Introduction
Life is full of choices. [Share some they came up with while discussing the question “What choices do we have to make in life?”).
Often (though not always) we put a lot of thought into the choices we make. But what happens when we don't think about our choices? What happens when we don't know what to do? Do we do things by trial and error? Hope for the best? Who do we listen to?
If a person was given the main ingredients to make a scrambled egg in the microwave, but no recipe, advice or experience on how to make it what would happen? How many eggs? How much milk? When do I put the salt and pepper in? 2 or 20 grams of margarine? How long in the microwave? (Do this as you talk through it.) DISASTER!
That was trial and error. Anyone fancy a taste? The problem is that in life you don't really get much opportunity for trial and error. For a start, we only live once - an experiment with drugs or sex or driving a fast car may kill you. And then there is the destruction we leave behind while we practice before we get it right.
If we want to stand any chance of making the scrambled egg first time, the best way is to get hold of a recipe book or a master chef _and follow the instructions. This time follow the instructions from the recipe perfectly. Anyone like a taste of this?
It is like this with our lives. God has the perfect plan for your life and he knows what ingredients are good for you and in what proportions. This is what the advice from Jesus in this Sermon on the Mount has been all about. He is the Master Chef, the Bible the best recipe book ever written.
Choices
Every good sermon leaves you with having to make a choice at the end of it and that choice can determine where your life gors from that point onwards. So as the Master teacher and Preacher Jesus sets the standard. This is now decision time in Jesus’ sermon. Let’s quickly recap.
In the sermon Jesus has presented his listeners with a framework of what true followers of God are like:
• They will be blessed even when the world does its worst (5:1-12)
• True followers will influence everything – salt & light (5:13-16)
• True followers will fulfil the Law because love is the fulfilment of the Law (rest of Chapter 5)
• True followers will know how to worship by the way they give, pray and fast properly and without show (6:1-18)
• True followers place their trust in God not in material things (6:19-34)
• True followers will know how to treat those around them - not through judgement but through love (7:1-12)
The power to do all this comes from God living in the followers of God. So whilst it is true that Jesus is speaking to the unsaved, still under Law, he is showing them what being a true believer looks like. Which is why what Jesus says is very relevant to those who are followers today.
As followers, our aim is to be like this. The world will treat us badly, but we are blessed with the supernatural presence of God in us. That gives us influence and helps us love. The presence of God helps us worship in Spirit and in Truth not in a showy, hypocritical way. That type of worship is awesome. When God is present in your life day to day your trust in him increases and your reliance on the things of the world lessens. Our attitudes change and peace reigns in our life and is spread to those around us.
So Jesus was putting the facts of what it is like to be a true follower in front of those still under the Law so that they could come to him and be saved.
But there is teaching there for those today who are Christians. Choices to be made. Many people come to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation and they think it stops there. Jesus is speaking to those of us who have turned to him and is reminding us of the truth also:
• Many forget they are blessed when things get bad. All these blessings are there for us to use.
• Many forget that in living a Christian life they will influence those around them. It matters how we live.
• Many forget that Jesus didn’t remove the Law he showed us how to fulfil it through love – the love he wants us to spread around even to those we don’t like and don’t get along with.
• Many forget that trusting God comes first, not when all your rational or material options run out.
So this is a message for us. I wanted to clear this up that Jesus’ teaching is somehow different because he was talking to the unsaved. Jesus is teaching us what the Kingdom – the thing we are part of - looks like. He is also teaching us what God will help us do within it. How to live in it. The writers of the letters take this and apply it to their everyday life. It is the application of Jesus’ teaching in their situation.
So now Jesus gives his listeners a choice. Do you want in? He gives those who are in a reminder of what we signed up to. No one in this room is exempt from making choices. Either way, as it says in Deuteronomy 30:
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
So as we come to the end of this sermon Jesus asks us to make the following choices and stick to them:
• What direction will your life follow?
• Who will you listen to?
• What will you build your future on?
Today we will look at the first: What direction will your life follow?
Play “Road to Hell” by Chris Rea
What Direction will your Life Follow?
Jesus says now you have heard the choice he has put before you there are two possibilities: the wide road which is entered of course through a wide gate and the narrow road which of course has a narrow gate. There is no third option. Jesus says one of the main ingredients for what is really a successful life is to choose the right gate and the right road to follow.
If you choose the wide gate and road, there are no boundaries - all sorts of ingredients are permissible. These people accept all types of opinions, everyone's morals are OK and we tolerate almost anything. They drift along with the crowd. There is security in numbers.
Most of these people choose to reject Jesus without even finding out about him. They drift along with the crowd, which seems to be quite successful. In Psalm 73 a guy called Asaph noticed this. He was on the verge of giving up his faith "These people" he wrote, "are wicked, always at ease and getting richer. So why have I kept my heart pure?" Then he takes a look, not at what things seem to be, but at reality. "Then" he continues "I understood what will happen to them. You have put them in danger. They are destroyed in a moment". He recognised the reality that short term gain leads to long term destruction. Being part of a crowd is dangerous.
Some time ago a scientific magazine published an article concerning a certain species of alligator. Being lazy beasts, they seldom hunt for their dinner, but just wait for their unwary victims to come to them. They lie near the bank with open mouths, acting as if they are dead. Soon flies begin to sit on their moist tongues, and several other insects gather. This crowd attracts bigger game. A lizard will crawl up to the alligator to feed on the bugs; then a frog joins the party. Soon a whole menagerie is there; then there is a sudden "earthquake" -- WHAM -- the giant jaws come together and the party is over! Here's the lesson: don't be lured by large groups of people. And that lesson is as much for Christians as those who are not.
Remember, the crowd is always found on the "broad way." The "narrow way" of life admits only individuals, one by one. Most people take the easy, downward path to destruction. You as a Christian must follow Jesus on the upward road; it is the only safe way.
Why is the way narrow? Because at the entrance to the narrow gate you have to leave all your baggage behind. Only you yourself can get through. No crowd. You can only enter one at a time. The baggage you leave consists of your sin, the things you put before God, your opinions, your own moral choices, the religious rituals you perform, your riches. All the things Jesus mentions in this sermon. All these things have to be left at the narrow gate when entering. So many of us try to drag them through with us into the Kingdom.
Jesus said "I tell you the truth. I am the gate for the sheep." All that we hold dear has to be left with Jesus. In the words of Jesus himself "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
This way is narrow because it is about one set of beliefs and ideas not a pick and mix set of beliefs chosen from every other faith and belief. These are set out in The Word – Scripture and Jesus himself. In both is revealed all the truth we need to understand. In both is revealed the goodness of God which leads us to behave as saints and his children. Funnily enough Jesus called this set of beliefs and behaviour an “easy yolk” to bear. Why? Because once his they come naturally and your search for truth is over. Jesus called it a “light burden”. Why? Because we leave all our baggage behind and we are new creations. But only when you go in through Jesus.
Conclusion
Which way are you going - be honest?! Are you going to prosper or perish? Life and goodness or death and evil? The goodness and mercy of God wants us to see and share his glorious life, his perfection, his love and his selflessness.
And one last thing. Why is this important to us who are on the right road? Because we should be loving people who are not enough to help them find the life we have, otherwise it’s just religious clap-trap and selfishness and hypocrisy. This sermon is a reminder to us who have chosen the narrow way which leads to life to bring as many with us as we can. What are we doing to ensure that?
