The Heart And Soul of Goodness; Luke 18:18-19

Delivered during the Sunday Morning Worship Service, 12/1/2024. In our previous study, Luke described how Jesus called little children to Himself, and surprisingly declared: "to such belongs the kingdom of God". He continued that in order to gain entry to the Kingdom, one must accept it as a child. In sharp comparison, our text for this study is a "living parable" of a "rich young ruler", who addresses Jesus as "Good Teacher" and then asks Him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers him with a question of His own that not only acts as a prelude to the rest of the story but highlights the man's misunderstanding of "goodness". In essence, Jesus asks the man why he has referred to Him in language traditionally reserved for God and God alone. After carefully defining all the terms, we will discuss why the shallowness of the man's religion was transparent to Jesus and the great disparity between our understanding of "goodness" and His. Ultimately we will realize that true goodness and therefore "eternal life" can only come from God and therefore depends on what is in the heart and not just on what one does. And in this, Jesus will reveal God's ontological goodness and thereby express to us the heart and soul of goodness.