The Narrow Path

Matthew 7:13-14 “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. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BODY

a. Enter the Narrow Path (7:13)

i. I want to say congratulations for graduating high school. It’s a monumental achievement. I say this with the utmost respect because it is the first step to adulthood. Now as you know through the college acceptance process, just as you will encounter in life, life is full of loss and gains. There were schools you applied to that you were rejected to, but also schools you were accepted to. This will be all of life. There will be moments we are joyful but also times when we are grieving. Jesus points to us in this parable the same thing. Jesus makes it clear that there are two ways in life, and two ways only, that are set before all people; it is thus important that the right choice be made.

ii. I think it’s important to notice that as you grow up, there will be more temptation to deviate from the path that has been set forth for you. We were blessed enough to grow up in a home where we were loved by our parents, and have received love from them. There were some moments where we disagreed with our parents, we were disappointed by our parents, sometimes we even hated our parents. But for the most part, without our parents, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

iii. With that said, it’s important that we recognize that life begins now, and along comes the difficulty of navigating through life sometimes alone. There will be times where we won’t have life as easy as we had it. In high school, our parents took care of most of our responsibilities by reminding us or driving us or just making us care. But now, those burdens will have to be done by us. It’s overwhelming at times because we never had that type of responsibility.

iv. This is why a lot of college students fall off course and fall off the rails their first year of college. This is why we really need to know where we are headed. There are only two paths. Jesus makes this abundantly clear in this passage. Jesus says there is the narrow gate and the broad gate. When we read about both gates, Jesus makes it clear that there is the wide gate which is wide and leads to destruction and many enter it. Then there’s the narrow gate which leads to life where only a few find. Why do only a few find this? It’s because it must be sought out. It’s not as easily perceived as the broad one.

v. When I think about this principle, it helps to understand that the narrow gate is hard to go through because it’s the path that our heart doesn’t want to do. The narrow gate is hard because our heart doesn’t desire to do these things. If anything, we want to do what we want. We want to live the life that we want. In college, you won’t have your parents telling you to come home. In college, you won’t have your parents telling you not to drink or do drugs. In college, you will experience true freedom. But in the guise of freedom, it reveals to us how the broad gate feels like the narrow gate. It’s the gate that everyone is walking through and the gate that everyone is telling us to go through.

vi. This is why Jesus says, only a few will find it. Why? Because only a few people, will live not to fulfill their desires, but to do the right thing. I say this, because the greatest struggle for all college students is not listening to their parents. It’s not even doing the right thing. The greatest struggle for college students is simple. It’s going to church. This is why the narrow path is simple. It’s the decision to simply, choose to go to church. It’s the unattractive thing. It’s the thing that when you tell your roommates why you can’t go out late on a Saturday night to a party is because I have to prepare to go to church on Sunday morning, your friends will tell you to just come out. But the narrow gate is simple. It’s to keep your focus on what is the God honoring thing. It’s to keep to your conviction and not stray from it.

3. CONCLUSION