THE BROAD REWARDS OF THE NARROW ROAD
TEXT: Matthew 7:13-14
Matthew 7:13-14 KJV Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: [14] Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 Moffatt NT Enter by the narrow gate: for [the gate] is broad and the road is wide that leads to destruction, and many enter that way. [14] But the road that leads to life is both narrow and close, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14 Murdock Enter ye in by the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad the way which leadeth to destruction; and many are they that walk in it. [14] How small the gate and straitened the way that leadeth to life, and few they who find it!
Matthew 7:13-14 Weymouth "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad the road which leads to ruin, and many there are who enter by it; [14] because narrow is the gate and contracted the road which leads to Life, and few are those who find it.
I. INTRODUCTION—THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
-There has never been a sermon preached like this one that is called the Sermon on the Mount, nor do I expect that there will ever be one to rival it ever again. It was the inaugural sermon of the Lord, after that one in His hometown where He read from Isaiah, that opened up the eyes of men to having some insight into the form and the way the Kingdom of God would operate.
-This sermon is filled with metaphors about the Christian life and the characters who populate its Kingdom.
-Here are some of the characters:
• The Poor
• The Mourners
• The Meek
• The Hungry and Thirsty
• The Merciful
• The Pure in Heart
• The Peacemakers
• The Persecuted
• The Gift-givers
• The Forgivers
• Those who give alms
• Those who pray
• Those who fast
• True and false prophets
• Sheep and wolves
• Builders on the rock
• Builders on the sand
-Here are some of the metaphors:
• Salt
• Light
• A City
• Candles
• Candlesticks
• Amputation
• Prayer closets
• Treasures that pass with time
• Treasures that never pass with eternity
• Strait gates
• Wide gates
• Broad ways
• Narrow ways
• Grapes of thorns
• Figs of thistles
• Good trees and good fruit
• Corrupt trees and evil fruit
-Matthew concludes with sermon with an observation:
Matthew 7:28-29 KJV And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: [29] For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
-It needs to be established from the outset that this message that was given by the Lord dealt first and foremost with spiritual matters. He was having reference to the entrance into Heaven and how that there is a very narrow and specific way that men and women are to be saved.
-We adhere to the concept of the New Birth. . . being born again of water and Spirit. . . John 3:3-5 and Acts 2:38. . . That way seems so exclusive and narrow to many who profess themselves to be Christians but have never really entered into the way of true salvation. We have to be born again! No exceptions!
-On the other hand, we are men and women who live in a world that is just as much physical as it is spiritual and there are principles and parameters that fit in both of them. The Lord was clearly informing us that we could be successful in our spiritual walk if we were willing to embrace these spiritual principles.
-But what about engaging these principles in our everyday and very much daily lives of where we live, work, go to school, play, and fulfill responsibilities that we are required to do. If the world ever needed people to live their lives in an upright and godly fashion it is in 2014. At the same time, I believe that these principles of the Lord can bring tremendous success to us in our work, our school, our families, and our church if we are willing to really grasp the fact that the narrow way is the best way.
II. THE BROAD REWARDS OF THE NARROW ROAD
A. Discipline
-If there is one word that could sum up what Jesus was saying when He mentioned strait gates and narrow ways it would have to be the word discipline. That is such an outdated concept in our times that really has no concept of what it means to delay gratification.
-In our get-it-now mentality there are rewards and kingdoms that are literally sacrificed on the altars of the immediate and the urgent. But there are some, very few, who are willing to buy into the concept of discipline in such a way that it propels them to the heights like rockets that few never experience. The drawback is that the heights will not come today, next week, or next month!
-The man who commits himself to discipline will find rewards that come in the years down the road.
-Nothing can push a man to heights like a commitment to discipline. It shapes his hours, his thoughts, and the very direction of his soul. There are absolutely no obstacles that can withstand the assault of a disciplined life.
-History is filled with men and women who had lesser gifts and talents but through their commitment to discipline they climbed far beyond those who had great gifts. Don’t lament what you don’t have outwardly but see what is budding inside of your soul that can have a harvest if it finds a blessed discipline.
-I believe wealth, talents, personal gifts, and even good looks have ruined more than a few who thought they could get by on them without any effort at harnessing their whims, moods, and habits.
-Discipline will help you to push beyond the certain coming calamities of life that will do their best to take us by the throat and choke out our faith and our hope.
O God, I don’t won’t talent but grant me by Your grace that hearty and full-orbed blessing of discipline!
-Many decry habits and there is something to be said against those bad habits that mar our lives. But what about the habits and routines the push us to the very maximum of what God has intended for us to be.
-I can speak with certainty when I tell you that you have no idea what is in your soul until you put a bridle of discipline on it furthermore I have no idea what is in my soul without the harness of discipline.
• Discipline will grow your character and your influence.
• Discipline opens us up to experiences that we otherwise would never be able to taste.
• Discipline does not help me to find life it helps me to make life.
• Discipline will jerk out the inferiority complexes, the warts of impurity, the trifles of the insignificant, and the laziness of our excuses.
-The Lord said to Job. . .
Job 38:3 KJV Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Job 40:7 KJV Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
-That is what I would like to demand out of every one of you here! Get yourself ready. . . answer me like a man. . . Tell me the answer to these questions. . .
• What of the man who disciplines his attitudes and determines that through the power the Spirit that he will live out the parameters that Jesus set forth in the Sermon on the Mount?
• What of the man who makes a determination to discipline herself to a daily prayer life that reaches heaven?
• What of the average man who disciplines his life in such a way to convert men to the cause of Jesus Christ?
• What of the pastor who determines that with great discipline he will literally preach his way through the Scriptures?
• What of the missionary who disciplines himself in such a way that no unreached people group will get beyond him?
• What of the man or woman who disciplines himself to memorize vast portions of Scripture so that the mind and soul will literally reek of God’s thoughts and words?
• What of the writer who makes it a discipline to write every single day of the year?
• What of the man who decides to get disciplined with his schedule and figure out where time is getting away from him?
• What of the discipline that pulls us away from the insipid stupidity of entertainment?
• What of the discipline that causes us to figure out where the money is being wasted?
• What of the discipline that causes us to figure out where our lives are being wasted?
• What of the men or women who work in the world of medicine to make it a discipline to stretch their minds in such a way that healing is brought to their patients?
• What of the unconquerable goals that have stood in our paths for years that we desire to wrestle down with discipline?
-I know of no other character quality that can so push us and command us and exalt us like discipline. Discipline has a way of pulling up defeated, beaten, and disgusted men to places that they never even imagined they could attain to.
-But you have to have a plan. Sometimes that plan means that you will have to get up earlier or stay up later.
• Sometimes that plan will mean you will have to cut off some of the people who are creating a drag on your life.
• Sometimes that plan will mean you will have sacrifice now for the reward later.
• That plan will cause you to make some hard choices.
-The very act of discipline will soon began to separate you from the common and the ordinary. Discipline moves the soul like nothing else can! You see, the requirements of discipline at the beginning hurt us more than they will help us.
-Yet it is through the push, the fight, and the pain to gain the mastery of our emotions and whims that God allows us to see small bits of greatness that He has called us to fulfill. Periodically along the way there will be a flash here and there that lets you know you are on the right path for you will only see a glimpse of the greater fruit of a productive soul. But discipline hurts as it gets the soul in the workable shape that God wants us to get into!
-Discipline requires sacrifice and self-denial which are two traits that our culture is so very resistant to. The culture encourages me to eat, sleep, and be merry because tomorrow I will die.
-But discipline makes you realize that there are some things you can eat that will never satisfy, there is a sleep that will never bring rest, and there is a merriment that will never truly bring deep and lasting joy. Only the man who is disciplined will fully realize that there are higher and greater things to eat than what goes into the mouth.
-He will know of a deep rest that is brought on and blessed by deep fatigue that came because of a wearying battle in the ring. The disciplined man will gather in rewards and benefits that won’t usher in a shallow mirth but it will provide him with soaring joy that marathon runners know about when they cross the finish line for the first time.
-I long for that kind of thing but it will not come unless there is a discipline that pushes against the flabby, riotous, and dark mores of my soul.
-The word pictures of discipline from Scripture come in short small bursts:
• Work.
• Labour.
• Fight.
• Finish.
• Keep.
• Humility.
• Contentment.
• Hunger for.
• Seek after.
• Flee from.
• Follow after.
• Joy.
• Thankfulness.
• Holiness.
• Kindness.
• Mastery.
• Holiness.
• Pray.
• Give.
• Fast.
• Unity.
• Strive.
• The prize of the high calling.
-So I have some encouragement for you on this day:
• Go and take the class.
• Get off the couch.
• Get back in the fight.
• Recapture the thunder.
• Believe, hope, and realize.
• Push on and battle back.
• Fix your heart.
• Set your compass.
• Make up your mind.
• Go for broke.
• Get some discipline.
• If you have lost some of the fights get back in the ring.
• Believe that nothing is beyond recovery.
B. Don’t Fall Into the Trap of Aiming Low
-To have a low aim in life and especially in the spiritual life is a tragedy that far too many live out on this earth. To offset the low aims, there is a wary restlessness that accompanies the grace of God and it makes us cry out in prayer and in desperation, “I am better than this!”
-Rudy Kipling wrote a poem (The Explorer) that seemed to give sense of direction to this calling toward discipline.
The Explorer—Rudyard Kipling (Only a small portion of the actual poem.)
There's no sense in going further -- it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it -- broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop:
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated -- so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges --
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"
-It is an unquenchable desire on the inside, almost as if a caged tiger is fighting to get out of the soul, a lure perhaps that presses us to reach higher and grasp for the things that God longs for us to do.
-If you have never known it, I pray that you will at some point find it or rather that it will find you, this powerful pull of discipline. Yet the desire for discipline also has some ominous undercurrents because the demands it has are only embraced by a hearty few. It has collapsed more than a few who could not withstand the gnawing, relentless passion that hunger for it created.
-Those great souls just keep on stretching toward that shining beyond what Kipling called “the Ranges” and what Jesus called “the narrow way.”
III. HOW DO I GET THERE FROM HERE?
-Perhaps you have found some inspiration as I have preached but you still have the nagging thought, “I can believe what he is saying but how do I get there from here?”
-There are no obstacles in our path that cannot be overcome if a man will by the grace of God keep chipping away at them until they fall out of the way!
A. See the Road. . .
-The first thing that we have to do is to see the road for what it is. Jesus said that strait is the gate and narrow is the way. . . the road that leads to life. Generally the roads that we will have to travel on will be filled with twists and turns. . . The way toward life is never going to be that of a straight line.
• Abraham’s calling had twists and turns.
• Joseph’s dream had twists and turns.
• Moses’ exodus had twists and turns.
• David’s anointing had twists and turns.
• Nehemiah’s wall had twists and turns.
• Paul’s journeys had twists and turns.
-Just as they had to learn to maneuver and adjust their routes to get to where they were going, the same will be mirrored in our own lives. But if you will stay with it, eventually you will hit a point where you find the sailing to be much smoother than in the early moments of what you were trying to do.
-Far too many lose sight of the destination after they have had to contend with a few curves and long hills. When you lose a sense of the purpose of your life that is when the floundering begins. You must see beyond today and even next week.
• Albert Einstein’s move toward brilliance began when he was five years old and his father gave him a compass. It was through an insatiable curiosity about the way the needle changed directions that started him down a road. . . He would spend his life making great contributions to science by interpreting the laws of physics. . . seeking to understand the hidden forces and fields that moved the universe.
• Marie Curie’s move toward brilliance began when she was four and wandered into her father’s study and was transfixed by the laboratory instruments for chemistry and physics experiments. Later in her life her road took her to the discovery of X-rays which would change the world of medicine forever.
-Here is the challenge for everyone who starts on that road. . . There are discouragements and distractions that are ever present. They will do their best to dissuade you and hinder you from moving further down the road.
-There will be moments when you will feel as if you are in a straitjacket of sorts but that is the price of discipline. . . Early on it feels like it is hurting us more than it is helping us. . . but stay on the road!
B. Give Yourself to Learning. . .
-The rigorous demands of being an apprentice causes far too many people to be insulted. You cannot be great if you are always feeling insulted by those you perceive as superiors.
Before Mozart reached the age of 10, his father, Leopold realized that he had a special gift with playing the piano. So the father paired up his son with his daughter and they toured Europe playing the piano and singing before some of the greatest crowds in theaters. What they would do during the day is go about and do some sightseeing in the region they were in. But what Mozart realized at a very young age that the atmosphere he was moving in put him in the company of some of the greatest composers and musicians of his day.
So it got to be a habit with him that he would act like he was sick and beg off from going sightseeing with his family and as soon as they were gone, Mozart would leave his room and seek out these adult composers and musicians to help him get better at his craft of playing the piano. As chance would have it, he managed to cross the path of the son of the great Johann Sebastian Bach who was a worthy composer and musician himself. So it was that both Bach Sr. and Bach Jr. would be able to instruct young Mozart that years later what they had poured into this young man through a rigorous but impromptu apprenticeship would cause him to rise above all the classical composers of his era.
-No matter where you look in history, you can find this very pattern being repeated. Whether it is the area of music, medicine, business, industry, and education, there is something that takes place when a man with lesser gifts recognizes that there is someone who can help him to go further in his field.
-I will never forget what a respiratory therapist told me more than 25 years ago. He had grown up in a terrible home situation and he knew that he did not want to end up in the same tragic condition that his father was in. So he managed to let a high school teacher encourage and inspire him to embrace some discipline in his life so that he could learn. His teacher told him that his mind was a gift and that if he would develop it there were great rewards that he would be able to have in his life.
-All of us, even for us who are middle-aged and beyond never come to the place where we ought to think that we are no longer capable of learning something from a teacher, a book, a seminar, or an experience in life that will stretch us.
• Do you have direction?
• Are you receiving any guidance or supervision of your action or conduct?
• Who is your authority?
• What do they say about your decisions?
Anonymous—The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
-It is an observable fact that a person with goals and a plan goes much farther than the person without one. Even if those plans change and he is not able to reach his goal he gets much more done than the unorganized person because he is heading in a certain direction.
-When you give yourself to learning there are questions that you are forced to answer:
• Can you write down you long-range plans?
• Do you keep a calendar of daily plans?
• Could you map out your future?
-These are the questions that the teacher will ask of us!
• Paul was heading for Asia but the Spirit stopped him. Then he had a vision of a man saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.”
• Abraham lived for 25 years without hearing from God, going on simple directions, “Leave your family and homeland and go to a place I will show you.”
-Two types of people will never be successful, “Those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else.”
C. Don’t Let the Setbacks Discourage You. . .
-See the Road. . . Give Yourself to Learning. . . Don’t Let the Setbacks discourage you. . .
-There are great adversities that come into the life of every man who embraces discipline. Be ready for them to come into your direction but whatever you do, don’t quit and throw in the towel when they do come.
There was a boy, Jerome Hogan, who possessed a great desire to fly. He spent time with pilots when he was a teenager and he soon became very popular with them. So they taught him to fly and in a few years he became an instructor. One day when he was flying a Cessna that was a dream to him the homing signal stopped working. Because he had not zeroed and calibrated it, there wasn’t a flight plan and no one knew that he was flying and it was hard to find him when his plane went down.
-Whether you are flying or whatever path you set yourself on, you need to remember to have a flight plan. Flight plans help us when the discouragement and the setbacks come to us. They will come, you can count on it. . . but stay in the fight no matter what!
• When you are in the storm you need a flight plan.
• Know where you are going.
• Stay in touch with the control tower.
• Be zeroed in. (Philippians 3:14)
• Let God guide you continually.
• Follow the burdened heart.
-Keep your focus on the Lord and allow Him to help you with the setbacks.
IV. CONCLUSION—JONATHON EDWARDS’ RESOLUTIONS
-One of the New England Puritans put together some of what he called his personal resolutions. If you have ever read them, you are aware that much of them were filled with a commitment to discipline. The broad rewards of the narrow road!
• Resolution #5: Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
• Resolution #6: Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
• Resolution #17: Resolved, that I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
-There are great blessings that come to those who are willing to submit themselves to the narrow road that leads to life!
Philip Harrelson
February 16, 2014
