We seem to be fast coming to the place where we will scarcely have to deal with people at all. We can just deal with computer-driven machines to get what we want.
I frankly cannot remember when I have dealt with a bank teller. I just roll up to an Automatic Teller Machine, punch in a few numbers, and do my banking at a terminal, which does not restrict itself to banker's hours, which does not ask to see my driver's license, and, best of all, does not command me to have a nice day after informing me that my balance is low! I prefer the automatic teller.
The service station where I usually fill up my car's gasoline tank is now equipped with automatic credit card readers. I just push my card in, fill up the tank, and in a few seconds after I am finished I have in my hand a neatly printed receipt with my name and account number on it. No shouting through a Plexiglas safety window; no fumbling with a pen in freezing weather; no hazy attempts to remember my car's license tag number; and, best of all, no waiting while the attendant carries on his social life via telephone. I prefer the automatic gasoline pump.
Now more and more there is another automatic device that I find helpful. And that is the automatic door opener. You find automatic door openers at the grocery, for example, so that the door swings wide for you and your loaded grocery cart. You find automatic door openers at the airport, so that you have that extra half-second to your credit when you are about to miss your flight. You find automatic door openers in a variety of places where people are expected to have their hands full or where they will be in a hurry, and just can't take the time to be bothered with the usual ways of opening doors.
All of these devices have one thing in common. You don't have to interact with people. You don't have to be bothered with people. You just approach them and use them. You just approach, or touch the right buttons, or slide in the right card, and it's done for you. No human touch at all.
God, I want you to know, has installed a kind of automatic door opener. Our God has created for us an entry that is barrier-free and easy to use.
But there is a difference. There is something about God's door opener that is not like the automatic door opener you went through at the grocery yesterday.
God's automatic door opener is highly personal. Not at all just mechanical, but highly personal.
And second, God's door opener requires discipline. It is not just a convenience. It requires discipline.
Listen to the Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount and notice how He puts together two very different references to doors and gates. Notice how what He says about entering these doors, these gates, has a built-in tension:
Matthew 7:7-14
A built-in tension.
On the one hand, God's door is automatic and easy to enter. "For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." Easy enough, it would seem.
But on the other hand, "Enter through the narrow gate ... the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
It's easy to enter the Kingdom, and yet it's hard. The door is open to everyone, and yet there are few who find it.
What do we do with this tension?
I
First, we need to see that God's automatic door opener is highly personal. It is not just mechanical. To come to God and enter His kingdom, we do have to ask. We do have to interact with Him. We cannot just plug in our little spiritual credit cards and expect everything to swing wide for us. The kingdom of God is highly personal, it is a relationship with the living God.
And so Jesus not only speaks of knocking and having the door of opportunity opened for us. He also speaks of asking and receiving. He speaks of children receiving gifts from a loving father. He speaks of a deeply personal relationship.
You see, our problem is that we think of the kingdom of heaven as some kind of automatic deal into which we put a little time and energy, and we get what we want without interaction, without personal involvement. Our problem is that we want automatic religion ... we'd like to think that we can be saved by doing the right things and pushing the right buttons. But God's automatic door opener is a personal relationship with Him, and nothing else.
People will sometimes tell me, "No, I haven't attended worship for a long time. But I've been sending in my offerings. I do give."
They are assuming that the bottom line is the bottom line, and they are assuming that if they just keep up the monthly payments, the doors of the kingdom will automatically swing open for them.
But God's automatic door opener is personal. It is a relationship with the living God. "Ask and you will receive; then knock, and the door shall be opened."
Others, some of us here today maybe, will think, "I'm all right. I'm in a good place where God is concerned. I go to church, I go regularly. I am in the house of God as often as not, every Sunday. So the doors of the Kingdom will open automatically for me. After all, God knows my name; I write it on the little Friendship Book every week!"
But, you see, we have assumed that God's automatic door opener is something we can manage, something we can manipulate, without the messy inconvenience of dealing with a relationship. I must tell you that the doorway to the Kingdom is always personal, always a relationship. The issue is not how many times you came to church, but how many times and with what faith you entered into the presence of the living God, and knew Him ... and knew Him.
"Ask, and you will receive; knock, and then the door shall be opened to you." God's automatic door opener is easily opened, but it is personal. It is a relationship.
II
But notice that, at the same time, God's door opener requires discipline. It is not just a convenience, not just a quick pass-through. Entry into the Kingdom is going to involve a tough discipline.
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who take it."
It may be easy to enter into a relationship with our God; He has done in Jesus Christ all He can to make Himself accessible to us. But we are called to a disciplined pursuit ... a disciplined pursuit ... of the things of the Kingdom.
When Jesus gave this teaching, He obviously had in mind the gates of the city of Jerusalem. Everyone who listened to Him would have been able to picture that city, with its ancient walls, punctured by several gates of varying sizes and shapes.
One of those gates was very wide. It allowed easy access and easy departure. No rush hour traffic at that gate. But it also led to the Jericho road, where there were bandits and thieves, waiting to hurt you and destroy you. It was the wide gate that leads to destruction.
Another of those gates was very small. It would barely allow one person at a time to go through. It was called the "eye of the needle", and it was designed to allow people to go in and out, but an invading army would have been stopped right away at so small an entry point. It was the gate to life; it was the gate through which you could run to find safety if you were in trouble outside the city walls.
To enter that gate required discipline. And especially if others were trying to leave through that gate, it would require discipline and energy to get through it. It would be like swimming upstream, like walking up the down escalator. In order to achieve the safety of the city, you had to know where you were going and you had to pursue your goal against all the flow in the other direction.
For excellence in the Christian life, there is no automatic door opener except discipline. For excellence in the Christian life, there is no simple, impersonal, automatic way. There is only the way of the narrow gate, there is only the way of a disciplined choice.
This disciplined choice is a narrow way; that is, it means you will set boundaries. It means you will set priorities. It means that you will determine that there are some things in your life you can get rid of, and must get rid of, in order to pursue the narrow way.
There is some baggage some of us are carrying that will hold us back from entering the gate that leads to life. And we will not achieve excellence until we get rid of the baggage and set some boundaries.
Men and women, we cannot pursue the Kingdom of God and at the same time pursue sheer worldly satisfactions. Excellence in the Kingdom requires discipline, boundaries, priorities.
We cannot pursue excellence in the Kingdom and at the same time wallow in materialism. Jesus says, "You cannot serve both God and money". Excellence in the Kingdom requires discipline, boundaries, priorities.
We cannot pursue excellence in the Kingdom and at the same time give ourselves over to the pursuit of fun and games and meaningless pleasure. Jesus says, "If anyone will come after me, let him deny himself and follow me." Excellence in the Kingdom requires discipline, boundaries, priorities.
We cannot pursue excellence in the Kingdom and at the same time do everything that the club or the lodge or the political party or the neighbors on the block want us to do. Jesus says, "If your eye be single, then your whole body is full of light." Excellence in the Kingdom requires discipline, boundaries, priorities.
For excellence in the Kingdom, there is no other way but the narrow way, the studied, disciplined way. Few there are who find it; deacons very definitely need to be among those who do find it.
Conclusion
You know, the other day I approached a door in a public building, not knowing that it had on it an automatic door opener. I rushed toward the door, late as usual, not having set my priorities very well, and put my hand out to shove open the door. When it flew open ahead of my hand, and with my weight already shifting forward to do the pushing, I almost fell flat on my silly face.
I had not waited for the automatic door opener someone had provided. I tried to do it by myself. And I had not set any boundaries. I had not focused on what was ahead of me. I thought I could make it all happen myself. Indeed I thought I had to make it all happen myself.
Someone this morning needs to let go and let God open the door which He so graciously wants to do. Someone just needs to come into a relationship with this loving God who says, "Ask and you will receive; knock, and the door will be opened".
Someone this morning needs to narrow the focus to the Kingdom; someone needs to zero in on the narrow way, the way of excellence, the way of discipline. Someone needs to say with the apostle, "This one thing I do ..." Not these many things, but this one thing. Someone needs to accept the discipline of following Christ in His church.
For though the "gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it", there are those who do. There are those who find it. They have found God's automatic door opener.
