Aim Small, Miss Small.

Steve Gentry

[0:07] Welcome to Village Church. My name is Steve, one of the pastors here and I am thankful and grateful [0:12] to see each and every one of you. I’m so thankful to see you this morning. If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to Matthew chapter 7. [0:20] We’re going to be starting in verse 12 this morning. You know, I believe that Jesus is better than anything that this world has to offer. [0:33] And that is ultimately what being a follower of Jesus is. It is believing that what he has to offer into our lives, [0:43] what he defines as life and what he gives into our lives is better than anything else that we could trust in, [0:51] anything else that we could try to find our satisfaction in, anything else that we could pour our lives into.

[0:58] Jesus is better than that. And so with that in mind, understand that that is exactly the notion that Jesus is challenging for us in Matthew chapter 7. [1:11] Because the Sermon on the Mount acts kind of like a funnel does and Matthew 7 is the small end of a funnel. [1:19] And so he’s been working for about two chapters, a little more than two chapters, on these ideas as to what it means to really follow him, [1:27] what it means to have your life engaged by the life of God. And here beginning really between verses 12 and 13, [1:35] Jesus is going to begin really his conclusion in this sermon. And so he’s going to say some very hard things, [1:44] but everything that he’s saying now is what he has been leading up towards. Therefore, what we can summarize is that everything he’s been saying

[1:52] has been meant for us to take inventory of what our lives, compared to his life, what our faith, [2:01] compared to what he’s saying faith is all about, really is. And so verse 12 is fascinating though, because it seems almost like it’s in an island unto itself. [2:12] And so it tempts us to do that which we should never do. And that is read a verse in isolation from all of the verses around it. [2:21] And so when we read, and I just want to go ahead and jump into it, verse 12, when he says,

[2:31] What we are tempted to do is we’re tempted to turn that into a text about a situational ethic that we are to have in specific situations [2:43] where we are dealing with people and we just see it for that situation and in that situation, what you want out of that person you do towards them. [2:55] It doesn’t mean less than that, but it certainly means far more than that. And the reason that I know that is because of how he finishes verse 12. [3:06] He says that for this is the law in the prophets. That’s a pretty bold claim. That the entirety of the law in the prophets, [3:14] and what he’s meaning by that is the whole Old Testament, everything that has come up to that point is summarized in treating others the way that you want to be treated. [3:26] The golden rule. But it doesn’t just mean that. What Jesus is actually doing in this text is he is building a bridge between verses 1 and 11 and verses 13 and following.

[3:40] He’s saying that his statement on judging others, that you need to get the log out of your eye before you can help someone get the speck out of their own eye. [3:49] His statement on asking, seeking, and knocking, where he tells us that we are tempted to turn our communion with God into an activity where we just ask for what we want. [4:02] But what’s actually going on there is this progression where our life is becoming intertwined with the life of God and we are seeking the life that he has designed for us to have. [4:12] His statement on the path is meant to build a life where we walk a path that we will not by default walk.

[4:22] He’s telling us to start this morning that you need to become what you expect from others. [4:27] That you need to become what you expect from others. And in this statement, God is another. [4:36] And so you need to understand that what you are expecting out of everyone else is something that God wants to do in your life, something that God wants to do through your life, something that God wants to work in your life. [4:50] And I know that because of the narrow road. That we are so tempted to just be critics in this world. [5:00] Theodore Roosevelt has this great quote, I’ve seen it so many times, by smart people and stupid people. [5:07] But it’s this idea that it’s not the critic that counts. And it’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 10 years since we started Village Church. This is a true statement. Critics don’t count.

[5:16] There’s a small percentage of people who are critical that are very helpful. And I try to invite those people into my life. [5:22] I try to welcome those people and let them help me the way that they want to help me become the person that I need to become. [5:28] But by and large, most critics are just people who have never accomplished anything. [5:35] There are people who enjoy sitting on the sidelines, enjoy pointing out the flaws in other people, enjoy just being critical, enjoy just telling you you’re not doing a good enough job, enjoy going down into the minutia and saying on this specific point, on this specific day, you did something really wrong. [5:52] And you are not a person that’s really trying to help anyone. What you’re doing is actually a great form of self-protection because you don’t believe you can do, but you believe you can tear others down from where you are. [6:07] And Jesus is directly combating that idea in one sense. But there’s a whole other sense to everything that he’s saying in this passage as well.

[6:17] To where he’s looking to us as people and saying that what it is that you are expecting in this life needs to happen in your life and through your life before you can ever expect it out of someone else. [6:37] But he says it summarizes the law and the prophets. Why don’t you say that? [6:42] In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus says something that I think helps us understand when he’s asked what’s the greatest commandment, he says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. [6:56] This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets. [7:07] So he ends it very similarly to the way that he ends verse 12. But if you look at the text, if you look at the very beginning of chapter seven, he deals with how you love other people. [7:20] And then in the following verses, he deals with what your relationship and what your love for God is like.

[7:27] And then he bridges the narrow and wide road with this idea that you need to stop laying so much criticism and expectation on others when you for the most part expect nothing out of yourself. [7:45] That for you to level any expectation on someone else, it requires you to get up and move.

[7:57] I was the world’s greatest father before December of 2009.

[8:06] December of 2009, something changed my fatherhood forever. I became an actual father. But before that, I was a way better father than I have been after that because I had all the right ideas. [8:20] I had all the right criticisms. I would be in public and see a mother or a father, didn’t matter. I was just better. [8:27] Struggling with a child. I would say, well, I know the answer. I know what’s going on. I know what they need to do. And I would be in a restaurant. [8:36] You know, there’s nothing worse than people in their 20s eating at a table near people who have children. There’s dual income, no kids. There’s some of you in here. [8:46] Here’s the deal. You don’t have any kids. Shut up. [8:50] I mean, literally, no one cares what you think about childhood. No one cares what you think about being a mother or father. If you don’t have kids, how dare you? You shut your stinking mouth.

[9:03] And so I would be at a restaurant. Kids would be crying. I’d be like, well, clearly the child has not had enough diaper changes. [9:09] Clearly the child is hungry. Clearly that mother just doesn’t know what she’s doing. Clearly that father is a criminal. [9:16] I mean, it’s the crime of someone crying while I’m eating my dinner. How dare they?

[9:23] One time, my wife and I and Pastor Nate and his wife, we were offered a like a little townhouse on the beach in Duck, North Carolina. [9:33] And so we went down for a couple of days and fine dining to me, subjective. It involves buffets that I cannot imagine finer dining than taking all of the food and putting it in one place and saying have at it. [9:51] All right, that’s if you’ve eaten better than that, then tell me about it because that’s that’s a 23 star restaurant to me. [9:59] So we’re at this seafood buffet and we had one child at that point and it was my son. [10:07] And so I’m eating and my wife finishes what she was eating. She loves crab legs and she’s like, I’m going to get some more crab legs. [10:13] And she didn’t ask our son’s permission to leave, nor did she inform him that she was leaving.

[10:20] Just at some point after she got up, he realized she was gone and that was not in the game plan for his day. [10:31] And this was also right after the point where he learned that his legs could walk places. [10:39] There’s nothing better than an infant because they’re immobile. [10:43] They don’t move. They might cry and they might be needy, but you know, they are where they are. [10:50] Once they start to walk, they do and they leave sometimes. And you didn’t plan on that either. [10:59] So all that I know is that within a split second, my son was up, had harnessed the ability to run faster than anyone I’ve ever seen run before in my life.

[11:15] And scream as though someone had cut his arm off. In a split second, he exhibited all these abilities that I’d never seen before. [11:24] And he’s screaming, where’s mommy? And I’m like, oh, sweet Lord. And so I get up and I’m chasing him. I’m juking one way, he jabs the other way. [11:34] All right, I’m trying to tackle him and he is Michael Vick at Virginia Tech. I mean, he’s gone.

[11:41] Screaming, embarrassing me. And then, of course, my wife realizes something is wrong and who do you think she blames?

[11:54] Look, I didn’t cause it. It was her fault. She should have known to ask him. [12:00] For the next 45 minutes, we took him from the curb outside to the bathroom inside to the table back outside. [12:11] And for 45 minutes, he kept crying. And look, the statute of limitations has worn off. So I can confess something right now. [12:20] I may have threatened his life.

[12:25] But it didn’t work. He just kept crying. He had no fear of me.

[12:32] But if you’re a parent and you’ve been in a similar situation, you know that there are two things going on in your mind. [12:40] There is the I am a failure part of your brain because you feel like another failure at that point. [12:46] But then there’s also, oh, look, other people. [12:51] What are they thinking? That’s also going on in your mind. [12:56] What happens to us so often in the relationships that we have with other people and even the relationship that we have with God, [13:04] is that because of our sin nature, we are at a default mode to expect things out of others that we don’t expect out of ourselves.

[13:12] To blame other people for things that we could have done for ourselves. [13:18] To use the actions and activities of other people as an excuse as to why we can’t grow, why we can’t do, and why we can’t be who God says we are supposed to be. [13:34] But what also happens is that we are also tempted to have great disappointment with God that cripples us even further. [13:44] So I think this is amazing connection to the point where he says, ask and it will be given to you. [13:51] Because sometimes we ask and God doesn’t give. [13:57] Sometimes we expect and God doesn’t move.

[14:03] Sometimes we have convinced ourselves, I have sought, I have knocked and nothing. [14:12] And in that moment, we are tempted to go so far as to say, I have been living the Christian life for X amount of days, for X amount of months, for X amount of years. [14:26] And God can’t do this simple thing or God let this devastating thing happen to me.

[14:36] And in that moment, I believe that if it’s people that have disappointed us, or even if it’s God, based on what I know from scripture and based on what I’m learning in this passage that God looks to us and he often tells us, I already have worked. [15:01] Now you work. [15:04] I already have moved. [15:06] Now you move. [15:09] I already have saved. [15:13] Now you go.

[15:16] See, there are so many times in our lives that we are tempted to be just like a three year old who knows nothing of responsibility. [15:27] Who only knows, give me. [15:30] Who only knows, I want. [15:33] Who only knows, I need. [15:35] And so we will level all these layers of Christianese on top of Christianese and we will have the audacity to say, well, God isn’t really moving in me. [15:46] Well, I don’t have a peace.

[15:48] Well, I haven’t seen God be clear enough. [15:52] All to the detriment of our own growth in faith because of all the things that we have done. [15:56] All that God has done in Jesus. [15:58] All that God has told us in scripture. [16:01] To the extent where even in the book of John, he tells us that what the Holy Spirit is mainly going to do is remind you of everything Jesus has already taught you.

[16:15] And yet we sit. [16:17] And yet we stay. [16:19] Yet we expect. [16:21] Yet we get disappointed. [16:23] Yet we get disgruntled. [16:25] And we say, why doesn’t someone else do something?

[16:31] Or why hasn’t someone else done for me? [16:35] Whether it be a person or whether it be God. [16:38] And the entire time God is saying, I already have.

[16:43] We are often the very answer to the prayers that we take to God. [16:50] If only we had enough faith to obey him. [16:59] What’s fascinating about that verse is that I think the two words that start the text are the most vital. [17:07] But they’re the ones that we pass over because we have destroyed the term whatever. [17:11] I mean, can we just be honest about that? [17:13] When we see the term whatever, we pass over it because we often just read it whatever.

[17:18] I say that about 32 times a day to express my absolute apathy about 90% of life. [17:24] I’m just like, what do you want for dinner? [17:26] Whatever. [17:27] What do you want to do for lunch? [17:28] Whatever. [17:29] Steve, what do you think about the socioeconomic crisis of the world?

[17:32] Whatever. [17:33] I mean, that really is my answer to about 90% of things. [17:36] Just like whatever. [17:38] But in this text, it’s not that it’s a bad translation. [17:40] It’s a great translation for what it actually means. [17:42] But what is encompassed in that word whatever in the original language literally means all of everything.

[17:51] And so when you read him say, so whatever, he’s saying, so all of everything that you wish others would do to you. [18:02] Does it say do for yourself?

[18:05] You know, one thing is that when you read the scriptures, you will never find that the scriptures tell you to love yourself more than you love other people. [18:12] To love yourself more than you love God. [18:14] But we’re addicted to that, aren’t we? [18:16] So we want to read it. [18:17] Whatever you wish other people would do for you, you do for yourself. [18:20] You do you.

[18:21] You have self-care in this moment.

[18:24] The answer to almost everything in scripture is usually do it for someone else because of love. [18:34] Even your relationship with God isn’t to have you in mind as the main beneficiary. [18:39] He says love God with everything that you have. [18:42] It’s this totality of an idea with your heart, with your soul, with your mind. [18:47] In Deuteronomy it says even with your strength, you love God with everything about you. [18:51] And the second is like it.

[18:52] Love your neighbor as yourself. [18:53] In other words, every part of your life is to be pointed towards God. [18:57] Everything is about receiving the grace of God. [19:00] Everything is about obeying what the grace of God puts you into in your life. [19:05] But then he says love your neighbor as yourself. [19:07] What you receive from God is to benefit someone else before you think about it benefiting you.

[19:13] And that’s when you know you have the mind of Christ. [19:16] Therefore, everything that’s happening in your life, every disappointment, every failure, every hurt, [19:23] is to be turned through the life of Christ, to go through the filter of the judgment of Christ, [19:29] to go through the life of God working in your life for the benefit of another person. [19:36] And then he says that is where you will find what he defines as the narrow road. [19:45] Look in verse 13.

[19:49] Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. [19:56] And those who enter by it are many. [19:59] For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. [20:02] And those who find it are few. [20:07] Number two this morning, Jesus doesn’t walk the path of least resistance. [20:12] Jesus doesn’t walk the path of least resistance.

[20:16] People who continuously criticize, people who don’t move much, people who don’t get any skin in the game,

[20:28] often struggle with the idea that they need to move. [20:36] That this is a selective process. [20:40] That this is something that is going to be difficult. [20:43] That God actually has an expectation for your life because he has designed you to be the answer that the world is looking for. [20:55] I so often hear people say if the church would just get its act together, if the church would just love people, [21:02] if the church would just, if the church would do, if the church would act, who do you think the church is?

[21:12] Maybe you should replace the word church with if I would work, if I would do, if I would move. [21:20] You would have a more realistic expectation as to what Jesus actually demands from our lives. [21:28] But Jesus always boils it down to two choices.

[21:34] In Matthew chapter 5, he says you need to choose between two forms of righteousness. [21:38] The righteousness of the Pharisees or the righteousness of Jesus. [21:42] In Matthew chapter 6, he says you need to choose between two masters. [21:45] You need to choose either Jesus as your master or mammon, which is all the material gained in this world. [21:51] In Matthew chapter 7, he says you need to choose between two paths. [21:55] One that is hard and leads to an arrogate, one that is easy and leads to a wide gate.

[22:00] So Jesus is very selective. [22:03] Jesus is very narrowing in the way that he treats our lives. [22:09] I have from time to time engaged in target practice. [22:15] And I’ve taken a couple of courses and one of them may or may not have been a concealed weapons course. [22:19] I don’t know. I can’t answer such questions. [22:21] But in all the courses that I’ve taken and even in movies, and I’ve heard this so many times,

[22:26] that when you’re actually engaging in target practice, they tell you don’t look at the whole target. [22:33] I say because if you aim for a large space, you also by then, excuse me, you by then have a larger margin of error. [22:47] So if you aim at a large space, you will likely miss by a few feet. [22:54] And that’s not good with target practice. [22:57] But if you will engage that target and just look at a very small portion of that target, [23:04] if you’ll just kind of turn that target into a dot on it, then while you may miss,

[23:13] you will only miss by a few inches rather than a few feet. [23:16] And the phrase, of course, is aim small, miss small, aim large, miss large. [23:24] The problem that most of us have when it comes to dealing with some of these harder sayings of Jesus [23:29] is that we are addicted to having a panoramic view of our lives. [23:34] I remember a few years ago, if you notice on the iPhone, the only thing that’s getting any better is the camera. [23:39] Nothing else is changing. You’re spending hundreds of dollars for a new camera every year.

[23:44] But a couple of years ago, they came out with a new phone and a new operating system [23:49] that had a panoramic shot for your camera. [23:53] And I love it. That’s like my favorite one. [23:55] Because right when it came out, I owned a house that had a ton of trees in the backyard. [24:00] And I mean, and I had probably 17 or 18 trees cut down in that backyard because I hate trees. [24:06] I picked the wrong state to live in.

[24:08] But so if I live in a house with trees, there’s a very good chance those trees will go missing at some point. [24:14] And so I had all these trees cut down and I went in the backyard and I was just amazed [24:19] because I had this wide open space in this neighborhood that was just engulfed in trees. [24:24] And I was like, oh, I’m going to take a panoramic shot of my backyard. [24:28] And I don’t care if anybody else was amazed. I was amazed by this shot because it was like you were so far away, [24:34] yet you’re right in the middle of the backyard.

[24:36] And so I took it and you know how you do it. [24:38] You just slowly move your phone. People were probably looking at me thinking, what is he doing? [24:44] And then you’re like, come on. And I’m turning my phone sideways. [24:46] Wow, that is my entire backyard, this wide open space.

[24:54] Much of the difficulty that you have in following Jesus is that you want to have a panoramic view of life. [25:01] And Jesus wants you to take a close up picture.

[25:05] You want your life to be this wide angle lens where you have options, [25:13] where you can be selective, [25:16] where you, when one thing’s not working, you just move on to another thing, [25:21] where you can just keep choosing from this buffet of life and just keep getting more and more. [25:27] Because there’s one thing that this culture will teach you. [25:30] It is that you always need something more.

[25:34] You always need something new. [25:37] And the world’s wisdom is better than God’s wisdom. [25:41] Because you want to live a panoramic view of life. [25:44] And Jesus says, if you live your life like that, your end will be destruction.

[25:51] Jesus doesn’t want you to have a panoramic view of life. [25:53] Jesus wants you to have a deadly, specific view of life. [25:58] That while you may get things wrong, and I promise you, friend, you will get things wrong,

[26:05] you will only miss by a few inches when you aim small.

[26:13] Jesus, in this text, tells us that if we walk the path of least resistance, [26:20] we are just doing what comes natural to man. [26:22] Proverbs chapter 14. See, Jesus told us this in the Old Testament through Solomon. [26:27] He said, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. [26:30] And that’s what’s fascinating. [26:32] When we read passages like this, we’re the most righteous person we know.

[26:36] And so we always are pretty hard on the person that chooses the broad path. [26:41] But the reason that you choose the wide path is because it seems right. [26:45] I mean, let’s say you’ve got these two paths. [26:48] One is freshly paved and it’s like four lanes wide. [26:52] There’s no five o’clock traffic on that road. [26:55] There’s no backup.

[26:56] And it’s just easy. [26:57] There’s no potholes. [26:58] There’s no bumps. [26:59] And the gate that it’s leading towards is wide open. [27:02] It’s really wide. [27:04] You don’t have to really bump into anybody going into that path.

[27:08] But then there comes the narrow path. [27:09] And the way Jesus describes it, it is really unattractive. [27:14] It’s dirt. [27:15] There are potholes. [27:17] You’re going to need a machete and a weed eater along the way. [27:21] Trees have grown so large that the roots are going across the path and you’re going to

[27:25] trip over them from time to time. [27:27] And then in some places, it looks like trees have grown into the path. [27:31] And you got to go get a chainsaw to make it any further. [27:34] And then when you get to the end of the path, it’s like a 1980s New York subway turnstile [27:43] where the turnstile goes all the way up to the ceiling. [27:46] It’s a metal turn.

[27:47] And if you try to come back through, you’re going to get crushed between the cage.

[27:52] The narrow gate’s a little scary looking sometimes. [27:54] I went to an event years ago and it was awful before we got in because there were these, [28:01] I mean, they must have been 12 foot high metal fences and they herded us all in like cattle. [28:07] And there were thousands of us at this event. [28:09] And we were walking in and we were just shoulder to shoulder. [28:12] And I am never more uncomfortable than in that moment.

[28:15] See, I’m really comfortable up on stage because you’re not up here. [28:19] All right, I like it. [28:19] I’m alone. [28:20] It’s great. [28:21] Nobody’s bothering me. [28:22] Nobody’s bumping into me.

[28:23] But I was miserable because we’re getting herded and it’s just getting more narrow and more narrow and more narrow. [28:28] And the specific place that I was at, they had two entrances at the end of this path. [28:32] One was the old one. [28:34] And it really did look like one of those New York subway style turnstiles. [28:39] And the other side was new and it had welcoming looking people over there. [28:43] They were scanning things as you went in.

[28:45] And it was just this really orderly thing. [28:47] And the problem was that I had gotten herded over towards that other turnstile. [28:55] And there are certain situations in my life where I can use my size to my advantage. [29:02] That’s the one. [29:03] And so I literally just said, I got to get out of here. [29:06] And so I’m grabbing people.

[29:08] I’m shoving them over. [29:09] I’m getting everybody out of my way because I was I am getting to the wide gate no matter what. [29:15] Let me tell you something, friend, if you’d been there, I would have pushed you. [29:18] All right. I’m just letting you know what happens.

[29:22] But so when you think about what Jesus is actually saying here about the wide and the narrow gate, [29:28] it really does make you understand why following Jesus is so difficult for us at times. [29:36] Because oftentimes we get into it and it’s just like, oh, we think, oh, man, I’m going to be surprised by joy. [29:42] He has pleasures forevermore. [29:44] He has so much to offer me life abundantly. [29:49] I want to write a book that’s called Surprised by Difficulty and Hardships,

[29:54] because that’s oftentimes what the path of following Jesus is often like. [29:59] But the moment we think it’s easy, we’re going to experience resistance, not just from the outside, [30:05] because that’s what we think all the resistance is about. [30:08] No, the hardest type of resistance that I’ve faced in my life is the resistance I give myself. [30:13] Because I don’t have the faith that I believe I should have. [30:19] Charles Spurgeon once noted that if a Christian goes a week without hardship and suffering,

[30:25] they should be amazed by the lack of resistance. [30:28] Yet we often baptize our lack of resistance with hashtag blessed.

[30:35] So when you face resistance, how often do you think that resistance must be satanic in origin? [30:41] That resistance must mean I’m going the wrong way. [30:45] That resistance must mean I need to look for an easier path. [30:49] See, in generations past, so many people understood what living a hard life was all about. [30:54] I mean, look at the Great Depression, you look at World War II, you look at Vietnam. [30:57] I mean, sometimes you even look at the Middle Eastern conflicts that we’ve had,

[31:00] and we’ve had some hard times for some people. [31:03] But in 2019, we are addicted to ease. [31:07] And so if any difficulty comes our way, we’re like, I’m out. [31:10] This isn’t the calling of God on my life. [31:15] But friend, Jesus tells us these words because Jesus knew the path that he was walking down. [31:21] Jesus was walking down a path where he was going to be rejected, not just by the government,

[31:25] not just by his enemies, but his own friends were going to abandon him. [31:29] Jesus was about to endure great physical suffering, great emotional suffering, great mental suffering. [31:35] Jesus was about to be nailed to a cross and killed. [31:39] Jesus was going to be mocked by everybody because he wasn’t saving himself. [31:43] More than that, Jesus was going to endure the sin of those whom he was dying for.

[31:49] And in the book of John, he gets deadly honest and deadly clear for us. [31:53] He tells us, if your master suffers like this, do you think you’re better than your master? [31:59] In John, Chapter six, Jesus has been leading what really in Book of Matthew we find out were like Billy Graham Crusades. [32:07] I mean, thousands of people were gathering because he had these great oratory abilities. [32:12] People would say he teaches like someone with unmatched authority. [32:18] More than that, he’s turning water into wine.

[32:23] He’s taking paralyzed people, giving them the ability to walk. [32:26] The blind can see, the deaf can hear, the mute can talk. [32:30] Jesus is doing some amazing things and people are noticing. [32:34] So tons of people are beginning to follow Jesus. [32:37] And then in John, Chapter six, he gives a message that really thins the herd. [32:43] He looks to them and he starts giving them these crazy analogies about communion.

[32:48] He’s saying, you need to eat of my flesh. You need to drink of my blood. [32:52] You need to drink of the everlasting water that I have to give. [32:55] And they would have understood these Old Testament analogies. [32:58] Jesus is telling all of these followers, look, if you’re going to follow me, you follow me. [33:03] You find your satisfaction in me. You find your sustenance in me. [33:07] You quench your thirst with me. I’ve got to be the one that satisfies you.

[33:12] If you want anything else more than you want me, this is not going to work. [33:19] And in John 6, 66, Jesus responds. [33:25] And the disciples say, after this, his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. [33:32] So Jesus said to the twelve, now we don’t know if there was only twelve left. [33:37] Probably think there was about one hundred and twenty of them left based on some other things that we read, maybe seventy. [33:41] But Jesus looks to the twelve and he says, do you want to go away as well?

[33:49] What’s fascinating about that question is that everybody that left by every measure had a more comfortable life.

[34:00] By every measure was able to experience more leisure. [34:03] By every measure spent more time with their family. [34:05] By every measure, everybody that left from the world’s perspective had a better life than the disciples went on to have. [34:16] And Jesus looks to the twelve and he says, you have a choice. [34:21] Follow me or don’t. But those are the only two options. [34:25] And I love Peter. I think I have a lot in common with Peter.

[34:28] And that’s not braggadocious. It’s because Peter speaks, then he thinks. [34:32] And Peter, the reason I like Peter is because he knows that if he’s the first one to answer, there’s a fifty fifty shot that he’s going to get it right. [34:39] And I’ve built a lot of my life on fifty fifty shots. [34:42] All right. And I know that either I’m going to say something and you’re going to think it’s brilliant or I’m going to say something and you’re going to question if I graduated high school. [34:49] Those are really the two options that I have with most people. [34:54] But Peter here nails it.

[34:56] Peter looks to Jesus and he says, Lord, to whom shall we go? [35:00] You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.

[35:12] The narrow road. [35:15] That is what Peter is saying. [35:18] That Jesus isn’t an option among many. [35:20] Jesus isn’t one piece of satisfaction while you go after another, because I’m convinced most of us are looking for a third way. [35:26] We don’t want to admit that we want an easy life. [35:30] We certainly don’t want to put all of our chips on Jesus’s path because that’s what that looks really difficult.

[35:36] So I want enough faith to go to heaven and enough of the world to have a comfortable life. [35:42] But Jesus does not give a third option. [35:47] He says, you’re either all in or you’re all out. [35:51] And Peter says, I’m all. [35:54] Yeah. [35:55] Friend, I could give every analogy under the sun.

[36:00] But ultimately, you know the life you are living. [36:04] Look at the lifestyle of the disciples in the Gospels and Acts. [36:07] Go home this afternoon, skim through the book of John. [36:11] Read the book of Acts and look at the life that those disciples lived. [36:16] Most of them executed because of their faith in Jesus. [36:19] They were beaten. They were persecuted.

[36:21] They suffered because they wouldn’t stop proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. [36:25] And then on their way to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, oftentimes they faced difficulty. [36:29] They faced resistance. [36:31] The apostle Paul would face shipwreck. [36:33] The apostle Paul would face being whipped. [36:36] He was rejected by his friends, rejected by his family, rejected by his culture, lost everything that he had known before.

[36:44] But Jesus had the words of life. [36:48] Read the New Testament and then consider how your life compares to the commitment the disciples and the apostles had to the gospel. [36:59] Consider the cost you are paying to follow Jesus and then answer the question. [37:05] What road are you really on? [37:09] Number three this morning, following Jesus requires hard choices. [37:13] Following Jesus requires hard choices.

[37:17] I’ll tell you, the past year of my life, really the past two or three years, has been a series of choices where if you know me really well, [37:27] I’ve spent my life not being certain, but being able to make hard choices. [37:33] You give me two options. [37:34] I’m going to not know with 100% certainty which one’s going to work, but I’m going to have confidence in whichever one I pick. [37:40] I’m going to give everything to the one that I pick. [37:42] But over the last two years, I’ve had more choices enter into my life than I thought I was going to have.

[37:50] And for a period, I was paralyzed. [37:54] I didn’t know what to do. [37:55] And that never happened to me before in my life. [37:57] And it caused me a lot of anxiety. [38:00] And it was hard for me. [38:04] But what happens here is that so often we believe a lie.

[38:10] And the lie that we believe is that we don’t have to make a choice. [38:14] You’re going through your life and you’re thinking, I have Jesus and I have the world, but I got to have the panoramic view. [38:23] What if the Jesus stuff doesn’t work out? [38:25] I don’t want to lose the world. [38:27] Or what if I could just have some of the world’s wisdom? [38:30] And so what you do is you tell yourself what I think is the greatest lie that is really handicapping most of you where discipleship is concerned.

[38:42] You just don’t do anything. [38:44] You don’t choose. [38:46] But here’s the problem. [38:48] Life continues to move. [38:50] Things continue to progress. [38:53] And you will ultimately do something.

[38:56] But when you are in that situation, do you know what you by and large will always do? [39:04] You will choose the world. [39:06] Because you believe that you’ve got plenty of time for discipleship. [39:10] And so where your commitments are concerned, where your energy is concerned, and where your time is concerned, the world needs your investment first. [39:17] And then you’ll get to discipleship later. [39:19] Or you’ll just disciple yourself.

[39:22] Or it’ll just be taken care of somewhere down the road. [39:25] What you don’t want to admit is you did make a choice. [39:30] You chose the wide path.

[39:34] You did. [39:35] But no one wants to admit it. [39:38] But the greatest benefit that you could have this morning isn’t that you understand the narrow road and the wide road. [39:48] The greatest thing you could do for yourself isn’t even choosing the narrow road necessarily. [39:51] The greatest thing that you could do this morning is engaging in the freedom of just admitting what path you’re on.

[40:01] Not choosing is a choice because it’s always the easier way. [40:06] Every single time. [40:07] And if you look down and all that you see is pavement, you’re on the wide road.

[40:15] Here’s the key. [40:17] Jesus literally says, this isn’t me. [40:22] Jesus says, more people will go through the wide gate.

[40:30] And he doesn’t say less people will go through the narrow gate. [40:34] He says, few find it. [40:38] In Luke chapter 13, the apostle says it this way, strive to enter through the narrow door. [40:48] For many I tell you will seek to enter it and will not be able. [40:53] That makes the narrow gate even worse. [40:57] Because some of you will go up to it and you’ll have the wrong key.

[41:01] He tells us two things that are so frustrating. [41:04] He says, strive to enter it. [41:06] In other words, seek it. [41:08] Go after it. [41:09] Get it. [41:11] And then he says, but some of you, you’re going to get there and you won’t be able to enter.

[41:18] You say, how do I know? [41:20] I think Luke 18 clears up Luke 13. [41:24] In Luke 18, Jesus faces this guy. [41:28] We don’t know his name. [41:30] He’s just called the rich young ruler. [41:32] It’s just what we’ve called him in church history.

[41:35] I think we misunderstand this guy because he’s a good guy. [41:40] If he was brought home by your daughter, you’d be like, marry this one. [41:46] He’s a keeper. [41:47] He’s moral and he has a 401k. [41:50] Those are great combinations. [41:53] He comes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, what do I need to do to inherit eternal life?

[41:59] Jesus looks to him and says, you know what’s written in the law. [42:03] So Jesus just gives him a couple of the Ten Commandments. [42:06] And this guy looks to Jesus and Jesus doesn’t correct him, by the way. [42:10] That’s noteworthy. [42:12] He looks to Jesus and he says, all of these things I have done and the language makes you think that he’s saying for all of my life. [42:20] And Jesus doesn’t say, oh, yeah, well, when you were 13, you stole Snickers.

[42:23] Liar, thief. [42:24] All right. [42:25] Jesus doesn’t do that to him. [42:27] Jesus looks at him and says, OK.

[42:31] One thing you lack.

[42:36] It says in verse 22, one thing you still lack. [42:40] Sell all that you have, distribute to the poor. [42:43] You will have treasure in heaven. [42:45] And come, follow me. [42:48] But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

[43:01] In pastoral ministry, I’ve realized that the more stuff you have, the less you think you have to choose.

[43:10] But Jesus challenges that notion. [43:13] And he goes on to tell us, he says, it is very hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. [43:18] Why? [43:20] This isn’t a statement on wealth. [43:22] I can tell you that with certainty. [43:24] Jesus isn’t condemning and giving us a poverty gospel where he says you’re not allowed to have any possessions to follow me.

[43:30] Now, the scripture would be denying itself if it said that. [43:34] But what Jesus is saying is he looks through this man’s external morality, where it looked like this is a great guy. [43:42] I’m telling you, you look at him, he’s the friend you want, buddy. [43:45] Good guy. [43:45] You can trust him and he’ll pay for dinner.

[43:49] Jesus looks through all of that and he sees his heart. [43:54] And he sees a panoramic view of life. [43:58] Where I’m going to do all the right things so I can have God. [44:01] And then I’m going to get all the right stuff so that I can have the world.

[44:06] Jesus looks at him and he says, you are finding your identity, your satisfaction, and you’re giving your worship to your possessions. [44:16] And he says, so I’ll give you a choice. [44:22] You can walk a narrow path where you just do whatever I say, or you can walk a wide path and do whatever you say. [44:32] And that man said, Jesus, I want my money more than I want to follow you. [44:42] And that’s literally what happens.

[44:45] Friend, I’m convinced that for almost all of you, if not all of you, if I were to come and have a one on one with you and I were to say, what is more important to you than Jesus? [44:58] I really believe that almost all of you, if not all, would say nothing. [45:05] Nothing is more important to me than Jesus.

[45:11] Really?

[45:14] I mean, let’s be real. Look at your life. [45:17] Look at the road that you are really walking. [45:21] Are there any hard choices happening in your life about following Jesus? [45:27] Are there any sacrifices being made in your life so that you can give more of your life to Jesus? [45:35] What are you walking away from to give more of your life to Jesus? [45:42] What is it that you are doing to give more of your mind, your strength, your soul, your all to the love of God for the benefit of other people over the benefit of yourself?

[45:59] What road do you want?

[46:05] Every Sunday, we reflect on the road that Jesus walked to give his life to us. [46:13] In the front and in the back, there are tables and on those tables, there’s bread that represents the broken body of Christ. [46:19] There’s a cup that represents the shed blood. [46:22] And when we eat and when we drink, we profess, this is what you’re doing, you’re professing to everyone in this room that you believe that Jesus is Lord, you believe that Jesus is Savior. [46:33] And you will walk the narrow road.

[46:38] But friend, if you’re in here and you’re unsure, if you’re in here and you’re unsettled, if you’re in here and you don’t know if you ever put your faith in Jesus, please don’t feel that you need to come and eat and drink and lie to everyone in this room. [46:51] The Bible actually says, do the opposite. [46:55] Because if you eat and drink without faith, you eat and drink damnation because you don’t believe. [47:00] So if you’re in here and you’ve not trusted in Jesus, I’m going to ask you to do something different. [47:04] Maybe just walk out into the foyer where there are people that love you, where there are people that have been praying for you, where there are people that will answer any questions that you might have. [47:12] They’ll pray for you and with you.

[47:14] They’ll tell you what the gospel is all about. [47:17] But if you’re in here and you have trusted in Jesus, let me just encourage you. [47:21] The path will get hard. [47:23] There will be tough choices. [47:25] There will be resistance. [47:27] But he says that at the end of that path, that narrow gate has something that the world can never offer you.

[47:33] Eternal life.

[47:36] Where all things will become new. [47:39] Friend, if you trust that this morning, come eat, drink, profess your faith in Jesus.

[48:03] Amen.