The unexpected Path
Notes
Transcript
Here we are at the end of Matthew 7. Jesus has now concluded the main teaching body of what we call the sermon on the mount. And probably many people would say - “This is a good work.” “These are good teachings.” We can see how these lead us to a life that honors God and others.
And last week Bill finished with what is often called “The Golden Rule”
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Which is a pretty wise way to live in the world that is so generally agreed upon that most major religions have a tenant that expresses something quite similar.
One commentator noted that this would have been such a great place for Jesus to just wrap things up. Nice, tidy, everyone can agree and feel good about this.
But it isn’t where he stops.
The last few bits of the Sermon on the Mount are actually quite uncomfortable and if it is a little unsettling it probably means you understand what Jesus is saying - because these are difficult words.
ENTER
ENTER
Matthew 7:13–14 (ESV)
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
ONLY TWO WAYS:
Jesus wraps up his teachings with a warning.
All this time he has been teaching about the Kingdom of God life and now he wants to make sure that we, his disciples, do not miss it.
The picture is of two gates, that lead to two paths.
Here is the first offense. There are only two.
We like to think that we have infinite choice over our lives - that we are master of our lives. That we can, by our choices, build a unique identity, future and purpose for ourselves. Sometimes we judge people for the choices they’ve made that ended in disaster and pat ourselves on the back for the ones we’ve made that turned out pretty good.
But Jesus says there are only two ways.
And that means that everyone is already on one of these paths - whether we’re conscious of it or not.
And if we are NOT conscious. There’s a pretty good chance we’re on the wide path.
The wide path is the default. It’s easy. It’s the go-with-the flow, follow the crowd way. As he says: many are on it.
And there are many ways on the wide path - you could be a CEO of a fortune 500 company, you could be up for your 5 year chip at AA, you could be a heroic humanitarian medic working in foreign aid, you could be a teacher promoting unity and understanding in the next generation, you could be creating racist content online, you could be smuggling children across borders for sale, you could be living on the street dependant on fentynal and waiting for death.
Most of us would say there’s a big difference between these choices - and especially these outcomes.
I’ve been really interested in listening to some of my teens as they talk about their world - particularly what they see online. They use absolute terms: “This is a good person. This is a bad person.” I am always curious - “How do you know?” “How do you know who is good and who is bad?” And they will explain using a matrix of criteria from their world view. Billionaires, are - of course bad. Taylor Swift and her environmentally unsound plane usage - very bad. Artists and musicians who demonstrate authenticity, who demonstrate counter cultural values - good. Boomers - bad. (Sorry!) Thrift stores - good. Millionaries who film themselves handing out large chunks of money - very good.
They are confident in their assessment of the world - what is good and what is bad. Who is good and who is bad. As only the very young can be. Over time I’m sure these lines will shift and change and there may be new heroes and villians on the horizon. And to some extent - although we might not say it outloud - we all do this inner assessment. Who is on top? Where do I fit?
But Jesus doesn’t draw moral judgement lines in the same places we do. You could be any of those things - good or bad - and still be on that wide road whose end is Destruction.
So Jesus’ invitation is: “enter by the narrow gate”.
How do you feel about that?
It’s a bit uncomfortable isn’t it.
We have certain associations with the word narrow that aren’t very flattering. But Jesus is calling us to the narrow way because He says it leads to life.
You cannot accidentally get on the narrow way. It is an intentional choice. It is the more difficult path in many ways - Jesus says that outright - but it leads to life.
Jesus calls himself both “the Gate and the Way”
I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
To be on the narrow path to life you have to go through Jesus first. There has to be a moment of realization. I want to say confrontation but it sounds a bit harsh…yet there is something about really recognizing who he is that is a bit of an affront - that stops us in our tracks.
Testimony:
I’m one of those church kids that grew up with the gospel being spoken all around me. And I probably adopted it as a concept, a philosophy, a way of life - just the water I was swimming in. But the day I met Jesus - really met him - it was confronting.
I was 14 and attending Youth Councils - what we call Fuse now - like good church kids do but I wasn’t really tracking with the message being preached. I don’t even know what they were talking about - I was too busy passing notes (there were no phones to text on then) and goofing around with my friend. I think we were even kind of mocking the leaders a bit - being 14 and pretty sure we were very clever. All of a sudden I felt a strong pressure on my heart - a pressing, painful, feeling - I thought I was having a heart attack! I finely tuned in to what was being preached and they were calling people to make a decision to follow Jesus. The pressure on my heart increased until I felt like it was going to be torn out of my body if I didn’t follow this call to kneel and surrender my life to Jesus. I didn’t quite know what I was doing - but my feet were moving and then I was kneeling and all of a sudden I was flooded with a deep realization of the many ways I was on the wrong path. God showed them to me in an instant but somehow each thing distinctly until I realised that there was a whole lot of things that I was living that were harmful to me, to others, and far from God’s desire for me. Sin - I felt the weight of my sin. And in that realisation repented - told God I was sorry and I wanted to turn away from that and follow Him. Immediately I was flooded with an overwhelming shower of love - the purest kind - God’s love is like nothing else you will ever experience. And in that moment he spoke some guiding words to help me take the next steps in my life.
It was a confrontation. There was a conscious choice - to follow Jesus onto the narrow way. But honestly, once I had experienced His love I would follow him anywhere - because where he is there is joy.
Not everyone starts their relationship with God with dramatic spiritual experiences. Sometimes it’s a slow growing realization and then surrender to what suddenly seems the only possible truth. Sometimes there is a life crisis point that forces us to say: “There has to be a better way.” I’ve heard many stories of how people discovered Jesus and started down that narrow path and each one is unique and beautiful.
But what each has in common is that at the start - you have to decide what to do with Jesus.
He is the narrow gate.
We enter through him.
HOW TO ENTER:
But what does it mean to “enter” through Jesus?
In Romans 10 we see that entering through Jesus is much more simple than we think.
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
There is no complicated moral or theological system to figure out to start down that narrow road that leads to life. It’s very accessible to you.
What is is we are confessing about Jesus?
That this man who came and lived, and taught this beautiful way of life was not just a man but also God.
We’re about to start into the Christmas season where we celebrate this strange mystery of the birth of Jesus - how God sent his Son into the world to save the world through him.
That he was concieved in some way we can’t fully understand by the initiation of God (who creates everything) into the womb of a pretty ordinary, very human girl. Her DNA and the power of God together so that he was “truly and properly God and truly and properly man”
We’re confessing that he lived his life fully - the way humans were designed to - in partnership with the Spirit of God, in obediance to the Father, and that in these things he healed, blessed, taught, and set free people. Showing us a little slice of what that Kingdom of God is like - the joyous destination at the end of that narrow road.
We’re accepting that His death on the cross paid for our sin. That whatever the weight of our sin and shame is - he’s already carried it for us, died under the weight of it. Our sin is dead in Him if we will accept that gift.
We’re confessing that he rose again overcoming all sin and death.
We’re confessing HE IS LORD. He is worthy. We are grateful! And we want to worship and follow Him - it’s the most natural response.
You can respond to Jesus in faith in a moment and you will start down that path to life. Trusting what he did for us. That’s enough to begin a new life.
THIS IS THE GATE....The rest of the path is a lifetime of working out how to follow him closely and let Him really lead us - be Lord, as in, the one who is in charge of our lives.
But he is on the road with us. His Spirit leads us, teaches us, corrects us - he will get us to the destination.
UNCOMFORTABLE THINGS:
But there is one more uncomfortable thing to address here.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
There is a way of being adjacent to Jesus. Maybe even doing things that seem to reflect a very religious experience. Prophesy, cast out demons, mighty works - how could someone do these powerful things without knowing Jesus? Well, it’s God that does the powerful things and he can do it through whoever he wants.
You’ll recall in Numbers 22 a story about a man name Balaam who was a prophet for hire. He was paid to make a prophecy and he was willing to make a prophecy against Israel even though it wasn’t true and he knew it. God used his donkey to actually speak to him and stop him in his tracks.
So - God can use anyone - false prophets, donkeys, kings, politicians - and do mighty works through them if he chooses.
So what Jesus is referencing has to be much more than the outside expressions of religion that others can see. We might fool one another, maybe even ourselves, about our faith but we cannot fool God.
Next week we will wrap up this series and Jesus will tell us that: The one who hears these words of mine.....AND DOES THEM…will be a wise man building on a rock.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Jesus didn’t teach all that he did - in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout scripture because he wanted us to have some great philosophical discussions. He was trying to lay out for us an explanation of what the Kingdom of God is like and how to follow Him in it.
There is a way to be religious and still not let Jesus be Lord of your life.
Hearing the words - but not living as though they are true and require something of us.
Affirming the existence of Jesus - but never surrendering our lives to his leading.
You’ll remember that many of Jesus’ strongest opponents were religious people who felt they were speaking for God, who felt they knew what God wanted. They were full of pride in their own wisdom and it blinded them to the work God was doing. Maybe this is why at the very beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek…it’s those who are humble enough to know they NEED Jesus who will seek and find Him. If we are confident that we’ve figured out life on our own…we may have missed it altogether.
The old chorus says: “I need thee, O I need thee - every hour I need thee.....” this is the heart position of a follower of Jesus on the narrow way.
Hearing but not doing the word is really just PRIDE. We think we have another way, a better way, that Jesus’ way is impractical, not very culturally relevant, outdated.
That’s why there are few on the narrow path - and Jesus is making no apologies for that. He knows the tendency of our hearts is to please ourselves and design a life around that. But because he is God is knows the truth - the we don’t actually know the way to real life…and he is inviting you to follow him there.
CONCLUSION:
The wide path starts wide but ends narrow - in darkness and sadness and destruction. It looks good at the start but becomes more limiting as you go. The narrow path starts narrow - an exclusive commitment to Jesus as Lord, a shaping of our lives around the Way he leads us - which may mean cutting off some things that don’t lead to life, it may mean practicing disciplines that take perseverance at times - like an athlete trains for a competition - we are in training for Kingdom life.
But this road that starts narrow widens out into abundant, eternal life.
HEART CHECK:
So there are only two important things to reflect on as we wrap up today.
First - you need to know, for sure, which of the two paths you are on. Because Jesus says there are only two.
If the way you live is easy, it’s the way most acceptable to the world. You share the values and goals of everyone in your workplace without any sense of dissonance at all - be careful. That sounds like the wide road.
If you can not remember a moment of confrontation with Jesus. Where you consciously made a decision to choose His Way and let Him be Lord - it’s possible you are on the wide path too - no matter how often you’ve gone to church or done all kinds of great stuff for God.
iii. The good news is....right now Jesus is inviting you to join him on the narrow path. This is an opportunity - maybe as we sing and reflect to say: “Yes, Jesus. I want to follow you.” And you can pray that right now. And this can be the day new life begins for you.
------------PAUSE FOR MUSIC AND PRAYER ----------
b. The second is that seeing the world - as Jesus does - with people on one of two paths - to destruction and loss or to life - should move us to care more about, to pray for, to invite and engage the many, many people we do life with who do not know that their path leads to destruction.
i. It’s very hard to share the gospel right now - many people find it offensive.
ii. When I reflected on the reasons I don’t they usually ended up with some kind of fear of rejection --- but that fear isn’t enough to stop us from obeying God as he leads us to invite others to Jesus.
iii At the very least the starkness of this choice should cause us to pray with seriousness.
Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
