SPEAKER_00: Scripture says this: Enter by the narrow gates.
SPEAKER_00: For the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
SPEAKER_00: For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who find it are few.
SPEAKER_00: I was on a flight a few years ago from Detroit to Ontario, California.
SPEAKER_00: We were somewhere over the state of Kansas when a person on the plane rang their flight attendant call button, summoned the flight attendant, and informed them that they were on the wrong flight.
SPEAKER_00: Ontario, Canada, the abbreviation being the same, Ontario, comma, CA.
SPEAKER_00: And apparently the flight to Ontario, California, and Ontario, Canada was even leaving from the gates right next to each other.
SPEAKER_00: And signs look the same.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how the boarding passes worked.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they bought the ticket to the wrong flight accidentally.
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea they answered any of your questions.
SPEAKER_00: But I do know that they said they were on the wrong flight.
SPEAKER_00: The two gates right next to each other.
SPEAKER_00: One goes to beautiful, sunny, gorgeous California, which represents heaven in this analogy.
SPEAKER_00: And the other goes to Canada.
SPEAKER_00: You can make your own conclusions.
SPEAKER_00: They're next to each other.
SPEAKER_00: But they both lead to very, very different places.
SPEAKER_00: This is the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
SPEAKER_00: We're going through it a verse at a time.
SPEAKER_00: And as we get to this section, we've been studying this for the last several months.
SPEAKER_00: As we get to this section, we're nearing the end.
SPEAKER_00: This is the start of the conclusion of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: The sermon has a structure to it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had his introduction with the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_00: He had certain points, and we've gone through it.
SPEAKER_00: I've drawn your attention to those points.
SPEAKER_00: But now in verse 13, this really launches into his conclusion where he sums up what he's been saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is the most famous sermon Jesus ever preached.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first sermon that's recorded in Matthew that he preached.
SPEAKER_00: He preached it early in his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: There are other sermons he preached that are also recorded in Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: We'll find those later on in the book.
SPEAKER_00: But this one stands as the kind of the quintessential Jesus sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It calls out what is different between Jesus and the scribes and the Pharisees, what is different between what Jesus is preaching and what all the rest of the world teaches, specifically the religious Jews.
SPEAKER_00: They taught and they believed things that were antithetical to what Jesus was teaching.
SPEAKER_00: There's very much a divide between the message of Christ and the message of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And the Sermon on the Mount is where Jesus has his crowds there, he's done miracles, he's been baptized at the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: There's a massive following.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a sermon where Jesus puts his flag in the ground and says, This is what I'm saying that's different than everything else you've ever heard.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, those that were there understood that because after the sermon, their jaws were open, and they said, We've never heard anybody preach with that kind of authority.
SPEAKER_00: This is the conclusion of that sermon where he takes the different threads of the sermon, ties them up to land the plane.
SPEAKER_00: And let me give you, these numbers might mean more to me than to you, but let me help you.
SPEAKER_00: This Sermon on the Mount was a 45-minute long sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 is about the 32 or 33-minute mark.
SPEAKER_00: I think in those terms.
SPEAKER_00: This is the place where Jesus brings it all together and tells you this is the point.
SPEAKER_00: And the point that Jesus brings you to is that there are basically two ways to live.
SPEAKER_00: There are two religions in the world.
SPEAKER_00: There are two gates, two paths, two destinations, that's it.
SPEAKER_00: Only two.
SPEAKER_00: One is a system of divine accomplishment.
SPEAKER_00: One is the religion of what God does for you.
SPEAKER_00: And the other is the religion of human achievement, of human merit.
SPEAKER_00: One is a religion of grace, where God saves people who do not deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: The other is the religion of men's works, where people believe that they can earn salvation based upon how good they are or how they live their life or what they deserve.
SPEAKER_00: One is the religion of faith, where you place your faith in something outside of yourself to receive salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The other is the religion of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Where you do something, you perform some act, you lead your life in some kind of way in order to earn salvation.
SPEAKER_00: One is the religion of depravity, where you say, I am a sinner and I do not have the capacity to do good in a way that's pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the other is the religion of self-made righteousness, where a person says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I am actually capable of functioning in a righteous way.
SPEAKER_00: I do have the ability inside of me to do something that's pleasing to God, and God will see my good works, and he will receive me based upon those works that I did.
SPEAKER_00: You can see the difference.
SPEAKER_00: One religion, the narrow path, says, I cannot earn God's favor.
SPEAKER_00: I just can't.
SPEAKER_00: I need to be saved despite that.
SPEAKER_00: And the other way says, you know what, when it all shakes out, I actually have lived my life pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: Now these religions are very clearly defined, but the broad path, the broad way, comes in so many different flavors.
SPEAKER_00: It has so many different labels.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many different every false religion in the world falls into that category.
SPEAKER_00: Works righteousness, American good old-fashioned agnosticism falls into that second category.
SPEAKER_00: All the world religions, meditation, self-help, they all fall in that second category.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, oh yeah, but I mean Hinduism and meditation and works righteousness and Islam and all these other religions, they're so different.
SPEAKER_00: No, if you boil them down, put them in a pot, boil them, the water evaporates, the syrup that you're left with is the same in all of them.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if it's seven sacraments or five pillars, when it boils away, it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: That you have a desire in your heart to do good, you have the capacity to perform that good, and God rewards that good by giving you righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: How different that is than the narrow path where you say, I don't have the capacity to do good, I am a sinner, lost without God, and I need his grace, or I am doomed.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast that Jesus is hinting at.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this sermon's about.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path or the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you a contrast this morning, the narrow path and the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to analyze these two, the two gates, the two paths, the two destinations, the two invitations, all of it.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to get your mind around this.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, this is the most important sermon that has ever been preached in Matthew here.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is the most important thing you can think about.
SPEAKER_00: You need to wrestle in your mind with which path are you on.
SPEAKER_00: Our world is filled with so much noise, entertainment, scrolling, 30-second sound bites that roll by you.
SPEAKER_00: I fear sometimes we've lost the mental capacity to engage with serious and sober truth.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm hoping that you can engage this morning with this truth.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing more important for you to think about.
SPEAKER_00: We spend so much of our life worrying about other things.
SPEAKER_00: We worry about, you know, high school kids worry about where they're gonna go to school when they graduate.
SPEAKER_00: They worry about what they're gonna major in, they worry about who they're gonna marry, what job they're gonna take, how many kids they're gonna have, what city they're gonna live in.
SPEAKER_00: Their kids grow up, what sports should we have them play?
SPEAKER_00: What school should they go to?
SPEAKER_00: What job should my where should my next job be with the government?
SPEAKER_00: You know, this one's running out in two years.
SPEAKER_00: Where should I apply next?
SPEAKER_00: And we our minds get wrapped up around this.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids go up, what college should they go to?
SPEAKER_00: Should I move where they move?
SPEAKER_00: When should I retire?
SPEAKER_00: These are the things that dominate our thinking.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm telling you, by comparison to what's happening in Matthew 7, those things are of no consequence.
SPEAKER_00: Those things are inconsequential.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they define how we worry and labor in our minds and just wrestle with those things.
SPEAKER_00: They seem so important at the moment, but if you are on the wrong path, those things don't matter at all.
SPEAKER_00: To be honest, I I I fear that sometimes people spend more time thinking about where they're gonna go to lunch tomorrow than they do about if they're on the wide road or the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is using the sermon to try to wrestle your attention to the most basic and fundamental and important question there is.
SPEAKER_00: Which path are you on?
SPEAKER_00: Let's compare these paths from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: From the outside, these two paths don't look at all the same.
SPEAKER_00: They're both marked by gates, but the gates could not be confused with each other.
SPEAKER_00: The gates couldn't be more different.
SPEAKER_00: One gate is narrow and the other is wide.
SPEAKER_00: The wide gate leads to the wide path, of course, the narrow gate to the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow gate would be easy to overlook.
SPEAKER_00: It is hard, Jesus says in uh verse 14, it is hard to find.
SPEAKER_00: The gate is narrow, the way is hard, those who find it are few.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow gate is hard to find.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna accidentally stumble across it.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's narrow, meaning it's easy to miss.
SPEAKER_00: It's narrow, meaning it only fits you.
SPEAKER_00: You go through it one person at a time, this narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot bring your friends with you, you cannot bring your parents with you, you cannot bring your kids with you.
SPEAKER_00: You go through it by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can't even bring baggage with you, you can't bring a carry-on with you.
SPEAKER_00: This turnstile is so narrow, it won't even fit your backpack.
SPEAKER_00: Just you.
SPEAKER_00: The entrance, perhaps, one time was marked, but now it is is overcrowded with vines and nobody, it's not worn out.
SPEAKER_00: People don't walk on it all the time, and so it's it's hidden, it's overgrown.
SPEAKER_00: If you're driving down Braddock towards the Beltway, there's several houses on that off of Braddock there that haven't been lived in for years or abandoned, and they have driveways.
SPEAKER_00: The driveways go out to Braddock, but the bushes have grown up and the vines have covered it.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't see a driveway there, you'd drive right by it.
SPEAKER_00: You hint that something might be there is maybe the sidewalk goes down a little bit and comes back up as if there were a driveway there, but you look behind it and there's just bushes and vines.
SPEAKER_00: The path is hidden.
SPEAKER_00: Put it in your GPS, and your GPS would stop you, and it would say, You have arrived, your destination is on the right, and you would look and it's just bushes.
SPEAKER_00: That's this narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: It is hidden, it is overgrown from lack of use.
SPEAKER_00: And if you pulled back the bushes to find it, you cut away the vines, what you would see is a turnstile that you and you alone can go through.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room to bring all your desires in life.
SPEAKER_00: There's no room to bring your friends or your family, there's no room to bring your hobbies, there's no room to bring your, you know, your goals and your ambitions in life, there's no room to bring your secret sins.
SPEAKER_00: None of that fits through with you.
SPEAKER_00: It's just you.
SPEAKER_00: To go through it, you have to leave everything else behind.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: The wide gate, first of all, it's impossible to miss.
SPEAKER_00: It's got big lights on it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything, everything funnels there.
SPEAKER_00: You're driving down the road, and all the roads lead to this wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to look for the wide gate, you just kind of naturally end up there.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the mixing bowl in the springfield.
SPEAKER_00: People ask, how do you get to the mixing bowl?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, just drive on any road and you'll end up there.
SPEAKER_00: The hard part's not finding the mixing bowl, the hard part's getting out of it.
SPEAKER_00: All roads lead to the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: You just go and you're at the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: Your default position is to the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: The world is on a hill and everything slopes down to the narrow gate, I mean to the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: The world's on a hill and everything slopes down to the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: You just go about your normal life and you end up rolling over to the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: You're just going through your life, and the wide gate, there it is.
SPEAKER_00: You can't miss it.
SPEAKER_00: Everything funnels to the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: The whole world is walking through the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: It's so wide.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, one thing that's true about the wide gate is it's wide.
SPEAKER_00: You can line up with 10 of your friends, a hundred of your friends, your teammates, your family.
SPEAKER_00: You guys can lock arms and all walk side by side, shoulder to shoulder, through the wide gate together.
SPEAKER_00: It's got more than enough room for y'all.
SPEAKER_00: And you can bring whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: Your goals in life, your ambitions in life, your objectives in life, your secret sins in life, your thought life, all that.
SPEAKER_00: Bring it with you.
SPEAKER_00: Bring it all.
SPEAKER_00: Come as you are is the motto of the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: The wide gate, if it had a sign on it, it would say, Come as you are, bring what you want, walk right through this gate.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole world naturally gravitates there.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody goes there.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow gate, you've got to hunt for it.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 15 says, God made the world in such a way the Gentiles would have to seek for the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: They've got to look for it.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, ask and it will be given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Seek and you will find.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta hunt for it.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to seek it.
SPEAKER_00: And when you saw it, it wouldn't look special.
SPEAKER_00: The wide gate has remarkable curb appeal.
SPEAKER_00: You see it from the car and you're like, that's the one I want.
SPEAKER_00: That wide path right there.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00: Such a contrast, these two gates.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not just the contrast on the outside, there's a contrast on the inside as well.
SPEAKER_00: Life on the narrow path looks very different than life on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: Life on the wide path, it fuels your sense of self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Life on the wide path says, live like you want to live, do what you want to do, dream what you want to dream, be what you want to be.
SPEAKER_00: When you're on that wide path, you have the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: It's right there with you.
SPEAKER_00: What does the wide path look like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's telling you that you're good enough, it's telling you that you have the capacity to do good and be good.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's so popular, is because it just gives you the self-esteem that you crave.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 18, verse 11, Jesus tells a story about a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes the quintessential wide path person.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the synagogue to pray, remember?
SPEAKER_00: And he starts his prayer by saying, God, I thank you that I'm not like the other men, I'm not like the extortioners, the unjust, the adulterers, or even like that tax collector over there.
SPEAKER_00: I fast twice a week.
SPEAKER_00: I give tithes of all that I have.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wide path thinking right there, is I am so thankful I am not like the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was just thinking this week you watch on TV and those massive protests, 100,000 people or whatever in in London protesting, just huge crowds that are protesting against Israel, and you think, like, what's actually motivating these protests?
SPEAKER_00: And it appears to be, you know, this slaughter and butcher of innocent people in their homes and killing babies and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: People appear to be protesting in favor of that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's totally deranged and immoral.
SPEAKER_00: And you see that, and it goes through your mind and you think, that's so many people that are just morally broken.
SPEAKER_00: I am so thankful I'm better than those people.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful I'm not that dumb.
SPEAKER_00: The world's filled with those kind of dumb people.
SPEAKER_00: Filled with them.
SPEAKER_00: So thankful I'm not one of them.
SPEAKER_00: That is wide path thinking.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path looks up and down your street.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm so thankful I'm not like all of these neighbors of mine.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at them.
SPEAKER_00: Look at their lives.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that person is this, and that person is this, and the people across the street are that, and those guys are this, and people behind me are that way, and I'm so thankful I'm not like that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're all saying that about you, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're all looking at you going, oh man, I'm so thankful I'm not like those crazy Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Wide path thinking, it fuels you.
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm so thankful I'm not like them, and that just encourages you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Pharisee who says, I'm so thankful I'm not like all these horrible adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: They're they're doing all these terrible things.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're describing the wide path, understand Jesus in describing this way isn't saying, Oh, adultery is actually good.
SPEAKER_00: No, adultery is bad.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the person who thinks, I'm so thankful, I'm just better than that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wide path thinking.
SPEAKER_00: And notice this thinking goes on.
SPEAKER_00: I give.
SPEAKER_00: I give a tithe of all I have.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so sacrificial, I'm so obedient to the jots and the tittles and the yodes and all the details of your law, God.
SPEAKER_00: I have but I abide by everything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful, I'm so obedient to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wide path thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 18, verse 9, the introduction of that parable, is where Jesus gives you the window into the Pharisee's heart.
SPEAKER_00: He Jesus told the parable to illustrate people who trust in themselves that they are righteous.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of that parable.
SPEAKER_00: They trust in themselves that they're righteous.
SPEAKER_00: They look at themselves in the mirror and they say, I am so thankful that I have righteousness in me that is getting me into God's favor, getting me to heaven when I die, because I'm not like those people, I'm not like those people.
SPEAKER_00: I can trust myself a little bit because I'm different than they are.
SPEAKER_00: And it's very religious.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is preaching the sermon to probably the most religious generation that's ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: The scribes and Pharisees, they were fastidious with the Torah, fastidious with the law.
SPEAKER_00: And they're trusting in themselves for their righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: What would that look like today?
SPEAKER_00: You don't go to a synagogue and beat your chest.
SPEAKER_00: What would this kind of religion look like today?
SPEAKER_00: It would look like somebody who goes to church every Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who comes to church, a giant six-story cross on the roof of their church.
SPEAKER_00: They have the same pew they sit in every week.
SPEAKER_00: They serve in a wana.
SPEAKER_00: They help in the parking lot.
SPEAKER_00: They sing in the choir.
SPEAKER_00: They're here all the time.
SPEAKER_00: This is their home.
SPEAKER_00: These are their people.
SPEAKER_00: They're always here.
SPEAKER_00: And they trust in themselves for their righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: They trust in being a good person.
SPEAKER_00: They think the Lord knows how hard I tried.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord knows I do the best with what I have.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord knows.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to look at me and see that I've done the best of what I have, and so that I deserve his favor.
SPEAKER_00: I have righteousness in me because of what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't the Lord know that I serve in a wana?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't the Lord know that I'm always at church?
SPEAKER_00: That's the religion of churchianity, right there, is what that religion is called.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful.
unknown: So
SPEAKER_00: Much so that they trust themselves for their righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: This wide path, it is like putting an air hose in your mouth and pumping it up.
SPEAKER_00: It just makes you bigger.
SPEAKER_00: And you feel like, uh, there's ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the person on the wide path would articulate it this way.
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't say I'm going to heaven when I die because of how good I am.
SPEAKER_00: But what they would say, if in a moment of silence, if they were thinking critically, they would say, I think when it all shakes out, I'm probably just doing better than most people.
SPEAKER_00: And God sees that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand that this contrast here?
SPEAKER_00: This is arguably the most controversial thing Jesus ever says.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of the implications of this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying that the majority of people who have ever lived in the world are on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: This is most of the world are on this wide path.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, later on in Matthew 7, he says, On that day, many will say, the day being judgment, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, notice the word many again.
SPEAKER_00: Many people.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path people will be before Jesus at judgment day, and they will address him as Lord, and they will say, I cast out demons in your name, I did signs and wonders in your name.
SPEAKER_00: I did all kinds of stuff in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So those are people that are associating with Jesus that are on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: They would identify themselves as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They go to church, they call Jesus Lord, and they are self-deceived.
SPEAKER_00: They're going to be stunned when they stand before God for judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Stunned.
SPEAKER_00: And as I said, it looks different in all of its forms.
SPEAKER_00: In some places, it's five pillars, and some seven sacraments, and some it's inward looking, and some it's forward-looking with what my potential is.
SPEAKER_00: There's a thousand varieties of this.
SPEAKER_00: But it all boils down to not denying yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It all boils down to trusting yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It all boils down to your own system.
SPEAKER_00: It has thousands of forms and thousands of names, but underneath it it's your achievement.
SPEAKER_00: It is the inspiration of Satan, and it is bought by people because it tells them that there's something inside of them that deserves eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And it stands in such a contrast to the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path, you live how you want to live.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: There's no boundary lines in the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: You can live however you want to live as long as you're on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, coaching high school soccer.
SPEAKER_00: We'll sometimes do a scrimmage on the soccer field.
SPEAKER_00: I'll turn the field sideways, we'll go across the field, I'll put the goals in the middle along the halfway line, and I'll tell the players there's no boundary lines, there's no sidelines.
SPEAKER_00: You can go as far in any direction as you want to go, the ball will never be out of bounds.
SPEAKER_00: It actually gives me a moment to rest as a coach as they're chasing themselves to eternity and back.
SPEAKER_00: You can't play the game that way, though, for reels.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't play a game with no boundary lines.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine playing a football game with no touchline.
SPEAKER_00: You'd never get tackled.
SPEAKER_00: You could just keep running around the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never run out of bounds.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never cross a line that's too far on the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: As long as you think that you're doing the best you can, you can go wherever you want to on the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: After all, it's your own desires that are motivating you.
SPEAKER_00: Go where you want to go.
SPEAKER_00: Do what you want to do, be what you want to be, come as you are, and live it out the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is so different.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path costs you.
SPEAKER_00: It costs you everything, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path, you don't walk with a carefree attitude.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path, you walk carrying your cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, you want to go through the narrow gate and walk on the narrow path, you deny yourself, you pick up your cross and you follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who's unwilling to carry their cross is unwilling to follow me, not worthy of me, Jesus says, and I will deny them.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is half commitment.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is all in.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is self-fulfillment.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is self-denial.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is live how you want to live.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is confession and repentance all the time.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path, you can't really follow on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path, people fall all the time.
SPEAKER_00: You stumble, you fall, you get up and you stumble and you fall, and you spend your life on a roller coaster trying to follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is whatever you want it to be.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is religion without repentance.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is a life of continual confession and repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's the contrast.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path is free, and everyone's there.
SPEAKER_00: No wrong answers.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path costs you everything, and it's hard, Jesus says in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path is hard.
SPEAKER_00: This leads to the third contrast from the end.
SPEAKER_00: These two paths, the gates are different, the paths are different, and their destination is different.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path leads to heaven, the wide path leads to hell.
SPEAKER_00: Life versus death.
SPEAKER_00: You can't be more different than this.
SPEAKER_00: John 14, verse 6, Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that he is the door.
SPEAKER_00: He is the only way to have access to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And the only people that have access to the Father are those that come through Christ with faith in Christ, self-denial, confessing their sins, recognizing that they are not good enough for eternal life, that they do not have righteousness of their own.
SPEAKER_00: They confess that and they embrace Christ by faith.
SPEAKER_00: And now they live their life, walking, trying to follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they fall, and Jesus helps them up.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they fall, and Jesus encourages them.
SPEAKER_00: They're up and down and they're growing more and more in their knowledge of Christ throughout their life, more and more in their love of Christ throughout their life.
SPEAKER_00: Their whole life is spent seeking after Christ as they're walking a difficult, narrow path, carrying their cross.
SPEAKER_00: And when they die, they open their eyes in heaven and they see the one whom they've loved their life, the one who they've been following on the path, and he receives them.
SPEAKER_00: That's eternal life, is being united with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The wide path, you spend your life without repentance, trusting yourself, thinking you're gonna be in heaven when you die, because after all, when it all shakes out, the Lord knows you did the best you could with what you had available.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that.
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna let you into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You close your eyes in death, you open them up, Jesus sends you to hell.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Lord, I shouldn't be going there.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I don't even know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the first time Jesus has talked about hell in this sermon, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in Matthew 5, he says, when you call your brother a fool, you make yourself liable to hellfire, is his word.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you don't deal with sin in your life, it's better to go into heaven with one hand or with one eye than to be cast into hell with both your hands and eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Later on in Matthew, he's gonna say, hell will destroy your body and your soul.
SPEAKER_00: That's Matthew 10, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: James 3, verse 6 talks about the fire of hell destroying your life.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean annihilation, like you'll suffer in hell and then you'll cease to exist.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
SPEAKER_00: When you die, your soul will be sent to hell for suffering, your body to the grave where it decomposes.
SPEAKER_00: Then at a future point, the Lord will resurrect your body, reconstruct your body, unite your soul with your body, so that he can send body and soul together into hell.
SPEAKER_00: And they will suffer in pain and torment forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what you deserve for your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in your life, when you're on the wide path, you don't know that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the per people on the wide path are deceived.
SPEAKER_00: The sign on the wide path, on the wide gate, does not say this way goes to hell.
SPEAKER_00: No, it says, come as you are and live like you want to live and go for it.
SPEAKER_00: And so you do it and you think you're a good person.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, these people are confident that they are better than other people, confident that God knows that, confident that they will open their eyes in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: But on their way there, God opens the books of their works and confronts them with their sin, tells them how they've sinned, what they deserve.
SPEAKER_00: They won't even be able to deny it.
SPEAKER_00: The things that God tells them, they're guilty of.
SPEAKER_00: So that when God sends them to hell, they won't even be able to say that's not fair or that's not just.
SPEAKER_00: They know it's what they deserve.
SPEAKER_00: They just didn't expect it.
SPEAKER_00: And when I said earlier, this is the most controversial thing Jesus ever said, this is what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_00: There are so many people on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: The majority of people who have ever lived are on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: That's what people don't like about this message.
SPEAKER_00: And they'll try to try to dilute what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: They say, What happens to those who've never believed the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: What happens to those who've never heard the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard that question?
SPEAKER_00: What happens to those who've never heard the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: And they say, Oh, there's gotta be a way for them to have heaven because maybe they see about God from nature and they have something good inside of them that responds to that.
SPEAKER_00: So they see the truth about God and they're like, oh, I'm gonna respond to what little light I have in faith and believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And so there, you can be saved without knowing of Christ based upon something inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: That is wide path logic right there.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what everybody in the world believes that you can be saved based upon something inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: And I have a newsflash for you, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: The majority of people who have ever lived are in that category.
SPEAKER_00: Most people have never heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There are so few who find eternal life, so few who even know where the gate is.
SPEAKER_00: Most people who have ever lived are on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's called the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know where they're going.
SPEAKER_00: They're just heading on their merry way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' rhetorical device here to choose this day whom you'll serve, to enter the narrow gate, not the wide one.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't new.
SPEAKER_00: This is all over the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We read it from Joshua earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 30, Moses' last words to Israel, I set before you a choice.
SPEAKER_00: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today.
SPEAKER_00: You have the choice, life and death, blessing and cursing.
SPEAKER_00: Choose life so that you live, not deaths that you die.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 1, verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, the way of the wicked will perish.
SPEAKER_00: The prophets can be summed up this way.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 21, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh tells Jeremiah, Tell the Israelites, thus says Yahweh, behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a choice.
SPEAKER_00: There's two gates looking at you.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go through one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody by default goes in the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the gate that leads to life.
SPEAKER_00: This leads to the final point of contrast here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a contrast from the invitation.
SPEAKER_00: This is a familiar passage to you, and maybe its familiarity makes it kind of obvious.
SPEAKER_00: You can see the difference in these gates on the outside, the difference in the past on the inside, even the different endings, life or death, that's pretty obvious.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes I think we miss another very important distinction between these two.
SPEAKER_00: There's very different invitations.
SPEAKER_00: You do not need to be invited to go on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't say, hey, there's an invitation, you need to respond to it to be in the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: Your default setting is wide path.
SPEAKER_00: Your factory setting is to go on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be invited there, you're just there.
SPEAKER_00: So everybody else is going, you're just along for the ride.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he warns you about it.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful that you don't end up there, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful you don't end up on the wide path.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast, then, is with the narrow.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives you a specific invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, it's an imperative.
SPEAKER_00: Enter by the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: That's the command.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't command you to enter the wide gate.
SPEAKER_00: He says, enter the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just the nature of that invitation presupposes that you were born on the outside of the gate.
SPEAKER_00: If you could be born on the inside, you wouldn't need this invitation.
SPEAKER_00: No, you are born on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: You're born in a Christian family.
SPEAKER_00: That's great, and that protects you from all kinds of evil in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad for that.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're born on the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: You're still born outside looking in.
SPEAKER_00: You have to enter the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to do.
SPEAKER_00: The same passage, the same concept Jesus teaches in Luke, Luke 13, verse 24, he makes the imperative different.
SPEAKER_00: He says, strive to enter the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: That word strive, agarizomai, it's this internal agonizing, internal agony that produces outward action.
SPEAKER_00: That's this word.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fascinating word.
SPEAKER_00: I chase it down throughout the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: John 18, verse 36, Jesus says, If my kingdom is of this world, my servants would fight for me.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that word.
SPEAKER_00: My servants would agonize over me and go to war for me.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 9, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Every athlete exercises self-control.
SPEAKER_00: It's that word again.
SPEAKER_00: This desire inside of you, the athlete who's running, you know, not the walking on the treadmill, but the athlete's striving and it's like it's maxed out, about to collapse.
SPEAKER_00: There's that agony inside of them that is pushing them forward.
SPEAKER_00: That's producing the fruit of the self-control in their life.
SPEAKER_00: They're struggling and laboring.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1.29, Paul says, For this I labor, same word.
SPEAKER_00: I'm struggling and agonizing with all of God's strength that works within me, he says.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 4.12, Epaphras agonizes in prayers or struggles in prayers, or the ESV translates it contends in prayers.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: Here's this guy that's so like internally burdens that it produces a life of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Probably the best known one is 1 Timothy 6.12.
SPEAKER_00: Fight, the good fight of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That word for fight, that's the word.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word Jesus uses for this gate.
SPEAKER_00: Fight to enter this gate.
SPEAKER_00: Fight.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta push the door open.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to see the door.
SPEAKER_00: Lots of people see the door.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to study the door.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to admire the door.
SPEAKER_00: I heard an interview this week with a noted agnostic, and the interviewer asked him, What do you think of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer the guy gave was so surprising.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jesus is the most remarkable person who's ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: And then he had this very warm description of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going from memory here, so I might get a little bit of it wrong, but such a warm description of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jesus is the most amazing person who ever lived because he often did the opposite of what you expected him to do.
SPEAKER_00: And yet somehow he was always ethical.
SPEAKER_00: He was always right.
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't predict him, but then after he acted in an unpredictable way, you realize that he's the model of virtue and ethics.
SPEAKER_00: There's nobody else like him.
SPEAKER_00: And the interviewer then said, the guy got emotional.
SPEAKER_00: And the interviewer says to the agnostic, It sounds like you admire Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy says, Oh, I do more than admire him.
SPEAKER_00: I miss him.
SPEAKER_00: Warm, affectionate language, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: But he won't walk through the gate.
SPEAKER_00: He admires the gate, he likes the gate, he cries about the gate, he studies the gate, he won't walk through the gate.
SPEAKER_00: And I fear there's so many people here that could fall in the same category.
SPEAKER_00: You've got your church friends and your world friends.
SPEAKER_00: Your church language and your world language.
SPEAKER_00: Your church life and your world life.
SPEAKER_00: And you live over here and you get the foot over here on Sundays and you're back over here and you have confidence in yourself.
SPEAKER_00: One foot in both worlds, you have not entered the gate.
SPEAKER_00: It's worth asking yourself, have you entered the gate?
SPEAKER_00: And you think, I don't know, I'm kind of on the narrow road.
SPEAKER_00: My life is on the narrow road.
SPEAKER_00: I'm more or less in church and doing all these things.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, there's no way onto the narrow road except through the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only possible way to be on the narrow road is you went through the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself, did I ever go through the narrow gate?
SPEAKER_00: Did I ever confess my sins?
SPEAKER_00: Did I ever broken over my lack of righteousness?
SPEAKER_00: Did I ever realize I'm not good enough to merit salvation?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not good enough for God.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing in me that will make me that way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven goes forth by violence.
SPEAKER_00: And the violent take it by force.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: He means that you're supposed to look at your life and say, I don't have what it takes for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have a choice.
SPEAKER_00: You can say, I'm going to keep living with my own moral compass and my own sense of righteousness and do the best I can.
SPEAKER_00: I can do that.
SPEAKER_00: But that way leads to death.
SPEAKER_00: Or you say, I'm going to go to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to plead with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to knock on the door and open the door and beg the Lord to let me in.
SPEAKER_00: Because if he doesn't open the door, there's no way I can have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: I need Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He alone can receive me.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in me that can let the Lord take me into heaven when I there's nothing at all.
SPEAKER_00: I need him and only him.
SPEAKER_00: That's going through the narrow door.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's hard to find.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it'll cost me everything.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that experience?
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to go through the narrow door.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't come to church your whole life.
SPEAKER_00: And never come to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let every Sunday at church just fuel self-righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
SPEAKER_00: Plead with the Lord and turn to Him.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful.
SPEAKER_00: Your word says whoever is thirsty and comes to you, you will have rivers of living water to their heart.
SPEAKER_00: That your spirit seals us through faith and guides us through life.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for anyone here today that has never trusted you.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that today they would put their faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: Today they would turn to you and cry out to you and receive the salvation that comes through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.