June 8, 2003
Matthew 7:13-14: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, and
broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But
small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find
it."
As we come to this passage, and in fact to the rest of these verses that
compose the Sermon on the Mount, I want to reiterate a couple of things that
we need to have clearly in mind as we look at the concluding statements of
Jesus in what we call the Sermon on the Mount.
I told
you what one of my sophomore girls wrote in Bible class. We had been reading
some of the C. S. Lewis series called The Chronicles of Narnia, and I asked the students to
write about Aslan, the character in the story that represents Jesus Christ.
The question I had them write about was this: What is the favorite quality
you have discovered about Aslan, and why is it your favorite?
A girl wrote this in response: "The character quality I like best about
Aslan is his friendliness. Although he is powerful, he comes down to everyone
else’s level. He loves others and enjoys spending time with them. If Aslan’s
character was real, I would fall in love with him the minute I met him.
He would probably be the kind of friend that I would never want to be away
from, and I would bawl my eyes out if he ever left me."
Such is the compelling nature of the character Aslan portrays.
The truth is that Jesus, as he spent the months and years walking the Judean
roads calling disciples and healing the sick and proclaiming that the kingdom
of God had come among men, was exactly that compelling. When people encountered
Jesus, what men and women alike thought in their hearts was something akin
to what my student wrote about Aslan. Only with Jesus, this "something"
was real. This was the way a man actually lived and impacted people. People
must have said about Jesus, "He is the sort of person that when you meet
him, you fall in love with him. He is on our level but at the same time exhibits
a completely different kind of life. He is the kind of friend that once you
know him you never want him to leave."
If Jesus was not this compelling, how can we explain why ordinary fishermen
and tax collectors wanted to hang with him?
Why would crowds flock to him under the most difficult circumstances just
to hear him speak?
Why would irreligious people of his day, who would not cross the road to
hear a rabbi, go out of their way to hear him?
Why would people who had been flatly rejected, condemned and written off
by the religious people of the day, want to hang with this man and hear what
he had to say?
And what is the reason we would follow him today? We are likewise compelled
to do so. Why? Because in Him is life. And we must have that life. At ANY
cost. And that life is only in Him. This was not a new legalism. And the people
knew that, and that is why they listened. That is why they were compelled.
The teachers of the law basically taught that if you were circumcised, were
zealous about keeping their rules about the Sabbath, and stayed away from
the wrong people, you were in. You were chosen. You were blessed. If you
were greedy, full of lust, obsessed with power, and lived your life to make
a good show, it didn’t matter. Just so you were circumcised, zealous about
the rules, and stayed away from the wrong people. I hope that I have convinced
you that we must not think that the Sermon on the Mount is merely the new
legalism. We must not hear it as Jesus substituting a new set of things
we have to do to be accepted by God.
At Easter I zeroed in on what the resurrection actually meant to the disciples.
First, we considered some of what we knew about these 12 men:
--Some were common fishermen.
--At least one was a tax collector, who was scorned by his fellow Jews as
a traitor. Tax collectors worked for Rome, which occupied Israel and taxed
them.
--At least one, and probably more, were people of strong political persuasion--one
of them was even referred to as Simon the Zealot.
And these were not men for whom there had been a nationwide search for the
best and the brightest. These men were not selected after a religious version
of American Idol. They had won no talent contests.
Jesus picked people he knew, or people who knew people whom he knew. Many
of them knew each other and had histories together long before they were
known as "the twelve." Some were related to Jesus. There were two sets of
brothers. Simon Peter and Andrew. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
Simon Peter was in the fishing business with James and John. Philip and Nathaniel
(also known as Bartholomew), were friends, and Philip and the two brothers
Andrew and Simon Peter were all from the same town of Bethsaida, so it would
be like saying today that they all graduated from high school together. They
were diverse and ordinary. Much like you and me.
Consider what these 12 disciples saw and experienced for 3 years:
They knew a man who had insight into life and people, and in particular
into their life and their personhood like no one they had ever experienced.
They lived with a man who was characterized by deep joy and peace, who cared
for people and who carried a unique burden for the happiness of others.
They spent time with a man who was one-of-a-kind authentic.
There never found a discrepancy, or gap, between what he said and what he
did.
They were shown a continual display of miraculous power.
They saw people raised from sick beds, from crippling diseases, from blindness,
and even from death.
They saw a man of incredible purity, a man who was the same day in and day
out, even though the life he lived was under withering pressure from all fronts.
They saw this man bestow and declare people forgiven for things they had
done, not to him, but to other people.
On several occasions, they witnessed Jesus command the natural elements.
On one occasion, when he has calmed a storm with his words, they said something
that was really almost a daily thing they pondered for all 3 years: Who is
this? HE commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him.
But perhaps more than anything else they knew a man who was alive. Alive
to God. Alive to the people and creation around him. Alive to beauty, and
goodness and love.
He was alive as they knew deep in their souls they wanted to be alive. When
he was near, they tasted new life.
After experiencing this kind of life for three years and then seeing
Jesus breathe his last on the cross, the disciples thought that the new life
they had experienced was over. 40 days later, when they finally understood,
they knew that this new life was not over at all; in truth, it was just beginning--and
it would go on forever.
I bring
all this back to your minds because we all must understand that when Jesus
is talking about walking in the narrow way, he is not talking about a new
legalism. He is talking about a narrow way in the context of a whole new
vision of life. For that is just what he has given us. He has given us a
new vision of what our lives can be. Consider something! Do you have a real
vision for your life that is in keeping with what Jesus just outlined? For
if you do not, you cannot possibly understand what Jesus means in these last
parts of his sermon, including His warning about walking in the narrow way.
Let me illustrate what I mean by looking at the story of a man who encountered
Jesus. Turn to John 5:1-9:
Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is
called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here
a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw
him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long
time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
“Sir,” the
invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is
stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the
man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
When
Jesus asks the man if he wanted to get well, he was not necessarily asking
him a rhetorical question. The answer might have not been as easy to answer
for the man as you think.
Think about it. This man has been in this condition for 38 years! Think
about the inner change that now confronts him after experiencing the outer
healing of his limbs. Now, to his relatives and friends, he will no longer
be the ‘poor cripple’ whom they have had to help now and again. What will
he do now? Get a job? Doing what? His mind has not even thought in these
terms at all. This will be a completely new thing to deal with. How will
he now see himself? He will now be...who? And what? As he stands now on his
new strong legs, and pictures himself in his mind, how will he now see himself?
But think about the vision of life that Jesus has laid down for us in this
sermon thus far. Does the man who was healed that day have a greater problem
with self-identity than we do when we consider that vision of life that Jesus
has set before us? Isn’t this new life at least as different for us? When
we compare our new life to the life we have learned at home, in our work,
and in our play for as many years as we have been alive, is our experience
really so different than the experience of new life this man now contemplated--a
life without being a cripple?
What would our lives be like if we were to become meek--the kind of people
whose first impulse would be to show mercy to people around us rather than
to criticize them and find fault with them?
What would our lives be like if we could set aside judging people harshly
and become people who could be gracious to the people we care about the most
and who would not try to push our pearls on them?
What would our lives be like if we had a heart that was not easily offended
by what people did to us, if we could actually show love to people who abuse
and manipulate us?
What would our lives be like if we stopped being obsessed with what other
people thought of us and became more interested--in the most positive way
imaginable--with what God thinks of us at any given moment in the day?
What would our lives be like if our religious activities were drained of
performance approval, and we lived in honesty and transparency before God?
What if we stopped thinking all the time, "What will we eat?" and "What
will we wear?"
What would our lives be like if we were not always taken up by lust of the
eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life?
Surely, the vision of life that Jesus has laid out for us here is at least
as revolutionary to us as the life this man faced as he walked for the first
time. Remember, too, that the vision of life that Jesus has laid out for
us turned on its head the religious instruction of the day, which severely
limited who could be blessed of God. Only the rich, only the people who had
it together, only the people with the right pedigree, only the people who
could keep all the outward rules, only the people who knew their Bible--only
such people as these could be blessed of God. Jesus threw all of that out.
He said that all kinds of people with all kinds of problems; people who mourn
over their past sins, wasted lives, and devastating circumstances; people
who are poor in spirit--all kinds of people--could now, through their confidence
in Jesus, enter into the Jesus kingdom. And there they will live in close
connection with God.
People talk about inclusiveness today. Jesus wrote the book on inclusiveness.
Figuratively and literally. Now, keeping all of that in mind, Jesus begins
to talk about narrowing. Matthew 7:13-14 says, "Enter through the narrow
gate. For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction,
and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that
leads to life, and only a few find it."
First of all, Jesus is not making suddenly making the kingdom exclusive.
He is not negating everything he has said. He is telling us that He has outlined
for us a new way of living in His kingdom, a new vision he wants us to embrace.
Understand something. Because the world around
you does not embrace and value this vision, you have to realize that to
live out this vision, you will have to walk to the beat of a different drummer.
When Jesus talks about this way being narrow, and not being the direction
or path most people will be walking, he simply is warning us that if we
are going to live this vision, we will not simply drift into it. And we
cannot just drift along if we are to continue make progress and realize
more and more the reality of that vision for our lives.
But be careful here--this is not a return to a new legalism.
I could take you to almost any denomination, and I could identify a way
of looking at this warning that has become a new legalism. So for some, taking
the narrow road would be not going to movies, not drinking, not dancing, or would be any number
of "nots" to avoid. Now, without in any way negating that, following Christ
will require you to eschew certain practices or to stay away from certain
situations, I want to emphasize that this sort
of prescription for righteousness is similar to the destructive Pharisee
sort of righteousness that Jesus' message in the Sermon on the Mount--indeed
his whole life and ministry--refutes.
Another denomination might tell us that the narrow road is making sure
we believe and understand the right doctrines. But again, if this is what
is in view here, then why is it that many of the religious leaders of Jesus'
day had a lot of the right doctrines? They believed a lot of the right
things about God,
and yet these right doctrines, in themselves, were powerless to keep them
from plotting the murder of Jesus. This is why it is so important to keep
in clearly in mind what the vision is, because if we don’t, we will be very
mistaken about what constitutes the narrowness of the road and what it is
we are to resist.
Usually, the interpretation given in this passage concerns heaven and hell.
The narrow road leads to heaven. The broad road leads to hell. Certainly,
there are ultimate ramifications here. But Jesus does not say heaven or hell.
He says destruction or life.
This is why the vision Jesus gives us of His life for us is so much more
than just forgiveness of sins. And when I say just forgiveness of sin, I don’t mean
just in the
sense of being of little importance; I am using just to denote a means to an end.
Christ made provision for us not just so we could be forgiven, not
just so we
can stay on the narrow road that leads away from hell.
Forgiveness was necessary and is necessary so that we can have life. Life
is the vision. Life is what we want. Life is what we need. Life is what Jesus
offers. Remember, the kingdom of God Jesus is announcing here to us is the
good news that we can live our whole lives, from this moment on, in the immediate
presence and power of Jesus Christ. Every moment of every day. Forgiveness
is of course necessary if we are going to have a life together with God.
Let me try to say it another way. If we think the gospel is just an arrangement
for the forgiveness of sins so that we can go to heaven, while the real
person of Jesus Christ, on a day to day basis, is simply irrelevant to our
present existence, then we have missed the point. We have not really understood
the vision. We have made the means an end in itself. The issue thus far,
as concerns Jesus, is whether we are alive to Him or dead to Him. Do we
now and will
we continue
to walk with Him in an interactive relationship that constitutes a new kind
of life? This sense of that what God is doing to our every day lives is
irrelevant, weakens so many Christian lives today. So often as Christians
we have been taught that God is the type of God who thinks it is appropriate
to transfer credit from Christ’s merit to us if he inspects our minds and
finds that we believe a certain truth about Christ’s atonement on the cross
even if we do not trust God with our lives from day to day. If we act on this mistaken belief,
then the narrowness that Jesus talks about here will end up just being another
legalism. Our faith becomes just another list of things to strive after--so
that we can be sure we are going to heaven.
What is missing is that we don’t really have the vision that Jesus has given
us.
Dawson Trotman was the man who started the Christian organization called
The Navigators, which is a worldwide Christian discipleship organization,
especially active on many college campuses. When you read about Dawson Trotman’s
life, you will recognize that he was a man was alive to God. He had great
faith. He without doubt had the vision of life that Jesus sets forth here.
And when he was a new Christian, one of the things that became a great blessing
to him and helped him to progress in the Christian life was the use of scripture
memorization.
When I was in college, and a brand new Christian, I knew some people who
were in the Navigator organization. I got to know
one person quite well. But this young man, while very impressive to me in
a certain way as a Christian, I now understand was under a great weight of
condemnation and oppression. I think I now understand why.
This young Christian man had never caught the vision of life from Jesus.
He had learned the principles the Navigators taught, and he had bent every
power of discipline and intent and desire toward following those principles.
He memorized a myriad of scriptures. He witnessed regularly at his workplace.
He was known as a "holy Joe" where he worked.
He had quiet times religiously.
But with all of that, what I remember most about him is that I never really
enjoyed being around him. He never seemed very happy. And after I had spent
time with him, I remember having being aware of a nebulous sense of guilt--which
was quickly followed by a personal sense of failure in my Christian life.
I noticed that being around him never made me more excited about being a
Christian, but usually less so.
What was wrong with my friend? He was a Christian. He was zealous – that’s
for sure. My friend never understood the vision. He never understood that
what Jesus wanted for him was to have life. Jesus
wanted this young man to know what it means to walk day by day through life
in interactive fellowship with Him.
In contrast, I think that people who spent time with Dawson Trotman found
a man who was alive to God. So, then, how do we account for the difference
between Dawson Trotman and the young man? After all, hadn't the young man
joined the organization Dawson had started? And
wasn't he diligently and earnestly practicing the very things Dawson, through
his organization, had taught him to do?
What happened is that Dawson had the vision of life while my friend did
not. For my friend, all of his efforts were an end in themselves; they had
become the essentials. Either he never understood
or he had forgotten that all his conscientious work was meant only to help
him to experience the life of Jesus Christ.
Incidentally, this is no criticism of The Navigators, because this kind
of thing happens in every Christian organization and in every church. People
fail to understand the vision, and, like this young man, they make the means
or the disciplines or the particular emphases of that organization or church
an end in themselves. And so they never really have the vision. They never
understand that they are to experience Christ’s life day to day and moment
to moment.
A Christian college president devoted one of his quarterly letters to the
topic, "What makes Christians so mean to each other so often?" He quotes
numerous well-known Christian leaders on this theme and adds
As a leader of a Christian organization, I feel the brunt of just this
kind of meanness within the Christian community, a mean-spirited suspicion
and judgment that mirrors the broader culture. Every Christian leader I know
feels it…It is difficult to be a Christian in a secular world…But, you know,
it is sometimes more difficult to be a leader in Christian circles. There,
too, you can be vilified for just the slightest move that is displeasing
to someone.
Similarly,
Dawson Trotman writes that "Christians are routinely taught by example and
word that it is more important to be right than it is to be Christ-like.
In fact, being right licenses you to be mean, and, indeed requires you to
be mean--righteously mean of course. You must be hard on people who are
wrong." What is really going on here? We have been taught that being right
is the end thing. We have been taught that this is what God values. If we look where God is greatly at work in our world,
we'll find that there's something important going on in our world right
now that should give us an indication of how wrong this idea of being right is. God
is moving greatly in the continent of Africa--and in South America as well.
Many, many people have been swept into the kingdom of God. Yet if we were to closely examine the theology being
taught at the heart of these movements, most of us here would probably be
pretty uncomfortable. But God doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.
In other words, God is less picky than many of us. On the other hand, I
have noticed that within the movements and organizations that I think are
the most right doctrinally, I see little indication of God's exceptional
blessings on their efforts.
Is it good to be right? Certainly. But being right is only important so
long as it produces the kind of life Jesus envisions for us. If rightness
becomes and end in itself, then, from what I have observed, it produces
almost the exact opposite. Almost invariably,
it produces people with many of the characteristics that Jesus warns us
against in this sermon. It produces people who might well be ready to die
yet who are not ready to live. Such people can rarely get along with other
people. Their lives are a series of broken relationships.
You probably know many people like this. You will have personally
observed that their friendships don’t last very long because sooner or later
they will have found out that you, their friend, are not right about something. Often their
most intimate relationships are characterized by mutual harm, by condemnation,
by manipulation, by coldness and resentment. They are obsessed with what
other people think of them. They become angry if anyone thinks they are wrong
about anything, if anyone thinks their actions are improper. What they have
been taught, and what they have believed, is a way to be "Christian" without
being "Christ-like."
So what does Jesus mean by the narrow road?
What is he warning us against?
Jesus is telling us that the broad way, the way to be avoided, is what leads
to a heart condition and to actions that will lead us to destruction. In other
words, we need to go back and examine the things Jesus talks about in this
sermon and to stay away from the things he warns us against. Instead we need
to cultivate the things he sets before us. If we do that, we will find the
narrow way.
This same warning, as we would expect, is not peculiar to this passage;
it appears often in the New Testament. Turn with me to 2 Peter 1:3-11. This
passage might be considered a condensed Sermon on the Mount. First, let's
examine 3-4: "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and
godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and
goodness."
He
calls us by the compelling nature of His life and person.
Through
these he has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through
them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption
in the world caused by evil desires. Participating in the Divine Nature,
then, is what Jesus says the Kingdom is all about. We actually are invited
to live in interactive connection with him.
As verses 5-7 tell us, "For this very reason, make every effort to add to
your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge self-control;
and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to
godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love."
These very characteristics can be traced to all the things Jesus teaches
in the Sermon on the Mount. They are all about the transformation of our hearts
into a Kingdom kind of righteousness. Notice that in verse 5, we see the
warning about the narrow way. Peter says to "Make every effort." In other
words, put all your effort into becoming this kind of person, and this means
of course avoiding the influences and ideas that will lead us in a different
direction.
Then we come to verses 8-9:
"For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure [keep walking
the narrow road], they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive
in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them,
he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from
his past sins."
In other words, focusing on Christlikeness will keep us on the path, ensuring
that our lives count for the Kingdom. Conversely, if we practice a kind of
Christianity that is without Christlikeness, it shows we have missed the point
and the path.