The Purpose of the People of God - 7:13-14
The Purpose of the People of God - Matthew • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 50:06
0 ratings
· 6 viewsFiles
Notes
Transcript
The Purpose of the People of God
The Purpose of the People of God
INTRODUCTION GOES HERE
How does Jesus conclude His sermon?
Gospel of Matthew:
1:1-17 - Jesus is the Expected Jewish Messiah
1:18-25 - Jesus is the Son of God
2:1-12 - Gentiles (Magi) Recognize Jesus as King
2:13-23 - Redemption (Second Exodus) has come
3:1-6 - Change your why! The Kingdom is coming!
3:7-12 - The Sons of Abraham?!
3:13-17 - The coming King brings “justice” for the nations
4:1-11 - All Authority belongs to Jesus (Mt 28:18)
4:12-17 - Salvation is for the nations (Mt 28:19-20)
4:18-22 - The First Disciples (Who will carry the message?)
4:23-25 - The Gospel of the Kingdom goes beyond Israel (The Result)
This brings us to the sermon on the mount
5:1-2 - The Audience
5:3-10 - Characteristics of Jesus
5:11-12 - Invitation to Discipleship
5:13 - Warning about Discipleship
5:14-15 - Example of Discipleship
5:16 - Discipleship Commanded
5:17-18 - Requirement of the Law still stands
5:19-20 - Internal vs External Righteousness
5:21-48 - Description of Internal Righteousness
6:1-18 - Personal Practice in Secret
6:19-7:11 - Pursue the Kingdom First
7:12 - Summary Statement
12 “Therefore, in all things, whatever you want people to do for you, so do for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
This brings us to the conclusion Mt 7:13-29
Today we will just be in 13 & 14, but we are going to read the entirety of the section.
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
17 “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, in Your name did we not prophesy, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 “And the rain descended, and the rivers came, and the winds blew and fell against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.
26 “And everyone hearing these words of Mine and not doing them, may be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 “And the rain descended, and the rivers came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.”
28 Now it happened that when Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were astonished at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
Let’s Pray
7:13-29 is the final section on the sermon on the mount.
By means of review we dealt with 3 commands:
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
3 promises
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
We specified these by looking broader at the context within Matthew:
Where to look?
Backwards
Forwards
Shared Understanding
Asking - 6:9-13 - The Lord’s Prayer
Seeking - 6:33 - Seek first the Kingdom
Knocking - 5:19-20; 7:13-14 - Enter the Kingdom/Narrow Gate
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
The command here is to enter(!) through the narrow gate.
So as good exegetes, we have to ask what does this mean?
The traditional understanding
Faith Alone in Jesus = eternal life
Anything else = destruction, hell, lake of fire
Though I do readily recognize that Jesus is the only way, we have to ask if this is what the text is saying, or is this lifting these verses out of their context a little bit?
What is Jesus asking people to do?
He’s asking them to do something!
to become disciples!
Jesus has been talking about entering the kingdom
Why would He then here ask us to enter something else?
If entering the kingdom means be saved, then we have a lot of things in the text that we have to get sorted.
Some say these are things Jesus did, but then why the commands?
Now I don’t want to completely abandon the traditional interpretation of this verse. I don’t necessarily think it is wrong, but I do think it is limiting.
Matthew certainly deals with all of these elements
But to segregate them is a Pauline idea, not a Matthew idea.
In fact if you look at the earlier writings of the NT, there is less of a distinction in these ideas.
We can recognize all of these distinctives, Paul, John, and Peter certainly do, but the text isn’t always intended to separate them.
So while Matthew certainly seems to be emphasizing participating in the kingdom today by discipleship, we should not make that exclusive of justification by faith alone, or exclusive of glorification, or ultimate restoration in the new creation because Matthew is writing about it in its entirety.
I’ll give you an example:
Pound Cake
Lots of different parts
Measuring
Mixing
Folding
Greasing
Baking
Resting
Frosting
Entering is not exclusive of faith alone, but to limit it to faith alone is to do something with the text that Matthew is not doing.
To say that it is just faith alone is to miss the point
Matthew is not talking about the minimum requirements to get into heaven. He is talking about kingdom participation. He’s talking about salvation.
So while I don’t hold that the entrance here is speaking of the exclusivity of Jesus as the Messiah, though I certainly believe that, it can be understood of inclusive of that as there is no such thing as discipleship, kingdom participation, apart from faith in Jesus.
So what is the verse then:
13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 “For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Translation:
13 Enter through the narrow gate; because broad is the gate and wide is the way leading into destruction, and many are entering through it. 14 How narrow the gate and constricted is the way leading into life, and few are finding it.
Enter(!) - Command
As we’ve seen previously, there are several parallel elements here:
narrow gate and wide gate
broad way and constricted way
many enter and few who find
leads to destruction and leads to life
Of these pairs the gate and the way are fairly straightforward.
What does it mean to go to destruction vs go to life?
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.”
25 And they came to Him and got Him up, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing!”
Indicative of death
24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
This speaks of something in the present that is “lost”
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
Sacrifice, but not necessarily physical death
13 Enter through the narrow gate; because broad is the gate and wide is the way leading into destruction, and many are entering through it. 14 How narrow the gate and constricted is the way leading into life, and few are finding it.
Of the 24 uses, the majority deal with physical death, waste, or ruin of some kind.
I like the words ruin or waste because they carry less theological baggage.
It is temporal
I don’t see an eternal separation from God here
This is emphasized by the participle “many are entering through it”
when is this happening?
NOW, it is ongoing
Think of the ramifications of this.
What would Jesus’ audience have thought?
Are they, the audience, just now entering into separation before God?
NO! - They are already there!
If Jesus is speaking of justification, than He must be speaking of people being born, or an age of accountability, or becoming guilty depending on your theological persuasion (for another time), but he has said nothing about that!
Is it more likely that Jesus has said something of relevance to His audience?
Can you choose to enter into ruin, into waste today?
Absolutely!
Do you remember the warning at the beginning of the sermon?
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out to be trampled under foot by men.
Don’t be useless!
Do you think it is an accident that Matthew records this sermon with parallels at each end?
Broad is the way and many are entering through it!
This is not where the verse ends:
14 How narrow the gate and constricted is the way leading into life, and few are finding it.
So what is life?
Well as I mentioned earlier, I don’t think this is eternal life as in where we will go when we die.
I think this is more corollary to abundant life as John would write. It’s about the life of participation in the kingdom today.
This life cannot occur without a relationship with Jesus, without justification, but that part is not the significance of the verse.
The significant part is how you can be finding it today.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
16 In this way shine your light before men, that they may see your good works and may glorify your Father in the heavens.
Danger of legalism
It is easy to look at a term like narrow or constricted and apply it to our works.
Certainly there is some overlap here, but as we’re going to review in a couple of weeks, the entirety of the sermon has the legalistic system of the Pharisees in the backdrop that it stands in opposition to.
So what is broad and narrow?
Well let’s look ahead to next week:
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
This is the broad way
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
This is the narrow way
Let’s get specific:
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
What has Jesus been teaching? Make sure the outside looks right?
He’s been teaching to reflect His character
These are the characteristics of disciples.
Dependent Upon God
Mourning
Humble/Gentle
Desiring Righteousness
Merciful
Singular in Purpose
Restorers of Relationships
Persecuted for Righteousness
This is Mt 5:3-10
So coming into the last section of the sermon, Jesus has pointed back to the beginning, to the inside, to the character of those that are His disciples.
Takeaways:
Have you found life?
Certainly we can ask about faith in Jesus
47 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.
Are you finding an abundant life?
It is not found on the outside, but through internal righteousness
2. Are you living in grace?
Legalism is not the measure maturity
Legalism is a false sense of value
It is defining our value based on what we do
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Your value does not come from what you have done but rather what He did and is doing!
You cannot work your way deeper into God’s love.
As you begin to reflect His character more, your experience of His love will deepen.
3. Live by the Word
This is the narrow way!
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
3. Live by the Word
We must be willing to accept the authority of Jesus’ words
God’s words
Scripture
If we let anything else rival the authority of His word, we risk being led into ruin and waste.
Let’s Pray
13 Enter through the narrow gate; because broad is the gate and wide is the way leading into destruction, and many are entering through it. 14 How narrow the gate and constricted is the way leading into life, and few are finding it.
