WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.419 So in chapter 13 Jesus says that becoming a Christian is, that is being saved in biblical 00:00:11.419 --> 00:00:16.559 language or being saved to eternal life and fellowship with God. He said it's like entering 00:00:16.559 --> 00:00:24.000 through a narrow door. We saw that in chapter 13, and that verse I think comes up chapter 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:30.000 13 and verse 24. No, okay, it's fine, it's on your, there it is, yeah. Strive to enter 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:35.759 through the narrow door, for many I tell you will seek to enter and not be able. And that 00:00:35.759 --> 00:00:42.960 section where Jesus is saying these things is the context for chapter 14 where Jesus 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:52.320 goes to a feast, a dinner party with lots of different people. Now we've often taken 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:56.640 that verse, I think a lot of people take that verse that Jesus says there in Luke chapter 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:07.599 13 as meaning that narrow there means narrow minded or negatively restrictive or mean spirited, 00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:15.560 narrow door, whole idea of the demands that Jesus makes in order to follow him. But actually 00:01:15.560 --> 00:01:21.599 it really simply means that there's only one focus, that's what he means by the narrowness. 00:01:21.599 --> 00:01:27.399 There's only one focus that we need to consider when we think about being Christians or at 00:01:27.399 --> 00:01:32.640 least becoming Christians and then understanding what it means to be a Christian. And he's 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:38.639 saying there's one relationship in other words that matters. And he says that and he explains 00:01:38.639 --> 00:01:44.119 that in verse 25 which we also read, when once the master of the house is risen and shut 00:01:44.119 --> 00:01:47.359 the door and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying Lord open to us and 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:53.599 then he will answer I do not know you, I do not know you or where you came from. Knowing 00:01:53.599 --> 00:02:05.159 Jesus is the key to the focus of the narrowness of the door. And we need to understand what 00:02:05.159 --> 00:02:11.039 it means to be a Christian is to understand and to know and to be in a relationship with 00:02:11.039 --> 00:02:16.240 Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Now that will always mean looking deep into our own 00:02:16.240 --> 00:02:23.920 selves. It will mean looking into our own heart and what Jesus requires of us as we 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:31.879 think about him. Do we acknowledge Jesus in our lives? Do we need him? Do we serve him? 00:02:31.879 --> 00:02:37.040 And that's the challenging question that I hope that we can look at for a few moments. 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:43.760 Jesus' audience in the chapter we've read from Luke, generally speaking anyway, were 00:02:43.759 --> 00:02:52.439 an audience who had rejected him, religious Jews, religious lawyers and religious leaders 00:02:52.439 --> 00:02:59.399 who had rejected Jesus and Jesus is speaking into their rejection and is speaking to them 00:02:59.399 --> 00:03:07.599 and reminding them that his way was very specific and knowing the way to heaven it was very 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:14.400 specific. Basically they said they were good enough for God and he is challenging that 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:22.879 and he does so by responding to them in different ways at this dinner party in chapter 14. And 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:28.799 it's really significant because it's an ongoing, it's an ongoing challenge to us about our 00:03:28.799 --> 00:03:36.959 relationship with Jesus Christ, what we understand by it and what we understand he looks for 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:42.920 and he gifts us by way of salvation and what it looks like in our ongoing lives. 00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:50.120 So chapter 14 verses 1 to 24 is about a dinner party that wasn't heaven. It wasn't like a 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:57.640 heavenly dinner party, it wasn't wonderfully fantastic and it wasn't the dinner party that 00:03:57.640 --> 00:04:04.719 Revelation speaks about, which I'll mention at the end. But it's the setting for his teaching 00:04:04.719 --> 00:04:13.280 on what it means to understand the narrow way of knowing Jesus. He has four conversations 00:04:13.280 --> 00:04:20.079 sparked by four different interactions during this meal that he has in this individual's 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:27.160 house. It's really good because he's at a feast and three of the four responses he gives 00:04:27.160 --> 00:04:33.300 speak about feasting. So he's very culturally sensitive, he's very aware of what's happening 00:04:33.300 --> 00:04:42.360 around about him and he uses what's happening to teach spiritual truths that he knows, particularly 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:50.080 the Pharisees of his day would find very difficult. But let's be honest, we will also in many 00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:56.639 ways find difficult. So think about some of the things he says and consider them for yourself 00:04:56.639 --> 00:05:04.639 as I must do for myself and then we'll draw one or two conclusions. What it means to enter 00:05:04.639 --> 00:05:10.879 the narrow way and to know Jesus, what is he saying when he says that in chapter 13? 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:16.560 Well in the first place he's saying you can't take your own self-righteousness with you 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:22.360 into your relationship with Jesus. It's too narrow a way and he explains that in chapter 00:05:22.360 --> 00:05:30.960 14 in the first six verses where this disabled character comes in and it's like there's 00:05:30.960 --> 00:05:36.960 a tension in the room as this guy's here, the Pharisees and the religious leaders know 00:05:36.960 --> 00:05:41.759 he's there and he's in front of Jesus and they're all saying is Jesus going to heal 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:48.240 him but it's a Sabbath and he shouldn't heal on the Sabbath and then Jesus heals him and 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:55.840 then explains why it's good and right for him to do what he does. And the trouble with 00:05:55.840 --> 00:06:00.680 the Pharisees, they were trying to trip him up, they were trying to say that they knew 00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:05.879 more about the Bible and the truth of the Bible as they had it than he did. And they 00:06:05.879 --> 00:06:11.840 were probably looking down on this disabled individual, this man who was unwell, maybe 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:18.319 even have, they maybe even took him in in order to test Jesus. They were suspicious of 00:06:18.319 --> 00:06:23.319 Jesus and of his teaching, we've seen that before in these parables. They prided themselves 00:06:23.319 --> 00:06:30.919 in being law keepers, good enough for God, religious, upright, worshipers. But they were 00:06:30.919 --> 00:06:38.679 hugely judgmental of others and they misunderstood the biblical teaching and the laws of God 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:45.400 about mercy and justice and truth and even as it revealed itself in Sabbath observance. 00:06:45.400 --> 00:06:53.360 They didn't know or love God and they didn't know or love Jesus Christ. Jesus saw this 00:06:53.360 --> 00:07:01.399 man who was needing healed, Jesus loved him and healed him and they were silenced by the 00:07:01.399 --> 00:07:07.519 questions and the answers of Jesus. Again, we see the way Jesus acts, very often asking 00:07:07.519 --> 00:07:15.959 questions and challenging the thinking that they had before acting in mercy. As their 00:07:15.959 --> 00:07:24.639 hypocrisy is exposed, Jesus, they have nothing to say to Jesus. They were self-righteous, 00:07:24.639 --> 00:07:29.359 they were trusting in their own religious goodness and they thought that was what would 00:07:29.359 --> 00:07:34.159 make them accepted by God and would give them a place in heaven. They looked down on Jesus 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:41.280 on others who were not like them. Jesus exposes their self-righteousness, their religious 00:07:41.280 --> 00:07:53.360 goodness as not being what was required to enter the narrow way of salvation. 00:07:53.360 --> 00:08:00.160 So that's the first scenario in this dinner party. The second scenario is in verses 7 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:10.640 to 13 where he told a parable because he was watching the way the dinner party was unfolding. 00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:16.320 And so he's saying here, you can't take your self-importance with you into your relationship 00:08:16.320 --> 00:08:21.960 with Jesus Christ because he was observing what was going on. Now the culture of the 00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:27.920 day was he's speaking into and we have an insight, a little insight here into the culture 00:08:27.920 --> 00:08:34.240 of the day at these quite public meals or quite public wedding feast. It was different 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:38.800 sometimes from the way we do things. But they sat at what was called a triclinium which 00:08:38.800 --> 00:08:47.680 is a kind of U-shaped table and the most important guests sat at the U end, right at the bottom 00:08:47.680 --> 00:08:53.159 end of the table. And the table went out on either side and the least significant guests 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:58.319 would be at the other end of the table. And he was observing people coming and sitting 00:08:58.319 --> 00:09:05.039 in the most important places because they were kind of maybe self-importance and they 00:09:05.039 --> 00:09:12.719 were proud of themselves and they were saying, I'm better than that other person and I have 00:09:12.719 --> 00:09:18.839 a right to sit at that place in the table. So there was a degree of self-importance that 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:28.800 Jesus speaks into in verses 7 to 11 and he summarizes it by saying, look, if you're going 00:09:28.800 --> 00:09:35.639 to exalt yourself, you need to be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:43.480 And he's speaking into the narrow door question from the previous chapter and he's reminding 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:51.159 them, he's reminding those who were listening and ourselves that we can't come to God with 00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:58.720 our own self-importance. We don't deserve a place at God's table. We have things back 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:05.759 to front. To be in relationship with Jesus Christ and to be part of the everlasting life 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:13.039 that He offers is to recognize that the invitation to be in relationship with Him and to sit 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:22.519 at His table is in itself a gift and that we have no right to be there and we have no 00:10:22.519 --> 00:10:28.279 right to be sitting with Him and to be in relationship with Him. We have much to be 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:34.480 forgiven and there's no place for us to come and to be in relationship with Jesus Christ 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:43.680 with a deep degree of self-importance. So self-importance is challenged here by Jesus. 00:10:43.680 --> 00:10:48.879 Now that might be something that keeps you from the kingdom, from Jesus. I'm too important 00:10:48.879 --> 00:10:55.840 for Jesus or my life is too important for Jesus or it may be for us as Christians that 00:10:55.840 --> 00:11:01.680 we struggle with the significance of our own lives in comparison with Jesus and we relegate 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:04.799 Him. Let's say a little bit more about that later. 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:12.759 The third scenario that we come to is in verses 12 to 14, a shorter section where He speaks 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:18.159 to the host who has invited him to the house and He says to him, look when you're inviting 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:22.239 someone to a banquet, don't invite all your friends and the important people and everyone 00:11:22.239 --> 00:11:28.479 else because you'll know they'll invite you back but invite the poor, the crippled, the 00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:33.560 lame and the blind. Now what He's not saying there is that you can't have your friends 00:11:33.560 --> 00:11:37.560 round for a meal and He's not saying there that you can't have lots of different people 00:11:37.560 --> 00:11:41.759 round for food. He's not giving a general principle about who you invite to your house 00:11:41.759 --> 00:11:50.279 for food. He's speaking again into this narrow door scenario and He's really saying that 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:56.080 we can't take the attitude that we have in inviting people to our home sometimes. We 00:11:56.080 --> 00:12:01.920 can't take that attitude into our relationship with Jesus Christ because what He's exposing 00:12:01.920 --> 00:12:07.600 here is kind of self-interest. What He's exposing to the host here is you're inviting people 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:12.520 to your house for a meal because you know they're going to invite you back and it'll 00:12:12.520 --> 00:12:19.240 be a quid pro quo. You get an invite, they'll invite you and there's a degree of self-interest 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:26.240 in what He's highlighting or exposing here. You know, furthering those who are of the same 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:30.279 social, furthering your own relationships because you're inviting those of the same social 00:12:30.279 --> 00:12:34.840 standing, those who will return the favor or maybe those you want to influence positively 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:41.600 in your life. Now He's saying don't take that into your attitude with God and as a means 00:12:41.600 --> 00:12:46.639 of entering through the narrow door or your relationship with Jesus. Now there's welcoming 00:12:46.639 --> 00:12:54.319 God into your life for the wrong reasons, with the wrong motives, maybe to impress Him 00:12:54.319 --> 00:12:59.759 as some kind of influential friend. I want to say that I belong to Jesus because if I 00:12:59.759 --> 00:13:04.799 do that and I invite Him into my life then He'll give me what I want. It'll be a quid 00:13:04.799 --> 00:13:11.159 pro quo. Jesus, I've come to You, I call myself a Christian, so You need to be good to me. 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:15.159 You need to be nice to me. You need to give me a good life because I've given myself to 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:20.919 You. Bless me so that I can have an easy life. Now you may say, well, I would never say that. 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:26.399 I don't think that, but it wells up sometimes, doesn't it, when things are going badly and 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:34.959 we say, what's the game, Jesus? I'm a believer and my life's just gone down the toilet. Things 00:13:34.959 --> 00:13:39.480 are really poor with me. Why aren't things better? Because I'm a Christian and I've 00:13:39.480 --> 00:13:46.720 given myself to You. So there is an element sometimes of self-interest in our relationship 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:53.159 with God that we feel He is indebted to us as we give our lives to Him. I'll give my life 00:13:53.159 --> 00:14:04.320 to Him, then God is indebted to me. And that degree of self-interest destroys the recognition 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:09.720 of why we need a Savior. So that's the third thing. The last thing here that He says is 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:13.600 the last parable. Now I was originally just going to look at that parable, but it really 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:21.840 fits into the whole picture of this chapter where it's the last element of why the way 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:27.080 is narrow, why we can't go, we can't come to Jesus with our own agenda and with our 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:32.280 own thinking. And this is really that we can't, He uses this parable to say we can't take 00:14:32.279 --> 00:14:39.759 our own self-centeredness into our relationship with Jesus because the way is too narrow to 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:47.559 do so. And this is the parable that He speaks to in response to a fellow guest who very boldly 00:14:47.559 --> 00:14:51.559 says, hey, bless it, it's the one who comes and blesses it, he read in the kingdom of 00:14:51.559 --> 00:14:58.159 God and Jesus then replies to him with this parable. And he talks about a great feast 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:03.039 and the invitations have gone out once. And then the second invitation goes to actually 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:08.279 bring them to the feast. And all of a sudden the people who had initially been invited 00:15:08.279 --> 00:15:15.319 make really lame excuses for not coming to the feast. You know, I've bought a field, 00:15:15.319 --> 00:15:20.519 I need to go and see it. You know, do you think I'll look at a field? You know, in that 00:15:20.519 --> 00:15:24.000 culture if he bought a field he would have looked at it a long time before he bought 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:28.679 it. He wouldn't have bought a field blind, I've bought a field, I better go and look 00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:33.080 at it. And then I bought a same with five Yoke of Oxen, I need to go and examine them. 00:15:33.080 --> 00:15:37.960 Oh, could not wait for a day? And that's the picture that we're being given here. I've 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:43.240 married a wife, that's the worst example of all. If you get invited to a feast you take 00:15:43.240 --> 00:15:51.879 your wife with you. And that's the general idea that Jesus is exposing the poverty of 00:15:51.879 --> 00:15:59.639 their reasons, because ultimately they didn't really want to be there. And the host wasn't 00:15:59.639 --> 00:16:03.720 important to them. They liked the idea of being invited, but they really didn't want 00:16:03.720 --> 00:16:12.679 to go with all these other people to sit at this feast and be there. And he's speaking 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:18.279 into that whole idea of being self-centered in a relationship with Jesus and saying, you 00:16:18.279 --> 00:16:28.039 know, it's easy to kind of, the idea of Jesus being important and his lovely invitation 00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:33.959 to follow him. But actually when Prush comes to shove, he's not a priority. He's not really 00:16:33.959 --> 00:16:41.279 important to me in any way. I don't really like being with him and with his people. It's 00:16:41.279 --> 00:16:49.240 way down my list of pitiful excuses for not being in a relationship with him. In reality, 00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:54.519 being a follower of Jesus is just far too much work. And I would rather just do the things 00:16:54.519 --> 00:16:57.039 that I'm doing. Like I was saying to the, you know, what's the classic one today for 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:02.480 us? Well, I can't go because I'm dry my hair. It's a really put excuse for me, because I 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:06.480 just need to walk out the door and my hair's dry, because there's not much of it. But for 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:11.519 some of you, that might be the excuse. And we all kind of use that as a joke. Dry my 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:16.519 hair too busy. But it's that kind of thing. Now interestingly, Jesus is talking about 00:17:16.519 --> 00:17:23.240 good things, you know, material possessions, the means of wealth, five Yoke of Oxen or 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:30.039 what a field, married a wife, love and relationships. He's not condemning these things. He's not 00:17:30.039 --> 00:17:37.039 saying these things are wrong. These are His gifts. These are from God, the good things 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:42.079 of life. But what He is saying is saying, you can't make these good things of life the 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:48.240 reason for living and ultimate things. You can't make them ultimate. God is the only 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:54.359 ultimate person. You can't make them idols. You can't simply live for just the things 00:17:54.359 --> 00:18:02.959 of this life with no thought for the giver. And He's saying, you can't find ultimate peace 00:18:02.959 --> 00:18:09.199 and truth and happiness and joy and eternal life from these things. They're good things, 00:18:09.199 --> 00:18:15.479 they're gifts, but they're not to be worshiped and they're not to be prioritized before God, 00:18:15.479 --> 00:18:24.319 and they're not to be seen as replacements for God in Jesus Christ. And as He gives that 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:29.919 parable, He goes on to really speak about how His original audience, the Pharisees and 00:18:29.919 --> 00:18:36.559 the Jews, had rejected Him like these invitees, and that they were to go out into all the 00:18:36.559 --> 00:18:40.399 different places to invite people to come in, and that really is pointing towards the 00:18:40.399 --> 00:18:45.200 gospel, the extravagant invitation to feast with Him, going out beyond the Jewish people 00:18:45.200 --> 00:18:53.039 to the Gentiles and to the whole world to feast in Him and find true life in Him. 00:18:53.039 --> 00:18:59.279 So Jesus answers the question about the narrow way in these four ways in this chapter. Can 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:07.240 we just ask to apply that, to take that into our own lives more so? What is God saying 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:15.119 to us from this picture, or this interaction between Jesus and the guests at the dinner 00:19:15.119 --> 00:19:22.319 feast? You know, as Christians, can we just push it aside and say, well, it's not really 00:19:22.319 --> 00:19:26.639 for us, this is for people who reject Jesus. But what is Jesus saying about the character 00:19:26.639 --> 00:19:34.679 and the nature of following Him and coming to accept Him as God and Lord? How do we approach 00:19:34.679 --> 00:19:40.000 our relationship? What are the dynamics in your relationship with Jesus Christ? Do these 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:46.720 areas, do they impinge on our understanding of our relationship with Jesus Christ? And 00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:56.160 how do we present Him to other people? Because Jesus says there's a narrow way to follow 00:19:56.160 --> 00:20:03.680 Him, and we have to share that, and the folks at the Herodotus Center need to learn and 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:09.240 know and share the challenges of sharing Jesus Christ and what it really means to follow, 00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:13.759 because we can give people the wrong impression in our lives as well, can't we? But it's a 00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:20.480 narrow way. So there's two very important pillars that we'll look at very quickly, just 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:24.440 the time that I've got left. First, from what He's saying, the narrow way, what does 00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:30.599 it mean? It means we come to Christ with nothing, okay? That's what He means when He talks 00:20:30.599 --> 00:20:36.480 about the narrow way of knowing Him. It means we have nothing to offer Him, that's what 00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:42.480 He's saying. You know, we can't take our self-centeredness, our self-interest, our self-righteousness, 00:20:42.480 --> 00:20:48.559 our self-importance. We can't take that into the game. We can't take that into the room 00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:54.960 with Jesus Christ. We need to recognize that there is nothing we can bring that pays for 00:20:54.960 --> 00:20:59.720 the failure in our lives to love Him perfectly and to love our neighbor perfectly, which 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:06.319 is a summary of the law of God, that we are justly condemned, that we have broken these 00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:14.079 divine laws in our thought process, in our word and in our deed. And we have no hope 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:19.759 whatsoever of eternal life or reconciliation with God in our own terms. That's what He's 00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:26.720 saying in this chapter about the narrow way. There's nothing, nil, zilch, nada, nothing. 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:32.359 There's nothing that we can bring before the living God. We are part of a broken world. 00:21:32.359 --> 00:21:37.959 We have broken hearts, and death and hell is all that we have and deserve as we look 00:21:37.959 --> 00:21:46.279 forward without Jesus Christ. Now, that takes us, that's a huge challenge for us. We might 00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:53.639 know it theologically, but in our own personal lives, because it's a huge blow to our self-centeredness 00:21:53.639 --> 00:21:59.399 and our pride. So we have, we come to Christ with nothing, we have nothing to offer Him, 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:07.040 but at the same time, we come to see the gift that cost Him everything. Okay? So there's 00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:14.160 glorious King of kings who rightly condemns us, empties himself of his glory, becomes 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:19.240 a man, and knows and experiences broken, sorrow, pain, rejection and death, everything that's 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:27.040 completely alien to his being, and he dies on a cross in our place. He takes our guilt 00:22:27.039 --> 00:22:35.119 and he gifts us his innocence. And if we leave our sinful self at the door, that narrow door, 00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:42.240 with all its baggage and accept him and recognize his great love for us, then we offer him nothing 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:48.839 and he gives us everything. He gives us life to the fool, and that's hugely significant. 00:22:48.839 --> 00:23:00.279 So there's a great urgency in our lives, not relegating Jesus to a has-been, and he demands 00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:05.039 preeminence in our lives. So we come to Christ with nothing. And then the second thing I 00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:11.480 want to say as a result of this is we live, and this is a challenging truth for us, we 00:23:11.480 --> 00:23:22.039 live as if we are last in the queue. Chapter 14 and verse 11, at the end of one of these 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:27.240 sections he says, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself 00:23:27.240 --> 00:23:32.920 will be exalted. And then in chapter 13 where we read at the end, it says verse 30, behold, 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:37.559 some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last. So we come to 00:23:37.559 --> 00:23:45.200 Christ with nothing, and then we live like we are last in the queue. Now we need to take 00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:49.919 that out of here into our daily lives, you know, so that salvation is much more than just 00:23:49.919 --> 00:23:56.639 a one-off decision. Tick box, amen, or through the narrow gate, amen. It's much more than 00:23:56.639 --> 00:24:01.639 that because it's a new way of living that turns our life upside down and inside out 00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:07.560 because it says that Jesus is now first and other people come before me and I'm last in 00:24:07.560 --> 00:24:16.920 the queue. That's radically overturning what we think. Christ, we say, and Jesus is a great 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:23.640 example of this, you will be done at the moment of the deepest, darkest opposition, not my 00:24:23.640 --> 00:24:30.560 will but yours be done. Christ recognized that great act of obedience and as we come 00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:37.119 to Him, we put Christ first because not because we can, not because it makes us right with 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:43.500 God but because He's gifted us salvation and so in gratitude He comes first, and our 00:24:43.500 --> 00:24:50.440 daily battle is to say Christ first, not me first. Now that will come in your career, 00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:54.079 that will come in the decisions you make in your workplace, the way you respond to people 00:24:54.079 --> 00:25:00.960 when they're mean and nasty, it's Christ first and then it's me, or then it's others and 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:07.000 then it's me. And that's a recalibration for us and it's a lifelong recalibration. So the 00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:14.720 narrow door is a one-off but it's also a way of living, it's a life. So take this example, 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:20.960 an old broken-down water mill for example. It's all broken down, the roof's off it, there's 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:27.480 the ivy up the sides, the wooden mill at the side isn't working, the water course has 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:33.440 been blocked and it's used as a drinking den, it's used as a bothy or a drug den and there's 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:40.160 no lights, there's no electricity, it's just not what it was intended to be. And then someone 00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:47.920 comes in and buys it, lovingly restores it and puts a huge amount of resources and time 00:25:47.920 --> 00:25:56.320 and money and heartache into making a working mill, the water flows, the mill is, you know, 00:25:56.320 --> 00:26:02.800 the wooden wheel is repaired, roof is put on, it's looked inside, they start employing 00:26:02.800 --> 00:26:11.960 people and this glorious old lady of a mill is fit for service again and it's been transformed. 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:16.519 And really that's what Christ is doing in each of our lives and that's what it means 00:26:16.519 --> 00:26:21.920 by following Christ in that He has paid the price to redeem us, to buy us back and He 00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:28.000 spends His time and His energy restoring us to what we were created originally to be, 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:34.759 all your gifts, all your talents, all your beauty, all your smiles, all that you do, 00:26:34.759 --> 00:26:43.200 all that you are finds wholeness as He transforms us from the inside out and helps us to live 00:26:43.200 --> 00:26:49.440 as we were created to live and that means Him coming first, others coming next and ourselves 00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:55.400 being last. We are like last in the queue, Christ come first and other people come next. 00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:01.480 That's really what I want to focus just in conclusion on. It's a double blow to our 00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:08.759 self-rule, Jesus first, others next. And so you take that and I take that and we apply 00:27:08.759 --> 00:27:14.799 it from when we leave church this morning into our lives. The other people, as Christians, 00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:20.759 other people we respect and we love other people more than we love and respect ourselves 00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:26.039 because of what Jesus has done for us. And there's an immediate context into that, into 00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:32.599 your marriage, your family, your colleagues, your flatmates. There's an immediate context 00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:40.559 within the church family that we live with Christ at the core of our lives so that it's 00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:45.679 a community of forgiveness and love. We treat other people with the grace and the patience 00:27:45.679 --> 00:27:51.879 Jesus has shown to us. How often is that not the case? That we don't treat others the 00:27:51.879 --> 00:27:57.240 way Christ has treated us. Those we struggle with, those who are in need, those who are 00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:02.759 isolated, those who are lonely, those who are wrong us, who hurt us, who let us down, 00:28:02.759 --> 00:28:08.200 who ignore us. We say, well, I'm giving up on this place because I'm ignored and nobody 00:28:08.200 --> 00:28:15.480 cares for my life. And yet when we sit down soberly and think about it, how often have 00:28:15.480 --> 00:28:20.960 we done that to Christ? Have we ignored Him? Have we kept silent? Have we rejected Him? 00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:27.200 Have we accepted His gifts without any acknowledgement of Him as the giver? Within the church family, 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:36.039 we put ourselves, we regard others with greater value and respect than ourselves. In our concern 00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:42.920 for the lost, that we have this great concern for them, how we perceive, how we deal with 00:28:42.920 --> 00:28:49.000 those who perceive us as enemies, maybe secular atheists, those from the LGBT community, that 00:28:49.000 --> 00:28:53.960 we need to learn how to love and to serve them and yet show them a different way with 00:28:53.960 --> 00:29:00.799 our radical, different worldviews and our understanding of the gospel, for them to recognize 00:29:00.799 --> 00:29:08.720 that we all need a Savior and that we all recognize that Jesus died for those who were 00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:16.799 His enemies and those who disagreed with Him. And therefore, we will die for others who disagree 00:29:16.799 --> 00:29:23.440 with us because we love them. And whether we agree with them or not, and that will take 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:29.519 time and that will take convincing, just like those guests who were invited from the streets, 00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:33.200 who needed to be compelled to come in because they couldn't possibly believe they were invited 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:41.799 to the great feast of the King. We need to serve others by telling them our story. And 00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:46.759 I think also we need to serve others and we need to recognize the grace of Christ working 00:29:46.759 --> 00:29:53.960 in us in our care for the disadvantaged. I think this section of the chapter is full 00:29:53.960 --> 00:30:02.440 of side bars, side boxes about caring for the disadvantaged, the outside, or the asylum 00:30:02.440 --> 00:30:07.200 seeker, the homeless, the addict. We could do that through Bethany or Edinburgh churches 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:13.000 for sanctuary or through any different organization. We care for the vulnerable, we care for the 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:19.279 weak, those who have no voice. We care for the unborn. We speak up for the unborn. But 00:30:19.279 --> 00:30:29.640 can I also say, we need to be better at speaking up for the unborn who are born into poverty 00:30:29.640 --> 00:30:34.720 and who are born into brokenness and who are born into emptiness and loneliness. And so 00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:39.079 we do, as churches I think, need to think about a role with, for example, safe families 00:30:39.079 --> 00:30:46.439 for children or home for good, fostering and adoption. So we don't just make a big commitment 00:30:46.439 --> 00:30:50.559 toward the unborn and say we're speaking on their behalf. We need to show the love of 00:30:50.559 --> 00:30:58.119 Christ and the grace of Christ by fostering and adopting the children who are alive and 00:30:58.119 --> 00:31:04.439 who desperately need our help. I think the role of the church and our role is huge in 00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:13.400 our society today which is increasingly broken and individualistic and sometimes unconcerned 00:31:13.400 --> 00:31:22.320 for the other. Why do we do all this? Why do we do all these things? Well, it's the 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:28.920 great paradox, isn't it? Because those who are last will be first. That's not our motive. 00:31:28.920 --> 00:31:34.720 But what happens is the great paradox of the gospel is as we put Christ first and others 00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:43.160 first, we find that we receive what we can never experience if we put ourselves first. 00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:49.560 Do you see the paradox of that? We try and live our lives by putting ourselves first, 00:31:49.560 --> 00:31:55.039 but we never receive the whole life and the forgiveness and the grace and the fullness 00:31:55.039 --> 00:32:01.759 that Jesus Christ our Creator can only offer us can never receive it unless we put Him 00:32:01.759 --> 00:32:10.759 first and others next. What is it we get? We get a place at His overflowing table and 00:32:10.759 --> 00:32:18.519 the honour of belonging to His royal family. That's the dinner party that is heaven, and 00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:23.720 that's what He offers life to us. It's not what we expect, that's for sure, because 00:32:23.720 --> 00:32:29.839 we enter a war zone in this life, but it's life to the full, and it's His yoke and His 00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:34.680 burden which is light and easy compared with trying to find happiness and contentment and 00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:39.440 peace and joy and forgiveness and meaning and identity away from Him. 00:32:39.440 --> 00:32:45.759 So you see that beautiful truth, He offers by putting Him first, by coming to Him for 00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:53.240 salvation for our sins being dealt with, by putting Him first and others next, we receive 00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:58.319 and enjoy what we can never experience by putting ourselves first on the throne of our 00:32:58.319 --> 00:33:06.359 lives. We were not created to be on the throne of our own lives. Amen, let's pray. Lord, 00:33:06.359 --> 00:33:12.519 God help us to understand your great teaching. Forgive us when we maybe make it confusing 00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:18.559 or difficult or boring. Take that from us. And Lord, just make your spirit take your 00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:26.480 truth about the narrow way and help us to understand what it means. It means we ditch 00:33:26.480 --> 00:33:33.240 all the sinful, selfish pride and self-interest and self-righteousness that keeps us from 00:33:33.240 --> 00:33:40.679 you. And in so doing, we find our true selves in relationship with You, our Father and God. 00:33:40.679 --> 00:33:46.039 We thank You for that amazing truth of the gospel. May it be applied to our hearts, not 00:33:46.039 --> 00:33:51.240 only maybe for the first time, but it may be as Christians, as we've been Christians 00:33:51.240 --> 00:33:56.920 for many years. May we just be reminded how easily we slip into a self-centered way of 00:33:56.920 --> 00:34:16.559 living. Forgive us, we pray. Amen.