The Narrow Door: Urgency and Assurance in the Kingdom of God. Luke 13:22-30
Notes
Transcript
Text - Luke 13:22-30
Subject - Salvation
Theme -
Thesis -
Principle -
Philip Ryken in his commentary on this section opens with a wonderful illustration that I want to share this morning.
Today there are more than one thousand organized religions in America,
each with its own system of belief, doctrine of God, explanation of reality, view of humanity, and sense of destiny.
Imagine for a moment that each of these different religions has its own doorway,
and imagine standing in a hallway that is lined with these doorways as far as the eye can see.
Door after door, religion after religion—which one will you choose to enter?
Some people say it does not matter which doorway you enter because they all lead to the same place.
There is no need to worry about your choice of religion because they all teach the same thing anyway.
Open any door you like and you will still get to heaven.
This is the way many people think about religion—maybe most people.
They see it as a personal preference that makes no ultimate difference.
But is that really true? Is it truly the case that all doors lead to heaven?
What if the other doors do not lead anywhere at all, or even worse, if they lead straight to hell?
What if there is only one doorway that leads to salvation, one portal to the glory of God?
What if it happens to be such a small door that many people miss it?
What if that door will not stay open forever, but will soon close firmly shut, leaving people outside in eternal darkness?
In that case, you would want to know for sure which door was the right door.
As you stood in the hallway, looking down the corridor of all the religions, you would want to be sure not to make a mistake.
You would give anything in the world to know which door was the only door that would lead you to God.
Philip Graham Ryken, Luke, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, vol. 2, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009), 39–40.
22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.
23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them,
24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’
26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’
27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’
28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out.
29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.
30 And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
How do we reconcile the fact that believers are chosen by God before the foundation of the world, with the instruction here as well to Strive to enter through the narrow door?
The answer in all reality is that we cannot.
We must hold both to be true.
As believers we must rest in the fact that God is the one who calls people to himself.
The concepts of election and predestination are clearly laid out for us in the Bible.
It is clearly shown in scripture as well though that that there is a requirement to come to Jesus, to accept his free gift, and as our passage today tells us, to strive to enter through the narrow door.
I think one of the keys to helping us understand this tension is to remember the audience that Jesus is speaking to.
Jesus is speaking and teaching Jewish people, and mostly religious people at that.
They believed in the one true God, they believed in the Hebrew scriptures and tried to live what they said.
Jesus is talking to the church crowd so to speak.
Most of whom, assumed they were going to heaven simply because they were good Jews.
They were of Jewish heritage, they knew scripture, they knew the 10 commandments.
In teaching these Jewish believers, Jesus is giving us, good church going Christians an important practical lesson on the subject of salvation as well.
Salvation, while by grace alone, through faith alone, also requires our earnest effort, attention, and self-examination.
There is a tension here we cannot comprehend.
It is not either or, but both and.
And we must be okay with this tension.
Luke is emphasizing Jesus teaching ministry on His way to Jerusalem.
Somewhere in some village some unnamed person in the crowd asked Jesus an interesting theological question:
English Standard Version Chapter 13
Lord, will those who are saved be few?
Why this man asked this question, we do not know.
But the question is a good one, and one that ought to cross our mind as well.
The current world population is estimated to be 8.2 billion people.
Of those, a generous estimate of Bible believing Christians would be around 1 billion.
We look at those numbers, 7 billion people is an unfathomable number in all reality.
While interesting, rather than having a religious debate about a number, Jesus directs the questions to specific application.
The questions was, will those who are saved be few?
Jesus instead turns it around to ask, will the saved be you?
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 The Way Is Narrow
Jesus certainly implied that only a few people would be saved, his main concern was the salvation of those who were listening.
What was and is essential is the destiny of one’s own eternal soul.
Rather than trying to figure out what God will do with somebody else, the most important question for me to address is my own personal relationship with Jesus Christ:
Am I certain that I have walked through the door that leads to eternal life?
Do I know for sure that I will be saved?
Whether God saves many people or only a few, the important thing for me is to make sure that I have eternal life.
Paul echos this same sentiment in Philippians 2.
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Jesus says to
English Standard Version Chapter 13
Strive to enter through the narrow door.
Strive comes from a Greek word used of athletic contests and of war.
It implies a great deal of effort.
You don’t win wars or athletic contests by being passive.
You never see an athlete receiving the gold medal, who says, “I had never worked out or run in a race until a few weeks ago.
I thought it would be fun, so here I am.”
Every athlete who wins strives to win.
He invests great energy and effort into winning. It is not an accident if he wins. It is the result of deliberate and sustained effort.
Not everyone receives the prize.
Only a few are winners.
Luke, Volumes 1 & 2 The Way Is Narrow
As a point of comparison, the English word “agonize” comes from the same Greek root. Jesus said we need to make every possible effort to enter the narrow door that leads to salvation.
Again the tension - we aren’t saved by our own efforts, we never can be.
But until we have entered salvation—
until we have received the assurance of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ—
we need to keep striving to understand the gospel.
Jesus says the target is the narrow door.
The fact that the door is narrow implies that it takes some deliberate thought and effort to go through it.
And there is only one door as well.
Remember, Jesus is speaking to good church going folks.
People who thought they were already through the door.
What Jesus is telling them, what Jesus is telling us,
keep reading the Bible;
keep listening to the gospel;
keep praying for the help of God’s Spirit;
and Jesus will show you the way.
There is one door, and only one.
There isn’t one great big door that’s easy to find and stroll through without thinking about it.
Jesus is asking, “Are you striving to enter the narrow door?
Are you making your salvation a matter of deliberate and sustained effort?
Are you sure that you’re entering the narrow door as defined by Jesus and not a broad door of your own choosing?”
Jesus is talking about our attitude towards salvation.
Those who are only mildly interested about salvation will not obtain it.
Those who view salvation as an interesting topic for discussion are missing the point.
Those who say, “I believe that all roads lead to God and all good people will go to heaven” are engaging in human speculation,
but they are not submitting to Jesus’ divine revelation.
They are putting their thoughts about being open-minded and tolerant above Jesus’ words that the door is narrow.
The salvation of your eternal soul should not be a casual subject, good for occasional thought or consideration only on Sunday morning.
It ought to consume your attention.
It shouldn’t be a matter of mild interest that elicits a halfhearted response.
You need to take great pains to make sure that you have entered the narrow door.
Jesus doesn’t say, “Stroll through the big door sometime when you’re not doing anything else and check it out.”
He says, “Strive to enter by the narrow door.”
For Olympic athletes, their sole goal in life is to win a gold medal.
Everything they do is controlled by the goal of winning the gold.
They don’t eat things that are not good for them.
They skip out on certain activities because they don’t want to get hurt.
They train when they don’t feel like it, for hours at a time, because they want to win.
That’s the kind of attitude that we should have toward our own salvation, according to Jesus.
It shouldn’t be a nice thing to think about every once in a while when you don’t have anything better to do.
It should be on your mind every day.
It should govern everything you do.
It should determine how you spend your time, your money, and your leisure hours.
The sad thing about all of this is there is a distinct line that is made clear.
Jesus says that many will seek to enter and will not be able.
The following verse indicates that they will not be able to enter because they missed the deadline.
It is not that many strive to enter, but only some of those striving succeed.
Rather, as the following verses show, some will wake up to the serious issues involved in their own salvation too late.
They had assumed that all was well with them because they were decent, religious people.
They knew Jesus in a casual way, but they had not taken the gospel to heart. They had never repented of their sins.
But they didn’t consider these matters seriously until it was too late.
If you follow the crowd you will not follow the Savior into eternal life.
Jesus says that there are many (and He is talking about the religious crowd) who will not enter through the narrow door.
If you follow them, you will be shut out when that door slams shut.
Rather than saying, “You can’t miss it,” Jesus says that we can miss it very easily,
and that if we do not work hard to find it, we will miss it entirely.
The door is narrow because only Jesus has done what needs to be done for salvation, he alone has offered the perfect sacrifice for sin.
The problem is not God, or the door, but the sinner who refuses to use it.
It is God’s house, and he has every right to make his own door.
How gracious he is to open a door for sinners at all, and how gracious Jesus is to invite us to enter!
Understand this: the reason he tells us that the door is narrow is not to keep us out, but so that we will find our way through.
Have you entered the narrow door?
Jesus follows this picture with another warning.
In verses 25-28 he speaks of many who want to get in but don’t.
If the door to salvation is so narrow, it is not surprising that some people never enter.
What is surprising is that some who never enter have every expectation of getting in.
They assume that God will let them into his everlasting house, but eventually they will discover that they are badly mistaken.
Jesus is not speaking here about the lost in general, but specifically about people who think that they are saved,
especially among the religious people of his own day.
The reason Jesus shuts these people out is that he does not know them—not in a personal and saving way.
They are completely surprised by this because they thought they knew Jesus, and they assumed that he knew them.
Many people who think they know Jesus are not united to him by faith, and when they try to get into God’s house,
Jesus will refuse to let them enter.
This warning is not just for the Jews who saw Jesus, but for every person who has ever worshiped in a Christian church.
Even if we have never seen Jesus in the flesh, we have enjoyed even greater privileges.
We have read the miracles of Jesus in the pages of the New Testament.
We have heard his preaching of the gospel.
We have seen his saving work through the eyewitnesses of his crucifixion and resurrection.
We have sat at his table to eat and drink with him in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
But do we know Jesus?
Do we have a real, personal relationship with him?
Have we gone to him in repentance, confessing our sins?
Have we received him in faith, trusting in his cross?
Or do we know him only socially and superficially?
Now, not later, is the time to make sure that you have a personal relationship with Jesus, not just a casual acquaintance with Him.
One major evidence of such a relationship is that you are growing in holiness, not just outwardly, but in your heart.
Do those things, that are sinful, do they still draw your attention, or are you beginning to feel repulsed at the thought of them?
The alternative is not a pleasant one.
We find one of Jesus descriptions of hell in this passage.
English Standard Version Chapter 13
In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
Weeping and gnashing of teeth doesn’t sound like a fun experience, especially when it continues through all eternity!
Think of it as an eternal root canal without anesthesia!
These men had assumed that they would be included in the kingdom.
Hell will be a place of lost opportunity.
This conversation started with a question about how many people would be saved.
Rather than talking about numbers, Jesus confronted the crowd with their own need to find the one narrow door to salvation.
What he especially emphasized was the need to find that door before it is too late.
Jesus does end this portion with a positive note though.
29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30 And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
In addition to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, God will bring people in form the nations.
All corners of the earth.
Jesus shows that God’s plan of salvation includes the whole world.
Some who are last - those who were last in the Jewish eyes were the gentiles.
You and I.
People who had always been outsiders will be able to enter the household of God.
But also people who thought they were on the inside will find themselves on the outside looking in.
The man who asked Jesus how many people would be saved thought he knew who was on the guest list: only the Israelites.
But by the invitation of God, salvation is not just for the Jews;
it is also for everyone who enters the narrow door of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.
That includes each of us here this morning.
Christianity is exclusive in that Jesus is the only way, the narrow door.
It is also inclusive in that it is not for one particular group of people.
It is not just for people who are able to obey God better than other people, or who have reached a certain level of enlightenment.
You do not have to be any smarter, any more religious, or any holier than anyone else.
You just have to be a sinner who is praying for God to give you grace in Jesus Christ.
This is s story of urgency.
The door must be found, but then it must be entered into as well.
David Brainerd, the great missionary to the American Indians, was once witnessing to a chief who was very close to trusting in Christ. But he held back. Brainerd got up, took a stick, drew a circle in the dirt around the chief, and said, “Decide before you cross that line.” Brainerd knew that if the chief missed that moment he might never be so close again.
My prayer is that the Lord will use this message to draw that line around you if you have never entered through the narrow door, which is Christ alone.
Salvation is of crucial importance for every person because the door is narrow and it soon will be shut forever.
But right now it is still open.
Jesus says to you, “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”