This young man could never sever the roots of his sin. He could not rid himself of the idol that was his money, and he went away sad. But children, this morning, you don't have to be like that. You could leave here happy.

You know, children, I have prayed with so many of your fathers. I am so encouraged by the men in this congregation that will plead for your souls with tears in their eyes. And they cry. I've sat in cars with them. I've sat in my office with your father's children, tears streaming down their faces for you.

For you! You have good fathers. And I want you to no longer flirt with destruction. To no longer cast your father's tears aside. I no longer want you to wait.

I want you this morning to remember that every sermon counts for eternity. They will either harden you to the truth or they will soften you under repentance children you need to remember the parable of the sower remember that Satan desires with all of his heart to come and snatch away the truth that you might believe. He wants to come and swoop in like a little bird and snatch it. So if you're tempted right now to do a tune, Pastor Grant out. Stop listening to the fiendish lies of the devil.

And instead of listening to the evil one who wants to lull you to sleep, flee to Christ. Remember the weeds in that same parable, the weeds of your life, the riches and treasures of this world, that they can come up and they can choke out your life. Remember those things and shut up. Say things right now in your heart like, I need the sower. I need the sower.

Children cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the sower. Cry out to Him and say, I need you Lord Jesus. I need you Jesus, the great sower of truth, to make my heart new. I no longer want anything above you as Lord and Master. I want you.

The kingdom is for you, children. Resolve in your heart that while there is still time, I will no longer wait. I dare not wait any longer for fear of becoming like this young man whose God was his belly and his bank account. I will trust in Jesus. I will look outside of myself to one who hung on the cross for me to not just forgive me yes but to change me from the inside out.

Come to Jesus this morning, children with empty hands, and He will in no way cast you out. Cry out to the Lord Jesus, Savior, I cling to You, tell me what to do, Tell me what I must give up. And then ask that the Lord Jesus give you strength to give it up. Entrance into God's Kingdom is impossible for sinners, except for those whom God makes His own children by the blood of His Son, those who have come to Christ with empty hands. Let me end with this.

Many weeks ago, I was outside with one of my daughters. And she was trying to take off a princess dress. But the princess dress did not look like anything like a princess dress. It was caked with mud, super dirty, grime, dirt. It was filthy.

And she was absolutely, completely incapable of taking that filthy dress off of her. Completely incapable. She tried, she tried, she tried and tears, I'm watching all this, maybe you think I'm a bad daddy, but I'm watching all this, and tears begin to well up in her eyes. She tries harder, she gets frustrated, she's beginning to get angry. In fact, she even begins to despair, she cries, But then she looked up and she locked eyes with her father.

She looked away from herself and she locked eyes on me. She no longer looked down. She no longer looked at her dirty dress. She no longer clutched at these dirty princess rags that she held on. She ran to her father, this is true, and with laughter and a smile, the opposite of sad.

She ran up to me with empty hands and said, please help. You want to know something? With a smile on my face, completely happy to get that dirt on my hands. I ripped that princess dress off of her that no longer princess dress and I put a brand new clean robe on my daughter. What was impossible for her was made possible by someone outside of her.

And she went away not sad, but very, very happy. Dear ones, I exhort you to look unto Jesus. His blood was shed for Thee. His righteousness is freely given to those who beat their breasts and cry out to him for help and salvation. Your father loves, beloved, to welcome home prodigals.

He has a fresh robe of His very own righteousness to clothe you with. This morning I asked that you would sing the song of those who belong to Christ's kingdom. Nothing in my heart, nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Naked I come to thee for dress.

Helpless I look to thee for grace. Foul I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. That is the song of the empty handers, the poor in spirit, the happy in Jesus, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray together.

Our Father in heaven, I ask that you grant repentance in each of our lives, some of us under eternal life, some of us, Lord, afresh to look to Jesus Christ with a renewed sense of zeal because Christ died for me, because Christ is in me. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I've been crucified with Christ. Give us now the grace to put to death the deeds of the body, to pluck out those idols in our lives. Not in our strength, but in the strength that you supply.

Make us like children, running to you with empty hands, desperate for you, and confident in your sovereign care. We thank you In Christ's name that all of your promises are yes and amen in his name. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.