We would ask you to turn this morning to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7 is, of course, the last part of Jesus Christ's Sermon on the mountain. In fact, in the verses we begin to look at this morning, Jesus Christ concludes His Sermon. It is a classic three-point sermon. In fact, the way most expository and evangelical preachers preach nowadays, they take their pattern for preaching from, believe it or not, the Sermon on the mountain. I'm sure that most men who have been through seminary, as I have been, have studied the Sermon on the mountain as we did in our homologous courses. It has a classic form that is a model and a pattern that Jesus Christ set for us. It has an introduction which is the Beatitudes. It has three major points about kingdom ethics and kingdom piety and kingdom relationships. And then as a conclusion, where Jesus Christ asked us to make a choice to do something to respond. And that is the outline that we've been following. In the beginning, Jesus Christ introduced His theme, the theme of this message, which is that the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand. In Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, Matthew tells us that. He tells us in verse 23 that Jesus Christ was preaching this gospel of the kingdom and asking people to respond to it. And then it says there were great crowds that surrounded Him and seeing these crowds, He began to speak to them. And He gave them an invitation. He kind of talked about all the different kinds of people that were in that crowd. Those are the Beatitudes. Some people see those Beatitudes as character traits that we need to have in order to get into the kingdom of God. But I don't believe that because if that's not salvation by works, at least it's a salvation by attitude and it's contrary to grace. And others say, well, these are character traits that Jesus Christ will produce in us once we come into the kingdom, but Jesus Christ hasn't brought us into the kingdom yet in this message. I see them as conditions, different spiritual states of different souls as they encounter Jesus Christ and are told that they can be happy in Him. That's what the word blessed means, blessed are happy are these people. And they run the gamut of humanity, the people who are what I call spiritual zeros. They're nowhere with God or in terms of salvation or the understanding of the kingdom of heaven, those who are poor in spirit, all the way to those who like John the Baptist and others are going to suffer and be persecuted for the sake of Christ. And every one of those people on this continuum of humanity is offered this promise that they will be blessed if they enter the kingdom of God. And so before Jesus Christ brings them into this kingdom, He does something that a lot of preachers don't do nowadays. He gives them a full disclosure. He tells them exactly what life in the kingdom is going to be like. What is going to be demanded of them? What's going to change about them? That he's going to make them the salt of the earth and the light of the world and give them a righteousness that exceeds that of their religious experience in fairer-sake Judaism. And he tells them in the body of his message, these are the three things that you need to understand about life in the kingdom of God. First of all, you need to understand kingdom ethics. What is it exactly that the Bible or the law of God in the Old Testament teaches us? Or what does Christ morally and ethically expect from you? That's chapter 5. Where Jesus Christ said repeatedly, six different times, you have heard it said such and such. But I say such and such. Jesus Christ clarifies the law for us and says it's not at all what you think. It's something different. The profoundly different is he gives us a gospel perspective on the law of God, expects of us in a holy lifestyle. And then in chapter 6 he talks about kingdom piety. What does it really mean to be spiritual, to be religious, to have a relationship with God? How do we approach him in worship and in prayer? What is the place of money in our life? And how does it become such an idol, such a false God known as Maman? And so Christ takes us in chapter 6 into a deeper understanding of piety or what we would call religion in our lifestyle. And finally in chapter 7, in verses 1 through 12, he talks about kingdom relationships. About how when we encounter people in this kingdom who are different than we are, we're not to be judgmental of them. Or to force our pearls of wisdom and our spiritual riches upon them before they're ready. But rather, we're to pray for them and we are to treat them the same way we would want them to treat us, this golden rule that we looked at last week. Now, having said all that, Jesus Christ gets to the conclusion. And in verse 13, Jesus Christ begins to bring his message to a close and tie it up in a neat package. And he says, you have seen now all the promises of the blessings of the kingdom of God for everybody in whatever spiritual state they find themselves. And you have seen what it is to live in the kingdom of God in terms of your ethics, and your piety, and your relationships. Now I'm going to ask you a question. Do you want to enter the kingdom of God? And those who say yes, Jesus Christ says within you will need to make four decisions. You will need to make a spiritual decision that unlocks the kingdom of heaven that I'm offering to you as a gift of grace. And you will step into this kingdom in four successive phases. That is chapter 7, verses 13, through the end of this chapter. Choice number one, you must choose between two ways. The broad way of human religion or the narrow way of the gospel. Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life. And those who find it are few. Choice number one, we have to choose which avenue we will take in order to have a life with God and go to heaven when we die. The broad way or the narrow way, choice number two, we have to choose between good theology and bad theology. Define this way as a theology that shapes our inner character or one that is satisfied just with exterior show pomp and circumstance. Verse 15, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from the thistles? So every healthy tree that bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. Choice number two, you will either produce through the good teaching of God's word, fruits under righteousness or you will not. We have to make the choice. Do you want to be godly or worldly? Here's the third choice, between two kinds of testimonies. A testimony of obedience to God and following him or one that is just talking a good story. Verse 21, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me. You workers of lawlessness. Here's the two choices. A life of obedience to Jesus Christ or one that is lawless, Jesus said. A worker of lawless, but it's draped with religiosity and spiritual performance. And finally, the fourth choice is what foundation you build your life on. The solid foundation of Christ is finished work on the Word of God, the gospel, or the shifting sand of popular opinion. Verse 24, Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who builds his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. And great was the fall or ruin of it. Two foundations, the rock of Christ and his gospel or the shifting sand of what's popular in our culture. What men say as opposed to what God says. Jesus Christ has told us from the beginning of this message that entering the kingdom of God is a gift of God's grace, calling for us to respond in faith and obedience. These concepts are not contradictory in Christ thinking. Sometimes we who are Calvinists in order to protect ourselves from a works righteousness go to the other extreme and we never call people to make a decision. We never tell people that once grace is offered, we just have to do something with it. Imagine if you will, that if I came up to you in the lobby and I held out my hand to shake your hand in an offer of friendship, then it would be a horrible thing for you to just stare at my hand and walk away. Or to say, just keep that hand out, I'll think about it and if I want to I'll be back later. Well, that's how it is with the gospel. Once Jesus Christ extends this free gift of grace, this offer of the kingdom of God, we need to do something with it and we're either going to reach out and decide to accept it. We're going to walk away and I might say insult God horribly. So Jesus comes to the end of his sermon, Calvinist that he is, and he offers us the free gift of grace and he asks you to make some decisions about it. Mike Miller and I are going to talk about these decisions these next couple weeks, about these four layers of choices that you and I must make order the enter the kingdom of God and I'm going to be the lead off batter in this enterprise and talk about the first choice, which is which gate we will go through in order to find God. Enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. Two choices here. First, the broad gate. Look if you will at verse 13 again. Enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter by it are many. Jesus says there's really only two ways, two entrances, two gates into heaven. One is the broad gate, the gate of religion, but it won't lead to the place you want to go. He says four things about it. He says first of all it's wide. It's big. So lots of people can flow through at the same time and it's easy. Religion is easy to find and it's easy to practice in fact if you think about it religion makes few demands on us. Thirdly, those who enter by it are many. The majority of mankind prefer this wide gate because they're going along with the crowd and there's a feeling of security. I mean everybody's doing it. Here's the problem. It leads to destruction. It leads to the loss of one soul, to the loss of grace. It leads to the loss of God and the loss of God where we live forever without dawn has a name. It's a place called hell. But that is the preferred way of mankind. It's as if, and you've heard this, this analogy used many times, it's as if God is at the top of a mountain and there are many roads that lead to the top of the mountain. And in the end, this wide gate is the gate of universalism that everybody eventually, who is a decent person, will enter in to the kingdom of heaven. Everybody except Adolf Hitler. He's the one we always leave out. He's just unacceptable but everybody else can make it because there are many ways that lead to God in the end. And all religions are basically the same. Now that is actually the creed of a group known as the Unitarian Universalists. If you go on their website, this is what you'll read. The Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion that embraces theological diversity. Our faith has evolved through a long history with origins and European Christian traditions. Unitarian Universalists today is a result of the merger of 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalistic Church of America. While our congregations uphold shared principles, individual Unitarian Universalists may discern their own beliefs about theological issues. There is no official Unitarian Universalist creed. Unitarian Universalists are free to search for truth on many paths. We welcome people who identify with and draw inspiration from atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism, Christianity, Humanism, Judaism, paganism and other religions or philosophical traditions. So according to the Universalist, you can be an atheist or Jew and still get to heaven because these are many paths that lead up the same mountain and find God. There are other churches, not quite that explicit but in their official creeds and I would mention them but I don't want to fend too many people this morning. Who say that for example those who share any belief in the Creator are partners in this place among us in salvation. And they go on to list a number of different religions that are non-Christian who eventually will get to heaven because number one, they're seeking God with the revelation that they have. Number two, they believe in religion. That is the white gate. It finds its form in America in what has been called a therapeutic moralistic deism. The God's great concern is that you be happy and feel good about yourself, that all good people go to heaven and most people are basically good. That God doesn't get too involved in our lives, only in emergencies and when we ask Him to be involved. Recently a book came out called America's Four Gods, what we say about God and what that says about us written by Paul Fresh and Christopher Bader who are sociologists at Baylor University. And in America as they surveyed and did a study of Americans over several years that there's basically four views of God that people have. One is an authoritative God, 28% of Americans believe in Him. Two is a benevolent God, 22% of Americans believe in Him. Three is the critical God, 21% of Americans believe in Him and fourth is a distant God and 24% of Americans believe in Him. Now that adds up to be 95% that means that 5% of Americans identify themselves as agnostics, atheists, or secularists. But if you take the other four groups, they're pretty evenly divided between four different views of God. Here's the authoritative God. He's a God according to Fresh and Bader who has strong convictions and judges human behavior and sometimes acts on that judgment. They believe that God can become angry and is capable of meeting out punishment to the unfaithful. This judgment may be levied at a larger canvas via natural disasters, for example, or on a more personal scale through illness or misfortune. But believers in the authoritative God do not focus always on the judgment of God, also they focus on his caring and compassionate characteristics. They are just as likely to see God as a loving being as those with other conceptions of God. The difference is that these believers show a greater tendency to think that God is willing to judge and to punish the affairs of everyday life. This they say would be the God of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Then they talk about the benevolent God. Like believers in the authoritative God, believers in a benevolent God see His handy work everywhere, but they are less likely to think that God judges and punishes human behavior. Instead, they see God as mainly a force of positive influence in the world, less willing to condemn individuals. Believers in this God think that whether sinners or saints, we are all free to call upon God and He will answer our prayers in our times of need. This is the God the author said of the evangelical Philip Yancy. He writes for Christianity Day who says, this is my God and a Barack Obama. The critical God is a God who defers His judgment until the end of time. He doesn't really get involved in the affairs of everyday life, but He promises that someday there is a day of reckoning where all righteousness will be set right. This is the God they say of fundamentalism and of Dr. Martin Luther King. And finally, the distant God is not a God at all, not in the personal sense. In fact, fresh invaders say that people who believe in the distant God resent Him being called a He. He is more of a force who creates the world and sets it into motion and does not become involved in the affairs of men. Because the God of deism, the God of Rabbi Jamie Corngold, who gave this definition of God and of most feminist theologians, a force out there for good and for reason, but nothing more, nothing less. For different views of God, that's what happens when Americans say, now, this is what God means to me. Here's the problem. What happens if the God you believe in doesn't fit those profiles. Then you have a false God. And the false God according to the Bible is called an idol, or even more complex, what if God were all four? What if He were at times authoritative and He judged? And at times benevolent and He forgave. And at times critical, as the Bible says, storing up His wrath for the day of vengeance. And what if at times He was distant, transcendent, unreachable? What if He were all four at the same time, which the Bible says, He is authoritative, Psalm 99. The Lord reigns, let the people tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim, let the earthquake, the Lord is great in Zion. He is exalted over all the peoples, let them praise your great and awesome name, holy is He. The King in His mighty works, loves justice. You have established equity. You have executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord your God, worship at His footstool for holy is He. There's an authoritative God. Here's the benevolent God. The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made. How about the critical God? The Lord is slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation. And could God, could He be distant? He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and the Lord of Lord who alone possesses immortality and dwells in an unapproachable light who no man has seen nor can ever see. What if that complex being was God? What if you took that trip up those winding roads to the mountain top? And what you found was not at all what you expected, or worse yet, what if you went up to the mountain top and found no God at all? Because God is not on some mountain top somewhere. What if God were down here with us? What if all four of those dimensions of God's character were found in one being? And what if God did not expect us to go up to the mountain top but expected to come down to us? What if in one man we found an authoritative God, a benevolent Savior, a judge of the living in the dead, and the mysterious God Himself, and what if that man were Jesus Christ? David Platon is book radical, taking your faith back from the American dream talks about being over in Indonesia and having a conversation with a Buddhist monk and a Muslim iman. And now they were saying that basically all of our religions, Buddhism and Islam and Christianity were at the root the same. The essential core of our faith said the Buddhist monk is basically the same. And Pastor Platon said, well then what you're saying is that there are many roads up to the top of the mountain where God is. And they said, yes, you understand that. He said, then I leaned into them and I said, but what if God was not on the mountain top, what if God came down to us? They said that would be great. And he said, okay, let me introduce you to Jesus Christ. That is exactly where Jesus Christ is taking us in this sermon. The way from all of our self, concocted ideas about God, to one narrow choice Himself, that He alone is God and that He alone is the way to God. So much for the idea that there are many roads that lead to God, Jesus Christ said, I think not. It's just one and it's only 18 inches wide. Verse 14, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few. Jesus Christ says also four things about His gate. It is narrow. It's a tight squeeze. It's 18 inches. It's the average width of the average shoulders of the average man, the man Jesus Christ. It is hard. Christ way is demanding. It's not easy to be a Christian. It's a lot more complex to be a Christian than to have a religion. And it leads to life. There is something at the end that we're all searching for, a life forever and a life with God. And few are those who find it. Relatively speaking, there are a lot less than the people who choose the broad way. Now Jesus is speaking here folks in prophetic language because the prophets often spoke of a way. They called it a highway that leads to God. In fact Isaiah said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make a highway for God into your life. He would say in another place, and a highway shall be there and it shall be called the highway of holiness. And the unclean shall not pass over it. Yet shall belong to those who walk on the way, even if there are fools they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come near it. They shall not be found there, but the redeemed of the Lord shall walk there. And the ransom of the Lord shall return and come design with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sighing will be no more. There's this highway that leads to God. Jesus Christ calls it a narrow way. How do we reconcile these two things? Some big highway and some narrow way. Well we reconcile it in the person of Jesus Christ. We reconcile it in the fact that Jesus Christ has come for all men. Just like he said in the beginning of this message from the poor and spirit to those ready to be persecuted for his own sake, no one is exempt from the free offer of entering through this narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven. He gives an opportunity in fact an invitation to all men to come to him and come to life. And he says, he's the only way to life. I am the way and the truth in the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. I am the door of the sheep. Whoever comes to me through this door will go in and out and will find pasture and rest for this old. For Christ died for sins once for all the just for the unjust in order that he might bring us to God. Jesus says, that is why I've come to open up the door of paradise and to bring you with me home to my Father's kingdom through this narrow gate. Is Jesus narrow-minded? You bet he is. There's only one way. And that's the way it's got to be. Now you go back a minute, just back up and you're thinking for a minute and let's think through the idea that whatever you conceive God to be, that must be what he is. Now would you let me follow that logic in any other arena of life? How about this one? If you voted for Barack Obama and I didn't, then Barack Obama is your president but he's not mine. Is that true? I think not. How about the Alabama Crimson Tide? Now there's a scary thought. They are the national championships but not in my mind. Oh no, they'll high state buckais are. Would you allow me that grace? How about this? You may think that Nazism was bad but a lot of Germans didn't. No chuckles there. Those things can't be true. There can't be two presidents at the same time. There can't be two national champions at the same time. And something cannot be good and bad at the same time. That's just the way life is. And Jesus says, you know, I can't be just a moral teacher for some of you or religious leader, the founder of the Christian church or a great social advocate for some others and Savior for some. I'm either all those things or I'm none of them but you can't pick and choose. There is one way to God. Jesus said, I'm it. I'm the only way. No one comes to the Father except through me. Now why do we believe this? Is because we're narrow-minded people? No. Again, folks, I mean no disrespect for Christ. I didn't come up with this idea. If anybody's narrow-minded, it's Jesus Christ. He said that. But the reason he said that were for five reasons. First of all because God says there's only one true God and he's that true God. I am the Lord and there is no other besides me. There is no God. I equip you though you do not know me that people may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is none besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other Isaiah 45. For thus says the Lord who created the heavens and the earth. He is God who formed the earth and made it. He established it. He did not create an empty. He formed it to be inhabited and said I am God and there is no other. Again, Isaiah 45. Secondly, God is the only one who loves us enough to give his own son to a tone for our sins. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish. But if everlasting life, Allah has not done that. The gods of animism don't do that. Their spirits that bicker and fight and treat each other mean. Buddha doesn't believe that God is a person, just an essence that we get absorbed in. Some peaceful unity with the creation and a vast comfortable nothingness. Even the modern Jewish God is aloof and uninvolved and seems to be passive when it comes to human events but not the God of the Christian. There is one God, Jehovah and Jesus is his son. And God so loved the world that he gave his son so that we would kill him. And God would count his death, our death. His blood is our atonement. His grace, our forgiveness, his righteousness are standing with God so that through Christ we might be saved. I don't know of any other God and any other religion who offers that definitive and gracious and certain kind of salvation. Thirdly, the God of the Bible and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has decided to invade this world in the form of a man whom we could see. Rather than be like all the other gods who are concepts of our imagination, who are beings that dwell in some other form with some great chasm between their world and our God has decided to come down to us. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory full of grace and truth. Only our God incarnates himself in a human being so that in the person of Jesus Christ, all of our concepts about God, his being authoritative, his being benevolent, his being critical, his being majestic and aloof, all these things are reconciled and a man that we can look to face to face and interact with in a positive and personal way and come to understand who God is, what he's really like. Fourthly, Jesus says that he's the only one who takes away the sins of the world. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world Christ died once for all, the just for the unjust in order that he might bring us to God. There may be other religions that offer salvation, self-atonement, but is an endless chain of uncertain works that go on and on and on and on but our God and his Savior's Son says, no, once I atone for sin, it is finished. It's all done. You don't need to worry about it anymore. If you have me, you have eternal life and finally, Jesus clearly states that he is the only way. I don't know of a more definitive statement in all of the Bible as blockbuster as this. I am the way, the truth, the life, now listen, no one, no one comes to the Father except through me. Those are Jesus's own words. And therefore, it is our apostolic and New Testament faith that says there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And that brings us to the point where you and I are standing in front of this narrow gate. Jesus is offering the kingdom of heaven to you, the kingdom of God. But you have to make up your mind whether you're going to step through or not. You say, pastor, this is wrong. Let me tell you why this is wrong because there's few who find it, but keep that statement in its context. Compared to the vast majority of mankind who have other gods who don't know about and could care less about Jesus Christ, yes, they're relatively few who are saved, but Jesus did not say there would be few in his kingdom. The reason why it's narrow is because Jesus Christ enters to eternal life only takes one person at a time. It's not why we're masses of people can come through. It's narrow where one person faced to face with Jesus Christ must make a choice. They will give their life to Jesus Christ and take him for their own one person at a time, but there are billions who are making that decision over the course of history and entering the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is filling up his kingdom quickly. We may not see that in America, but you'll see that in Indonesia and in China and in India and in Africa, the places where we would least expect that to happen. Just like the Beatitudes, the people who would least expect would be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. It's time for us, I think, to stop arguing with God about whether or not he's chosen the right way. Some things my friends are just the way they are because they are. Barack Obama, he's the president, like at a lumpet. Alabama Crimson died. They're the champions. Most of us don't like that. Nazism is bad. I don't care who said otherwise. That's just the way it is. Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven because that's just the way it is. It's not something to argue about. Something to decide. Will you enter the kingdom of heaven? Will you through faith embrace Jesus Christ and place your life in His. I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. That's the decision you must make. Jesus really doesn't care what you think God is like. He just cares whether or not you think He's God and whether you're willing to embrace Him and enter the kingdom of God. And there's offering you that opportunity this morning. He's holding out the key to eternal life which is faith in Jesus Christ alone. Amen? Let me pray for us, Father. This always seems rather on to us because we are Americans, we're democratic, we're pluralistic, we're tolerant. Most of these things being good, but when it comes to eternal life, they are drawbacks to our understanding of the way to heaven. It seems kind of mean spirited or elitist to say that Christianity is the only way to heaven, but Father, that is because Jesus Christ is the only one to give us life a ransom for many. But there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved other than the name of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we ask for your Holy Spirit to help us not struggle with this and argue with this but to embrace this truth. And to know that regardless of what happens to other people around the world on any given day and in your sovereign providence today, what is happening to us in this room here in Matthew's North Carolina is an opportunity to make a choice for eternal life. To choose to believe in Jesus Christ, to repent of our selfish and sinful life, to turn and trust and to rest upon Him and to surrender ourselves to His Lordship, His being the boss of our life. Therefore, by His grace and faith, through your mercy and your enabling to enter into this kingdom of God, this new dimension of existence and to live by the King's own standards and other His sceptre as He lives His life in us. Give us grace to do that. Even as I pray, Father, may there be people in this room who have never done that who now open the door and enter into a life with Christ, do faith. All they have to do, Father, is ask you into their life and confess their confidence and their loyalty to you. I pray you'd seal that by giving them the Holy Spirit, who would give them confidence and comfort and an action from above and enabling to follow you and to walk an obedience to the King Himself. We thank you that you have provided this definitive salvation for us and this narrow way through Jesus Christ into the broad and generous city of God, your kingdom. Open to all. Now we ask you to favor us by making these truths real in our life and by giving each one of us personal faith in Jesus Christ and whose name we pray. Amen.