Key Verse: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road
that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”
Matthew 7:13
We are now entering the part of Jesus’ sermon in which He addresses
His disciples and lets them know that it is all about choices and discernment. While this concept of the wide and narrow
gate, or path is here in the Sermon on the Mount, we can see from our passage in
Luke, that this was a reoccurring theme, or warning, from Jesus, throughout His
travels. He was very clear about the
fact that we have choices. We choose
what paths to take and we need to recognize that our choices have consequences.
The wide gate obviously represents what is popular and
attractive. It is the path that our eyes
tell us is safe and smooth. It is
appealing to our flesh. Perhaps it
either is, or appears to lead to a life of ease and comfort. Unfortunately, Jesus warns, your eyes are
tricking you. He can see the end, and He
knows that it will only lead to death and destruction.
Jesus is actually using a common theme that was already
popular in Judaism. The thought was, you could have the easy life of a
commoner, or the hard life of a religious person who denies himself for the
sake of piety. Yet, we know what Jesus
thought of the religious person’s piety. He called them hypocrites, actors. They were rich in this life, and headed down
the same, wide road that Jesus was warning against.
The real narrow road was to follow His way, through
difficulties and persecution, but with a reward at the end. In John 14, Jesus will revisit this theme, in
the upper room, with His disciples when He tells them, “I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) The flesh will reject His way because it is
narrow and difficult. Yet, again, Jesus
has seen where the narrow path ends and He knows that it leads to the Father Himself.
It has always been about choices. Even Joshua, in his last address to the people
of Israel, gave this challenge: “Choose
for yourselves this day whom you will serve…As for me and my household, we will
serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15) While the people swore to follow Joshua on the
narrow path, their history is replete with their failure to do so.
The narrow way is not the easy way. However, Jesus has seen the finish line, where
the Father waits for us, making the difficult path well worth the trip. Today, we have the cultural mores of relativism
and tolerance that make it difficult to be exclusive. We hear the calls around us to accept the
thought that there are many roads that lead to God, that God can be known by
many names and that to deny such is to be bigoted and narrow minded.
We will see later, however, that Jesus claims for Himself to
be the only way, truth and life for His people. (John 14:6) He, the one who calls for us to take the
narrow road, will claim exclusive rights to the way to the Father. We wish to be tolerant. We are told by those around us that, the
loving thing is to let people be comfortable in their beliefs about the way to
God and heaven. Jesus, however, was not
so laid back. He cared that the right
way be found. He offered to be the
guide. If we are followers of Him, can
we do less and be complacent in letting people die and go to hell in their
comfortable beliefs? In love, we must
shine His light on the way. Choose the
narrow path. It is a hard road of
discipline, but in following it, you will emerge like Him at the other end.
Hymn: “All The Way My Savior Leads
Me”
And traditional All the way My Savior Leads Me
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