Entering the Narrow Gate of God's Kingdom

I read this week that they'd done a survey and 75% of the people in this country say that they pray. I'm sure that some of those people, I'm getting a ringing here, if you guys can alert to that. I'm sure that some of those people who pray are discouraged because a lot of people think that anything you ask of God anywhere in the world, that God does it. God makes a promise of answered prayer to his own people, people who are part of the kingdom of God. So many people are asking for things from God like, well, God help me with decisions I need to make and God provide the things I need in my life and God protect me from the things that are the problems that I'm having around me. Those are promises God makes to his covenant people that he will do. He doesn't make that promise to everyone in the world, just those who have surrendered their lives to his authority and his concern and his care. The Bible helps us to understand the people to whom God has made this promise. Jesus in Matthew chapter 7 was talking to his own disciples about the relationship he had with them and what it meant to become a part of the kingdom of God. In Matthew chapter 7, I want to begin reading with verse 13. Jesus is defining for us the entryway into the kingdom of God. How do you know that you're a part of God's kingdom? He said, 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. Jesus is defining for us the key ingredient to what he's talking about is the kingdom of God. It's not easy to enter the kingdom of God. He uses this analogy of a gate that's very narrow where you have to squeeze through it. He uses this image of a road that's narrow that's not a four-lane highway or a six-lane highway. It's one of those trails that you have to walk on. He's describing for us that the kingdom of God is not easy to enter. And the rest of that is that it is easy to live your life in this world without the kingdom of God. But he does not define for us exactly what the gate is in that passage. Skip down in that chapter 7 to verse 21. He says now, he's starting to explain to us exactly what the gate is that he's talking about. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord—now, the word Lord in the Bible is not just a title. It's a reference to the authority and power of God. You are in charge, and I am your subject. You are the boss, and I follow your direction and instruction. So it's not just that a person calls God by the title Lord or Master. That's not significant. It's not words that get you in the kingdom of heaven. I know some people that say, well, you can't enter in the kingdom of heaven until you've prayed the sinner's prayer, and you have to pray that prayer and that one alone. Words do not get you into the kingdom of heaven. Not just saying the word Lord, Lord is sufficient. And yet not everyone who says to me, Master, Master, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. You can call someone your master, but the real ingredient that shows whether or not that's true is whether you listen to the words of your boss or your master and you do what they tell you to do. Jesus points to the idea that the kingdom of God is not about words, but is it instead about what you do. The words are important to us because it's the promise that we make. But the key ingredient is, do we keep that promise? Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers. The strange thing that Jesus says here is, I'm going to have at the last day of judgment preachers who come to me and say, I know that I'm ready to enter the kingdom of God because of all the great sermons that I preached. I know that I should get in the kingdom of God because I've been a preacher. But Jesus says to them, no, you're not going to make it. He doesn't say that because they didn't say the words Lord, Lord, or Master, but because their ministry and their life was not surrendered to the authority of God. It's possible for a pastor to prepare a sermon to impress people. It's possible for a pastor to prepare a sermon that he thinks will make him famous and popular. It's possible for a pastor to be focused on the approval of people. All of that is contrary to saying, God, what do you want me to say? He's talking here about someone who has been successful in the world's eyes. He's talking about someone who the world might have looked up to. We've all seen in our own history of this world that there have been famous pastors or preachers on television who had great careers and drew large audiences. But whenever the cover was rolled back, their own life did not reflect submission and obedience to God. He's not suggesting that everyone has to be perfect before he accepts them. But what he says is, you must be determined to let me be the ruler of your life. You must say to me, I accept your authority as the Lord and the master of my life, and I plan from this moment on to live in obedience to you. Even a preacher can fall into that trap. Everybody wants to be liked. Everybody wants to have people approve of what you do. But what Jesus said was, the kingdom of God is a narrow gate and the road is narrow. The world wants to walk through a wide gate and down a wide road. And there's a great temptation to try to do things that please people. And so you compromise as you teach or you preach the Bible to make sure that it appeals to the people who are out there who are not interested in the kingdom of God or subjecting themselves to God's authority. And when the time comes, if you've done all the work that you've done in the church, that people will think you're a wonderful person and everybody will like you, you will find that God will say you did not focus on the will of God. You focused on what people thought about you. And I was really not the Lord of your life. You can point to the things that have happened as a result of your ministry and say, great powerful things have taken place. Look how many wonderful miracles have been performed. But I know through all of that, that you never said, Lord, what do you want me to do? I know through all of that, that I spoke to you about what I wanted, but you said, no, I want to do the things that will draw the crowd, that will make people like me. And so in the end, I never controlled your life. He didn't mean by this. He didn't know their name. He didn't know who they were. He didn't know where they were. He knew all that. What he meant to say to them is, I did not know you as my subject. You called me boss, but you didn't work for me. You call me master, but you did not do what I told you. You said that I was the Lord, but really you were the Lord of your own life. I did not know you as one of my children. So Jesus begins to unfold for us exactly what it means to have a narrow road. I want to read another passage of scripture from Matthew chapter 16, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles. Jesus expands the idea of exactly what it means to go through the gate into this narrow gate. What is this gate really all about? What is the boundary that keeps us outside the kingdom of God or allows us to go into the kingdom of God? Jesus is defining this to his disciples. He's talking to them about who he is and he asked them, who do people say that I am? They say some of the great prophets and they said, who do you say that I am? Peter said, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus begins then to talk about exactly what it meant for him to be the master, the Lord, because he was uniquely dependent on doing exactly what the father said to him. He set an example for us as to exactly how God wanted to do things. Verse 21, from the time on when Jesus, when Peter confessed he was the Lord, the Messiah that had come, from that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hand of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, that he must be killed and on the third day raised to life. What Jesus is exemplifying for his disciples is this, I am living in submission and obedience to the father, just like I'm asking you to. I have entered this narrow gate, the narrow gate of submission to everything the father tells me to do. Here is what he's asked of me. He's asked me not to live a long life in this world, but he's asked me to give my life and die for him. So I'm going to Jerusalem as the father has directed me, I will die there as the father has asked me to do. This is the narrow gate. I will give everything I have in submission and obedience to the father. Peter who was listening to this, took him aside and rebuked Jesus, never Lord, he said, this shall never happen to you. Now Peter was filled with the ideas of the Jewish nation that he'd grown up in, that the Messiah would come and he'd be a great and powerful figure, powerful political figure, a powerful military figure. And now Jesus is talking about the Messiah's role as a person who's defeated and killed. Peter was thinking about Jesus' role from what he'd understood from people to say, not what the father had said Jesus should do. Jesus replied to him, Jesus turned to Peter and said, out of my sight, Satan. He called Peter the devil. Now Peter was not demonic, he was an enemy of Jesus, but what Jesus was pointing to was The thoughts that he had about the kingdom of God were not the thoughts of God. They were the broad road. You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. What Peter was doing was looking at the role of the Messiah, not from the eyes of God, but he was looking at the role of the Messiah from the eyes of human beings. Jesus calls this demonic because it is Satan who tells us the road is plenty wide. Make your own choices. Do what you think is right. God will let you do it. He's a kind and generous God. That's all satanic thinking, he said. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Here Jesus defines the narrow gate. What does it mean to enter the kingdom of heaven? You must say to God, I'll do whatever you ask me to do. Did Jesus long to get on the cross? Not at all. He didn't want that, but the Father said, this is what I need you to do. When he discovered what the will of the Father was, he had to say, I can either take hold of my life and keep it, or live in obedience to God and give it away. He did exactly what he's asking the disciples to do, to deny yourself. I would love to live in this world and see more things that I could do for the Father, but he's told me this is my role. So I accept what the Father's asked of me. I have to deny my desires. I have to deny my own wisdom. I have to deny my feelings and say to God, if this is what you've asked of me, you are my master and you are my Lord, and I will do exactly what you tell me. I deny not only what I would like, but I am prepared to do what you ask me to do, regardless of the pain or difficulty that it might bring to me, that's taking up your cross. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and live, he said to Peter, like I am living. This is the narrow gate. There is no way to compromise this passage. This is what God demands for entry into the kingdom of God. You must be prepared to do whatever I ask you to do in whatever way I ask you to do it. Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. Jesus is simply saying, when you do what the Father asked you to do, you're going to face some losses. It may be friends, it may be money, it may be time, but you are going to have to give him what he asked of you and you're going to lose some things. But whatever you lose, in the end, when you look back over your life, you will say, it was a gain for me. I do not grieve about what I've given, for I find in giving it, I have gotten more than I ever gave. What good will it be for a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his own soul? Jesus says that in this passage, the cost will be great to you. But he promises that the kingdom of God will be the result that will come from it. Now when Jesus was talking about these things, he was emphasizing or telling us that there is going to be great cost in entering God's kingdom. Later on in the book of Luke, I want to read from Luke chapter 18, if you'd like to find that in your Bibles. Jesus has just finished in Luke's story what was found in Matthew, asking Peter who did he say he was. And he said, you're the Messiah, the one that's sent by the Father. Now in this story, Jesus defines for us a little bit about what it means to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him. He's wanting us to get a clear picture of what self-denial and the cross is. What will it cost you to enter the kingdom of heaven? And he gives us some examples of people who were a part of the ministry of Jesus. In verse 18 of chapter 18, a certain ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good, Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone. You know the commandment, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and your mother. The man came to Jesus and called him good. Now only God is the one that we're to obey above everybody else. Jesus said to him, you know only God is good. So if you're calling me good, you're saying to me that I am the messenger of God. I am the one who will tell you what God wants you to do. So these words now are the words from God to you and you've acknowledged that. Then he started saying to him, here are the words God gave and he starts quoting some of the Ten Commandments. But you'll notice as he quotes them that he's talking about not the beginning of the Ten Commandments, but those that are farther down that deal with the relationships we have with people. Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and your mother. Now the man, when he heard this, could say openly and plainly, I have tried to do these all of my life. Some of the commandments he was willing to do. Now the road that is narrow and the gate that is narrow means that all of the commandments are required of you. He was willing to say, I've kept these things that are comfortable to me and pleasant to me and now I'm proud of it, but I know that there is something missing. He said he had kept them from the very beginning. Jesus, and when Jesus heard this, he said to him, you are lacking one thing. Sell everything you have, give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come and follow me. Jesus was not saying that if you give all of your money away, it is adequate for you to get in the kingdom of heaven. Remember he started this by saying, you call me good. You say that I am the Lord, I am God, and I'm giving you instructions. Now if you keep the very first commandment, you're to love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. There's to be no other God but Him, then I am God talking to you, and what I'm telling you is, I want you to sell the things you have, give it away, and come and follow me. He was interested in pointing out to this man that he was not prepared to do everything God wanted him to do. He was only prepared to do the things he wanted to do that God told him he should do. He wanted to be selective. I look at all the things God wants me to do, and these, with my parents and the people around me, I want to be popular with them, and I want to have a good relationship with all the people around me, so I'm willing to do these. But when God asked me to do something that is not what I want to do, that is costly to me, that is difficult for me, I stop and say, no, I don't want to do that. Jesus, in a very powerful way, pointed to him to say, you have not surrendered everything in your life to me. You are not allowing me to be in control of your life. And now the man is stuck. I'd like to be able to do everything God tells me, but he's asking me to do something that will be too costly to me. And sadly, he turned and walked away. What does it cost to enter the kingdom of God? It costs you everything that God asks of you. For this man, it was his money. God said, do you love me more than your money? Now you can make a choice. When I ask you to let me be the master and Lord of your life, I ask you to be obedient. And what God does is he searches in the lives of all of us who want to make this promise for the one thing in our life that is more important to us than him. He's not satisfied until everything in our life is surrendered to his authority. In Luke chapter 9, Jesus goes through, or Luke reports, a series of events in Jesus' encounter with people. He's wanting us to understand what it costs different people to follow him. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, chapter 9, verse 57, as we were walking, as they were walking along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus had been teaching him, and he was caught up in this great thing that God was trying to do. And he said, I'm ready to go now with you. Jesus said, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Now in those days, a man who grew up in a family, all the Israelite people had land given to them, and they owned their property. And anyone who lived in a community or a family, they had land, which was a certain source of income for them. They would build their houses in ways in which, like a compound. And whenever a man got old enough to get a wife, he got a wife, he built another room on the compound. So there in that compound were the most important people in his life. This was the source of his income, the ground that he lived, that they were owned. These were the people who would help him all the time. He didn't have to worry about babysitters, didn't have to worry about somebody to help him when he was sick, because all around the compound were his family. If he ever ran short of money, this is where he could get it from his family. If he got sick, there were people there who would take care of his business or his family, whatever he needed. This was security. Most people in Jesus' day never traveled more than 10 miles from their home. So here's a man who hears Jesus preaching, and he said, I want to follow you. Jesus said, well, I'm going to promise you something. If you're preparing to follow me, it will cost you the security that means so much to you. Are you prepared to leave your family, your home, your job, the people who support you? Be careful to understand that when you make the promise to follow me, it will be costly to you. So not only does it cost us to say, God, here's my life and here's my money, we also have to say to God, here is my security, the things I depend on to make my life full and complete. He said to another man, now he's teaching them, I want you to follow me. The man replied, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. Now, it was required of someone in those biblical times to be the person that was responsible. Once your father died, the young man in the home was to take all responsibility for the funeral, settling the estate, making sure all these things are done. It was kind of a community event. If you didn't do it, it was an insulting thing to do to your family. But Jesus said, I want you to come and walk with me and learn what I'm teaching and learn to follow me. The man said, I'd be glad to do that, but I have a great obligation to my family. What Jesus said was, when I give you a command, it's to take precedence even over your family. Start following God. His will is prominent over everything in your life, even your family. Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead. You go and proclaim the kingdom of God, which is what I've called you to do. Another man said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me go back and say goodbye to my family. Jesus replied, no one puts his hand to the plow and looks back as fit for the service in the kingdom of God. I'm willing to serve you, God, but I need to go back to my family and make sure it's okay with them. He said, when I give you a command, it's not a matter of whether or not other people approve of it. I expect you to do what I tell you to do. The narrow gate that Jesus talked about was not words that we say. We can say I give my life to Christ, we can say I surrender myself to him, we can say I love him. But he said, what I really look for is whether or not I really own your life. Will you go where I want you to go? Will you give me what I ask from you? Will you put my priorities above the priorities of your family, your job, and everything else in your life? I would like to say to you that if you say, I give my life to Jesus, and you pray a sinner's prayer, you'll be assured that when you stand before God, he'll say, come on in. But I can't do that to you. For what God looks at is whether or not you have submitted your own life and your behavior to the authority of God. Are you prepared to do whatever God asks of you? Will you give him whatever amount of time he asks you for? We need people to help teach our young men and our youth area. And whenever you hear that announcement in church and you think, well, I could do that, and you think, well, of all the other things I would have to stop in my life or change, you have a choice to make. Now, the choice that you make has to do with whether or not your boss, God, is really in charge, or whether you think that those are merely suggestions that God might make to you, and you have the freedom to say, do I like this? Do I want this or not? You don't, if you've entered the narrow gate. It is narrow. There is no compromise with regard to this. I don't want you to stand before God in the last day and say, well, you know, I thought all this time as long as I got baptized and prayed the sinner's prayer and said I gave my life to Jesus, I'd have it made. I didn't realize that all those things that you told me to do that I didn't want to do, that I was supposed to do them, because it reflected whether or not you were really the Lord of my life. But that's the case. Jesus meant it when he said there are few who will enter, because surrendering everything in your life is a tremendous sacrifice. What Jesus tells us is, it was for me and it will be for you. But I can only tell you that if you live this life, you will find life in its fullness. Words do not get you into the kingdom of heaven. Promises do not get you there. It is allowing God to take control of your life, shape the values that you hold, shape the language that you use, shape the use of your money, to shape the way that you treat people around you. Only then have you found that narrow gate. Jesus indicated that there would be few people that would be interested in this message. So the burden on us as followers of Christ is to try to entice the world into the kingdom of God by broadening the message, by toning it down, by softening it, by making a promise to people that they don't really have to do all these things. But you don't get into heaven by making a promise to me or to a church, but by making a promise to God. And what Jesus is saying to us is, salvation doesn't come when you pray a prayer. It doesn't come when you say, I want Jesus to save me. It doesn't come when you say, I'd like to go to heaven. It comes when you say, I lay my life down in the hands of God. Whatever he asks of me, I trust him so much that I think of whatever sacrifice he requires of me is a small price for the life in this world and forever. That's why you have to trust God, because he asks things of us that may seem destructive and even deadly, as in Jesus' case. But what he promises is life in all of its fullness. That's why it takes faith. Do you trust God so that whatever he asks of you, you would willingly give, believing that the life that he promised is worth the trade? Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? I want to ask you in a moment, if this is a time for you, God has spoken to you and let you know that there are some things that you promised him when you said, I give my life to you withheld from me. Sometimes we do that because we don't trust God enough. It's not uncommon for people, when they become a follower of Christ, to say, well, I'm going to become a follower of Christ, but here are some things I'm not going to do. And we do that because we think, from human terms, I couldn't do them. What God asks is we close our eyes and hold back and just start trying anyway. And then we discover his power to help us. Many of you may have experienced that. Learning step by step, you found the power of God. Maybe this time he's told you another one. You've never done this before, working with youth, but now here is this opportunity. I can think of a bunch of reasons why I shouldn't. Only one why I should. In my heart, God is saying, this is your assignment. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and do it. Maybe you've never made that promise to God. It may sound scary to give up so much to him, but he promises more than what you give up. He promises life in all of its fullness. And what you're giving up may seem like a big deal to you, but it's a small thing compared to everything God wants to give you. So it takes faith. Do you trust God? If you do, you'll say, God, okay, here is my life. It's yours. I'm going to ask the pianist to play for a moment. And God has been talking to you in your mind. The thoughts have come through your mind. Those are God dealing with you and Satan dealing with you. You have a choice to make as to what you want to do. What I'm asking you is to say to God, this is hard, it's scary, but I trust you. I today will do what you tell me. In the moment, your words are not important, but your promise is. You know if God's spoken to you because these thoughts have come to your mind. So today, tell him yes. The pianist is going to play, and I'm going to be here at the front. Debbie will be here too. If you want to come and share with us the promise that you've made to God today, we'll encourage you to do that and help you know how to live and fulfill the promise that you've made to him. The Lord is speaking. He's saying the door is open. I invite you to come in. Would you explain to these people what you said to me today whenever you came to talk to me before the church service started? That I gave my life to God and that it means that God will be your guide. That was what we talked about in Vacation Bible School, that if you follow God, he's your guide all the way through life. And we emphasized to the kids that he would tell them what to do and what steps to take and the things to do. Now, what I ask you to do is to think of one thing in your life that you knew you were not doing like God wanted you to do, and that you would promise him as best you could that you would change that. And what is that area that you thought of that maybe God wanted changed in your life? My heart. What kind of behavior did he want to see changed in you? Bullying. What did you make a promise to God to do about that? That I would never bully anybody again. Well, I don't want you to say that because you're going to do that. But what I want you to promise is that you're wanting to do that, that you're wanting to change that part of your life. Now, I won't promise you you're going to fail at that. But when you fail at it and you find yourself bullying someone around you, stop and say, oh, I promised God I wouldn't do that. Apologize to God. Ask him to forgive you. And say, next time I'm going to try harder to do what he wants me to do. You understand that, Haley? Haley has come. Her parents, we haven't talked to them. She just talked to me this morning, so I'll have to call them on the telephone and talk a little bit about it. I'd go over there tomorrow night, but I've got vacation Bible school in Hoisington tomorrow night. So we're going to help her family understand the promise that she's made to God. I'm going to ask you, she's going to stand with me outside, and I want to ask you to encourage her. I came to Christ about your age, and I think others in here have come there too, and we found walking with God's changed our entire future, and we're so happy for you. Let's pray for her. God, we're thankful for Haley and her willingness to say, I give my life to you. We know she has a long journey with so many temptations she has no idea about, but we know as you begin to shape her mind, as she learns the scriptures, and she learns step by step to trust you, that in those moments she will have to do some things that are self-denying. They will be costly, but we ask that you give her the faith to take step by step a life of obedience to you, that you might show her the fullness of life you want to bring. In the name of Christ, we pray for her. Amen. Well, let's stand and sing. ♪ ♪ Mighty is our God, Mighty is our King, ♪ Mighty is our Lord, Ruler of everything. ♪ Glory to our God, Glory to our King, ♪ Glory to our Lord.