SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church.
SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like a paper copy to follow along with, just raise your hand and someone will deliver it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And as always, up on the screen, you'll find our Wi-Fi login and password info and the QR code if you want to hit that and download notes and quotes.
SPEAKER_00: And also good morning to our friends who are joining us online.
SPEAKER_00: Last week we were joined by people from Anaheim, California, uh Raleigh, North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina, and Quezon City Metro Manila in the Philippines.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: Love to have you with us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, do you guys remember the movie Independence Day?
SPEAKER_00: So if you remember, it was good.
SPEAKER_00: I had somebody tell me at the end of the first service they didn't like the movie.
SPEAKER_00: That's all right.
SPEAKER_00: I won't hold it against him.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, if you'll remember towards the end of the movie, nice conversation, Tom.
SPEAKER_00: Towards the end of the movie, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum, they're in that stolen alien fighter ship, and they go up into outer space, they get inside the mothership, and their whole plan is to install a virus and to put a nuclear missile in there, blow up the mothership, destroy all the aliens in a last ditch attempt to save planet Earth.
SPEAKER_00: So they do that.
SPEAKER_00: They leave the missile, they undock, and they're trying to leave the mothership.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember, that exit door of the ship starts closing and closing.
SPEAKER_00: It's getting so thin at the very last second they barely, barely get out.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the ship turns sideways and they just squeak out at the last second.
SPEAKER_00: The doors close, they take off, the missile detonates, and that's the end of the aliens, and planet Earth is saved.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and the the heroes, doors closing, they know there's an urgency to escape before the door is closed forever, and they're stuck inside.
SPEAKER_00: Today, we're gonna continue our study of the Gospel of Luke in chapter 13, and in our passage today, there is a door that is going to close forever.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be on the inside of the door, same urgency, different direction, and I'm calling our study the narrow door is open wide.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to include the narrow door is open wide, but not for long, but I left that off.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, in his book, Not the Way It's Supposed to Be, Cornelius Plantinga accurately describes our current condition like this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Shalom, the way things ought to be, is God's design for creation and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is blamable human vandalism of these great realities and therefore an affront to their architect and builder.
SPEAKER_00: So to put it mildly, we have messed up God's design for creation and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: But because God cares about us, he intends to make things right, to fully and finally fix what is broken.
SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, the door will eventually close on the way things are today.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And that reality is where we find ourselves today in Luke's narrative.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is continuing his conversation from chapter 12, where the audience has grown to multiple thousands.
SPEAKER_00: There are six little narratives in this chapter, and there's a common thread that weaves through the whole chapter, and we'll try and continue to draw on that thread.
SPEAKER_00: There's an urgency to the message, and what Jesus has to say, it may seem harsh, but in reality, he's being kind in his directness.
SPEAKER_00: Author Bren A.
SPEAKER_00: Brown, you might be familiar with her, she has a book called Dare to Lead, and in it she says, clear is kind, unclear is unkind.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, to be clear is to be kind.
SPEAKER_00: And in our passage, we'll see that God is direct and he's clear.
SPEAKER_00: He's honest about the reality that judgment is certain, that God is patient, he's clear that personal repentance is necessary, and clear that personal relationship with Christ is necessary.
SPEAKER_00: There is an invitation to all, but the door to that invitation will close at some point.
SPEAKER_00: The overarching theme, the why behind all of this is God's stubborn, relentless love that pursues us and will not give up on us.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray, church, and get to reading our text.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful for your word, grateful for your day.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for loving us.
SPEAKER_00: Long to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00: Long to understand what you want us to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, I pray that you would illuminate the word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And to that end we pray, show us your ways, O Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us your paths, guide us in your truth, and teach us, for you are God our Savior, and our hope is in you all the day long.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So here we go, starting in chapter 13, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: And he answered them, Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?
SPEAKER_00: No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
SPEAKER_00: Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
SPEAKER_00: Well, these two little current event snapshots that people raised questions about, they're not recorded anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: This is the only place we hear about them.
SPEAKER_00: And evidently there were some Galileans who had come up to Jerusalem, probably for Passover, since they were at the temple sacrificing animals for their sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And Pilate, who is known for being cruel in his cruelty, wickedness, paranoia, I think he might have thought these people were, they had sedition in mind or a riot.
SPEAKER_00: And so he had all these worshipers killed, and it turns out that as they were sacrificing animals, they were killed, and just horribly their blood mixed with the animal, the sacrifice's blood.
SPEAKER_00: And then the the people in Siloam from some of the commentaries that are read, this was probably improvement works going on the outside wall of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: They were rebuilding an aqueduct, and this tower felled and killed all these people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the the Jews there were asking Jesus about both of these events, saying, Hey, what about these people that died?
SPEAKER_00: Were they sinners?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is quick to say, No, they're not greater sinners than anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: However, you have to repent or perish.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk more about that in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Verse six, and he told this parable.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to the vine dresser, Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none.
SPEAKER_00: Cut it down.
SPEAKER_00: Why should it use up the ground?
SPEAKER_00: And the vine dresser answered him, Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and put on manure.
SPEAKER_00: Then, if it should bear fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's where this theme of repentance and kind of the timely need for repentance, the urgency behind it, we start hearing this theme.
SPEAKER_00: And what's represented in this parable, Israel is represented by the fig tree and the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: God is the owner of the vineyard, and the vine dresser is Jesus asking for more time.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and behold, there was a woman who had a disabling spirit for 18 years.
SPEAKER_00: You know, some of these high school seniors we just prayed for are probably 18 years old right now.
SPEAKER_00: So this woman had had this disability for as long as those young adults have been alive.
SPEAKER_00: She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your disability.
SPEAKER_00: And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and she glorified God.
SPEAKER_00: So I love that after that, though the first few verses about sin and circumstance and tragedy, Jesus right away is in the synagogue teaching on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: He sees this woman who's bent over.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't come for healing, she just came to worship God.
SPEAKER_00: He is so moved to approach her and give her honor as a woman, which is not normal in a synagogue like this.
SPEAKER_00: He gave her honor, touched her, she was healed immediately.
SPEAKER_00: Love that.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14, but the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, There are six days in which work ought to be done.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, those days and be healed and not on the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_00: And can can you believe that that's his response?
SPEAKER_00: He's so bound to the rules that he's missing the total point of this woman who had suffered from this horrible disability for 18 years, clueless about who Jesus is and uh healing her on the Sabbath, which ought to have been done on the Lord's day.
SPEAKER_00: And this Pharisee was so locked into his rules that he would rather her have not been healed, rather her have been healed on a Tuesday or Wednesday.
SPEAKER_00: Well, look how Jesus responds to him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15 then the Lord answered him, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?
SPEAKER_00: And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound for 18 years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?
SPEAKER_00: As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
SPEAKER_00: Love his response, and he's pretty frustrated and angry, rightfully so with this Pharisee, because the Pharisees had these laws.
SPEAKER_00: If you owned an ox or a donkey on the Sabbath, you could lead them out to food and water and not commit the sin of working on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And he's rightfully calling out this Pharisee on the fact that he's more concerned about taking care of his animals than caring for this daughter of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: He said, therefore, What is the kingdom of God like?
SPEAKER_00: And to what shall I compare it?
SPEAKER_00: It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.
SPEAKER_00: And again he said, To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_00: It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flower until it was all leavened.
SPEAKER_00: Well, both of these little parables point to the way the kingdom grows.
SPEAKER_00: The mustard seed would have been the smallest seed that an Israelite would plant in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And then when it grows to maturity, it's a bush, but it actually looks like a tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's eight to ten feet tall, and its leaves are big and broad enough that it provides safety and shade for all manner of birds.
SPEAKER_00: And then he's also comparing the kingdom of heaven to leaven.
SPEAKER_00: Three measures of flour probably would have been about 60 pounds of flour that a woman put yeast in.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever made bread at home, sourdough bread especially, you know how exponentially that grows.
SPEAKER_00: And she would have ended up with about 100 pounds of bread out of this.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is making the point that this is the way the kingdom of God grows in us and spreads throughout the world.
SPEAKER_00: It grows quietly from the inside out, little bit by little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this whole section of Luke is this last trip of Jesus to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Someone said to him, Lord, will those are saved be few?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, strive to enter through the narrow door, for many I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting about this, the Jews had this idea that their nationality was going to get them into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Jesus' response.
SPEAKER_00: So he said, Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able, when once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us, then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from.
SPEAKER_00: Then you will begin to say, Well, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets, but he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from.
SPEAKER_00: Depart from me, all you workers of evil.
SPEAKER_00: So what Jesus is saying here is, I am sorry, Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is not your birthright.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is based on personal relationship.
SPEAKER_00: It's a narrow door.
SPEAKER_00: It's based on personal relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Continuing on, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves cast out, and people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's saying, not only is salvation not the birthright of Israel, but there are going to be people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, Gentiles from all over the world that are in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Just like to add that I think sometimes being in the South, we can think the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I go to church every week, so surely I'm in.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, No, you need a personal relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: At that very hour, some Pharisees came and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finished my course.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow in the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is determined to go to Jerusalem, to go to the cross for the benefit of all of us.
SPEAKER_00: And he is saying here, look, not Herod, not you Pharisees, nobody is going to prevent me from doing what I'm set out to do.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 34, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
SPEAKER_00: How often would I have gathered your children together?
SPEAKER_00: As a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing, behold, your house is forsaken.
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, which is from Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, You need a personal relationship with me in order to see me coming at the second Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is the word of the Lord found in Luke chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: So as I was studying this chapter this week, a few thoughts struck me, and I'd like to share them.
SPEAKER_00: The first thought was this, based on that the first few verses, whether our life is tranquil or tragic circumstantially, we all need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: So in those first five verses, Jesus reminds us of two important contact concepts.
SPEAKER_00: Sin and circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: Sin and circumstance aren't always or even necessarily connected.
SPEAKER_00: Not saying they can't be, but they aren't always nor even necessarily connected.
SPEAKER_00: But even still, there is a need for universal, a universal need for repentance.
SPEAKER_00: For the Israelite in Jesus' time, tragedy, illness, misfortune, they were all interpreted as consequences of being sinful.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, for somebody to be having a hard time like those Galileans killed by Pilate or those who the wall fell on, somebody suffers.
SPEAKER_00: There has to be a reason for it.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus quickly points out that this isn't the case.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what he said to him, okay, do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans that this happened to?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, that's not right at all.
SPEAKER_00: And he's then he he makes it personal, though, and he says, but you need to repent, or you will likewise perish.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a question for us to think about.
SPEAKER_00: Do we equate in in this day, do we equate suffering with sin?
SPEAKER_00: Have you or I ever seen someone that's going through some really tough things, a hard place, and and think maybe their circumstance is due to some sin in their life?
SPEAKER_00: We may or may not think that way in 2025, but I'm just asking the question.
SPEAKER_00: Or to make it more personal, have you or I, have we, you've been going through a hard circumstance, and have you thought, what have I done to deserve this?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that both of those responses indicate that we're equating circumstance with sin.
SPEAKER_00: The first response tells me that we're thinking that we deserve some kind of punishment for some sin in our life.
SPEAKER_00: While the second response, what did I do to deserve this?
SPEAKER_00: So that reveals, I think, while we do agree that maybe sin does deserve consequence or suffering, at the same time, man, there's no way that I've done something that I haven't done anything that bad.
SPEAKER_00: I don't deserve that kind of punishment.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe if our circumstances are easy, the idea, the thought of sin and punishment and circumstance, maybe that just never even crosses our mind.
SPEAKER_00: So here's another question, another way of looking at, you know, our sense of justice, we're quick to want others who do wrong to suffer justice.
SPEAKER_00: And we're also, for our own self, slow to want justice, quick to want mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And grace.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about traffic in Nashville.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're driving along with the flow of traffic on the interstate, and by that I actually mean you're speeding, because if you're driving with the flow of traffic, you're speeding.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just be honest.
SPEAKER_00: But let's just say you're driving with the flow of traffic, and somebody comes up behind you, they're probably doing 20 miles over the speed limit.
SPEAKER_00: They're weaving in and out, blow past you, go around the curve, and then you come around a curve and you've seen that they've been pulled over by a policeman.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe you say something to yourself, like, yeah, serves you right.
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, reap what you sow, bro, reap what you sow.
SPEAKER_00: And then if we get pulled over, what's our response going to be?
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, but everybody else was going faster than I was.
SPEAKER_00: I don't, why did I get pulled over?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm not saying that traffic, that speeding is a sin, but it's disobeying a traffic law, and you might be putting somebody else in danger.
SPEAKER_00: But I will say this: I believe a biblically informed response to all of that is twofold.
SPEAKER_00: First off, remember that Jesus suffered far beyond what any other human has ever suffered, and he had no sin.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians tells us, but for our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, which is just lovely.
SPEAKER_00: But just remember, in terms of circumstance and sin, Jesus proves the point that they're not always related because he suffered terribly without sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then, secondly, recognizing that all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that we all need repentance and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Our journey of following Christ involves ongoing repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance is an essential part of the Christian's life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a one-time event, right, that kind of jump starts our Christian walk, but it's an ongoing, should be, an ongoing daily occurrence.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon puts it this way: he says, repentance is a continual lifelong act.
SPEAKER_00: It is not something done once and for all.
SPEAKER_00: Is that part of our daily walk?
SPEAKER_00: He also said in another sermon, he said, sinning and repenting, sinning and repenting make up a Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: And you just get such a good picture of our Christian walk in that.
SPEAKER_00: We we walk, we fall.
SPEAKER_00: We repent, pick ourselves back up with the aid of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We walk, we fall, we sin, we repent.
SPEAKER_00: And the Christian life is a repentant life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a single, I'm sorry, but a daily turning to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And there is such a breath of fresh air in repenting and being forgiven, of making that a part of our daily life.
SPEAKER_00: The beauty of living a repentant life in Christ is being on the daily receiving end of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And just as our need for repentance continues, as believers, our need for grace continues.
SPEAKER_00: We need the grace of Jesus every day, and he continues to provide that grace.
SPEAKER_00: The whole story, the whole story of the Bible is God's pursuit of us, this relentless pursuit of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul Tripp talks about this relentless grace.
SPEAKER_00: He says, grace relentlessly pursues, relentlessly forgives, relentlessly transforms, relentlessly restores, all of which we relentlessly need.
SPEAKER_00: And we are giving that, given that by Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, if our first point kind of deals with this vertical relationship with God, I think it flows naturally into the second point that I want to talk about, which is horizontal, how we have a relationship with our neighbors, and that is there's an urgent need.
SPEAKER_00: This theme of urgency, there's an urgent need to love our neighbors.
SPEAKER_00: Our neighbors need us.
SPEAKER_00: Every day we're one day closer to heaven, one day closer to the last day, that day that Pastor Tommy talked about last week.
SPEAKER_00: And think about how much closer we are to that day than the first century church.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to reach your neighbors and he wants to use you and me to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, our neighbor needs our repentant lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: They need that lived out loud.
SPEAKER_00: To co-opt a phrase from the TV show Severance, our any and our outie need to be connected.
SPEAKER_00: N.T.
SPEAKER_00: Wright has a marvelous book on the Lord's Prayer called The Lord and His Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And studying it in a men's group, and we read this quote last week.
SPEAKER_00: We are part of that great movement whereby the hopes and fears of all the years are brought together and addressed by God.
SPEAKER_00: And as we hear that gentle and powerful address to our own hopes and fears, we are called to become, in turn, the means whereby that same address goes out to the wider world.
SPEAKER_00: I'll repeat what I said just a minute ago.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to reach your neighbor, and He wants to use you to do so.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_00: I call it relational evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Meeting the needs of our neighbors means being involved in their lives, relational, everyday relationship, knowing them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, many people, I'd say most people, they don't come to faith in a single lightning bolt moment like the Apostle Paul did, but in an arc over time.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit who draws people to Christ and puts people in their path along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And our responsibility is to be in relationship with our neighbor, to know them, to be open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to be aware of opportunities, and to be faithful in whatever part of their storyline, the arc of their story, their life, just to be faithful, whatever part we're in.
SPEAKER_00: We're not responsible for for their whole life.
SPEAKER_00: We're not responsible for their salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is.
SPEAKER_00: But loving our neighbors, it takes trust in that slow, steady work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: The willingness to walk alongside and be in community with our neighbor, even if they don't believe, and I'd say, especially if they don't believe.
SPEAKER_00: You know, based on whether or not they come to faith ever.
SPEAKER_00: But our relationship be because we love them because they are an image-bearer of God.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott says, we're stewards of what God has said, but heralds of what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: Our stewardship is of an accomplished revelation, but an accomplished redemption is the good news which we proclaim as heralds.
SPEAKER_00: I love the difference between a steward and a herald.
SPEAKER_00: We're stewards of the word.
SPEAKER_00: We study it, we learn from it, we memorize it, we hide it in our hearts, but man, we are heralds of what God has done in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus, heralds of what he has done in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We can love our neighbor and patiently wait for the opportunities that the Holy Spirit gives us to be a herald for the reality of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this brings me to my last point, which might seem a little melancholy on the surface, but I really believe that hope drives it.
SPEAKER_00: And that is there is a last time for everything.
SPEAKER_00: And going back to the narrative of the woman in the synagogue, there's a certain poignancy because in Luke chapter 4, we were privy to the first time Jesus taught in the synagogue on a Sabbath, where he he unrolled the scroll of Isaiah chapter 61, talked through that, and said, This day, this prophecy has been fulfilled in this room.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then, fast forward to Luke chapter 13, this time where Jesus is teaching in the synagogue again on the Sabbath and heals this woman, that's the last time he taught in a synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: So there's some little bookends there, and it's a good reminder that even in the ministry of Jesus, there was a last time for something.
SPEAKER_00: Parents, I don't know if you've experienced this or not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm expecting that you probably have, but you don't know ahead of time that it's the last time your seven-year-old has a nightmare and she wants to come snuggle with you.
SPEAKER_00: And you're not privy, or you don't know ahead of time that it's the last time your third grader is gonna let you hold his hand when you walk him to school.
SPEAKER_00: Kristen had a phrase for this growing up with our boys.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know it's the last time until after the last time.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many facets to this idea.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the stuff I was just talking about with our kids growing up, but you know, in reality, the reality of it is there's going to be a last time you see a friend.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be a last time you see your spouse, there's gonna be a last time you get to interact with your kids before they head off to college or maybe move out of town for a career.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a gardener, there's only a finite number of times you get to plant and tend a garden.
SPEAKER_00: There's only a finite number of Christmas Eve and Christmas mornings and Easter Sunday mornings you get to experience.
SPEAKER_00: A finite number of Mother's Day brunches.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not all, it's not all melancholy because there's also going to be a last time you have to file your taxes or pay the electric bill, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I think that there's something here that's worth paying attention to.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that that's part of what Jesus is getting at in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: His repeated warning may seem sharp on the surface, may seem harsh.
SPEAKER_00: He continues to point out the need to repent, to point out the timeliness and the urgency of that need.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to suggest, as I did earlier, that there's kindness in the clarity of that message.
SPEAKER_00: That message is it is clear.
SPEAKER_00: God offers salvation for all in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And there is both exclusivity and inclusivity in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is exclusive in its truth because there is only one way offered to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The door is narrow.
SPEAKER_00: But that narrow door is open wide.
SPEAKER_00: The offer of Christianity of the gospel is also inclusive because it is offered to all who will come.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked about in verse 29 and 30 of our passage about people being in the kingdom who have come from the east and the west and the north and the south.
SPEAKER_00: You might want God to hurry this process up.
SPEAKER_00: You might be thinking, okay, I've got my Jesus ticket punched already, let's shut that door, let's get this show on the road.
SPEAKER_00: And my encouragement is remember the heart of the vine dresser in the earlier part of the passage where he said, Let me have one more year of tending this fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Then if it bears fruit, well and good, but if it doesn't, then you can dig it up.
SPEAKER_00: And the heart of the gospel is this that God desires to bring as many sons and daughters to glory as possible.
SPEAKER_00: That narrow door is open as long as possible to allow as many as will to enter through it.
SPEAKER_00: Peter talks about this in his second letter, 2 Peter 3 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all that all should reach repentance.
SPEAKER_00: There's that word again, repentance.
SPEAKER_00: So just take just 30 seconds and reflect on that verse while it's on the screen and think about it in context with our second point, the fact that we have an urgent need to love our neighbors in light of this, that God desires all men and women to come to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, you might think that it's so so you might want the door to shut immediately.
SPEAKER_00: You might be on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: You might think it's cruel for the narrow door to ever shut, that the opportunity should be never-ending for people to enter the kingdom who will, since it is God's wish that none should perish.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why would God ever shut the door anyway?
SPEAKER_00: That just seems a little cold-hearted.
SPEAKER_00: Let me suggest three quick, and this will be quick because we're we're shy on time.
SPEAKER_00: Why I think that's not the case.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: That having a finite, a definite time when the door is going to be closed is not cold-hearted at all.
SPEAKER_00: First off, it's God's house, it's God's door.
SPEAKER_00: He gets to choose when to close the door.
SPEAKER_00: That just looks like ownership to me.
SPEAKER_00: To the very end, God is patient, he's merciful, he's just, but he does warn us to be clear is to be kind.
SPEAKER_00: He warns us that there will be an end.
SPEAKER_00: Second reason, God respects our freedom to choose.
SPEAKER_00: This is a quote attributed to Tim Keller, it's not on a slide.
SPEAKER_00: He says, in the end, God gives people what they most want, including freedom from himself.
SPEAKER_00: What could be more fair than that?
SPEAKER_00: So the closing of the door ends up looking less like harshness and way more like respect for human freedom, allowing us the dignity of moral agency to choose eternity with God or separation from God.
SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, I think closing the door, boy, it looks like love and promise keeping because God has promised to make all things right, to make all things new, and if he never closes the door, the new heavens and the new earth never never get started.
SPEAKER_00: The definite closing of the door, even though we don't know the day that will happen, that's going to start all of this, the rest of this in process.
SPEAKER_00: So because God is faithful, just, and true, because he keeps his promises, there will be a last time for everything temporal, including the last time anyone gets a diagnosis of cancer, the last time anyone has to bury a loved one, the last time there will be death or mourning or crying or pain, because all of those will have been left outside the door and will have passed away.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, that's good news.
SPEAKER_00: Then the celebration of heaven starts, of which there will be no last time.
SPEAKER_00: There will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you want to see the heart of God in this passage, all you have to do is listen to his lament, the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you were not willing?
SPEAKER_00: God's heart for all of us is that we would not be left out in the cold, that we wouldn't be on the wrong side of the door, that our lives might look a little like this picture here, sheltered, protected, and loved.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not one of our chickens, but we live on a little farm and we we have chickens, and uh I can tell you that this is what mother hens do they gather their chicks and they get them under their wings to where all you can see is their little feet there.
SPEAKER_00: I just love that picture.
SPEAKER_00: It's such a great reminder of what Jesus wants for us, if we're willing.
SPEAKER_00: I've got one last quote.
SPEAKER_00: This is from Kent Hughes' commentary on Luke.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He has done everything.
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is believe and be willing.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, there's one path, one narrow door that leads to life, and today that door is open wide.
SPEAKER_00: All we need to do is walk through.
SPEAKER_00: And I would also pray that for all of us, live our lives in such a way that we can encourage our neighbors at some point to walk through.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where you might be in your life today, but if if you haven't said yes to Jesus, I would encourage you to consider saying yes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We have a prayer team that meets in the back that would love to pray with him for you.
SPEAKER_00: Come talk to myself or one of the other pastors.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to talk with you about that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have said yes to Jesus, say yes again to traveling, walking, and going deeper and deeper with him.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are so good.
SPEAKER_00: There is such clarity in what you have to say to us.
SPEAKER_00: And while the door is narrow, we appreciate that there is a door.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a door.
SPEAKER_00: Really glad you've given us a door.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, I pray that you would quicken our hearts to respond to your daily call in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Help us continue to say yes to you.
SPEAKER_00: And we are grateful that you give us the opportunity to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.