Strait And Narrow Sermon I: Christians Choose The Strait And Narrow Series

CHRISTIANS CHOOSE THE LORD’S “STRAIT AND NARROW” OVER THE WORLD’S “WIDE AND BROAD”

As culture drifts further away from biblical truth, some Christians struggle with their conscience – having had the notion planted in their minds that “wide and broad” thinkers and doers might have it right and that they, “straight and narrow” thinkers and doers, might be misreading or misinterpreting the Bible.

As we sift through seven conscience-stirring cultural issues, we would do well to bear in mind several basic scriptural truths:

Jesus: “Enter through the narrow gate (needle’s eye), for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14). We must choose one way or the other.

Simeon: “This Child (Jesus) is a light for revelation to the Gentiles . . . is set for the fall and rising of many.” (Luke 2:34) Many Gentiles as well as Jews would receive Him as the Messiah and choose to follow Him. Many Gentiles as well as Jews would reject Him as their enemy and choose to deny His Messiahship and defy His Lordship.

Two Responses: “And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, the wise men returned to their country by another route.” (Matthew 2:12) The wise rise to the challenge of choosing the way of the Lord (though strait and narrow), but the unwise “fall for” the lures of the wide world of passionate pleasure, position, power and worldly pursuits.

As this new year has gotten under way, with many voices still seeking to lure us away from our Christian principles to a “new world order” predicated on defiance of our Lord’s commands and denial of His Lordship, be aware that none of us is exempt from choosing whose we are, whom we serve and which path of life we will follow. “Lead me in paths of righteousness, for thy name’s sake.”

Shall we, like Joshua, declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” -or- Shall we, like “the fallen”, compromise our Christian Doctrines for the sake of going along to get along with deniers and defiers.

To say “yes” to Jesus and His way of life does not set well with many in our society who redefine biblical concepts to suit their own sinful desires, reinterpret Christian doctrines to excuse their legalizing of immoral patterns of behavior.

To hold onto Christian beliefs, to stand firm in our Christian convictions is to rub some folks the wrong way and sometimes find ourselves at odds with a friend or family member with whom we could wind up on a collision course. Most of us do not want to “collide” with a brother or sister in Christ. For me to “collide” with anyone would be accidental, as was the case when I was nineteen years old:

An unfortunate accident which involved me got my name published in the Atlanta Journal under this headline: “PEDESTRIANS COLLIDE; ONE GOES TO HOSPITAL”!

It was raining that morning in downtown Atlanta and, trying to get from where I got off the bus to my first class at the University on time, darted across a busy intersection, with head down to avoid getting my face wet, as a lady darted onto the sidewalk from a drug store on the corner; we collided, went sprawling into the street . . . sirens filled the air, and the first question to me by the first police officer to arrive on the scene was, “Where is the car you were driving?”

Long story short: Both of us victims of an unfortunate incident were shaken up, physically and psychologically, but not seriously injured; that evening my brother-in-law took me to visit the lady in the hospital where she had been taken for tests; we exchanged apologies and hugs; next day she was discharged from the hospital; no charges were filed. We both acted like the Christians we professed to be. “All’s well that ends well.”

On a scale much larger than accidental collisions that occur as people go to and fro, there have been, are now, and always will be differences among members of the human race – physical, intellectual, cultural, ideological, philosophical, theological, political – even though, as it must be pointed out, we all have a common ancestry (all blood types A, B, AB and O are found across any division - by race, skin color, or language - that anyone has ever, or ever will, come up with).

Differences have existed since the beginning of the one human race . . . the Flood . . . the defiance of God’s command to “scatter and populate the earth” . . . The “Tower of Babel calamity” when humanity lost its ability to converse freely with each other, precipitating the diversity of languages based on familial relationships, thereby forcing “families” and “tribes” to group themselves by language . . . which then led them to separate themselves from those who spoke different languages – thus, scattering themselves in all directions, forming nations. God divided the human race by family, language and nations. (Genesis 10:5).