Let's pray.
Father God, we are so thankful that this is the day that you have made, that you have
brought us together and by your grace have given us your word to gather together to hear
your word.
And that's what we ask for this morning.
We ask that by your Spirit you would speak not just to our minds but to our hearts, that
you would change us.
We ask for this in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus.
Amen.
So church, for the past several months we've been exploring the incredible sermon that
Jesus gave to his first disciples in the first century on a little mountain somewhere in
Galilee.
And as we've seen through the months, as we've explored the words of our Lord, this
sermon was never meant to stay in the minds of the first century Jewish disciples but
was designed to penetrate and echo through every generation of those who wanted to hear
what Jesus had to say.
And I want to point this out, this sermon was never meant to stay just as a historical
record of an incredible teaching.
I mean through the months as we've seen Jesus has removed any possibility of impartiality
when it comes to being a follower of him.
Either you are for him or you're against him.
Because as we've discovered his revelation requires a response from those who hear it.
Every step of the way, every sentence we've looked at, every doctrine that Jesus has spoken
into, we've been left with a choice, either to believe what he has to say, like on things
like our ethical obligations in this world, our relationships with others in and out of
the church, our priority of God in every aspect of our life as well as our relationship to
our material possessions.
We're left with a choice.
Well again this morning we're left with a choice either to follow Jesus as his disciples
against all odds in this world, which is to embrace eternal life or cling to the world
and take the easy route, which will end in total and utter destruction.
There's only two ways and according to the word made flesh, you can't have your cake
needed too.
So let's dive in and see what Jesus means to tell us.
If you have your Bibles that will be very helpful.
Verse 13, enter through the narrow gate.
So the first thing that I want you to notice here is that Jesus gives us a command, a command
to enter through the narrow gate.
And it's an urgent call for you to make a choice to join his kingdom in the one and
only way that we can.
That's right.
Jesus is calling on people to respond to the message he's been preaching.
Let's think about where this command is placed in the sermon.
All through this sermon, he's been telling us about the righteousness of the kingdom,
about the way of the kingdom, about the character of the kingdom.
And now after teaching us all these glorious truths, he says, I don't want you to stand
there and admire the kingdom.
No I command you to enter it through the narrow gate.
In other words, it's an urgent call for his hearers to do something with what they've
been teaching.
You see what Jesus is doing here is ending his sermon with an exhortation, which I think
we need to take as a warning as well.
In fact, we're going to look at four warnings over the next few weeks that cap off this
sermon.
There's two ways to live, which we're going to look at this morning.
To trees that bear different fruit, to claims of Christ's disciples and two ways to build
your house.
All that to say what Jesus is doing here with this narrow gate language is capping off his
teaching with a call, a call to respond to what he has said because hearing his teaching
alone will not save you.
It's like going to swimming lessons and listening to what the teacher has to say, but then putting
nothing into practice and then wondering why you can't swim.
Much in the same way, you are to do something with the Lord's teaching.
Namely, you are to embrace Christ and live out the way of the kingdom in this world.
Now there's something to note here about our context.
The disciples have been the primary receivers of all that Jesus has been saying since we
started looking at this sermon some months back.
But throughout, Jesus has also had an eye on the crowds as they could overhear what
he was saying.
We know that's the case because Matthew reports to us in verses 28 and 29 of this chapter
that there were others there that were listening by the end of this sermon, meaning there was
a mix of people before Jesus.
And so he's cautioning both his disciples and the crowds about what they are to do with
what they've heard.
I mean, on the one hand, he's warning his disciples to examine themselves, to be sure
that they're truly members of the kingdom and not simply those who profess an allegiance.
Yet on the other hand, he wants the crowds to consider very carefully what they have
heard about the kingdom of heaven.
In other words, whoever has heard the words of Jesus, a choice must be made.
Are you going to embrace Christ and what he has to say, or are you going to reject him
and all that you've been told?
There is no middle ground, no middle ground with Jesus.
No other choice and a decision must be made.
What Jesus says here, that decision has eternal consequences.
Now I want to pause here for a moment and I think we need to ask ourselves something.
What exactly is the narrow gate?
What does Jesus mean by that?
Well, we know by looking at other places in scripture that Jesus reveals himself to be
the gate, meaning he's the only way to be saved.
For example, in John 10, 9 he says, I am the gate.
Pretty clear.
Whoever enters through me will be saved.
Again, John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one, no one comes to the father except through me.
It's incredible stuff.
Jesus makes it clear that he is the only way that one can enter into the kingdom of heaven,
that he alone is the gateway of salvation.
There is no other way.
He is the way of eternal life.
Either choose him and enter that life or reject him and be eternally ruined.
This actually isn't the first time that we've heard God speak like this to his people.
I wonder if you would for a moment cast your mind back to when Israel was at Mount Sinai
after God had rescued them from the tyranny of Pharaoh.
God had taken his people from the iron furnace, from the house of slavery because they were
his and he had done so because he had promised Abraham, their forefather, to do so.
It was on that mountain after he had given them the law that God says to his people,
I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.
The blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I'm giving you, the curse
if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you,
Deuteronomy 11.
Hear what's being said after God draws his people out of absolute darkness, after he
had gathered them to himself on the mount, after he had taught them the law, he gives
them a choice saying today I'm setting before you a blessing and a curse going on in Deuteronomy
30 saying I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.
In other words there are only two ways and you have a choice.
Either listen to what you've heard and live in covenant with God and be blessed entering
that life or follow the way of the world and come to ruin.
So with all that said, with all that Jesus has revealed about God and the kingdom, he
gives us a few things for us to consider because he knows that there's many things in this
life that try to vie for our attention and pull us away from choosing the Lord Jesus
Christ, from choosing life and then living that life in the kingdom of the kingdom in
this world.
And so he lays before us a few things in this passage as to why we must enter life through
the narrow gate and keep on keeping on.
Look with me at verse 13.
Jesus says for wide is the gate, broad is the road that leads to destruction.
Many enter through it.
So the first things first, first things first, the way of death looks like the best way to
live your life now.
Jesus says the way is wide meaning it's easy as it offers to the senses a natural pull
towards it because the easy and attractive way seems like the best way yet its end is
destruction and many people, many people are on it.
I was watching an interview this week with two, well they like to think they're political
commentators, Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson and they were talking about how culture has
radically become unhinged in every arena in things like politics, education, journalism,
philosophy and even women's sport however that's defined these days not to mention ethics
around sexuality.
They came to the conclusion that social media has so much to play in it but as I was watching
them talk it became abundantly clear that there is more than a popular opinion in this
world that has infiltrated many people's minds.
There's actually a spiritual rebellion and this spiritual rebellion flies in the face
of God's order yet people can't be bothered to fight against it either because they're
afraid of being trashed on social media, cancelled in society or having their livelihoods threatened.
So they just get in line and they just go with the flow of the people and that's the
thing right.
It's easier to just go with the flow.
It's more attractive, it's more popular to go the way of the broad road.
It's easier because it goes with the popular opinion and it has the least resistance meaning
it's going to be the most accepted thing in our world.
So secondly we notice here that many will embrace that way of life because it's the
easiest thing to do.
It means that many will embrace the broad way and many will reject the narrow gate.
I want you to think about this in our context in Australia.
It's not popular to say this day and age that there is only one way and that way is Jesus.
It's simply not but that is the gospel because all of us, every single one of us has sinned
and fallen short of the glory of God.
We by our very nature are doomed to destruction meaning we are all by nature on the broad
road and without any intervention total and utter destruction would be our end yet God
made a way.
God came to rescue us in the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sin and we must turn
to him and cast ourselves before him.
There is no other way.
That is the narrow gate.
But that message church is not popular with this world.
That message is detested by many and that's why so many people take the broad road because
they want to do things their way.
They don't want to bow the knee to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords no matter how
good the news is.
But where does it lead?
What does Jesus tell us to utter destruction?
There's only one way and his name is Jesus.
He is the narrow gate which leads to life and he knows that coming to the narrow gate
it looks hard and admittedly brothers and sisters it is hard.
It is hard if we take everything that Jesus has said to us in the sermon.
We see that to become his disciple well it requires repentance.
It requires faith, self denial and coming to grips with just who and what we are before
God.
Jesus calls it being poor in spirit.
It's hard and in fact I would say impossible to do without the grace of the Holy Spirit
working in our lives.
Yet Jesus tells us here though it's hard, though it's not popular, though not many people
are doing it, it is more desirable than the pleasures and the ways of this world because
all of that is heading to one place.
Utter destruction.
So he says in verse 14, small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.
Only a few will find it.
Only a few find it.
And I want you to hear this.
There are only a few who find it, sorry there are only a few who find and take the narrow
course.
So third and we must all be aware of this, we are not automatically saved because we
have just heard the gospel and attend church.
As we have already seen this morning Israel was rescued from certain death.
They were given the revelation of God.
They were part of Abraham's descendants, part of the covenant people but what did we see?
God still gave them a choice.
He gave them a choice whether to believe his word and follow after him or to reject what
he had revealed to their own peril.
In other words the blessing of God was not automatic, not automatically given to all
Israel.
Now it was only given to those who believed God, who loved God, who trusted God and who
worshipped God from the heart.
Paul makes this clear in his letter to the Romans in chapters 9 through to 11.
And so with that background and with the context of the crowds that are before him, Jesus reminds
us here as well that there are many out there in the world and dare I say it in the visible
church as well that hear the gospel but they end up rejecting it.
It's what Jesus is getting out here.
Not everyone who hears the gospel responds to it in faith.
Many will hear it but still reject it.
Only a few find it.
Now it's only those who embrace and believe the gospel that will find eternal life.
It's only those who trust in Jesus fully and finally that find the way of life.
So as we think about these things this morning I want to draw your attention to the two gates
and two ways that have been contrasted and presented to us this morning.
On the one hand there is the wide gate and it is that gate says Jesus.
That gate that many enter into because it's the popular and easy way.
I mean think about what we've already heard this morning.
To be on the broad road you don't have to change at all.
There's no repentance required.
No the way that leads to destruction is easy and doesn't require you to turn at all.
Remember what we've learnt about repentance.
It's a change of mind and it's a turning from the way that you were going and to the Lord
Jesus.
Calling to our Lord if there's no repentance that way of life leads to one place.
There's a narrow gate however.
The narrow gate and that gate requires porness of spirit and confession of sin.
It requires a humility to look to Christ and confess that there is nothing in and of yourself
that merits anything before God.
It requires a life that is fully surrendered to God and the life that cries out to Christ
to save them.
And that's what's been presented to us over the months again and again and again.
To enter through the narrow gate requires us to leave behind our self-righteousness
and our self-ambition at the gate.
In other words Jesus requires a full surrender.
I want to say something about the language that's found in our passage this morning.
You'll notice in verse 13 Jesus uses the language of the narrow gate but in verse 14 talks about
the small gate.
Is he talking about the same thing?
Well the narrow gate as we've seen is Jesus talking about himself.
He is the narrow gate through which people pass as they respond to his invitation to
come into the kingdom of heaven.
However with a lot of reading, a lot of conversation, quite a bit of study, I believe that the small
gate and narrow road language is meant to be seen together.
And it's the struggle of the disciple that lasts the rest of their life.
It's the struggle of the disciple and that struggle lasts the rest of our life as we
seek to live out the ways of the kingdom in this world.
And I say that because Jesus is contrasting two patterns of life in our passage this morning.
There's two patterns that he's contrasting.
The lifestyle of the unrighteous and the lifestyle of his faithful.
And it's as we've looked at this over the months that we can see that there is only
one way in which to please God.
And it's not to live in any which way that you want.
Now over and over the Lord Jesus has said to us there is only one way of life that's
pleasing to the Father.
And it's a life that seeks to live by God's way which has been clearly marked out in divine
revelation.
A life that is restricted if you will to doing what God wants.
AKA it's a life that walks the narrow way.
To put it plainly those that are pleasing to God are those that come to Christ and then
by the grace of God under the reign of God according to the righteousness of God live
a life as set forth in accordance with his word.
That's what we're seeing contrasted here this morning in these two lifestyles.
Much like the psalmist says in Psalm 1, there is a way that seems right to humanity, right
in our own eyes and many live that way because they can set the standards and live by it.
And it's easier more attractive because at the end of the day they can indulge in anything
that they want and live in such a way where in their minds at least there's no consequences.
But Jesus says that way of life dear ones it's a delusion.
It's a delusion because it might seem right now it might feel right now but at the end
of the day it will end in destruction.
However there is another way.
It is the narrow way which is the way of righteousness as revealed in God's word.
And church there is no doubt that it is the harder way.
It is the harder way because it is the way of self denial and a life of what Jesus says
in Luke of picking up our cross.
But as Jesus says here it is so worth it.
That's what I believe Jesus is saying.
There's only one way to the Father.
It is through Jesus and being a disciple of Jesus is not going to be easy.
The narrow way is hard.
It's going to take work on our end either externally from outward persecution or internally
from your own flesh.
But be encouraged brothers and sisters because though something's not easy doesn't mean
it's not worth it.
And I want to say this as well though it's not easy it doesn't mean it's going to be
miserable.
Is it hard to repent of our sins?
Yes.
At times it's incredibly hard.
Is it hard to be confronted with who we are?
Yes very much so.
Does it sometimes hurt when we're examining ourselves in light of the Scriptures?
Absolutely.
Is it sometimes abrasive to hear sermons and dare I say it even preach sermons that slash
at our pride?
Very much, very, very much so.
But the question might be asked is it good?
Is it good?
Is it good when a light is shined into that dark place so that we are confronted with
those things about ourselves so that we can take them to our Father in heaven in confession?
Absolutely.
Make no mistake the narrow way is hard.
It hurts to see ourselves as we are.
It hurts to know that we're still somewhat rebellious in what we do.
It hurts to know that there is something in us that's still striving and kicking back
against our gracious Father even after we've come to the knowledge of the truth.
But the question is asked.
Ask that question.
Aren't you also filled with absolute joy, absolute joy to know that though the way is
hard, though the path is narrow, that you're actually on the narrow way because in God's
kindness, in God's unrelenting love, he by the work of the Holy Spirit has opened your
heart to the Gospel so that we who were on that road to destruction might embrace the
narrow gate, embrace Christ and enter the narrow way.
You see, far from being a miserable life, there's a whole spectrum of joys that we as
the disciples of Christ, that we enjoy on this side of eternity.
As I said, the deepest joy comes from personally knowing God as our heavenly Father through
the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's also freedom that over time, over the course of our life, we've experienced
more and more and more from that sin that once so consumed and killed us.
Paul says it like this, we are no longer slaves and we get the privilege of learning what
that is to live that out.
And then of course, there's the joy of knowing like we did this morning as the people of
God, that we can approach God together in and through Christ and confess our sins to
our Father in heaven and know that he has forgiven us, that our conscience is clear
because of the work of Jesus.
I also want to point that there's a new love that many of us come to experience in our
hearts towards one another.
There is a love in this room that goes deeper between us than even between physical family.
And we are learning and experiencing that together as we walk the narrow path together.
Church, make no mistake, it is the kindness, graciousness and covenantal love that God
has for his people that leads us to embrace and enter through the narrow gate and then
puts us on the narrow way.
And though we might not see it fully right now, those that have confessed yourself before
God and embraced Jesus Christ, well there is coming a day when you will experience something
that is far beyond anything we could imagine now in this life, far beyond any treasure
on earth, far beyond any vice, far beyond any missed career opportunity, far beyond
anything we could imagine.
That's the destination of those who have entered through the narrow gate and are walking the
narrow way by God's grace.
So as we end our time in this couple of verses this morning, we've seen that there are two
ways to live.
There is the wide road and many embrace it and as Bon Scott once said, it is the highway
to hell.
And though hell is not a popular thing to preach about, it is something that the Lord
Jesus Christ warned us about time and time again in his ministry.
Utter destruction is the consequence for rejecting the once and for all sacrifice and walking
the broad road of popular opinion.
So might I say if you have not embraced Christ, if you have not seen the beauty of Christ
and called upon his name, then friend, you are here by no mistake this morning.
You are here because God is really reaching out to you through the gospel and his promise
to you is that he saves anyone who calls upon the name of Jesus.
Anyone who's done anything.
Wide is the road that leads to destruction, many are on it.
Today is the day.
Today is the day to get off the highway to hell.
As we've seen this morning, there are only two ways, no compromise with Jesus.
You're either part of God's people or you're not.
Either embrace Jesus by faith or you haven't.
You are either in the kingdom or you're not.
And so brothers and sisters, Christ's words to us this morning, as it's been said, are
not just an exhortation.
They're a warning, a warning to examine ourselves in light of his words.
What choices are you making right now?
Because the choices that you're making in your life right now will show you if you're
on the narrow path or if you're straying.
And so as we end, Jesus spoke these words to his original audience all those years ago.
As he spoke to them, he's speaking to us.
This is a call for believers and unbelievers alike.
If you would say, yes, yes, I have turned to Jesus.
Then in light of what we've heard this morning, examine your walk, dear one.
Examine your walk in light of the gospel.
Examine your walk in light of who and what Jesus has done for you.
Have you strayed?
If you would confess yes, then now is the time to repent.
Now is the time to ask, to seek, to knock, and the door will be answered.
If you have not embraced the Lord Jesus, then friend, I plead with you, come to the narrow
gate, come to the way of the truth and life and embrace the King of God's heavenly kingdom.
He rejects no one who comes to him.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus, these are very hard words to hear this morning, but we thank you that you have
given them to us because as it was said all those years ago, you have the words of eternal
life.
Lord, we thank you that you are the one who rescues your people, that we've seen time
and time again, you are leading us to a personal and living salvation in you.
Father, we thank you for our Lord Jesus, who we can look to as the atoning sacrifice for
all our sin.
Father, these words, I ask that they pierce the hearts and minds of your people and that
in light of the gospel, we would come to the throne of grace and that you would restore
to us the joy of our salvation and that you would help us to tell others about the narrow
gate in which we find so much joy in.
We ask for these things in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.