What Must I Do?

“And behold, a man came up to Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And He said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.’ He said to Him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The young man said to Him, ‘All these I have kept. What do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” –Matthew 19:16-22

Every person, deep down, knows that our lives will go on after we die. In fact, King Solomon (the wisest man who ever lived, besides Jesus) wrote, “…[God] has put eternity into man’s heart…” (Ecclesiastes 3:11) Whether we try to explain it away, or ignore it altogether, the reality is that every person knows that their lives will go on; death is simply the event that takes us from this life to the next.

But deep down, the human heart also knows another truth: we are accountable to God for our sin (once again, whether it is explained away or ignored is another issue). The author of Hebrews wrote, “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27) We all know that our lives continue after we die, and we also all know that when we die we will have to give an account of our lives to God.

So what must we do?

In the passage above, the rich young man is wrestling with this very question. He has all of the wealth and possessions that anyone could want, but he still feels the weight of this coming reality. He knows that life will go on after, and so he asks Jesus a most important question: what must I do to have eternal life? But when this man asks this question, he inserts two more words that qualify his question; he doesn’t just ask, “How do I go to Heaven?”, rather he asks, “What good deed must I do?”

You see, the human heart knows that life continues after we die, the human heart knows that we are accountable to God for our sin, and so the human heart’s response, to knowing that, is to try to do something to fix it. The problem is that our solutions typically focus on ourselves: what can WE do. The heart that is sensitive to the reality that something must be done about our sin to have eternal life—otherwise we will receive eternal death—is struggling with the right thing. However, how the heart responds, though typical, is not in the right way.

The first thing Jesus says is, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only One who is good.” Why would Jesus ask that? Because Jesus was correcting the man’s assumption about himself. If the man were to have eternal life, then he must first understand that he is not good. Why was that important? Because if the man is not good, then ultimately speaking there aren’t good deeds that he can do to receive eternal life.

The starting place for all faith is understanding that in and of ourselves, we are not good.

Now, this does not mean that we can’t do good things. Part of the Lord placing eternity on our hearts and creating us in His image is that we have been created with both a conscience and a moral code. Yes, we can sear our conscience and ignore morality, but we cannot erase them. But one of the things the human heart attempts to do is bring attention to the things we do well, but ignore the things we do poorly.

As Jesus continues speaking, addressing the man’s concern about eternal life, He draws his attention to the 10 commandments (basically, the summary of God’ moral law). The man responds, predictably, by saying that he has kept them all. But then Jesus digs in a little deeper by identifying this man’s sin. It’s possible (though highly unlikely) that this man perfectly kept these specific commands. But there was one glaring problem he seemed to have ignored.

It is important to note that Jesus here is not condemning the man’s riches. Having money was not his problem. Sometimes people unbiblically refer to money as the root of all evil, when the Scriptures clearly state that it is the love of money that is A root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10a). This man’s problem was not money, but rather what his money kept him from—what his wealth revealed about his heart. His money showed that he wanted his money more than he wanted eternal life.

You see, this is why Jesus then called him to follow Him. For this man, his possessions were a stumbling block to true faith. This man needed to know that his wealth couldn’t save him; only Jesus could. Eternal life could only be found in trusting in Jesus. This man couldn’t do enough good things to undo the evil of the human heart, let alone pay for the penalty that was due.

We are really good at trying to be good—by trying to earn God’s favor, instead of receiving it by faith in Jesus. Even the believer, at times, tries to be good, or at least good enough. But God’s standard is not simply letting our good outweigh our bad, rather it is to be perfect. And thank God that Jesus is perfect and by faith in Him, He perfects us into His image.

What good deed must we do to receive eternal life? None, because the One who is truly good has already purchased eternal life for us. And this can only be accepted, never earned. So, we follow Jesus and keep on following, trusting in His goodness. We do good deeds, yes, but not to earn eternal life, rather because by God’s grace through faith in Jesus we have already been given it.

So, on our best days, and especially on our worst, we thank God that we don't need to ask the question, "What must I do?", but can instead remind ourselves of the answer to the question, "What has Christ done?"