Server Outage Notice: TheSeed.info is transfering to a new Server on Tuesday April 13th
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
MATTHEW 7:13-14
(Readings: Luke 13:22-30; Joshua 24:1-15)
Only His Way!
Congregation in our Lord Jesus Christ…
The message is so simple!
There are just two ways!
Two ways; two paths; two choices; two alternatives; two options - call them whatever you like, but there are only two!
Whatever your situation, whichever past you had; wherever you may be - you only have two choices.
Only two!
The great multi-choice test called life - and it’s only one out of two.
It is the Almighty God himself who says it is this simple.
Right throughout his Word, the Bible, he constantly puts it before his people.
We read this in Matthew and in Joshua.
Two writings fourteen hundred years apart!
This choice has been there right from the beginning.
And it’s been said again at the end of Scripture, as it will be repeated until the Lord returns.
The prophet Jeremiah, half-way through the Bible, declares in chapter 21 verse 8, “This is what the LORD says: See, I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”
Could it be that drastic?
Does it matter that much?
Yes - it does!
In fact, so much does it matter that these two verses of the text are completely set in opposition to each other.
Each word, each phrase, has its counterpart.
“For the gate is wide,” is the exact reverse of “the gate is narrow.”
“The way is easy,” is so radically different than “the way is hard.”
And, then, what could be more contrary to “destruction” than “life?”
What a huge change from many entering through it to only a few finding it!
Every verb, every noun - they’re all on one side, or the other!
So, how does our Lord get around to talking this way?
What could possibly have brought this on?
I mean, isn’t he trying to help people who are already going the right way?
Why say this to Christians?
Well, going through ‘The Sermon on the Mount’, Jesus has taught his disciples about how we should live.
The ‘Beatitudes’ of the beginning of Matthew 5 really show what we should start with.
It means we are the ‘salt and light’ of this world.
We don’t kill, or destroy other relationships, or divorce our spouses, or swear, or seek revenge, but we love our enemies, we give to the poor, we pray.
We don’t show off, and we don’t judge others.
Why?
Because we have a Heavenly Father who cares for everything.
In fact, we so trust him that all our selfish desires become replaced by wanting to do whatever will help someone else!
Now, congregation, knowing what it is to really love the Lord and our neighbour, Jesus says at the beginning of verse 13, “Enter by the narrow gate.”
You say you’re a believer, you go to church, you’ve professed your faith or you’re planning to, you’re in a Christian family.
Well - be it!
This is the exhortation Christ places before us as our text begins.
“Enter by the narrow gate,” he declares.
But so that we understand what this means Jesus now paints the complete opposite.
In the words of the first part to this text, he describes THE WIDE GATE AND THE EASY WAY.
Jesus next says, “For the gate is wide.”
And which mental picture did that trigger off in those disciples’ minds?
What would they have thought of then?
Well, if you study the history of the mighty Roman civilisation, and those tremendous monuments they left behind, you’ll know that among the biggest of them all were these huge ceremonial gates
They were the gates through which victorious Roman armies would march as they proudly showed their spoils of war.
And they were so large many soldiers could pass through all at the same time.
It would have been an amazing scene.
Can you picture it?
Do you see that ancient ticker-tape parade, with the heroes entering through the gate, and then walking down the main city street.
“Yah! Good on ya!”
You might even want to join them.
And many citizens would follow.
It’s all so wide.
There’s plenty of room!
How vividly Matthew shows this gate to the world.
Because it doesn’t look like our kind of gate at all!
It’s so open, so free, so much for me!
Just let your emotions go.
Move with the flow!
Look - it’s so popular!
All of these people can’t be wrong!
I mean, moving through that huge gate, there’s that broad road!
No wonder one American commentator wrote, “You could even call it Broadway.”
That’s where the entertainment is!
The show is right along that street.
This is all about man and where he is going.
As Jesus continues in verse 13, “For the gate is wide is the gate and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”
Congregation, the Roman roads were far above everyone else’s in their design and construction.
Even today you can visit Europe and see many of those roads still there - some still being used!
The Romans changed the road system into the most simplest and easiest of transport systems.
So straight was it all that they used to say, “All roads lead to Rome.”
Because they did!
It was all built so that everything would come back for the benefit of the capital of the Empire.
This word picture would have been vividly clear to the 1st Century Christian!
This is such an easy way.
It’s wide - it covers all perspectives; it’s broad - it is most popular - look at how many are travelling on it; but it has its consequence.
You see, this is all leading straight to hell!
The most attractive and efficient highway in the world is the one that doesn’t lead to another earthly place, but the place of everlasting torment and anguish.
Congregation, this is THE WIDE GATE AND THE EASY WAY.
Verse 13 pictures this emphatically.
But then we come to its complete opposite in verse 14.
For here, in the second place, is ... THE NARROW GATE AND THE HARD WAY.
When we are looking for the best example of which way to go we cannot go past the perfect example can we?
So what did the life of Jesus show?
How easy was it for him to please his Heavenly Father?
It took the way of the cross, and all which that involved in his whole life before.
Persecuted, beaten, scourged, abused, deserted, nails hammered mercilessly through those hands and feet!
And then to be cut off from the loving grace of his God on that cursed cross!
Which words are more desperate than those he cried out in Matthew 27 verse 46 - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
So, which words did he leave his disciples?
What is the direction he tells us to keep us on the right road?
Dear believer, he - the Author and Perfecter of our faith - simply says, “Take up your cross and follow me.”
This is so far from the easy way of verse 13.
For you and I it will be the hard way.
So why is it the hard way?
Well, let’s look at it.
Jesus says in verse 14, “For the gate is narrow.”
How narrow?
Judged by the way “gate” is used elsewhere in the Gospels, especially by Jesus in comparing himself with the gate for the flock of his sheep, “narrow” is very small.
We’d probably have to duck our heads, and cramp right in, to squeeze through.
It’s hard to do!
But friend, there’s the Good Shepherd.
He’s opened that gate for you.
Well - what do you know - he’s found you!
You’re among his flock.
You’re hearing his call.
That one voice the Palestinian sheep will obey.
The voice of their shepherd.
Can you imagine the completely different picture from our Lord now?
As Matthew specially writes to Jewish believers, he speaks in a way they know so well.
Because beyond that narrow gate is the difficult path.
The narrow, winding and steep track that leads to the meadow.
There they’ll be by quiet streams and peacefully fed.
What heavenly bliss it will be.
Those sighs and tears and pains and despairs all disappear!
But on the road up it’s a hard way.
Think about your life.
Every day you make decisions.
You have a choice in a multitude of events.
It’s a real struggle.
And that’s just today!
Which day?
It’s the day Joshua spoke about so emphatically.
For in Joshua 24 verse 15 he stated to God’s people, “choose this day whom you will serve.”
Not another day, not tomorrow’s day, it must be this day!
And that’s today!
The poet who wrote the words, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” is far truer than he first thought.
Perhaps that’s never struck you before?
Every day seems much like another.
Though you might not like some more than others because of what you had to do on them, or what happened on them, your days just kind of flow into each other.
You never really gave much thought to it.
But you must!
Even now you need to be on that difficult track, and it’s between two cliffs.
You have to follow that Shepherd up ahead.
It’s all so different to that other road.
That’s an easy way.
But this track is so terribly hard to get through.
David expressed it so descriptively in the most famous and well-loved psalm of all - Psalm 23.
For who can forget that haunting phrase of walking through the valley of the shadow of death?
This path can be so cloudy and windy and steep and rocky.
It brings us into the most mountainous parts of New Zealand with its heavy mists which can totally block your sight; right across to the extremes of Australia with its dry and dusty paths.
In Judah there were both these extremes.
It really depended on the shepherd having sheep stay close to him, so that he can quickly help.
That’s why our third aspect is all about ... THE ONE WHO LEADS YOU THE RIGHT WAY.
How often haven’t we heard or read the news about yet another person lost in the bush?
Did he tell someone where he was going?
Did he keep to the paths?
Did he take a distress beacon?
And was he prepared if the weather changed?
You know how spiritually hard it will be.
But you’re on the right way.
Difficult though we know it will be on terrain we weren’t made to live on, yet the heavenly home is just up ahead.
And even if the Lord would take us to the other side of the world; even if we would be without clothes and food, with no roof over our heads - we’re still on the road to a better place.
You know how you can know?
It’s the voice of the Good Shepherd.
The very One who has lead a countless multitude into heaven already is calling you.
It’s there in John 6:40, when Jesus said, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
There he is in heaven.
At God’s right hand - the place of authority - he sits.
Overlooking his vast creation, he’s caring intimately for his own Body – the Church.
They are the people of his good pleasure.
They are the children of his grace.
And, congregation, he’s so caring for you and I that all those things which seem at first so very hard are of the most eternal benefit.
Listen as he says further, in John 10, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep … The reason my Father love me is that I lay down my life - only to take it up again” (vv14,15,17).
Doesn’t it remind us of the way which was the hardest of them all?
That’s the day which every day we live in the shadow of.
Because every day is twenty-four hours when we’re carrying our crosses.
Every day is for us the struggle of faith.
Every day we need his strength fresh again to be able to make it.
Every day his grace helps us grow.
As our children have their growing pains, their changing bodies, their different emotions and feelings - so we, as the Father’s children, are growing spiritually in all kinds of ways, and through each moment of our lives.
Physically on this earth we get to a point when we stop growing.
But spiritually he hasn’t finished with us yet!
Those growing pains hurt.
But it’s through that pain we gain.
Though what is even our worst trial suffering when compared with what Jesus endured?
Bearing our sins wasn’t for his eventual good.
How could that be - he is the source of all good!
He couldn’t be made better.
But he suffered for that which is the opposite of what is for our good.
He took on himself the pain of knowing he would be left completely alone.
Congregation, he was the only One who travelled through the wide gate and down the easy road knowing exactly what was going to happen, and how much this wasn’t his way.
What anguish it was to experience the sin around him and against him.
The putrid smell of death that men are loving.
The lifestyles that are so selfish – lifestyles that deny altogether the very image they were created in.
Christ Jesus went all the way to save those who would reflect how it should have originally been.
The Creator will have delight from his creation – because they would be re-created in him.
He would so work things that we are moulded to the Master’s complete service.
Friend, he is THE ONE WHO LEADS YOU THE RIGHT WAY.
You see, the narrowest gate and the most hard way has been travelled.
Now we follow right behind the One who did it.
It’s his torch - his light - that shines up our path.
How does the apostle Paul describe it?
He says in Romans 5 verse 6, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.”
You want to know how hard it is for you to get into heaven?
Why – it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle!
So - how could it ever happen?
We know!
Because every day is full of the most blessed reminders of whose we are and where he’s bringing us.
This is the work which brings real satisfaction.
Here is the faith that brings us so much joy at school or work or home.
Wherever you might be; whatever you could be doing - every day is his day.
And it’s all leading up to the great and glorious Day.
The Day when the Lord comes back.
The Day when all will be in all.
Dear friend, enter through the narrow gate.
Do it before it’s too late!
Do it today!
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s desperately pray…
O Saviour God, how our hearts cry out to know that now so many are going through the wide gate onto the broad way!
Thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions, are rushing to their destruction.
We plead, dear Jesus, that you might yet use us to show the other way.
And perhaps it could be that some here are yet to see that you have already done it all.
Do so move in them that they will look to you and live.
For you alone are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
And so it’s in your Name we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2024, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
Please direct any comments to the Webmaster
