The Narrow Door Luke 13:22-35

The Narrow Door Luke 13.22-35

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

narrow door, salvation path, Jesus' teachings, Jerusalem journey, repentance urgency, eternal life, faith and works, Herod's threat, prophet's mission, Gentiles' inclusion, Pharisees' warning, Jesus' heartbreak, final judgment, narrow road, broad road

Look forward to praising you forever and never more. For you are worthy of our praise. You are worthy of our worship. We, thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you've done. We lift you up this morning. We pray that you would be glorified in what we hear, what we how we respond to you. Listen Jesus name. We pray. Amen, go ahead and have a seat. If you have your Bible, go ahead and open up to Luke chapter 13. We're going to be in verses 22 to 35 we're going to finish out Luke chapter 13 today, and I'm going to read it real quick as you're turning there, and then we'll dive in Hear the Word of the Lord. He went through one town and village after another, teaching and making his way to Jerusalem Lord, someone asked him, there are only, are only a few people going to be saved. He said to them, make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won't be able once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door, then you will stand outside and knock on the door, saying, Lord, open up for us. He will answer, I don't know who you are or where you're from. Then you will say, we ate and drink in your presence and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you I don't know you or where you're from, get away from me, all you evil doers, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in the place when you see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out, they will come from east and west, from north and South to share the banquet in the kingdom of God. Note this, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last. And that at that time, some Pharisees came to him and told him, get go. Get out of here. Herod wants to kill you. He said to them, Go tell that fox like I am driving out demons and performing healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will complete my work. Yet it is necessary that I travel today, tomorrow and the next day, because it is not possible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chick chicks under her wings, but you were not willing see your house is abandoned to you, I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. When I was reading through this verse, These verses this week, I couldn't help but think and I'll make a connection just second of my grandma's house, and I was at my grandma's house, she would watch us sometimes when my mom and dad were working, and during the day, she loved to watch her stories on TV, right? She loved to watch her her as time goes by, so the days of our lives and all that stuff, right? She loved to watch that type of stuff, but she also liked to watch game shows, and so I couldn't help but think about Monty Hall, and let's make a deal. When I was reading through this passage, if you don't know what, let's make a deal is all about on let's make a deal. The people dress up in costumes, and they're acting all crazy, and then there are three doors on the floor and Monty hill or Monty Hall. He calls some people down and he he makes them choose a door to to choose as a prize. Right? There are prizes behind the doors, but usually there's one good prize, and then the other two doors are with zonks. Is that what they were called? Zonks? Yeah. So if you got a Zonk, then you didn't get anything. And usually it was like a trash can or something like that, and you missed out. And you missed out on the good prize. Anyway. So I was thinking about this passage, when Jesus talks about the narrow door, that there's only one door that you can go through, and the other doors are all zonks, the other doors are all not the gift of life that Jesus offers. And so that's what I was thinking about sitting in my grandmother's floor watching Monty Hall on the TV. Let's make a deal, and thinking about the way that the Lord describes those who come to him, or those who come to him through the narrow door, the door that is not a Zonk, right? And they get eternal life. They get this beautiful picture of who Jesus is. But anyway, so all, not all doors lead to the grand prize, right? Not all doors lead to life, and that's something that we really need to wrestle with as believers in the 21st century, because we're told that there are many ways and many paths to get to Jesus or to get to God. There are many paths that get us to heaven. And Jesus tells us today, and he has told us before, that, there is only one way to get to heaven. There's only one way to get to the Father. And this morning, he talks about the narrow door that is a it's a narrow door to get through. There's not going to be a whole lot of people who are able to go through the door because it is hard and we have to strive for it anyway. Let me read for you one more time. Luke, chapter, 13. Verses, 22 to through. 24 um. And it says this, he went through one town and village after another, teaching and making his way to Jerusalem Lord, someone asked him, are only a few people going to be saved? He said to them, make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won't be able. Okay, so Jesus is teaching and preaching, and Luke doesn't shy away from the fact that he tells us that it is on the way to Jerusalem. Now this is important for us. Remember, every time that Luke makes the distinction that Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he is hinting at or it's not really a hint anymore. We should know it that he is going to his death, he is going to the cross. He is going to the sacrifice. That's what Jesus on his way to Jerusalem means. He knows what lies ahead of him. He knows what stands before him. And what stands before him is the crucifix in or the the, yeah, the crucifix in Jerusalem. And so he's going and he's teaching, and he's still, he's still telling people about himself. He's still telling people about the good news of righteousness that has come in the person and work of Jesus, and that those who believe on him will be saved. So he's still teaching and preaching as he's on his way to Jerusalem. And then somebody pops up and they just ask him this question, Lord, how many people, essentially, how many people are going to get to heaven? How many people are going to get saved? That's a question. I don't know if you've ever thought about that. I've thought about it some, but it's really not that important to me. I just want, I'm just glad that I'm accounted for as one of those who are going to be saved. But maybe we have that question, who's going to be saved? Maybe you have a heart that's like, I want to know who's in and who's out, who's going and who's not going. And I think this is links us back to the parables that Jesus had just told, told earlier in Luke chapter 13, when he talks about the leaven being in the flower, and that it permeates, or even more so, the mustard seed that's planted. And when it when it grows up, all the the birds are coming to rest on the mustard tree. And why I say I say that is because, remember, I told you last week that the mustard or the the birds of the air are a representation of the Gentiles coming to to the kingdom of God. That's what that represents. And so as those who hear Jesus teach and preach are processing this, they're good Jewish boys and girls, and they believe that the salvation of the Lord is only for them. That's what they believe. So who all is going to come if, if the birds represent the Gentiles coming to the mustard tree, then who does that mean that more than just the Jewish people are going to be saved? That's what's going through this man's mind as he's asking this question. Because they believe that the promises of God are only for God's people, which are the the Jewish men and women. And Jesus says, I'm not interested in answering that question of, how many are going to be saved? Instead, he he flips it on and says, Are you going to be saved? That's the question he's asking. He's not saying that. Oh, there's only going to be 7 million people that are saved, and you gotta fit into that little box. No, he says, what I need you to be concerned about. It's not how many are going to be saved, but do you have faith? Do you have a saving faith in who I am? Do you know who I am? And he and he says this by saying, make every effort to enter into the narrow door. I think about that, and then I think about John 14, six, where Jesus tells us that the only way to the Father is through him, that he is the life, or that He is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE, and there is no other way to the Father except through Him. Jesus is making a statement here, that that he is the only way. And like I mentioned earlier, we live in a pluralistic culture where we look at the the world, and we go, you know, I think that many people are going to be saved, even if they don't know Jesus. This is the the cultural Christianity who, who doesn't really take Jesus at his word, they want to say, Yeah, I mean, most people are good people, and they get to go into heaven. But the reality is, is if they have not repented, if they have not trusted in Jesus, they do not get to have eternal life. If you have not given your life to the Lord, you do not get to have eternal life. That is the the the narrow door is just that narrow. It is through repentance. And he says in a parallel text to this in Matthew chapter seven, verse 13 and 14. This is what he says. He says, Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and broad the road broad that leads to destruction. There are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and the difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it. It can be really hard for us to know that our friends and our neighbors, who are, quote, good people, are not going to get into heaven, and because they haven't gone through the narrow door, they haven't gone on the narrow road, they haven't pursued Jesus. But they're good people. Well, good according to who? That's the question we have to ask ourselves. Who are they good according to they may be better than us. They may be be very generous people, they may be very loving people, but according to God, all of us have fallen short of His glory, all of us have sinned, all of us have stood in a rebellion against Him. And the only way to have eternal life is to put our faith and trust in the one who came to give us eternal life, Jesus Christ. So it doesn't matter how good you are, it doesn't matter how how much joy you bring in life, if you have not given your life to Jesus, then you have not gone through the narrow door. And I think that's part of the problem with or part of what Jesus is trying to address here when he says, strive to go through, or make every effort to go through the narrow door, because the narrow door may is narrow and is difficult for us to go through. Because one of the things we do as humans is we want to make things more difficult than they have to be like for many people, one of their hangups with Jesus is that faith in Jesus, or salvation, or the the life that God offers us an eternal life, is just too easy. You're saying, all I have to do is have faith in Jesus. You're saying all I have to do is is, is love Jesus, and then I get a i My sins get forgiven. I was actually watching an interview this week on YouTube, and it was somebody who was talking about Ted Bundy. Now, Ted Bundy, we can all agree is, was a wicked he did wicked things on this earth, right? He, he killed multiple people. He, he was a cannibal too, right? Like he ate some of them, and like he was just a a wicked, wicked man. But there is, is testimony that Ted Bundy gave his life to Jesus while he was in prison, that he actually repented of his sins, turned away from his sins and and received Jesus as his Lord, even all those wicked things he he did, if he truly believed in Jesus, if he truly repented of his sins, turned away from his sins and started pursuing God's righteousness through Jesus Christ, then he will be saved into us and our sensibilities that makes us go but, but God really forgives Ted Bundy? Yeah, if he repented, God would have forgiven Ted Bundy. And that really, that was us looking at the narrow door and going, it's too easy for him to go through that. But the narrow door is narrow because it's repentance that drives us to Jesus, right? One of the things that we have to think about is when it says, Make every effort or strive. It's this idea of intense exertion, like we have to fight for it. We have to wrestle for it. It's like an athlete training for a marathon. I've never run a marathon, and I've dreamt of running a marathon and woke up exhausted. So I know that there's a lot of work that goes into it, but this is the thing is, we want to make Jesus easy to get to for some people, but hard to get to for other people. So we want Jesus to be easy to get to for us, but hard to get to for mister Ted Bundy, right? And one of the things our churches have done is we've, we've given into the idea of for good people, whatever that may mean good people, right? We we want to give them the path to Jesus through what we call easy, what I call, in other theologians call easy, believe ism right. All you have to do is say a prayer, walk an aisle, get baptized. Boom, you're good to go. You never have to live like Jesus. You never have to actually repent of your sins. You never have to pursue Jesus. All you have to do is, is have this intellectual understanding of who Jesus is and and you'll be okay. But Jesus says, No, you have to strive like like, living the Christian life and following Jesus isn't passive. You can't be passive and be a Christian, right? You have to actively participate in the the life that God has given us. And many people are going to want Jesus, but never actually want to put in the effort to strive and make every effort to go through the narrow door. We just want the band aid of Jesus, or, as I said before, we want to sprinkle a little Jesus glitter on our lives and say, hey, now I get in right? That's a difficulty. So we can't go about as believers and try to widen the door that Jesus says is narrow. Have you ever heard that, that people go, you know, whatever you want to believe, whatever you want to say, you know, as long as you know that Jesus existed, that's enough for you. I've heard that. I've heard pastors say that before, and it's such a a wicked thing, because that's not what the gospel is. The gospel is is that you are a sinner, that you have rebelled against God, and that you deserve hell, and the only way to get to the Father is through Jesus. We don't need to try to widen it and say, Oh, but you're a good person. You do. You know, you do these good things, and now you're going to go in. So when we think about striving, what does that actually mean for us to make every effort? We have to strive against our own flesh. We have to make sure that we're killing sin, that we're pursuing righteousness. We have to strive against our own selfishness. Right? We don't get to do whatever we want to do. We. Have to pursue the Lord. We strive for true repentance, changing of direction. That's what repentance means. We've talked about this before that that repentance is you're walking down the road, you recognize you're sinful, and you turn and you go the other way. And let me tell you, repentance is hard because we want to go down the road of flesh. We want to go down the road of doing our own things, but Jesus calls us to a life of holiness. He calls us to a life of of following and trusting him. So we have to fight for it. We have to work at it. Striving also makes us know that it's not our good works that make us right with God, and that's one of the biggest hurdles for many people. Doesn't matter how much good you do, if you have not believed in Jesus, then you have not gone through the narrow door. In fact, Jesus addresses this in verses 25 through 30, when he says, once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door, then you you will stand outside and you will knock on the door, saying, Lord, open up the door for us, and He will answer you, I don't know you or where you are from. Then he then you will say, but we ate and we drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you I don't know you or where you're from. Get away from me, all you evil doers. And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in that place. When you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrown out, they will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, to share in the banquet in the kingdom of God. Note this, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last. So what is Jesus saying here? Real simply. There are some people who are standing at the door and knocking, but Jesus says, I've already shut the door. There's an urgency here. There's a as as a title this, this section, there's a clamoring at the door. People want to get in. They said, we, we know that the door is narrow. Have you ever done this? You've you've got on to something a little late, like, you know, you there's something that's going exciting. I'll tell you an example. So there was a concert that was going to happen a couple years ago, and I, my kids really wanted to go, and I kind of him and haw about it. It was, who was it? Was it Zach Williams. There was a Zach Williams concert going on, and Cory is like, you need to take the kids to it. And I was like, Okay, I'll take the kids to it. And the kids to it. And and I really, really, really, really wanted to go, and I want to take the kids, but I kind of delayed buying a ticket, and then all of a sudden, when I went to go buy tickets, there weren't any, right? That's kind of the idea that's going on here. They, they see the narrow door. They want to follow Jesus, but they, they, they get to it too late. There's no, there was no urgency to actually follow Jesus when the time was right. They they come to the door and it's closed, and they start knocking on it, and Jesus goes, Hey, go away. You. You missed your opportunity. You missed the opportunity. And the thing is, is like, we never know when that opportunity for us closes. But I will tell you this, there are two ways that that opportunity closes. One, we die, we take our final breath. Or two, Jesus comes back, and we never know where, when either one of those things are going to happen, but one of these days that door is going to be closed. So this is, this is the call to you today. Are you going to go through that narrow door? Are you going to strive to follow Jesus, or are you going to delay it, knowing that that door may shut and you'll never be able to see it's God's house. He can open and shut the door whenever he wants to. It's his door. He makes it open and he closes it. There's an urgency here, because that door is closed. The other thing that these people knocking at the door saying is saying, hey, Jesus, we we know about you. We heard you teaching, we heard you. Preaching, we heard you. But one of the things that we have to understand is that proximity to Jesus does not make us right with Jesus. Proximity to Jesus does not make us a believer. It doesn't get us into the door to to hear the words of Jesus. It doesn't get you into the door to come in, sit here and listen to me talk and and preach for 30 minutes. That doesn't get you in the door. You know, if we want to equate that to today, there are going to be people who are standing at the door when they take their last breath. Jesus, you knew where to find me every Sunday morning. I was sitting in the same seat every Sunday morning for 30 years. And he's going to say, I never knew you. That's that's a reality. We're going to say, hey, but I took the Lord's supper every week. He's like, but I never knew you. There's going to be people who said, I placed my offering in the offering plate every Sunday, I gave a 10th of everything that I earned to you. And he's going to say, I never knew you because you were doing these activities without actually knowing the Lord, without actually going through the narrow door. You could even say, I never fell asleep when the preacher was preaching, he's going to say, I never knew you. There are going to be many Christians, or many people who call themselves Christians. And on the day they take their last breath, or on the day that Jesus comes back, and he's going to say, the door is shut, I never knew you. These people that Jesus is talking about were good, religious Jewish men and women. And he's going to say, I never knew you, because you never came through the the narrow door. And that's a thought that we have to really think like, have I committed my life to Jesus, or am I just going through the motions hoping that I get to sneak in the narrow door? Well, let me tell you, don't get to sneak in the narrow door, right? He said, Make every effort strive to go through the narrow door. Take that step into the narrow door. Just go see Jesus. So this morning, if you're hoping that your heritage, if you're hoping that your lineage, if you're hoping that the fact that your grandparents and great grandparents and and parents, parents and and all these people were good Christian people, and you get to sneak in the back door, that's not going to happen. I said it a couple weeks ago, and then Miss Debbie reminded me of it earlier this week, and or I guess Friday, when he says that God doesn't have any grandchildren, he doesn't have any grandchildren, he come. He wants you to come to Him in faith. You don't get your salvation passed down to you through somebody else. It is only through Jesus and your faith in Jesus that He will happen. You will have it once a ultimate destiny is determined by whether Jesus will say, on that final day, I knew you or I didn't know you, your destiny is based on that. Did Jesus know you? Did you STRIVE to enter through the narrow door, or were you just hoping to get by you? What happens to those who don't get to the door in time, Jesus says that they are going to face judgment. They're going to face hell. He calls them evildoers or workers of unrighteousness in verse 27 then he says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when they see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets who have made it through the narrow door. There's going to be weeping and gnashing of teeth when we hear that. I don't know the image that conjures up in your mind, but there's going to be intense sorrow, weeping that they weren't able to get through the narrow door. There are going to be to be tears of sorrow, but there's also going to be hatred at God. That's that gnashing of teeth when they're clenching their jaw and they're just so mad that God has judged them righteously, but they hate God for it. They hate the fact that they have turned that they have chosen to not obey God, to not strive through the narrow door. And they're looking at God saying, it's not fair that you didn't save me, and he's saying, Well, you didn't Strive to enter the narrow door. So the question that's at hand is this, do we actually believe what Jesus says about hell? You know, Jesus talks about hell a lot in the New Testament, I was listening to a pastor talk about it, and he said that in seminary. He said that somebody asked one of his professors, why does Jesus talk about hell so much? And the professor goes, because if anybody else talked about it, we probably couldn't handle it. We couldn't take it from him. But Jesus here, the Son of God in flesh, talks about hell more than anybody else in the Scriptures. And do we take what he says seriously, or do we just go, yeah, maybe there's a hell, but most people are going to go to heaven. Jesus saying here, many will get to have or not many will get to heaven. Most will go to hell. Most will not go through the narrow door because it's a narrow door. The path is is small. So where are you today? Do you trust in Jesus? Do you know that he came to bring both salvation, and he comes to know that there will be judgment at the end, the reality of the salvation in Jesus and the penalty of our sin in hell are both true. We don't get to ignore one and embrace the other. Hell is a true place where God's wrath is poured out on those who rebelled against him, and I know that this is a hard teaching for many of us to to face, but the reality is is that's where we are. There are only two roads, the narrow road and the broad road. The narrow road leads us to life in Christ and the broad road leads us to destruction. That's what Matthew tells us. And then Jesus says in verses 29 and 30, they will come from east and west, from north and south, to share in the banquet of the kingdom of God. Note this, some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last. What does that mean? Where? Where is Jesus going with this that, though the door is narrow, people from all walks of life are going to come. Who believe in the Lord, there are people from every aspect and every distinction of life. The there's a paradox in the Christian belief, right? And here's the paradox that many people that that Christianity is the most exclusive and the most inclusive of all religions, right? It's exclusive because the only way to him is through that narrow door. The only way to him is through belief in Jesus, knowing that He is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE. That's how it's exclusive. But it's inclusive in that all people from all tongues and every tribe and every nation can come to Jesus that there. It's not based on your heritage, it's not based on who you were. It's about who Jesus is, that you get to come to him see for the people that, again, that Jesus was talking to these Jewish people, they would have believed that they were the only ones who are going to get to heaven. And so when he says that the first will be last and the last will be first, this is what he's saying. Those Gentiles who actually repent and trust in me are going to be the ones who become first because they get through the narrow door, but you who think you're first because of your heritage, you who think you're first because of who your parents were or your grandparents were, you're going to be last because you actually didn't believe in the message of salvation. You didn't believe in the goodness of Jesus, you didn't believe and repent and go through the narrow door. Sometimes we can be so exclusive that we think that there are only certain people who can get into heaven, and it's based on how they look and how they act and how they talk, rather than who they believe in what they believe. So we need to know that if somebody has repented of their sins and they've trusted in Jesus, it doesn't matter what the color of their skin is, it doesn't matter what accent they have when they talk. It doesn't matter where they come from, whether they're from this side of the tracks or the other side of the tracks. It doesn't matter if they come from a a broken family. Doesn't come matter if they come from a whole family. It doesn't matter where they come from. If they put in their faith in Jesus, if they place their faith and trust in Jesus and they are part of the family. We can't draw dividing lines where there are no dividing lines, and this is one of the reasons that Paul over and over again in the Scripture, in the script letters that he writes, he says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave, nor free, nor male, nor female, for all are in Christ, Jesus. So it doesn't matter. They believers don't have to look like you and me. They don't have to act like you and me, if they place their faith in Jesus, that's what matters. That's what's important. That's what the kingdom of God does, is it reverses things. The first will be last. Those who think they they deserve it will be the ones who don't get it, those who know in humility that they don't deserve it will be the ones who get it. That's what the kingdom of God does, is it flips things on its head. It's an upside down kingdom. Then Jesus, we see this little episode in verses 31 to 35 it says this. At that time, some Pharisees came and told him, Go, get out of here. Herod wants to kill you. He said to them, Go tell that fox. Look, I am driving out demons and performing healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I will complete my work. Yet it is necessary that I travel today, tomorrow and the next day, because it is not possible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. Verse 34 says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, how often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing see your house is abandoned to you, I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes When you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? So we get this interesting dialog between some of the Pharisees, they come to Jesus. And the question that is there is, why would they come to Jesus? And there are a couple of answers. One, they were being friendly to Jesus, and they wanted to warn him and let him know that what Herod had in store for him, which sounds like really nice and fuzzy, but really, like the Pharisees, have been antagonist of Jesus throughout all of the Gospel of Luke. So we don't know if that's that's probably not what it was. The other thing that they're probably doing is they're probably testing Jesus. And what I mean by that is, if he knows that Jerusalem, that Herod, is in Jerusalem, and he's looking for him, then he can be cowardly and go, No, I don't want to go to Jerusalem now. But Jesus says, I'm not ready to go Jerusalem now. We already know, as those who have read through the Gospel of Luke that Jesus has set his face towards Jerusalem, like he is heading to Jerusalem. And even said at the beginning of the section that he is going to Jerusalem. He knows what is there, but he also knows that there's still work to do before he gets to Jerusalem. He knows that there's still work that he needs to do before he gets there, and so he says, You go and tell Herod that Fox, what an insult. He thinks he's sly and he thinks he's cunning. He thinks he's got it all figured out, but you Go tell that fox, and I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing until I'm ready to go to Jerusalem. Nobody's going to beckon Jesus, nobody's going to say you're going to be the one to come. He says, I'll come when I'm ready to come. He has all power and authority, and he's going to do. He needs to do when he needs to do it. So he's going to continue healing. He's going to continue going and telling people about the good news of the gospel. He's going to continue to go set the captives free. He's not going to wait at the beck and call of Herod. He's going to go when he's ready to go. He says it's necessary, right in verse 32 or 33 that I travel today, tomorrow and the next, because it is not possible for a prophet to perish outside of Jerusalem. He knows what awaits him. In fact, we know this, that Herod has already killed his cousin, John the Baptist. So there's a foreshadowing here that we know that Herod is going to to set out to kill Jesus as well, but Jesus is like, look, there's still work to do, and I'll keep doing it until I don't need to do it anymore. Jesus trusts in the sovereignty of the father. He's not intimidated by Herod. He doesn't look at Herod and go, Oh, look how powerful he is, and I'll submit to Him. He says, No, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing. And then we get this beautiful but heartbreaking response from Jesus about Jerusalem. And he looks over at Jerusalem, and you can tell the heartache when he says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jesus, is heartbroken because Jerusalem represents all of Israel, all of the people who were called by God to to submit to God. He looks out and he says, those of you who I came to save are going to reject me. Those of you who I have come to pour out My Love on are going to rebel, continue to rebel against me. And he's not excited about their destruction. Jesus isn't looking forward to the destruction of Jerusalem. No, he, he, he would want them to come to saving faith, but he they will not respond to him. So he cries over the fact that there are those who are still against him, there are those who still won't respond to him. That's the heart of the Lord that he he wants men and women to believe in him. And he's heartbroken over those who will not respond to the gospel. He's heartbroken over those who will not repent of their sins and follow and and trust in Him. And we see that when he looks over Jerusalem. But he, we also know that about those who aren't part of Israel. He looks at his creation, and the reason He came and died was because he loved the world, that He gave His life for those who would repent and believe. And so he he rejoices at every soul that is saved, but he weeps over those souls who are lost. So this morning, as we wrap up, I want you to think about, am I the one who believes and have trusted? Have I walked through that narrow door, or have I gone down the broad path, and the good news is, is that as long as there's still breath in your lungs, you have an opportunity to repent of your sin, to turn around off that Broadway and walk through the narrow door as Jesus calls you, as the Holy Spirit is leading you to leave the life of sin and selfishness and and all of that behind and follow the Lord of love, the Lord of Light, the Lord who gave himself again for you. You do not have to stand against Jesus anymore. You can be a son or a daughter of the Most High King. Let's pray, Father, we are so humbled by the invitation you have given us to.