“Enter through this narrow gate [doing unto others as you would have done unto you, thus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets], because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction/waste, and there are many who enter through it.[1] But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to the life[2] [of blessedness described at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount],[3] and there are few who find it.[4]
“Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing[5] but inwardly are voracious wolves.[6] You will recognize them by their fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they?[7] In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit. The good person out of the good treasury of his heart[8] produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury produces evil, for his mouth speaks from what fills his heart. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I tell you (bear good fruit)? [9] Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?’[10] Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you/approved of you. Go away from me, you law breakers!’ “
“Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and puts them into practice is like a wise man building his house, who dug down deep, and laid the foundation on bedrock.[11] The rain fell, the winds beat against that house, a flood came and the river burst against it but could not shake it. It did not collapse because it had been founded on rock and had been well built.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand without a foundation. The rain fell, the flood came and the winds beat against that house. When the river burst against that house it collapsed immediately and was utterly destroyed!”[12]
Let’s summarize:
There’s a particular and hard path of the blessed life described in the Beatitudes. (vv.13-14)
If you are on that path, you will bear the good fruit of righteous obedience.[13] (vv.15-20)
It is the fruit that comes from a lifestyle of obedience, not displays of power, that reveal who is walking this path. (vv.21-23).
The person who “hears” and “does” is building the house of their life on a firm foundation, and will be able to stand strong amidst the storms of life. (vv.24-27)
I want to talk today about obedience. It shows up over and over in Jesus’ summary of the Sermon on the Mount that we read today.
Enter the narrow gate and walk the narrow, hard path.
Bear the good fruit that follows from living righteously.
Do the will of the Father.
Hear Jesus’ teaching and put them into practice.
Let’s start with this observation: When we reject obedience, we will tend to avoid the one who rightly demands obedience from us. When we embrace obedience, we can relax in and even embrace their presence.
As children, we eat the stolen candy in our room and hide the wrappers – or so I’ve heard.
If I were to ever drive over the speed limit, I would want a back road so I can avoid being seen.
If we cut corners at work, it’s not in front of our employer.
If we don’t have a license, we are probably not going to hunt close to the DNR.
All of these have to do with avoiding someone because there were rules or laws we broke. There were agreed upon expectations that we each knew about, and we failed to live in a way that honored them, and we knew it. The easiest thing to do was hide.
On the other hand, if we are good in those situations, no problem. We have nothing to hide, so we don’t. We are at peace in the presence of the one who has authority in our lives.
When Sheila and I got married, we entered a covenant in which we pledged our lives to each other. We now owe each other an allegiance we did not have before. There are now ‘rules of engagement.’ So, what are the “rules” of godly covenant?
Self-sacrificial love
Mutual respect
Shared responsibilities
Repentance and forgiveness
Purity and faithfulness
When we ‘break the rules,’ it will effect our communion with each other. We will hide or avoid in a variety of ways.
We could be physically or emotionally distant (If I’m not there, or if I stay busy, I can avoid talking face-to-face about my lack of respect or responsibility.)
We could lie (“I was just, uh, playing games on my computer!”)
We could shift the blame. (“If you weren’t so….”)
We could lash out and hide behind resentment and anger.
When we break the rules, we will tend to avoid or hide from the one to whom we owe it. When we embrace the rules, we can relax in and even embrace their presence.
Second observation: when we devalue what we rightly owe others, we will devalue them as well. But when we value what we owe others, we offer value to them as well.
All was well with Adam and Eve and God - they communed; they walked and talked. They were in what the Bible calls shalom: peace between God and themselves. That peace was transparent, honest, and free – what the Bible describes as “naked and unashamed,” a term that covers their physical reality as well as the relational dynamic. Then, when their obedience crumbled, their community crumbled between God and themselves.[14] They hid from God; they covered themselves up so they could hide more of themselves from God. When God asked, “Where are you?” it was another way of asking, “Do you know what have you done?”
As already noted, when we choose disobedience, we usually choose a longing for distance as well, because we hate accountability, repentance and humility. Our natural tendency will be to demonstrate why the story of Adam and Eve is the story of us all: we will cover up, we will hide, we will put up barriers between ourselves and God as well as others. But there’s more.
If we resent what God rightly demands from us as covenantal partners, we will resent God.
If we resent His path, we will resent the One who made the path.
When we devalue what we rightly owe God, we will devalue God as well.
If we demand freedom from our covenant with God and the expectations on our life that accompany it, we must know what the relational fallout will be. God is faithful when we are faithless (2 Timothy 2:13), but we will respond a certain way toward God if we are living in disobedience we have chosen.
We will try to hide; we will pull away; we will not want to be too much in His presence lest the light of His holiness reveal those secret, sinful places we are keeping to ourselves (Luke 8:17). We will not go to God ‘naked and unashamed’ emotionally and spiritually when we know we are in an active state of rebellion. As time goes on, we will increasingly resent the one from whom we are hiding.
Many of us go through times of life where we think, “I just don’t feel near to God. I don’t sense His presence.” There can be many reasons for this, and I can’t go into all of them this morning. But since our focus this morning is obedience, it’s worth noting that at times the solution is to identify where we have strayed (or sprinted) off the path, and begin with repentance.
You may have heard the verse, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. “ (James 4:8) Here’s the context in James 4: 1– 8. James says:
you crave what you do not have, so you murder, sue and fight…
you continually focus on self-indulgence…
you align with the world system and declare war against God.
His conclusion:
Submit yourselves to the one true God and fight against the devil and his schemes... Draw near God, and He will draw near to you. Wash your hands; you have dirtied them in sin. Cleanse your heart, because your mind is split down the middle, your love for God on one side and selfish pursuits on the other.
God doesn’t move. “God will come close to you” isn’t meant to be read as a literal description of God’s location. It has to do with communing (to go back to Adam and Eve). When God says, “Where are you?” and we answer, “Right here,” we will realize how close he was all along.
We restore broken communion with God through repentance; we enter into and build communion through obedience, which is the highest form of worship.
“Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late - and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work.” - A.W. Tozer
“A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.” Charles Grandison Finney
“If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.” - Richard Foster
“Worship has been misunderstood as something that arises from a feeling which ‘comes upon you,’ but it is vital that we understand that it is rooted in a conscious act of the will, to serve and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.” Graham Kendrick
Over and over, the Bible stresses that God is pleased with our obedience as an ultimate display of worship and love.
John 15:14 “You are my friends – if you do what I command you.”
Luke 11:28 “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
Romans 12:1 “I plead with you to give your bodies… as a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”
Kay Arthur puts it bluntly:
“If you do not plan to live the Christian life totally committed to knowing your God and to walking in obedience to Him, then don't begin, for this is what Christianity is all about. It is a change of citizenship, a change of governments, a change of allegiance. If you have no intention of letting Christ rule your life, then forget Christianity; it is not for you.”
Love and obedience are inseperable. If we love Jesus, we will want to obey Him, because following the path of life increasingly forms us into His image.[15] When we obey God, we show our love to Him, demonstrating how serious we are about wanting to be like Him.[16]
“When obedience to God contradicts what I believe will bring me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love him.” Elisabeth Elliot
We must obey God – we must walk the narrow path - if we want to deeply worship and genuinely display our love for God. That in itself is sufficient reason to do it. But God has designed obedience with a natural benefit: it will open up a path to communing with God in a way that nothing else does.
Isaiah 48:17–19 “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea.”
James 1:22–25 “But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says….But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
I think the blessing to which James refers is Isaiah’s peace and righteousness, which is peace with God though the death of Jesus, and the goodness of living in this “right standing” with God. Then, no more hiding. No more avoiding the One who has laid claim to our lives.
So, when we commit to obedience, we will commune openly and freely with the one to whom we have given it. But there’s more. When we commit to obedience, it will point us toward the goodness of the one to whom we are obedient. Following a coach’s instruction reveals a coach’s good plan. ‘Buying in’ to the coach’s system is often the same as ‘buying in’ to the coach. Following the directions and creating a tasty dish – especially when I am skeptical about the combination of ingredients - points me toward the creative wonder of a good chef.
There is something about the process of obedience that points us to the one who gave the commands. Walking in the path of Jesus helps us to appreciate the person of Jesus. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8). I want to finish with what I read when we participated in Communion this morning. [17]
The bread is intended for us to live on; that is the symbolism. Thus when we gather and take the bread of the Lord's Table, break it and pass it among ourselves, we are reminding ourselves that Jesus is our life: He is the One by whom we live. As Paul says, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live… I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).
This is what the bread symbolizes — that he is to be our power by which we obey the demands of God, the Word of God, to love one another, to forgive one another, to be tender and merciful, kind and courteous to one another, to not return evil for evil but to pray for those who persecute us and mistrust us and misuse us. His life in us enables us to be what God asks us to be. We live by means of Christ.
The cup symbolizes his blood which he said is the blood of the New Covenant, the new arrangement for living that God has made, by which the old life is ended. This is then end of the old life in which we were dependent upon ourselves, and lived for ourselves, and wanted only to be the center of attention is over.
The cup means we are no longer to live for ourselves. We do not have final rights to our life, and the price is the blood of Jesus. Therefore, when we take that cup and drink it, we are publicly proclaiming that we agree with that sentence of death upon our old life, and believe that the Christian life is a continual experience of life coming out of death.
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[1] The words in the original are very emphatic: Enter in (to the kingdom of heaven) through THIS strait gate, i.e. of doing to every one as you would he should do unto you; for this alone seems to be the strait gate which our Lord alludes to.” (Adam Clarke)
[2] “If we choose forgiveness, we will avoid the destruction bitterness brings. If we exercise…mercy, we avoid the destruction that being judgmental brings... If we exercise the Golden Rule, we bring life to all those we touch.”(Matthew 7:13-14 Meaning.”) https://thebiblesays.com/commentary/matt/matt-7/matthew-713-14/
[3] “A remarkable parallel to this passage occurs in the Tablet of Cebes, a contemporary with Socrates. "Seest thou not, then, a little door, and a way before the door, which is not much crowded, but very few travel it? This is the way which leadeth into true culture." (Vincent’s Word Studies)
[4] “The Jews talk of the gate of repentance, the gate of prayers, and the gate of tears.” (Adam Clarke)
[5] “A garment which reached to the feet, and was made of the wool of sheep. The garment Achan saw and stole, Rab says, was , a garment called "melotes": which is the Greek word the author of Hebrews uses for sheep skins, persecuted saints wandered about in (Hebrews 11:37)… the Talmud referred to… "a talith", or "garment of pure wool"; and Jarchi (s) says, that "it was the way of deceivers, and profane men, to cover themselves, "with their talith", or long garment, "as if they were righteous men", that persons might receive their lies.'' (Gill’s Exposition)
[6] Warnings against false prophets are necessarily based on the conviction that not all prophets are true, that truth can be violated, and that the Gospel's enemies usually conceal their hostility and try to pass themselves off as fellow believers… the flow of the Sermon on the Mount as well as its OT background suggest that they do not acknowledge or teach the narrow way to life subject to persecution (vv.13-14; cf. Jer 8:11; Eze 13). (Expositor’s Bible Commentary)
[7] From a distance the little black berries on the buckthorn could be mistaken for grapes, and the flowers on certain thistles might deceive one into thinking figs were growing.
[8] “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Remember that from earlier in the same Sermon on the Mount?
[9] “Jesus subordinates the gifts of the Spirit to the fruit of the Spirit (compare 1 Cor 13) and submission to Jesus' lordship (1 Cor 12:1-3). Jesus' words about fruit thus refer to repentant works (Mt 7:21; 3:8, 10).” (IVP New Testament Commentary)
[10] This is not the fruit of righteousness. Lifestyle is.
[11] “The sand ringing the seashore on the Sea of Galilee was hard on the surface during the hot summer months. But a wise builder would dig down sometimes ten feet below the surface sand to the bedrock below, and there establish the foundation for his house. When the winter rains came, overflowing the banks of the Jordan River flowing into the sea, houses built on bedrock would be able to withstand the floods. (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Of The New Testament)
[12] Elisha, the son of Abuja, said, "The man who studies much in the law, and maintains good works, is like to a man who built a house, laying stones at the foundation, and building brick upon them; and, though many waters come against it, they cannot move it from its place. But the man who studies much in the law, and does not maintain good words, is like to a man who, in building his house, put brick at the foundation, and laid stones upon them, so that even gentle waters shall overthrow that house." (quoted by Adam Clarke)
[13] “The one who does the will of my Father…”
[14] “If you do not obey him, you will not know him… let me die insisting upon it, for my Lord insists upon it.” - George McDonald
[15] Romans 8:29-30; 2 Corinthians 3:13-18
[16] “Without the gospel, we may obey the law, but we will learn to hate it. We will use it, but we will not truly love it. Only if we obey the law because we are saved, rather than to be saved, will we do so ‘for God’ (Galatians 2:19). Once we understand salvation-by-promise, we do not obey God any longer for our sake, by using the law-salvation-system to get things from God. Rather, we now obey God for His sake, using the law’s content to please and delight our Father.” - Tim Keller
[17] Ray Stedman, https://www.raystedman.org/daily-devotions/1-corinthians/the-lords-supper