Matthew chapter 7, if you'll turn to it.
In verse 7, just to back up for
a moment, it says, Ask and it shall
be given unto you, seek and ye shall
find, knock and it shall be opened unto
you.
For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that
seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it
shall be opened.
Verse 12, now he goes on, he says,
Therefore all things whatsoever you would that men
should do to you, do ye even so
unto them, for this is the law and
the prophets.
Enter ye in at the straight gate, for
wide is the gate, and broad is the
way that leadeth unto the destruction, and many
there be which go in thereat.
Because straight is the gate, and narrow is
the way which leadeth unto life, and few
there are that find it.
Father, we thank you for your word, and
Lord, the wonderful things that you always have
to say to us, and we'll just but
open up our heart.
And Lord, we ask that now that you
would help us just to open our hearts,
set everything else aside.
Lord, may we even tonight, in one way
or another, our world is in turmoil.
It seems as if the earth is being
removed, the mountains are just crashing into the
sea, the waters are troubled, and the mountains
are swelling and shaking with the swelling thereof.
But Lord, may we therefore just be able
to be still and know that you're God,
and those things that you have for us,
that we would hear them tonight, that our
lives would be strengthened, our walk with you
would become stronger and stronger, our convictions deeper
and deeper, our walk, our fellowship, our strength
would be touched by you, even by your
word tonight.
For we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.
Well, here is Jesus, as we're picking this
up, when he noticed there in verse 12,
as it begins with, therefore all things whatsoever
you would that men should do unto you,
even so do unto them.
This is the law and the prophets.
But as many people of Oppenheim said, that
anytime you see the word therefore, you should
always ask, what's it there for?
And because the word therefore, it's basically wanting
to go back in a sense, gather some
of the previous thoughts just have been made,
and then take those thoughts into another thought.
That's what essentially, when somebody, you know, they
present an argument, and then they said, now
therefore, or as if to say, in light
of these things, or because of these things,
that leads now to this.
And the things that he has essentially been
teaching here in the previous verses, is therefore,
and essentially because, if a person knows what
it is, that God knows all the things
that we have need of before we do.
That God is our Father.
He loves us.
He's created us in his image.
He's prepared all the ways to get to
heaven, all by himself, all in his own
sufficiency, his work on the cross, his wonderful
life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension.
He ever lives to make intercession for us.
We are complete in him.
Everything that my life truly needs is found
in God.
And therefore, I'm to come and to ask
of him, to seek from him, to knock
from him, you know, in his door.
It's as if he's saying, you come, and
whatever it is you have need, he says,
come and ask me for it.
Everyone that asketh, you'll receive.
Everyone that seeketh, findeth.
To him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
And here, this wonderful promise of there of
God, I believe being two aspects there.
One is, is God meeting all of our
needs, but even more than that, God being
all of our needs.
There is the, when I realize that there's
two great things in life, number one is
I need to be found in him.
I need constantly to have my life being
rooted in him, grounded in him, growing in
him, maturing in him, never-endingly so, all
the way through my life, to say, Lord,
take me, strengthen me, draw me, seek me,
you know, yourself, into a greater relationship with
you.
And in those processes, he'll always be giving
me himself, and not only he'll be giving
me himself, but he'll give me what things
that I have need of.
And here is, he's essentially been saying there,
he says that I'm the source, I'm the
sustainer, I'm the provider.
I am your heavenly father.
Your heavenly father knows all of these things.
Go to your father.
We looked at that word earlier in our
studies.
Pater means provider and protector and sustainer.
Go to your father and he'll provide.
Go to your father, he'll protect.
Go to your father, he will sustain.
And therefore, when I realize this, it ought
to have an effect in my life, and
that is, is that the world is no
longer the source for my life.
We come into this world and we're constantly,
you know, needing from the world and constantly
requiring, you know, from people or circumstances or
environment to draw from it constantly in our
life.
We're all the sources of life.
And on one hand, in many ways, we
do have much from there.
I mean, parents obviously have been the channel
through which God has given to his life.
Others give us education.
Somebody else gives us a job and a
paycheck.
Other people along the road do many, many
things for us and are agents, essentially, that
God uses many times in our life.
But still, God looks and he says, I'm
the one from which he came.
All of it comes from God, as far
as he's concerned.
He is the source from which all the
rivers, you might say, of life flow from,
all the blessings of life.
And thus, he wants to be the one
that we, rather than we spend our life
looking at our boss, looking at our friends,
looking at our parents, looking at all of
these other people around there, that rather than
that, we'd realize, God, you are the sovereign
one.
You are the one that loves me.
You're the one that's created me.
You're the one that is going to take
care of me.
And you are sovereign.
And you are powerfully, wonderfully sovereign.
And therefore, God, you are working out your
plan in my life.
And when I learn this great truth, when
it really settles in, even though there's all
sorts of people around me, I'm realizing, God,
you are the one that I need to
be looking to in all ways.
And I realize people are not in control
of my life.
Sometimes it may appear that they are, but
they aren't.
God's in control.
Even as when Pilate, you know, of course,
so well, when Jesus stood before him and
he says, don't you realize I have the
power, you know, to do whatever I want
to you in your life.
And Jesus, of course, looked right at him.
He says, you have no power at all,
except to be given you from heaven.
I don't know what you think about yourself,
but Jesus could look right at him and
say, you can't touch me without heaven.
Heaven is where all the power, it's my
father.
And when we realize that in our own
lives, realize there are people around us, pronouncing
judgments, having opinions, doing these things, hiring or
firing or blessing or cursing or do all
of those other things around us.
But when we realize, no, God is, God
is the one that's the center of it
all.
People aren't making it for me and they
aren't breaking it for me.
Yet God is the one who's behind it
all.
And if I, if I don't know that,
if I don't know that God is sovereign,
if I don't know that he is a
sustainer, if I don't know that he knows
what things I have need of and he
cares about it and he is going to
be working in my life, if I don't
know those things, I'll look to you.
I'll simply look and say, I've got, I'm
gonna find somebody else therefore to take care
of me, somebody else to get me out
of trouble, somebody else to resolve my problems.
And it'll have huge effects on my life
if I don't know that the, the absolute
power and love and a commitment that God
has for me.
And, but if I do know that, then
the flip side of that is therefore I
can look at my circumstances right now and
realize, well God, you know all about them,
don't you?
Everything about them.
And God, you're working.
You're working in my life right now to
produce something.
We may not like them.
We may not like them circumstances, but when
we realize God knows all about them and
he knows what is best and he is
doing that right now.
My business now is to know it and
to respond to it.
We may, as I said, we may not
always like it.
Paul, the wonderful, great, tremendous, the Apostle Paul
himself, when you look at him on one
hand, he knew what it was to come
and ask of God and to seek God
and to knock on the door.
The three times he knocked and he sought
after and he, and he asked God to
take away this thorn in his flesh.
He looked at the circumstances in his world
and he went and he said, God change
it.
God fix it.
God do something about it.
And after he asked and he sought and
he knocked on God's door essentially and there's
still no great, no, no change.
Then God spoke to him and he said
one of the most wonderful and yet I
suppose amazing things, but he said, Saul or
Paul, he says my grace is sufficient for
thee.
And here the interesting thing is, is here
on one hand Paul is there saying, God
I have this thorn.
I have this problem.
I've got this circumstance in my life that
is not going away.
Take it away.
Remove it.
In the name of Jesus, remove it.
In the name of Jesus Christ, remove it.
And it didn't go.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
remove it.
In the name of Jesus Christ, son of
the living God, creator of heaven and earth,
remove it.
And it's still there.
After he prays and he no doubt fasted
and other people waited upon God, remove this.
Then God did the most interesting thing.
He said, I'm not taking it away, but
I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
My grace is sufficient for thee.
I am going to give you a greater
portion of grace with which to resolve it.
And you know, that's when we say, Oh
no, that's not the answer I want.
You know, we have problems and, and, and,
and we just want something taken away.
And if God doesn't take it away, then
with the other day, at that point, we
usually just system shut down.
And, and rather than realizing so often when
God doesn't take a thing away, he is
offering us a greater answer.
I believe then taking it away because he's
actually turns to Paul and he says, Paul,
how about instead of fewer problems, how about
greater grace?
How about a greater measure of me?
How about a greater work of me in
your heart and in your life?
How about a greater presence than you even
known of me thus far?
What do you think, Paul?
And when you and I realize that means
so often, let me ask you a question.
If right now, let's say you're a hundred
thousand dollars in debt and, uh, uh, and
if you're a good American, you ought to
at least be that much, I suppose, but,
uh, you know, something, but anyway, suppose you
and you don't, how am I going to
pay it?
And you're saying, God, take it away.
Take away this debt.
Please take it away.
Take it away.
Come on, God.
I beg you in Jesus name.
I know you can do it.
He doesn't take it away, but instead he
says, hot, tell you what, how about if
I give you a hundred thousand dollar raise,
would you say no, take it away?
Or would you say really?
That means I can even handle more debt,
you know, or something how that's so often
what we want.
Most people do not spend their life getting
rid of debt.
We find ways to get more capacities, to
create more debt and handle more debt.
That's the good American way.
Well, as a Christian, I think so often
that's almost sometimes God's plan as well in
the spiritual realm where they're going on, take
this away, take this away, take this away.
And he says, how about I just give
you a greater measure of my power and
my presence with which, you know, to handle
all of the problems and the burdens of
life.
That's what God did for Paul.
And later on, Paul actually commented on this
thing.
And when he didn't get the answer, he
realized later that had God not given him
greater grace, but had he taken it away,
Paul himself commented that he himself would probably
have been exalted above measure.
And if God had removed the thorn, he
would have had an air of pride that
maybe would have been above measure and crippled
his entire life.
We don't know what Paul's thorn was really
don't.
We know he was small in stature.
We know that he had bad eyesight.
We know by other comments that people made
and that Paul referred to, he seemed to
be a rather unattractive man to common people's
thinking.
It's a belief by many that his wife,
if she was alive, was an unbeliever.
She's never mentioned, but it's believed to be
a member of the Sanhedrin, which Paul was
that he had been married.
So either she had, excuse me, died or
an unbeliever and that he had some sort
of a speech impediment of one form or
another.
We just don't know exactly what it has
been, but at the same time, so often
God gives to us things in our life
that he designed specifically to cause us to
need more of him.
And instead of taking them away, he takes
us into a greater knowledge of him.
You look at Joseph on one hand here,
God gives him these wonderful dreams for his
life in these visions.
And then of course his brothers end up
selling him and down, you know, to the
Midianites and down, they take him down to
Egypt and then Potiphar's wife sells him or
I mean tries to seduce him and then
gets him thrown in prison.
And then he sits in there as the
years go by.
But each time, instead of God removing and
solving the issues of the human problems in
his life, God gave him a greater measure
of himself.
That's so often what growth is really all
about.
David on one hand, though he oftentimes prayed,
God, get me out of this.
Is God allowed for years and years and
years, 10, 15 years, Saul is chasing him
over every hill and Dale and nook and
cranny and cave and corner of Israel.
And he's running for his life, his praying
that it would end.
And instead, you know, God is doing something
wonderful within David.
He ended up to be one of the
best runners I suppose in history.
You know, he was pretty fast guy, ultimately
pretty strong, pretty powerful.
And yet God conditioned him sometimes spiritually and,
and made him a great warrior and put
together so many facets of becoming a tremendous
leader through those years and years of difficulty.
And instead of God removing the trial, he
gave him a grace that was greater than
the trial so that he could handle and
lead a nation through trials later on.
And so often when we, you know, when
we realize this of God's power and God's
strength, William Coper, a man in a previous
century, but pioneer ultimately a great spiritual awakening
in England.
But he was a man who knew great
suffering.
He was frail described as a shuddering bundle
of nerves, a man with a pinched face
and eyes that were constantly swollen from chronic
inflammation.
The man was so disturbed by his health
and other problems that he once even attempts
to attempted suicide.
He actually spent time as well in an
insane asylum and where all sorts of contempt
and cruelty seemed to be the order of
the day.
But yet out of these sufferings, God brought
this man, William Coper into a man who
ultimately again brought about a great revival.
He became a great writer of many letters
in ministry in England.
But one of his great things that William
Coper once wrote, he says, God moves in
mysterious ways as wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps into the sea and
he rides upon the storm, deep and unfathomable
minds of never frailing, failing skill.
He treasures up his brightest designs and he
works his sovereign will.
But so often God, he has this way
where he puts people through and he lets
them knock and he lets them seek and
he lets them ask.
And he lets them while all of this
thing that's sometimes a superficial thing that we
are knocking and seeking and asking and wanting
so desperately, knowing that if that was answered,
our life would become so much better.
It'd be so much easier.
Condition around us would become so much more
acceptable and the environment would be so much
more wonderful.
And so often God doesn't change the environment,
but in the process of it, he takes
us into a depth or a strength or
an understanding of him, of his grace, of
his sufficiency, of his capacity to do something
we never dreamed would happen.
Sometimes God allows things in our homes.
He allows them in our marriage.
He allows them in our family or children
or with our health or our job or
financial situation.
And times there to where it almost seems
unknown to God or isn't interested in it.
And yet there he's working yet there in
those times, God is teaching us to learn
to trust him in a wonderful way.
And it isn't so much that in these
times he's making our life any better.
Sometimes we dislike and we were living there
with these things, but they're the very same
things that God is taking in our, in
our life and in our home and in
these experiences, taking us deeper with him.
And what Jesus here, when he says there,
therefore, at this point to me, when Jesus
turns in a key aspect of this in
verse 12, when he says, therefore, whatsoever you
would that men should do to you.
In other words, here, Jesus, he's there.
Now he takes us there after looking to
God, seeking God, knocking and seeking and asking
God, answering, holding, looking to God, letting him
become the total sovereign sufficiency of our life.
If you can do that, he said, now
what I want you to do is hold
God accountable for everything in your life and
hold man accountable for nothing.
Let man off the hook, let him go,
leave him alone.
Don't be worried about it.
Essentially.
That's what I believe he's saying here when
he says in verse 12, therefore, all things
whatsoever you would that men should do to
you.
Don't be worrying about men and what they're
doing, what they're not doing, what they're all
about, but he wants to free us up.
Now he says, just instead of looking at
the people that you wish would do this
and you would knock here and you seek
this and you ask this from people and
they aren't fixing it.
You go to your wife and you say,
honey, I love you, but you're not perfect
yet.
And, and I wish you'd get perfect, you
know, or something in life would be so
much more wonderful.
Me, if you're perfect, you see, because I
don't intend on getting perfect.
So I do need somebody that is perfect
to balance me out or whatever else.
But we're looking to people say, do this,
or we're looking at our children because we
don't have the strength or the wisdom or
the power to know what to do with
them.
And so God just, then, then, then get
them out of here, you know, or something
and said, and God says, no, let them
go.
Look to me, knock and seek and ask
for me in these things.
And then I now want you, instead of
being upset with them or holding them accountable
or frustrated with them, I want you now
to be able to look at all these
people around you and however it is that
you would like them to treat you, you
treat them, let them go.
Don't worry, you know, about all of this.
And until we can really begin to understand
this and just so simple, it's so wonderful,
but it is yet so powerful.
Maybe tonight right now, you could be so
happy.
You're convinced you could be happy.
If one or two people would just do
something for you or three or four, maybe
10, I don't know your, your personal list,
but you have people on your list.
We all have people in circumstances on our
list.
If I could have my wish list of
one or two or five, and I could
knock at this door and I could seek
at that one.
And I could ask over there and this
guy would do this and that person would
do that.
And that whole life would be wonderful here.
Jesus said, you come and ask me anything,
everything, all things.
And then as far as people are concerned,
now, instead of worrying about them, I want
you to just treat them however you would
like them to treat you.
Isn't that a wonderful thing, but you see,
we can't do that if we're mad at
them.
We can't do that if they aren't doing
what we want them to do.
We can't do that if they aren't solving
our problems and we, and we want them
to.
But if we can look there and realize
it's all solved.
I mean, right now you may have a
problem with your boss, but suppose on the
way home tonight, you won the lottery.
I'll bet tomorrow with your boss, you'd say,
you know, I knew I had something I
wanted to ask you, but I can't remember
it.
How all of a sudden you could be
so free towards people.
If somebody had something you needed or you
wanted, but all of a sudden it was
entirely taken care of, you wouldn't have to
worry about it.
And this is something that is so powerful,
so important.
And now, as he goes on in verse
13, he says, enter ye in at the
straight gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is
the way that leadeth unto destruction and many
there be that go in there at.
And straight is the gate.
Narrow is the way that leadeth unto life
and few there be that find it.
But here is something now, I think again,
as you stay within the context and you
realize here, I believe two things are happening.
I believe he is winding down the sermon
and that he is pulling some final thoughts
together, but I believe the thoughts still have
a tremendous flow to them in the sense
that on one hand, he is wanting to
tell you and I, as he's closing off
the message, come and seek me for everything.
Let people off the hook.
Don't worry about holding them accountable.
And just simply look at the whole world.
However, you'd like to have them treat you,
treat them that way.
Just start doing it.
And in doing now, just you enter in
with your heart, with your life, with your
walk, you know, at the straight gate, which
in wide is the straight gate for wide
is the gate and broad is the way
that leadeth unto destruction.
But here, you know, the thing that essentially
the Lord is wanting to do now as
he's closing off the sermon is essentially saying,
listen, I've told you a lot of things.
Now I want you to do them.
I've told you a lot of things in
this sermon, but now I want you to
enter into them and I want you to
follow through with them.
And as if to say, don't just listen
to the sermon and like it, he says,
now I want you to do it.
That's what he's saying.
When enter in you with your life, you
go on and you follow God, you follow
his Lordship.
You follow the things that he has to
say.
And he said, it's a call essentially to
obedience.
And I think sometimes, you know, to hear
Jesus as people love to listen to him
and say, wasn't that a tremendous sermon?
He'd like to say, well, it is if
you enter in.
You know, I think the Lord, he's very,
very used to be listened to, but he's
also used to being ignored.
He's the somebody we all love to hear
what Jesus has to say.
But then when he says, you like it,
we saw, I love it.
And he says, now do it.
Oh no, I don't want to do it,
but it was really good.
In fact, I'm going to write it down
and I'm going to put it on my
refrigerator, you know, and look at it every
day, you know, or something and hope other
people look at it and think, I believe
that, but I'm not going to do it.
I mean, we're famous for that.
We're famous for ones that the Lord has
looked at us and says, I'm your father.
Now trust me entirely, knock, seek, ask of
me, trust me, give your whole life over
to me.
Let people go.
I'll handle them.
And now he says, now follow me, follow
me into these truths.
Follow me into this life, you know, and,
and this is where, you know, God is
so used to having masses of people that
love what he has to say that they
don't want to do it back in the
old Testament, as it's written about in the
book of Hebrews in chapter three, it says,
wherefore, if you hear his voice in reference
to God's, as you hear his voice, he
says today, if you'll hear his voice, he
says, hard, not your hearts as in the
provocation, the day of the temptation, the wilderness,
he says, when your father's tempted me and
they proved me and they saw my work
40 years, but wherefore I was grieved with
that generation.
And he says, they do always air in
their heart.
And he says, so they, I swore my
wrath.
They'll not enter into my rest because of
their unbelief.
God looked at them and he says, I
loved him.
I ministered to him and they did nothing,
but provoke me and provoke me and provoke
me for 40 years.
Every time I did and works and I
blessed him and I fed them and water
out of rocks, man out of heaven, quail
out of the sky earthquakes to destroy their
enemies.
And yet every time, as I revealed myself,
I said, now follow me.
He said, Oh no, we don't do that.
And he says to us, he says that
we are to be ones that we need
to be following him, not just hearing his
word, but doing it, coming in, giving him
our lives and saying, Lord, I give you
my problems.
I do want this thorn removed or whatever
it is.
But if you've got a dimension of your
grace and your power, your sufficiency that I
have not yet known that can overrule and
give me the power in this, then God
give it to me.
Take me.
I want to follow you.
I want to hear your voice and I
want to enter into your rest.
And I want to go through the straight
gate and the narrow is the way, as
he says there.
And here essentially there's Jesus is closing off
the message.
He's saying they're doing.
And this is where we struggle.
So often, you know, we kind of do
things.
We come together and we sing.
We have a wonderful worship time.
And here Noel sings for us tonight.
Be still and know I'm God.
And we just think, oh, that's so wonderful.
But are we still are we knowing he's
God right now within our life or as
we sing some of these wonderful songs that
we sing, do we believe them or do
we just sing them?
We can hit the key, know the chorus,
sing right along with everybody else.
Not as we sing him, isn't that beautiful?
But do we believe them?
Do we follow them?
We, you know, the church, sometimes we get
together and we sing, you know, standing on
the promises of God, you know, I cannot
fail and things, you know, we don't get
to get standing, standing, standing on the promises
of God, my savior, and we sing it
all through.
Are we standing on the promises?
No, but it's a wonderful song.
You know, we should change the words.
I think that sitting on the premises, you
know, or something instead, you know, and, you
know, or something that is what we ought
to just do and then just put it
in there.
I'm not standing on it.
I'm just sitting on the premises, occupying space,
nodding at it, but not doing here.
Jesus says, do it.
Follow me.
Enter into it.
The amazing things about us is like with
the children of Israel, as they went so
far, they actually heard so much and they
were so familiar with God's voice and with
God's work and with God's revelations of himself
that they actually made assumptions that they were
just fine.
And at the same time, they had a
hardened heart of unbelief because their life was
not following.
They were not hearing his voice.
They hardened their hearts and they provoke God
through unbelief, lack of obedience to go into
the land or to trust him.
And many times we can be like that.
On one hand, we kind of believe, but
yet our life doesn't follow.
We're kind of like the story of the
fellow that went into a bar and he
asked the bartender, he says, I want three
shots of whiskey.
They line up the three shots of whiskey
and he lifts one up and drinks it
and lifts the second, drinks it, lifts the
third, drinks it.
Well, he came in every Friday at three
o'clock, ordered up these three and sat
over there in the corner and drank these
three shots of whiskey.
And finally, one time the bartender, he was
so interested, he said, can you tell me,
I've never seen anybody do what you do.
You come in here every Friday at three
and have three shots of whiskey.
And he said, well, I had two fellows.
We went through the war together and we
were such great buddies and we used to
go out and have a whiskey together.
Well, then we all went our separate ways,
but in honor of each other, wherever we
are in the world at three o'clock
every Friday, we all gather wherever we are,
though we're not together, line up three shots
and lift one to each one of us,
you know, and wherever we are thinking about
each other and what we mean, he says,
oh, that's nice.
He thought it was.
But anyway, the then one day the fellow
kept coming in, but this time he ordered
two.
And then for you notice him for a
few weeks and Friday at three, he was
only getting two.
And, you know, it didn't take long.
The bartender realized, well, one of his buddies
must have died.
And he goes to him and he said,
you know, I noticed you're only getting two
now.
And he said, yeah.
And he said, I assume one of your
friends died.
He says, no, no, that didn't happen.
Actually, what happened, I became a Christian.
And so I gave up drinking for myself.
But in some way or another, we're kind
of like that.
A lot of times we go and in
one sense, we lift one to God.
You know, I believe that, you know, I
trust in that, but don't happen to put
two and two together and realize we're still
doing a lot of stuff that we aren't
entering in.
We ourselves are not following.
We ourselves are not really in our own
life wanting it to be transformed.
We're just doing it less or something.
So we say, see, look at my I'm
being changed.
And I think other people would look at
this and say, well, I'm not sure about
that.
But here, Jesus, he essentially, as he goes
on, he says, I want you to follow
me and I want you to trust me.
I am your father.
I am your God.
And I want you to come to me
and seek me for everything in life.
You need, I'll take care of you.
And he says, and then let people go
and now follow me.
Just let them go and follow me and
trust me and seek me and you'll find
me and I'll take care of you.
And then he gives this wonderful little picture
here to us as we're kind of following
him.
And you might say in a sense when
here, he tells us there to go in
at this straight gate as he, you know,
turns to us, you know, to, to follow
the straight gate in this narrow way.
And kind of, as we come along here,
we look over and here on one side,
we see this, this broad gate, this wide
gate in this broad way, this wide, wide
road.
And we look there and there's many people
going in and we look over this and
he's kind of showing it to us.
You might say, and then next year we
look over here and here's a narrow little
gate.
And there's a narrow way there is it
kind of seems to go on at least
awful narrow and confining in appearance starts narrow
stays narrow sort of a thing.
And there, as he looks at this, he
says, one of these is the way the
world goes.
And the other one is the way that
the people that know and love and trust
me fully go with their lives.
And he looks at there and he says,
as he draws this picture, he tells you
and I, it's like Jesus saying, I, I
know exactly the perception the world has of
me and all the things going on.
And I know the world looks at life
in a certain way and, and it can
go and do what it wants to.
And it has all of its liberties and
all of the way that it lives.
And he says, I know that when I
am asking somebody to turn to me and
love me and trust me and follow me,
it seems very, very narrow.
It seems very, very tight.
It seems very, very confining, but I'll tell
you the most wonderful thing that ever happens
is that when somebody I believe becomes very,
very narrow about Jesus, when something happens in
our heart and in our life, and we
become very confining, you might say about him,
I believe the Lord loves his people to
be narrow about him.
He loves us to take him very, very
literally.
He loves us to look at God and
take his father is very, very narrow.
He loves us to take his Lordship and
his mastery and his right to rule and
be very narrow upon about that.
He loves us to look at the spirit
of God and be very narrow.
He loves us to look at values and
processes and lives and be very, very narrow
about them narrow about his right to rule
narrow about his authority there in and to
do that.
Because you see, the wonderful thing is, though,
is this narrowness.
It's also a tremendous paradox.
Because here, Jesus says the broad way leads
to destruction.
But the narrow way leads to life.
If the Son has set you free, you're
free.
Indeed, there's nobody freer in all the world
than the person that is extremely narrow and
confining about Jesus and following him.
There's nobody more liberated.
There is nobody that is that has a
greater, freer, fuller, richer life than the one
that has has determined.
I want to be very narrow about Jesus
Christ in my life and whatever it is
he wants.
I don't want to play with it.
James in his epistle, he he calls the
gospel the law of liberty.
I like that.
It's like on one hand, he did this
law, but it's something there.
The gospel when it when it becomes only
in a sense to my heart, it becomes
something so high, so narrow, so confining.
It's a law of liberty.
It sets me free there.
When I find there the Lord, you take
over and I want to be very, very
narrow about you.
The narrow I am about him, the greater
my liberty.
And you know, that's also true in the
rest of our lives, too.
Any of you, the more you're a Christian,
the more you know in your own life,
the narrower you have become about Jesus, the
greater your freedom, the greater your freedom.
When I first became a Christian and Jesus
was just this wonderful person that died on
the cross, but I still did whatever I
want to, wherever I want to, whatever it
was.
When I was early on as a Christian,
I got saved.
I know I was born again.
The spirit of God had come into my
life.
He had borne witness with my spirit that
I was a child of God.
But I still here I am in college
and I got my friends that come and
say, Don, we're having a party.
You're in the fraternity.
You got to show up.
Yes, I am.
And I would literally have people when I
tell them I'm stopping drinking, they'd say, Well,
you mean a Christian can't drink?
Where does it say a Christian can't drink?
Well, I don't know.
Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Jesus drank.
Hmm.
Well, guess it was okay for Jesus.
Okay for me, you know, or something.
And next thing you know, you take all
these liberties on how you know, not only
was I free enough, and it was it
was I that I could have one drink.
I was free to have two and three,
four.
In fact, I was so free.
I didn't even have to drive home because
I didn't know where it was.
But the but on how so often the
very exercise of freedom really produces the destruction
of it.
When somebody thinks they're exercising their own liberties
and their own freedoms outside of Christ, all
they're really doing is destroying their liberty.
Same thing in your marriage.
Either the the happiest marriage or the most
narrow of marriages.
The one there that if there's this couple
that in this century, I mean, this day
and age actually look and say, you know
something, we're absolutely faithful to each other.
We don't entertain anybody else.
We don't even flirt with anybody else.
We don't go out with anybody else.
Boy, you're awful narrow.
Yep.
I'm happy to.
If you don't, if you don't know that's
true tonight, just go home and tell your
wife that you think you're too narrow when
you're going to include somebody else.
You'll lose some freedoms.
And your bed and your car and your
house and a lot of other stuff will
be gone real fast.
And but the person there that it is
though that is narrow in their relationship with
Christ.
They find themselves there absolutely fixed on him
straight as the gate and narrow as the
way and they love that narrowness.
They love that absolute nature of his sovereign
power in his life and they want to
rely only upon it.
That's how Jesus was.
Greatest life that ever lived.
He was somebody in John 8.
Jesus said, I do only always those things
that please my father.
You want to know what makes me tick
every moment of every day?
I'll tell you, I'm extremely narrow.
I do whatever pleases my father.
And what a life.
What an unbelievable life.
John 530.
Jesus said, I can't on my own self
do nothing.
But as I hear, I respond.
And my response is always right because I
seek not my known will, but the will
of him that sent me.
Jesus was so narrow.
He could look at the world.
He said, you know, I'm going to tell
you some, I know I really can't do
anything myself.
Amazingly, which we don't quite understand here.
We have the second person, the triune Godhead
who, when he essentially seemingly willingly divested himself
of all of the rights and the privileges
of being God, he humbles himself, takes upon
himself the form of a servant.
He becomes a man.
And therefore he lived as a man under
the power of a man filled with God,
born of God in situations.
You know, I can't have my own self
do nothing, but I'll tell you what I'm
different about.
As I hear, I respond.
And my response is always right.
Cause I'm not like you.
I do only always those things that please
him.
That's why predictably, wonderfully narrow about his life.
And you know, when we, when we stop
and we realize that what it is that
we really ought to long for more than
anything else is Lord, make me this narrow.
We're watching a whole world now that, uh,
as it is determined, broad is the way
in broad is the gate.
Why does the gate in broad is the
way that leads to destruction.
And what an amazing thing it is.
There's a man, not a Christian who wrote
an interesting book called the closing of the
American mind.
It was written by a non-Christian named
bloom.
It was on the best selling list.
Amazingly a few years ago, but he essentially,
he brings forth this, this thing of looking
at America today.
And he says America has been destroyed through
openness, openness.
That is, he says people wanting to have
an open mind and they found it intellectually
fashionable.
He says to throw out all preconceived absolutes
and there to become open and to be
flexible to new thought.
And then at that point, as soon as
you become open, now absolutes are all gone
and everything becomes relative is what happened to
our country.
Truth is no longer absolute.
It's relative.
Your truth might be different than my truth.
Your morality might be different than somebody else's
morality.
Your values might be one thing.
And if we're going to progress as a
nation and we're all going to get along,
we've got to be open to one another.
We've got to look at there and make
life relative one another.
We can't have anybody that's absolute and narrow.
And the amazing thing is we're watching a
country literally self-destruct through openness.
But in the midst of it, Jesus looks
at the Christian.
He says, you be narrow.
Narrow is the gate and narrow is the
way.
It starts off.
You go in with one very narrow, narrow,
narrow concept.
You enter into eternal life because you say
my hope is built on nothing less than
Jesus blood and righteousness.
Christ and Christ alone died for me.
His blood on the cross is all I
need alone, all by itself to save me.
His forgiveness is all I need is that
one person at the right hand of the
majesty of whoever lives to make intercession for
me.
I'm very narrow.
That's all that I need.
That's the great.
That's the gate.
He says, narrow is the gate, but he
says, and narrow is the way.
He says, if we could just stay as
narrow along the way is we were the
day we got saved is the day that
I came and said, Jesus, without you, I'm
hopeless.
And if I can live every day that
way, every day that way, having that dependence.
But again, so often we have this great
capacity to kind of go on and just
do our own thing.
We go on and we live our life
and we say, well, this doesn't have to
change and I don't have to repent of
this.
And my marriage will be all right.
And Hey, I just hang out with the
guys and we probably, yeah, maybe we, we
have, we tip a few and we, yeah,
there's some bad humor and yeah, they got
some movies that, you know, are questionable, but
they're guys and they're just, oh, you know,
guys watch those kinds of movies and for
a person not to think that's going to
affect their life.
And as a Christian, not going to all
of a sudden move them right out of
a narrow gate in a narrow way, put
them on a broad way that then now
they come home and now they're lying.
Now they come home and now they, they,
they find themselves where they they've wounded and
they've hurt and they've crippled.
They've lost their freedom in their own life
and walk because I don't stay narrow in
the Lord, how he wants us to stay
narrow.
Don't make excuses.
When we got a problem, there's something in
our life.
It's not right.
We're not trusting him.
We're looking to other people.
We're going to other resources, living in a
way that's not right.
Jesus says, follow me, trust me, ask of
me, I'll take care of you.
But if we don't do it, or we
excuse it, and we're famous for that.
The other day, I'm reading this thing, the
mayor of Washington, DC, the highest per capita
crime rate in the United States.
And they're asking him about the high, you
know, this terrible high crime rate, his answer.
Well, if you take away murders out of
our town, we're no longer the highest.
Oh, just take off a few little thing
like murders.
Just don't count them in and you're not
the worst.
Well, great.
I mean, that's as if, well, I don't
know what he was trying to say, you
know, with it, but it sounded to me
like a Christian talking to God, you know,
sort of a thing, you know, like, Hey,
Lord, I know things aren't right.
I know you feel a little upset with
me.
And, and, you know, I just hang out
this, you know, with this, she's really a
nice prostitute.
But that's I take that out of my
life.
And I'm really not too bad.
Really?
Oh, just that one little thing.
And everything else is okay.
Yeah, that's that.
Yeah.
I'm really doing good in other areas.
Oh, and we think this way.
And you have to hear the writer of
Hebrews.
He said, you know, as he says, wherefore,
if you will hear the Holy Spirit today,
hard not your heart, as in the provocation
and the day of the temptation in the
wilderness, when your father's tempted me, prove me
saw my works 40 years, I was agreed
with that generation, I swore my wrath, they
will not enter into my rest.
And then he goes on a couple verses
later, he says, and their carcasses died in
the wilderness.
Oh, that we could just come and say,
Lord, I want to follow you fully.
And maybe there's areas of our life where
we're just living with things and excusing them.
And we're kind of like that guy, you
know, that we think we're doing better, but
we're still tipping a few just in memory
of the friends, but me, I don't drink
anymore.
How can we be like this?
But rather to come and say, Lord, take
my life and take my walk.
Maybe tonight some of us are here.
And we're upset with people.
We've been knocking and seeking and asking and
people haven't answered us.
But maybe the Lord looks at you and
he says, my grace is sufficient.
Instead of begging me to take away the
problem, why don't you come to me and
get more strength, and more power, and more
grace, and more sufficiency, and see what I
can do in your marriage.
See what I can do in your walk,
see what I can do at work.
See what I can do anywhere.
If instead of saying God change, and then
point your fingers.
And we can look there and say, God,
change me.
Give me a sufficiency of your grace.
More power.
I need more income, spiritually, to meet the
issues of life.
Father, we thank you and praise you for
your love and your goodness.
And Lord, we pray that while we live
in a world that is with a wide
open gate and a broad way, and many
there be that are going in all around.
Lord, I pray that with our lives we'd
be able to come before you and say,
Jesus, take them.
We want to come to you and just
knock and seek and ask from you.
You take care of us.
And help us, Lord, let the whole world
off the hook.
Let the people off the hook around our
lives that we think have let us down.
And come to the God who has created
us, who is sufficient for everything, and say,
Lord, give me your strength.
Give me your power.
I need a spiritual raise.
I need more spiritual income.
Instead of saying lower the standard, let's raise
the spiritual income.
And Jesus, be greater in me.
And Lord, may we become very narrow about
you.
May we be ones that sometimes the world
would look and say, you're awfully narrow.
And may we say, oh, thank you.
Thank you so much.
That's just what I've been praying would happen
in my life.
More and more.
Narrow about God.
Narrow about his power.
Narrow about his sufficiency.
Narrow about his ability to care for me.
Narrow that he can meet all of my
needs.
Narrow that I don't need anybody else but
him.
Don't need to rely upon others.
And then, Lord, we ask that you would
take our life and that we would follow
you fully.
And anything, Lord, that you would look and
say, you don't need this.
You don't need to be there Friday at
three o'clock with the boys.
You need to be here with me.
With your real friends.
The kingdom of heaven.
Lord, take us and teach us and strengthen
us.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.