The Journey of Faith Part 4 - The Straight Path

Joshua Boyd

Growing up, how many of you had moms or dads that warned you not to go with the crowd or do what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it?  I did. Peer pressure starts in early childhood as kids develop their sense of individuality.  It is easy to go with the crowd even when what they are doing is obviously wrong.  We’ve all observed a group of kids start to take a path of disruption and disorganization simply because a few started to.  

Unfortunately, we don’t just grow out of this behavior.  It has to be trained out and mature adults have to develop good judgment to make the right decision even when others are not.  

Matthew 7:13-14 KJV

13 Enter ye in at the strait [or narrow] gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. 

The words here in the original language describe the Kingdom path as a narrow, closely confined pathway—one that would require deliberate steps, careful navigation and decision making.  The word for narrow is also translated pressed.   

Where are we going with this?  Throughout scripture, the imagery of the straight path means being on the right path and the crooked path is wrong way. 

Transcript

Joshua Boyd 0:00

Well, we're continuing our series on the journey of faith. And today is part four of that series. And I'm calling this one the straight path. So let's look at our kind of key verse here. Matthew 7 13. It says, Enter in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Verse 14, because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way which leads to life, and few there be that find it. You know, growing up, how many of you have moms or dads that said, hey, don't just do what the crowd's doing. Don't grow with the majority. Don't go with the crowd because sometimes the crowd is wrong, and sometimes just because everybody else is doing it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. You know, I know my dad. But as a kid, and honestly, it doesn't really stop as a kid, but you have to learn to overcome it as a kid. Peer pressure, that pressure of doing what everybody else is doing is high. And I think even today's society with social media, the perception of that that's the majority of what everybody's doing, because that's all you see either in the media or social media, becomes a pressure of, well, that must be what's right, or that must be what everybody else is doing. You know, it and it takes dedication, it takes discipline as parents to train our kids and as adults to train ourselves to learn to understand our individuality and to learn how to walk that straight and narrow way when the wide way is a lot more populated and a lot more crowd. I mean, gosh, we do everything by what's the most popular. Hey, let's look, let's watch a movie tonight. Well, what's what's popular right now? What's what's trending, or what's what's good on Rotten Tomatoes, what's got a good score, what's what's everybody else saying about this? Not just what am I looking at? Let's go to Amazon. I've got to buy a product on Amazon. Let me see which has the most reviews. Because I've got three products I can pick. Let me just pick what the majority of the people are picking because it must be right. We just we make a lot of decisions by that. I'm not saying don't do that with Amazon, but I'm saying it's something that we just have built into our psyche that we just tend to go with, let's just see what everybody else is doing, and we'll go that way as well. You know, we've all we've all observed a group of kids, sometimes our own, uh, you know, just one starts a little disruption or a little, you know, getting off, and then all of a sudden everybody else is doing it, and the more and this it kind of grows and grows and grows. So we have to be trained out of that nature. We have to be trained out of that. Uh and as mature adults, it really comes down to having good judgment and an understanding of our individuality to make the right decision even when others are not. If we look at these verses in the in the New Living, it says, You can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. Verse 14 says, But the gateway to life is very narrow, and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it. You know, I think it's become kind of popular in Christendom to be a lot more tolerant, to be a lot more, yeah, well, God's really not gonna do, he's not really gonna send people to hell. God's really more, yeah, you can get to God in a number of ways. And not not every religion is is wrong. So it's be kind of become a a way of, well, yeah, it's not quite as narrow to how to get to God as as what has been taught in the past. But that's not the case. That's not what the word says. The words here in the original language describe the kingdom path as narrow. And that that word straight or narrow, both of those actually are translated the same or from the same word, it's it really kind of indicates a closely confined path. In other words, I picture I'm walking through the woods, and there's, you know, I have to kind of I have to kind of move around to get there. It's not that it's um narrow because I'm walking on a you know a tight precipice. It's narrow because I'm I'm I'm crowded in, I'm pressed in. Um in fact, the word it kind of has that connotation of being pressed. Um in fact, that same word of narrow is translated a few different ways. In Mark 3.9, it says, So he told his disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for him because of the multitude, lest they should crush him, lest they should press him in, lest they should make him a lot more narrow, his way narrow is that same word. In 1 Corinthians or 2 Corinthians 4 8, it says, we are pressed. We are made narrow, we are made straight, we are pressed in on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. So even Paul saying, I'm on this straight and narrow, this pressed pathway, but yet we're not crushed by it. We're kind of having to cut our way through this narrow path and the pressures of life and the pressures of the enemy and the pressures of being on a path that not everybody else is on is making it a little bit more difficult, but yet we have the ability to overcome it. So when we talk about the straight path, this is what we're talking about. A path that is more um more narrow, more pressed in, a little bit more difficult to navigate. So where are we going with this? Throughout Scripture, the the imagery of that straight path means being on the right path, and the crooked path means you're on the wrong path. Um Hebrews 12, 13 says, Mark out a straight path for your feet, so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong. But contrast that with Isaiah 59, verse 8. It says, the way of peace they have not known, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made themselves crooked paths. Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. There's a number I I've almost kept all the verses that talk about the crooked path, because Proverbs has a lot to say about it. Um, but I decided to condense the number of scriptures I was using. But throughout Scripture, the straight path is the one that's in indicating this is the right path, this is the just path. And the crooked path meant that it's the path of the wicked, the path that is not uh the right one to go. One of the first things that uh um John the Baptist did when he was proclaiming before Jesus came, he quoted a verse in Isaiah that said, make straight the path, declare the way of the Lord, make straight his what you know, make straight the path for him. In other words, let's let's make this path the right path. Let's get off this crooked path and make the right path. The journey of faith is the straightest, narrowest path that we can follow. But it requires focus, very deliberate steps. How many of you have been hiking before? And if you've been hiking on a trail that's well worn or even paved, I can say I've been hiking and I was on the swamp rabbit, and well, that's a five-foot paved walkway. I'm not really having to navigate it very difficult, I just walk on it. But I've been on trails before up in the Smoky Mountains where, you know, every step I'm having to really watch where I go. Not because I'm about to fall off a cliff, but the path is uneven and I have to watch my feet. I have to watch where I'm going. I have to watch every little, every little move lest I fall or lest I get pressed on by something that might be in my way. I can't keep my head down because there could be a tree branch right in the way. Those are the that's what we're talking about when we're talking about that, those deliberate steps that we have to take on the journey of faith. And as we read in Matthew, the majority of people don't find this path. The majority of people are following the broader path, the easier path, the seemingly easier path. Peter describes this kind of faith, the faith that follows this path as precious, as rare. And you've heard me, you know, if you've been on Bible study, I may have even mentioned it last time I taught. But in recent church studies, the numbers are just showing that even in America, the majority of people are not following that straight and narrow path. Um right now it says 5% of Americans attend church regularly, and regularly means at least three times a month. So 5%, five out of a hundred people are attending church regularly. Um and that doesn't mean, well, I'll just I'll leave it at that. I mean, that just shows that whatever we say we're we're doing as a as a Christian nation or as we we believe in God, we're not even going to God's house as a majority. 95% are saying, nah, I got better things to do on a Sunday morning or a Saturday. I mean, and that's actually, I mean, that stat is actually all church, all religions, synagogues, mosques, everything. So attendance of any religion is actually 5%. So if you look at Bible-believing Christians, it's even a subset of that percentage. 60% of Americans, this one was so interesting, I put it on this, I put it on the screen. 60 cent of Americans, this is a study this year, don't even believe God exists. 60% and the majority of Americans don't believe God exists or that he has any impact in people's lives. So when we say we're a Christian nation, or we historically have thought that, I think our I think our I think what we see going on in the nation, and when we see a stat like this, it kind of goes, ah. So our because of the 40% who are who do believe that God exists, so of this 40% blue, only 38% of that 40% says God is the most important thing in their life. So even if I say in America that I believe that God exists, I'm more likely to not even do anything about it. I just know that God exists. And of the people that believe God exists, only 34% believe that there's a responsibility that I have toward God. And that there's things that I can, that there's things I need to do because God exists. There's things I need to, I need to be serving God, I need to be doing things. And I put so I put these numbers here. That means 13, so the the percentages works out to 13.6 people out of a hundred feel a responsibility toward God in America, and 15.2 people out of a hundred feel like God is the most important thing in their life. And we've already seen that 60%, only 5% attend church. So why am I saying that? The straight and narrow, the few there be that find it. The journey of faith isn't just saying I believe in God. The journey of faith is I believe in God. God is the most important. I have a responsibility, I talk to God, God talks to me. There's all parts of that that have to go into what this journey is. Because if I'm on that straight and narrow path, that path that feels pressed in, and I have to watch every step and be deliberate about it, I need to be listening to the Lord to go, am I on the right path? Number one, and are there things I need to watch out for, Lord? What are what are what do you want me to do on this path? I gotta check my map, make sure I'm going on the right way. I gotta, you know, um, you know, I've I've done when I used to live in Tennessee, I used to do a lot of hiking in the mountains. And you know, I'd just pick a trail on a Saturday and I'd go hike a trail, um, you know, young, single, not much, nothing else to do. Um and regularly I'd I'd find myself one time, or I was with actually a group of friends in this one, and we found ourselves we had taken the wrong turn, you know, because you know, this is we're not using GPS, we're not using anything else, and we've realized we are on the wrong path. We had to backtrack a whole lot to get back onto the right path. And again, we're young and energetic, so it didn't really cost much other than time. You know, but as us, as Christians, as people who are believing God exists and that God is the most important and that we're responsible, we don't have time to be getting off track and then having to backtrack just to get back on the right path. But if we look at what the majority of people are doing, the majority of people don't believe in God. Because largely because they don't want responsibility. If I believe in God, then I have to start thinking, well, do I have a responsibility to a God that I believe in? And that's an easy easy out for most people, is I'll just not believe there is a God, and therefore I'm not responsible. And we see a lot of fruits of not being responsible in the world today, not just America. We are pressed in by the pressures of those who don't believe. Because that now that's the majority. The world is more and more heading toward ungodliness, just like the days of Noah, just like Peter and the apostles experienced in the in the book of Acts, just like Jesus experienced with when he came on the scene. When Jesus came on the scene, one, there hadn't been any prophets or any word from God for 400 years, so tradition had really taken over the nation. And that's why the religious leaders had really become the people that the rest of the people looked to. So when Jesus came in going, hey, what you're saying and doing is wrong, they didn't like it because now all of a sudden their little power struggle is truly a struggle. And someone's coming in, walking that straight and narrow path, saying, this isn't the right way. You've all been going this wide way. Now you're gonna have to start following a different, very narrow way. Very straightway, very pressed in way, because it's gonna be a different way than you've been going before. You know, as in Noah, both both Jesus and Peter referred to Noah, and it's a it's a good analogy for what we're seeing today. Uh 2 Peter 2, 4, it says, For if God did not save, or excuse me, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. And Jesus likened the end times to the times of Noah. He said, As in the days of Noah, people are gonna be going about their business, they're gonna be marrying and giving and marrying, they're gonna be doing the things that they normally do, and all of a sudden it's gonna come to the end. It's gonna be just like that. And just like the days of Noah, it's gonna be a few that get saved. Noah was one of eight people on the entire planet that got saved. That's a few. Because he was the only few that believed in God that had enough faith and humility to believe God and to be obedient to what God said. Noah, I'm gonna send a flood. Go build a boat out in the middle of a desert. You're gonna look crazy, people are gonna laugh at you and scoff at you. If you read Genesis, it looks like it took about 120 years for him to build that ark, which makes sense for the tools they would have had back then and the size that he built it. So for 120 years, he preached righteousness. He tried to get people to say, hey, there's a flood coming. It's gonna rain. I know it's never rained before on this in the world, but it's gonna rain, and you got you guys gonna get in the boat, and not one person listened. Not one person believed had the same amount of faith that he did to say, okay, let's do this. Let's let's let's take action on what I hear, which is what faith is doing. Now this all sounds very depressing to say the world's going to hell in a handbasket. It kind of is, but in the sense that we have the ability like Noah to be saved. And I'm this is not a we're the only right ones, everybody else is wrong message. There are churches everywhere preaching the gospel, preaching the true faith. But if we look at the stats again and say, yes, there are churches everywhere preaching the right, but at the same time, only 40% of all of people in America believe God even exists, let alone take any action on it. And 95% of America doesn't even go to church on three times a month. Well, then even if a church is preaching the gospel, there's not enough people showing up to hear it. So why am I saying all this? That when we talk about a journey of faith, this is not, we're not talking about this giant crowd of people that we're taking this journey with. It's gonna feel sometimes like we're lonely, like we're the only ones, that we're out on our own, which is why we need to be so encouraging to each other. Because that path will feel pressed in. I feel like I'm on this path. I'm trusting God for my kids. I'm trusting God for healing. I'm trusting God to meet my needs. And it just feels like I'm being bounced around all the time. Because I feel like I'm being pressed in. You know, the American, I mentioned this earlier, but the American Christian mindset has really turned from repentance to tolerance. Eh, it's okay. God will forgive me, or God's grace is sufficient, or there's not even a God to be responsible to, even if I believe in God. It's turned from compassion to divisiveness. But not here, not us. Just as Noah was just and walked with God in his day, we can be just and walk with God in our day, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of what the majority is doing. What Jesus taught and lived while he was on this earth was heard by a lot of people, but only a few actually followed him. You know, at the time, at times a path of doing right will seem like the lonely path. But don't fear. One of the verses I love to hear, in fact, in light of what we're talking about today, Hebrews 12, 1, it says, Therefore, since we are surrounded now by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, other people who have gone before us who have walked that same path, walked that narrow path, gone through that straight gate, and said, okay, I'm going to do this path. I'm not going to go with the crowd. They're all cheering for us. They're all going, come on, you can do it. We did it. We pressed through. You can do it. There's a crowd of witnesses saying, Let's do this. Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that easily trips us up, and let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. You know, in Hebrews 12 comes after Hebrews 11, where they talk about all the people who, by faith, Noah built an ark, by faith, Abraham left his country, by faith, all these other people did these things. And there's a whole lot more, in fact, the writer of Hebrews says, you know, there's there's so much more, too many to be named. And this is that cloud, that the crowd of witnesses that went before us. So yeah, it may seem like you're out on your own sometimes in this life of faith, in this journey of faith, but there's a whole bunch of people cheering us on to get there. So our part, as this verse says, is to we have to get rid of all the weights that slow us down, and especially the sin that so easily trips us up. We do this. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor besides God's throne. But I love this first part. We do this. We get on this narrow path. We get to our end by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the one who initiates, who gave us the faith in the first place, and the one who perfects it or matures it as we go. You know, but I started thinking about keeping our eyes on Jesus. We can sing about it, turn your eyes upon Jesus. And we can tell, you know, we can say, I think about a question Louisa asked one time. You know, she said, how do you how do you look to God? Or how do you something to this effect of how do I see Jesus or God when I can't see Jesus or God? You know, I think I think a lot of adults and even Christians, we say, yeah, I'm keeping my eyes on Jesus. What is that, practically, what does that mean? You know, what do we what are we doing? We can say, yeah, Jesus is the word. Um, but I wanted to look at some some practical actions that we can take. All the all and all this comes from Proverbs. So turn to Proverbs 2. We're going to read a few verses here. This will be kind of our this is a how to stay on the straight and narrow path chapter in Proverbs. We don't want to be on the crooked path, we want to be on the on the on the straight path. Proverbs 2, we'll start with verse 1. I'm reading from New Living. It says, My child, listen to what I say and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver. Seek them like hidden treasures. Verse 5 starts with the word then. So those first four verses are all, if you do these things, then something else will come into and happen. So let's go back and look at what we should be doing. Listen, verse one. Treasure. Regard as highly valuable, which is what treasure means. Verse two, tune, tune your ears, concentrate. This takes effort. This takes some dedication to tune in and tune out. Verse three, cry out for insight and ask for understanding. Verse four, search and seek. Listen, treasure, tune, concentrate, cry out, ask, search and seek. Verse five, then you will understand what it means to fear the Lord. Then you will gain the knowledge of God. I'll keep reading. Verse six, for the Lord grants wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. I love that translation. He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. That's one thing that really feels like it's missing these days in society is common sense. It's like, really? Really? You think that from this, or you, I mean, it's like, really? He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. So we've got four verses of things for us to do, and then it turns around and gives us four verses of things that God will do. God will give you a gain in knowledge. God will grant wisdom. He'll grant you a treasure of common sense. He's a shield. He guards your path, and he protects those who are faithful to him. So there's things for us to do. We have to be responsible. And then there's things that God is responsible for once we do those things. Because notice, he doesn't say he's going to guard everyone's path. He doesn't guard the wide path that everybody's going on that's not the right path. He doesn't guard that path. He guards the straight and narrow path. He protects those not who are on the path that everybody else is going on, the wide gate. He protects those who are faithful to him. I'm on the straight and narrow. There's a responsibility that we have to do first, and then God is obligated to fulfill his word and to be true to his word. He will protect us, he will guard us when we're on the right path. He's not obligated to protect the people who don't even want to listen to him and reject him while they're following that other path. The good news is that we can change paths anytime. We can turn around and say, Lord, I'm sorry, forgive me. I've been walking down that wide path because it seemed like it was the easy one, seemed like that was the way everybody else was going. I need to get back on the path that you have for me. As lonely as it may feel sometimes. Verse 9, still in Proverbs 2, then you will understand what is right, just and fair, and you will find the right way to go. So if you listen, treasure, tune in, concentrate, seek, search, God's going to do some things, but then it says, then you, you're going to understand what's right and just and fair. You're going to be able to find that right way. You're going to know what the right way is, even when it may not seem that clear or may not seem that easy to do and make that decision. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. Wisdom will save you from evil people, from those whose words are twisted. And it for time's sake, I won't go into the uh, well, actually, let me look at this real quick. Verse 13. Because it starts to talk, it gives two different examples of things that it will save you from. One of it's men, these men turn from the right way to walk down dark paths. In other words, there are people who were walking down the right path, that narrow one, then they said, nope, let's go down this other one. It may seem darker, but yeah, there's a whole lot more people on it. It's a lot wider. I don't have to, I don't have to watch my step as much. I don't have to worry about branches in the way, or I I it's a little bit, I can just follow the person in front of me, or the person next to me. They take pleasure in doing wrong and they enjoy the twisted ways of evil. Their actions are crooked, and their ways are wrong. And then the second example, verse 16, wisdom will save you from the immoral woman, from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman. She has abandoned her husband and ignores the covenant she made before God. Entering her house leads to death. It is the road to the grave. The man who visits her is doomed, and he will never reach the paths of life. So it gives us the example of men who have turned from the right path to wickedness, and women who are also trying to lead people down the right path. So, verse 20, it concludes, it says, So follow the steps of the good, and stay on the path of the right the paths of the righteous. The journey of faith is the right path, but it's also the path that feels like it's the hardest one sometimes. But in the end, it becomes the one that has less pain, less heartache, less frustration. But in order for us, in order to listen, in order for us to get there, we have to listen, treasure, tune, and concentrate. And to do that, we have to put distractions aside. And for us in today's society, that's a big part of that pressure that we face is well, if I don't touch my device for a while, I might miss something. That fear of missing out, FOMO. Um we have to just turn it off sometimes. And we have to stay off that broader, the broader path of the unbeliever. It might look easier, and it might look easier because the majority of people are doing it. And the majority of people are voicing it. And the majority of people are now saying it's not the cool thing to be the church-going Christian. It's the uncool thing. And I, you know, I'm just from scripture and reading the word, I don't think that's going to get any better in the world. I think it's going to get more and more antagonistic against Christians. But that shouldn't be something for us to fear. That's what the apostles faced, that's what the disciples faced in the book of Acts, but yet at the same time, the Word of God grew more and more because people saw more and more of the difference of the light and the dark. Right now it feels like there's a lot of gray, but that light and dark is going to become more obvious because the path of the just and the path of the broad and wide way is going to become a lot more distinct, I believe, throughout not just the United States, but through the world. But our responsibility isn't to kind of go, well, what's going to happen in the future? Our responsibility right now for us is to not be, is to first of all believe God exists and trust that he is with us and for us, and that he will do the things that we just read in Proverbs when we do the things that we have to do in Proverbs, when we set aside the time to listen and treasure and concentrate. The path of the unbeliever is full of harm. It leads to death, spiritual death initially, and then ultimately physical death. The path of faith is narrow. But I love the scripture. That's one reason I sang this song this morning. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. When that path may seem kind of the way that you have to really watch every step that you're going on, the Bible says his word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. I remember one time I was asking the Lord, Lord, what is why why are the two different words, lamp and light? And not too long afterward, I was taking, I was walking at night. Um, this is a long time ago when I lived in Tennessee, and I was on the side of the road, um, and for a little bit there wasn't a sidewalk. So I was walking in the grass, and it was dark. And I realized that every time I got underneath a street lamp, um I could see that it was, it was it was removing the shadows because I could see where the pits were, the rocks were, but the car lights that were coming were shining the way forward for me. So the street lamp was shining down so I could see the terrain and get that that you know, get a bit of all the shadows. Because if I just had the car lights going forward, I was getting a lot of shadow. Couldn't tell the terra and unevenness. But that was telling me, that was kind of giving me what was coming ahead. That's what the word does. It shows you what's coming ahead, but it also shows you what's here right now. The word is a lamp unto your feet, shows you what's going on right now, so that you know where exactly to take that next step, but it also shows you where the path is going and where you need to turn next. Your word is a lamp unto your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. It is a word for now and a word for where I'm going. That's keeping your eyes on Jesus. Amen? Keeping your eyes on the word and trusting in him that he is going to lead you on every step of the way. That is the path that is protected. That is the path that is safe. That is the path, as Proverbs says too, it grows brighter and brighter. The path of the just goes brighter and brighter until the end, the full day, when we just we end up in heaven. And we either end up in heaven through death or we end up in heaven through Jesus coming back. It doesn't matter. As soon as we get there, that path becomes super bright. We're on streets of gold. We're on a place that there is no darkness, there is no shadow, there is no sun or moon because God Himself is the light. That is the path we are aiming for. Amen. Amen.