Kingdom Choice

Intro

The Jesus Manifesto - what Jesus meant when he said “Follow me”...

I imagine we’ve all experienced those moments while on a long road trip where our minds begin to wander, sort of going into an automatic pilot setting. Have you ever been in that “mode” and realize you missed an important warning sign on the road? Tell about following car off the interstate because I didn’t pay attention to the warning signs and the long, circuitous route I had to take to get back on...

The message is called Kingdom Choice. Most of my Christian life I’ve thought this passage was about the choice between heaven or hell. Certainly, our choices do lead us to one of those two ends. But really, Jesus has in mind something more immediate. He is drawing from the wisdom tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures. You’ve find these kind of binary choices scattered throughout the Bible. Two trees in the Garden, two ways of life and death in the Psalms, etc.

This teaching has more in common with Moses’ final charge to the Israelites on the eve of them entering the promised land:

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live,” (Deuteronomy 30:15–19, NRSV)

Like Moses, Jesus is not so much asking them to make a choice between heaven and hell, but between life and death, between a life that is blessed by God and one that goes down the road of self-imposed destruction. Your life is going somewhere, you are on a quest. But are you asleep at the wheel and at risk of going off the path? In this passage, Jesus calls us to make the choice of union with and discipleship to him, for he is the source of all meaningful life and spiritual blessing.

The wide gate

Have you ever observed those people who seem like their life just bounces from one chaotic crisis to the next? Crisis can hit any of us, yet there seem to be those from whom it becomes a way of life. Upon a little digging, what we normally find is someone who is unwise, whether in relationships, money management, controlling their tongue, or other lifestyle issues. Plug upcoming series The Good Life...

Jesus refers to the wide gate. This is the way of folly. The way that ignores the road signs and warnings. Spiritually, this person says ‘no’ to Jesus and the demanding life of discipleship to him.

Up to this point in his sermon on the mount, Jesus has presented the alternative way of God’s kingdom. It involves a radical new way of thinking. It calls us to be salt and light in a dark world. It demands reconciliation instead of retribution. It calls us to covenant faithfulness with our spouse instead of following the lusts of our heart. And it asks for a radical turn-the-other-cheek kind of enemy-love.

This way of Jesus seems like foolishness in the eyes of the world. The road of self-denial and enemy-love is always counter-cultural and counter-intuitive. It appears odd. Why would anyone do that?

To follow the dictates and natural inclinations of this world is the easy road. It doesn’t demand anything of ourselves; no sacrifice, no higher commitment or calling, instant gratification. Ultimately, choosing the wide gate is to remain in control of my own life. We adopt the attitude captured in the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

I love this poem. This is outstanding literature. It stirs the blood and strengthens resolve. Yet this way is the path to destruction because it insists that I will be the lord of my life.

Jesus warning isn’t as much about a postmortem hell but a life where you experience a hell on earth. It is the road of hellish consequences from foolish choices. And Christians are not immune from the draw of the wide gate. We can equally be seduced by the self-pleasing ways of the world. They may be saved in the end - I don’t know - but they will walk the path of chaotic, self-destructive choices.

The narrow gate

Many will choose the hellish way, because the way that leads to life is hard. The way that leads to hell is easy.

But for those who remain awake on the quest, they will notice another gate. It’s much narrower - even a little hard to find. Not because God doesn’t want you to find it, but because it’s just so easy to follow the crowd into the wide gate. This narrow gate is the call of Jesus to follow him in obedient discipleship. To do the hard thing, the foolish thing in the eyes of the world. It’s not hard in the sense that there are lots of difficult rules to remember - as we saw last week, there’s really only one - love. It’s a hard road, a narrow gate, because it requires a life of self-denial. Of agreeing with God that I AM my brother’s keeper. It involves not doing what feels good or natural because I trust that Jesus knows better what is good for me. It is a road that says I want the good things God has for me rather than what the world offers.

Those who enter this narrow gate are those who pay attention to the warning signs, and in doing so they find true life and happiness. Few find the narrow gate, not because it is obscure or hidden, but because they don’t want it, for it demands making someone other than themselves lord.

A life worth living for

The promise contained in this passage is that, for those who will walk the narrow way, it will lead them to a life worth living. This is zoe life vs. bio life. Not merely living, but being fully alive. This is an offer to a completely new kind of life. Alive in an eternal and abundant way. It’s the promise of the God-kind of life inside of us, coming out of us, consuming us. It is life in all its fullness. It is life as God has it and can give. It is the life to come invading the present. This is the life where our soul finds its meaning and satisfaction.

This is not an offer of “the good life” as our culture defines it but as heaven defines it. Jesus is the gate that we go through to enter into this kind of life. He is the path we follow that leads us into real life and all spiritual blessing.

In the end, the hard road of Jesus is actually much softer than the harder road of hellish self-destruction.

Conclusion

The Choice of Hercules is a painting by the Italian painter Annibale Carracci (show image of painting). It shows Hercules at a crossroads. On his left is Vice, a sumptuous woman who entices him to stay, to ignore his quest, and enjoy the delights she can offer. On his right is Virtue, pointing the way up the steep and narrow path - the hard path - so that he might fulfill his quest and accomplish his heroic calling. And you can see on Hercules face that he is torn about what to do.

Before the Greeks began to focus on Vice and Virtue, the Hebrews were contrasting Wisdom and Folly. The way of life or the way of death. And we each stand at a crossroads. Like Hercules, we have a quest to fulfill, a purpose to achieve, a crown to attain. And we can can choose to go down the easy, downward sloping road straight to destruction - having a life that meant nothing, that achieved nothing, that helped no one but ourselves.

Or, we can take the harder road. The road that takes us further up and deeper into life with Jesus. A road where we walk out our destiny and calling, where we experience the daily presence of God and the outflow of the Spirit, and where we live lives that bless others AND that have God’s blessing.

Jesus points to the two ways and says, “the choice is yours.” Choose life.

Are you asleep at the wheel? Are you taking the easy road? Or are you doing the hard thing - committing to a life of discipleship to Jesus where you deny yourself so that you may gain true life.

Say “yes” to the quest!