The Narrow Road

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on April 30, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 7:13-23.

            God is love.  And God is forgiving.  And God is merciful.

            Those are some of the greatest things about God, right?  At least from our standpoint.  If those things were not true, you and I would all be in deep trouble.  It’s because of God’s love, and God’s mercy, and God’s desire to forgive, that Jesus was sent to earth in the first place.  Jesus Christ dying so that our sins could be forgiven is the ultimate act of love.

            But sometimes, we’re tempted to take God’s love and God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness for granted.  And we especially take it for granted when it comes time to talk about heaven and hell.  We say, well, if God loves us, and if God forgives us, and if God is merciful, than God surely does not allow people to go to hell.  Well, maybe a few people.  Maybe mass murderers and people like that.  But not most people.  Certainly not the kind of people we know.  God’s love conquers all and so God allows pretty much everyone into heaven in the end.

            We’d like to believe that.  And don’t get me wrong, I’d like to believe it, too.  I do not want to think of anyone going to hell.  If you take the concept of hell seriously, if you’ve read the Bible and know how hell is described, you would not want your worst enemy to go there.  I would like to believe that God will let just about anybody into heaven.

            I’d like to believe it--but that’s not what the Bible actually says.  It’s certainly not what Jesus said in our reading for today.  Jesus said, “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

            Man, I wish Jesus had not said that.  But he did.  Now, Jesus does not say this because he’s happy about it.  I’m sure Jesus wished that everyone would find the road that leads to life.  But Jesus knew that’s not the way it is.  And so Jesus says this, not with pleasure, but as a warning.  Jesus says this for our benefit, really.  If Jesus had not said this, and other things like it, we’d be tempted to keep believing that God lets just about anybody into heaven.  And if we lived our lives counting on that, we’d be in for a rude awakening when we found out the truth.  And by the time we did find out the truth, it would be too late for us to do anything about it.  Jesus knew it was important for us to know the truth now, even if the truth is not what you and I might wish it was.

            And Jesus continues that theme.  He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

            Think about that.  Jesus is saying that it’s not enough just to call on his name.  It’s not enough even to do all kinds of good things in his name.  Even driving out demons and performing miracles is not enough.  Jesus says that to enter the kingdom of heaven, we need to do the will of God the Father.

            See, the thing is, Jesus knew a lot about human nature.  Jesus knew that calling on his name is not necessarily the same as really following him.  Because what do we human beings tend to do?  We tend to call on Jesus when we get into trouble, right?  We turn to Jesus when things are going against us and we need help.  But when things are going well, we tend to just kind of go our own way, doing our own thing, not really making Jesus much of a part of our lives.

            There’s nothing new about that, by the way.  It happens all through the Old Testament.  The people get in trouble, they call on God, God bails them out, they promise to be faithful to God, things going well, the people forget God, they get in trouble again, they call on God again, and round and round and round we go.

            So just calling on Jesus’ name is not enough.  But what about prophesying in Jesus’ name?  What about driving out demons and performing miracles?  I mean, Jesus says we need to do the will of God the Father, but would those things not be doing God’s will?  What’s Jesus getting at here?

            I think what Jesus is getting at is that doing good things--even really good things--is not the same as doing God’s will.  Am I saying God does not want us to do good things?  No, of course not.  Obviously God wants us to do good things.  But Jesus did not say that the way to heaven is by being good people or by doing good things.  Remember, Jesus told us in Mark Ten that we should not even call him good, because no one is good except for God alone.  All of us human beings are sinners who fall far short of being “good”.  The way to heaven is by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And faith in Jesus Christ means that we do God’s will to the best of our ability, just as Jesus spent his life on earth doing the will of God the Father.

            Let me give you an example.  Wanda and I lived in Wessington Springs for several years before I became a pastor.  And we did a lot of “good things” there.  Not everything--I mean, we’re far from perfect people.  But we were part of the community club and we helped raise money for the senior citizens bus and we did a lot of work supporting the troops--we had a local National Guard unit that was called up to serve in Iraq at that time--and we did a lot of other stuff that most people would consider “good things”.

            But then God called us into ministry.  Had we said no, we would’ve stayed in Wessington Springs and we would’ve continued to do “good things”.  But we would not have been doing God’s will.  God’s will for us was not that we stay in Wessington Springs and keep doing “good things”.  God’s will for us was that we go into ministry, first in North Sioux City and now here.

            Now again, I don’t want to sound like I’m some sort of perfect person that everyone should look to as a role model.  There are plenty of times in my life when I have not followed God’s will, when I have gone my own way.  But the point is that doing “good things” does not make someone a Christian.  What makes someone a Christian is believing in Jesus Christ and do our best to follow God’s will.

            What that means is that there are probably people you know, people who we’d probably consider “good people” who do “good things”, who are not going to heaven.  I can think of people like that.  They are going on the broad road that leads to destruction, rather than the narrow road that leads to life.  And believe me, it gives me no pleasure to say that.  I wish it was not so.  But Jesus told us it is so, and any time we deny Jesus’ words, we become the false prophets Jesus told us to watch out for.  

            And so, there are at least two things we need to do.  The first one is to look at our lives.  Are we content to simply do “good things”?  Or are we truly trying to do God’s will?  It’s not always easy to know the difference.  We may need to spend some time in prayer.  We may need to spend some time reading the Bible.  We may need to spend some time talking to others whose opinions we trust.  We may need to spend some time truly listening for God’s voice, however God’s voice may make itself known to you.  

            But the second one is to do everything we can to bring others to Christ.  Including those “good people” who do “good things”.  We need to do what we can to help them truly accept Jesus Christ as the Savior and truly follow God’s will.

            Is that easy?  No, a lot of times it’s not.  It may lead to some very difficult conversations.  But remember, we don’t do it alone.  We do it with God’s help.  Any time we try to help someone accept Jesus Christ as the Savior, God will be with us.  God will give us the courage to act, and God will give us the words to say.  Will we always succeed?  No, probably not--even Jesus himself did not always succeed.  But one thing we know about God’s will is that God wants us to, in Jesus’ words, “go and make disciples of all nations”.  Any time we do that, we know we are doing God’s will.

           "Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”  That’s not the way I wish it was.  But Jesus says that’s the way it is.  Let’s keep our faith in Jesus Christ strong.  Let’s do everything we can to truly follow God’s will, and be one of those few who are on that narrow road that leads to life.  And let’s do everything we can to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ, and help them follow God’s will, so that more and more people can find that narrow road.  Let’s do everything we can to make that narrow road crowded with believers, all doing their best to follow the will of God.