Entering By the Narrow Gate, Part 4

Introduction: The Narrow Gate and Self-Examination

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, July 17, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow, please, as I read two portions of the Word of God, one that by now is, I trust, familiar even to the youngest of the children, Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, and then two verses from one of Paul's epistles. Our Lord Jesus speaking, Matthew 7 and verse 13,

0:41 Enter in by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And many. Are they that enter in thereby, for narrow is the gate, and straightened or restricted, compressed, restricted, the way that leads unto life, and few, and few are they that find it.

1:22 And now over to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Verses 14 and 15. In the midst of the section in which the Apostle is describing the nature, the motives, character of his ministry as an Apostle of the new covenant, he writes in verse 14, For the love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge that one died for all. Therefore, all died.

2:04 And he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. That they should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. We come tonight to the 10th message in a series of studies in the area of self-examination,

2:49 which I have entitled, with current slang language, Are You For Real? And in this series, we're seeking to consider some of the key passages in the Word of God, which will enable every serious listener, to do what each of us is commanded to do in 2 Corinthians 13, 5. Examine yourselves. Prove your own selves.

3:20 Know ye not your own selves, that you are how that Christ is in you, except you be reprobates. And in the course of pursuing this goal of a Bible-based, textually framed exercise, in the course of pursuing this goal of a Bible-based, self-examination, we have come to Matthew 7, 13 and 14, a passage which clearly teaches that if you and I are for real, we have come through the narrow gate, and we are walking in the restricted way, which leads to life. In our study of the Scriptures this morning,

The Difficulty of the Narrow Gate: Renouncing Self-Righteousness

4:03 we began to answer the question, what is involved in, in entering the narrow gate? What is it in the realm of the experience of true biblical conversion, which warrants the imagery of our Lord, namely that of a narrow gate? A gate which can only be entered with great difficulty. So much so, that in a parallel passage, in Luke 13, 24, our Lord says, agonize, strive, using that vigorous, Greek word, agonizomai, in the imperative, He commands us to marshal all of our faculties,

4:46 and to engage in the most strenuous endeavor, to enter in by the narrow gate, and He says it is essential, for many will seek to enter, and shall not be able, when once the master of the house has risen up, and has shut the door, and there will be many who thought they were in the way that leads to life, who will be utterly shut out, and will even have the temerity to argue with the judge and say, but look, we ate in the street with you, you taught in our villages, we were associated with you, and the Lord says, I never knew you, you never came through the gate, and having missed the gate,

5:29 you are barred from my presence forever. And then our Lord describes in that frightening language, that they will join the company of those who weep, and who wail, and who gnash their teeth. Well, as we began to answer the question, what is involved in entering the narrow gate, that warrants this imagery of it being a difficult thing, we had time to address only one basic biblical principle and it was this, we must renounce, from the heart,

6:09 all confidence in what we are or are not, what we have or have not done or ever hope to do as the ground of our acceptance with God. Or to use a different approach. I said, we must cast away every single thread of every garment made upon the loom of our own efforts, and be prepared, prepared to have our moral nakedness covered by a garment manufactured exclusively on the loom of the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

6:54 And the reason the gate is narrow is that man from the moment he fell and we see it in Adam and Eve is determined to try to make his own covering for his sin. For Adam and Eve it was their attempts to construct garments of fig leaves and apparently God himself ripped them off when he clothed them in skins. While I'm not prepared to say that the skins typify a blood sacrifice without which there could be no skins, the Bible is silent on that, this much is clear. God does underscore that man

7:39 seeks to make a covering for his own sins and it is never, never acceptable with God. Only the covering of God's making meets with God's acceptance. And that's why the gate is narrow. For men must face the fact that they have nothing, they are nothing, they can do nothing to add a thread of that which alone can give them acceptance with God and therefore if the garment with which they are clothed in their moral nakedness to be acceptable to God is holy of

8:22 God's making, then every last vestige of praise and honor must go to that God and furthermore, I will owe to that God the unrivaled allegiance and love of my heart. And man by nature is both self-righteous and self-serving.

8:46 And to embrace a method of acceptance with God that cuts the very nerves of self-righteousness and self-serving is very, very unacceptable to native human,

9:05 to natural human nature and to fallen flesh. That's why the Lord said it's a narrow gate. And the first mark of the sons and daughters kingdom is highlighted in the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first thing God will do with you if he's going to get you into his kingdom is knock the strut out of you. He'll knock

9:33 the strut out of you. There'll be no pharisaic, I am not his other man, no. God will give you the disposition of a publican in the depths of your soul. God, he's merciful to me, the sinner, the sinner.

The Second Aspect of the Narrow Gate: Repudiating Self-Will and Self-Serving

9:57 Well, we move on to take up a second aspect of why the gate is a narrow gate. Again, I emphasize not because the mercy of God is restricted. His heart is towards sinners. He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that he turn and live.

10:17 There is in Christ an atonement sufficient for the vilest of sinners who will but cast themselves upon his mercy. There is a welcome in the free and sincere offers of mercy in the gospel. Why then is the gate narrow? Not because of any narrowness in God, but because of the condition of our own hearts.

10:42 For not only must we renounce from the heart all confidence in anything we are or can do as the ground of our acceptance, with God, but secondly we must repudiate from the heart self-will and self-serving as the governing principle of our lives. We must repudiate self-will and self-serving as the governing principle of our lives. Now in order to demonstrate

11:25 from the scriptures that this is what makes the gate a narrow gate, follow out with me three lines of thought. First, that self-will and self-serving have become the governing principle of all of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. Self-will and self-serving have become the governing principle of every single fallen son, or daughter of Adam. To make it more personal, self-will and self-serving have become the governing principle of your life

12:08 by nature.

Self-Will as the Governing Principle of Fallen Humanity

12:12 You see, man was created to have his will regulated by the will of God and to serve with delight the God who made him. When one reads the opening chapters of Genesis, there is a wealth of truth in what we would call the very ethos of the creation account. When it is said that on the sixth day God made man in his own image and his own likeness, male and female created he them, there is no great digression to say now man made by God and in the image of God with a capacity to know God was made with the purpose of serving God and having as his supreme goal

12:56 in life knowing and doing the will of God from the heart, there by to find both his blessedness and the fulfillment of his very created purpose. God doesn't need to tell us that. It just oozes out of everything that's there. For no sooner does God create man when we find him communicating his will to the creature whom he has made.

13:20 For we read in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 28, no sooner does God create them but we read and God blessed them. And God said unto them and God begins to bark orders be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion. Verse 29 and God said behold I have given you every herb yielding seed to every beast of the earth and every bird of the heaven all of these things I have given to you. And then in chapter 2 God takes the man whom he has made puts him into the garden to dress it and to keep it.

14:04 He doesn't consult. He doesn't sit down and negotiate. He doesn't have an arbitrator come in and decide how. No, no. The God

14:12 who made man for himself with the capacity to know him and with a positive bias and bent of heart and affection to do his will. God tells him what to do. You are to dress the garden. You are to keep it.

14:28 You are to be freely of all the trees of the garden but of that tree which is in the midst of the garden. That particular tree you shall not eat of it for in the day you eat you will surely die. And God decides it is not good for the man to be alone and out of genuine love and concern for the man he says I'll make a helper answering to his needs. Of course the human race couldn't be propagated without the woman. But you see

14:54 the pragmatic motive is not dominant in scripture. It was God's loving concern for man's and the creature. I will make a helper answering to his needs. So the whole climate of Eden is the climate of Adam and Eve preoccupied with the glory of their God.

15:14 Finding their sheer delight in knowing his will and in doing his will from the heart. And while they had tremendous internal capacity for joy and fulfillment and delight of every kind. You don't find them turned inward upon themselves but outward towards God his word, his revealed will, his world and doing that which would glorify him. The tragedy is that when they sinned thinking there was some fulfillment to be had outside the parameters of God's will. They not only

15:56 plunge themselves into a state of guilt and condemnation but everything in man turned from this blessed posture of the outgoing of his heart in affection to God and delight in knowing and doing the will of God and serving his God. And man turned inward upon himself and he now bows at the shrine of his own desires and of his own will.

16:26 And self-will and self-serving have now become the governing principle of all of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam. You say, prove that from the Bible? Yes, I will. Turn first to the book of Isaiah chapter 53.

16:46 We'll look at three of these epitomizing texts which gather the overarching teaching of the Bible and express it in the most condensed and succinct manner and hear the prophet Isaiah viewing all of humanity writes in Isaiah 53 and verse 6 all we like sheep have gone astray. Here he describes man's sinfulness under the imagery of a vast flock of sheep that has gone astray from the government and the association of its rightful

17:31 shepherd. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have left the side of our shepherd, left the path marked by our rightful shepherd. All we like sheep have gone astray.

17:47 But to what have we turned? Having cast off his government, having cast off his rule, having gotten out from under his crook, to what have we turned? Well, look at the next statement. We have turned and now no longer is he speaking in broad, strokes of generic description.

18:10 Notice how individualized it is. We have turned way. Now he did not like so many in poor English grammar say, we have turned everyone to their own way, moving from a singular to a plural. No, we have turned each and everyone to his. That's God's

18:46 indictment on you and on me. Whether you accept it or not, that's reality. A single one of us has turned into a course of self-will and self-serving as the governing principle of our lives. As part of the human race that like a vast flock of sheep has gone astray from its rightful shepherd, we have turned each and every single one of us to his own way. Now,

19:28 for some, that finds expression in the life of great culture, aesthetic sensitivity, a preoccupation with the elevating aspects of human existence, the arts and literature and science. For others, it means a total preoccupation with the sensual, with the base and with the bestial. But there is fundamentally no difference tonight between the junkie huddled in an alley somewhere in New York City, his body riddled with AIDS, sticking his needle in his arm, and the cultured person who may sit in the Met

20:10 at the opening of this fall's program on the front row, who speaks seven languages and who needs no subtitles to understand the opera, whether it's in German or French or Italian. If they are out of Christ, this is what the junkie and the cultured elite have in common. Each has turned to his own way.

20:41 That's what God says. There is no higher motive than to do my own thing. And due to a number of factors all the way from genetic programming to influences of the home to education to cultural and societal influences and a host of other things, one man ends up the AIDS-ridden junkie, another the cultural elite. But God says they have this in common. They have been wrenched

21:16 loose from the God whose they are by right of creation. And each one is turned to his own self-will and self-serving. Are the governing principle of their lives. A second witness from the New Testament.

Biblical Witnesses to Universal Self-Serving

21:38 That's why I read 2 Corinthians chapter 5 in your hearing. Remember the man who wrote this did not write as a narrow provincialist who'd only been in his little hometown never went more than three miles in any direction of the compass. He was an international traveler. He'd been to all the great cities in the Roman Empire.

22:03 Would eventually be in Rome itself. He was a man of tremendous cosmopolitan perspective. He understood Jewish culture and thinking to its deepest tap roots. He understood the mindset of the Gentile intellectuals. He

22:24 understood the mindset of the whole section of the Greco-Roman world. And yet he does not have any reservation in lumping them all together and saying you want to know what they live for? I'll tell you. 2 Corinthians 5.15

22:39 Because we thus judge that if one died therefore one died for all therefore all died and he died for all that they that live that is those who come to experience spiritual life drawn from the death of Christ should no longer live unto themselves. The clear teaching is up until the point until the dynamics of the death of Christ radically dislodge them from the course in which they were found by nature and lives unto himself. Do you see that

23:23 in the text? Every single one. That they should no longer live unto themselves but until the dynamics of grace in the Jesus Christ crucified radically changed the center of life. Every one of them lives unto himself.

23:47 And Paul had seen the full gamut and the self-righteous pharisaic Jew of which he was one to the most debased, debauched, forsaken, morally degenerate pagans that he describes in Romans chapter 1 and yet he says they have this in common. They live unto themselves. Self-will? Self-serving are the governing principle of their lives.

24:19 And then a third text Ephesians chapter 2.

24:25 Now it's not pleasant to see yourself in the mirror of the word, is it? God's being honest with you. If you don't see yourself as you really are then you'll treat God's radical remedy as a luxury and perish in your self-delusion. Face the picture as ugly as it is. Writing

24:49 to the Ephesians, the church made up of Jew and of Gentile cultured and uncultured a people from the city of Ephesus which again had its heathen temples, which had its centers of learning. You remember it was in the school of Tyrannus which he hired and used as a base of evangelistic operations of all these Ephesians with all of their differences of background, ethnicity and all the rest. Notice what he says they had in common. Verse 1 of chapter 2.

25:23 You did he make alive who were dead through your trespasses and sins. It's not very flattering to tell them they were spiritually dead. As far as having any living principle of communion with God and any saving knowledge of God, they were spiritually dead. But, in the next verse he says they were walking dead men.

25:47 Wherein you once walked spiritually dead with reference to the life of God, you were alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in you as he says in chapter 4. But he said you walked according to the course of this world according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit who is now actively working in the sons of disobedience among whom, now notice he places himself, among whom we also all once lived. Pretty inclusive, isn't it? We also

26:31 all once lived in the lust or desires of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Whatever our flesh desired, whatever our mind dictated as the reality which we ought to pursue, that which would bring delight and fulfillment in meaning, the lust of our flesh and of our mind were our masters and we lived to please them. That is we were under a governing principle of self-will and

27:16 self-serving. When lust called for attention we gave it the attention it called for. Whether the lust were the baser lust of our flesh or the more sophisticated lust of the mind, intellectual pursuits wrenched loose from God's revelation, man's mind never made to be a creator of truth but only a receptor of truth.

27:51 Paul says this is how in the course of self-will and self-serving. You see for every one of you sitting here tonight the governing principle of your life is very clearly described in Philippians 2 and verse 21. Every one of you, boys, girls, teenagers, to the oldest adult among us here in writing of different people and why he can only send the ones he is about to send to the Philippian church he says in verse 20 of Philippians 2, I have no man like-minded who will care truly

28:34 or genuinely for your state for they all seek their own that is their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ. Now here you sit and here's the line that's drawn as really as this eight foot center aisle and the governing principle of your life is either one in which your heart is set upon seeking the things of Christ Jesus, that is in every facet of life in every relationship, in every decision, in how you spend your time, your money, whom you will choose to be your more intimate

29:18 friends, where you will go on your vacation, in everything that makes your life your life, you either seek the things that are Christ's or you seek the things that are your own that's it you either live under a dominant principle, a governing principle of self seeking and self will or a dominant principle of Christ seeking and doing the will of Christ through all the baloney folks and their things, very simple and Jesus said no man can serve two masters either he will what? flirt with one

30:02 and play cutesy with the other? Oh no he will either love the one and hate the other or hold to the one and despise the other no man can serve two masters and if you haven't discovered it yet self will and self serving is a master who will not accept any lesser place than absolute lordship and I've got news for you the son of God will accept no lesser place

30:45 than absolute suffering

Repudiation of Self-Will: The Elementary Issue in Discipleship

30:51 have I carried your judgment from the bible? I'm not asking if you love me for telling you the truth but when I say that the gate is narrow and few there be that find it is because at that gate self will and self serving must be repudiated from the heart as the governing principle of life I say that because number one the bible teaches that self will and self serving are in every fallen son and daughter of Adam the governing principle of life but then secondly

31:35 I make the statement because the repudiation of self will and self serving is the most elementary issue in the call to discipleship now will you listen carefully I didn't scratch the words off hastily God knows and my wife will bear witness whenever I've come close to quitting the ministry it's been in this series realizing that this is spiritual neurosurgery to cut a little too deeply is to kill the patient

32:16 but to refuse to cut deep enough is to leave his malignancy to kill the patient hear carefully what I'm saying the repudiation of self will and self serving is the most elementary issue in the call to discipleship it is not just one of several elementary issues it is the most elementary issue in the call to discipleship so that if we do not repudiate self will and self serving

33:01 as the dominant governing principle of life we disciples I don't know how to state it more bluntly and now I want you to know why I stated so bluntly and emphatically turn to Mark chapter 8 if you will please Mark chapter 8 hear the words of the son of God the one who said the words that I have spoken unto you shall judge you in the last day Peter has just attempted to divert our Lord from the cross and he has called Peter the first pope

33:45 Satan Satan

33:49 I doubt any of you brought up in Roman Catholicism ever had that taught to you but it's there in the Bible verse 33 of Mark 8 get thee behind me Satan adversary for your thinking not the things of God but the things of men he knows that the way that he must procure redemption is the way of the cross the ultimate self denial in which he gives himself a ransom for his sins for many verse 34 and he called unto him notice now the multitude the mixed crowd this is not a call to an inner circle who want to become

34:32 graduate level disciples but he'll accept undergraduate no no he called unto him the multitude with his disciples and said unto them if any man would come after me if any man would come after me if there is any boy any girl any man any woman at any time in any place in any set of circumstances who would be my follower if any man would come after me what's the first condition and here we have a problem trying to translate from Greek into English we say let him deny himself that's very weak

35:17 you have an aorist imperative imperative of the Greek verb aparneomai arneomai is the verb to deny the preposition in front of it intensifies it to deny with vigor and vehemence hence I've used the word to repudiate it's the very word Jesus used in Matthew 26 34 and 35 when he said Peter before the cock crow three times you will twice you will deny me three times aparneomai and what did Peter do he took oaths and brought down maledictions upon himself when the little girl came up and said oh you're one of them

36:02 I can delve in your speech it says he cursed that is he didn't let out a bunch of just meaningful four letter meaningless four letter words no no he took solemn oaths I swear of heaven and earth let him bring the curse upon my head if I know him he utterly repeated any knowledge in association with Jesus now that's the word that's used any man will come after me an aorist imperative it is an imperative he must it's an aorist imperative he must with decisiveness with resoluteness with no looking both way

36:45 depth of resolution look at himself as he has been up to that moment self will self-seeking self-pleasing self-serving have been the governing principles of life and Jesus says you want to be my follower let's not muck around with peripheral issues let's not start at the outer circles and try to lock off a thing here and a thing there and eventually we'll get to the root issue no no let's start right at the root issue the root issue is this as a sinner alienated from God a sinner who is morally turned upside down in sin instead of living unto God and for God

37:29 and to the will of God you're living unto yourself and for yourself and I God the one mediator between God and man I who have come to set man right with God I tell you if you would be my follower repudiate yourself repudiate self-will self-serving as the fundamental and God's governing principle of your life then he says in conjunction with that and will not take the time to open up its significance again with an aorist imperative any man would come after me he must repudiate himself

38:14 take up his cross settle in your heart that you're committed to a life of suffering a life of rejection a life of shame a life of hardship and then you have a present imperative and a life of shame and let him be continually following me in other words you'll never get into the way of process until at the gate you settle denying self and taking up a cross you see why I said last week maybe the problem with not a few of you in your chronic patterns of horrible horrible failure in your attempts to walk

38:58 the constricted way is you really never settled some of these issues that have to be settled at the gate you've never settled whether you're going to live to please your own stinking rotten self or whether you're going to live the God who made you and the God who in Christ died to redeem hell deserving wretches like you you're still dealing on who you're going to please you throw enough in the direction of Christ to keep your membership

39:42 and good status in the church but not so much as to give anyone who knows what you really are any real confidence to say there's no explanation for that man that woman that boy that girl but that they've come through the gate it is so evident that they are living not unto themselves but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again there's no explanation but they've come through the gate could it be this is the problem some of you the products of a cheap evangelism you were told nod your head to Jesus tip your hat and trip on in

The Grain of Wheat: Hating One's Life for Eternal Life

40:26 and your flesh wanted to believe it and Jesus said you want to follow me there's no following me until there is a definitive resolute repudiation of self-will and self-serving as the governing principle of your life and this is taught in the parallel passages in Matthew 16 24 and in the parallel passages Luke 9 22 to 27 but I want to turn to John's statement of this which comes in different imagery but I want the witness of John to be brought to bear as well John chapter 12 and here the emphasis of our Lord moves into

41:11 the agrarian realm you gardeners and farmers this I hope will pique your interest in John chapter 12 we read that at the time of the feast certain Greeks came to Philip and said sir we would see Jesus verse 21 verse 22 of John 12 Philip comes and tells Andrew Andrew comes and Philip and they tell Jesus and Jesus answers them the hour has come that the son of man should be glorified do these Greeks want to see me you must inform them that they're not going to see

41:56 what they thought they'd see verily verily I say unto you except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die it abides by itself alone but if it die it bears much fruit here someone has a grain of wheat it is potential seed Jesus says put it on the shelf you can lacquer it you can embed it in clear looms you can make it an ornament on your shelf do whatever you want the one thing is clear as long as it's there safely alone on the shelf

42:39 encased in its plastic or embedded in looms one thing is sure it will never never be a fruit bearing wheat stalk you want to see that thing bear fruit you've got to put it in the damp dark earth and bury it and after a few days you'll see it and the processes that God has woven into the fabric of the created order what happens to that seed it dies it begins to lose its own identity as a grain of wheat and it breaks open and out of it something else begins to grow and before long what was put in the earth is utterly consumed by what grows and some of it

43:24 drops off and decomposes and is absorbed into the earth but months later there is no more there is no more there is no more there is no more there is no more there is a stalk of wheat with many heads of grain it has multiplied itself many times over that's what Jesus is saying here except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die it can't just go in the earth long enough to say ooh it's chilly and lonely in here I want to get out and back on the shelf it's got to die it's got to stay there long enough to lose its own original identity but if it does it'll bear much fruit but what's the point look at verse 25 he that loves his life loses it

44:08 he that is determined to preserve this self-willed self-serving existence whatever I irrevocably personally abandon into the earth of a spiritual death to my own plan to my own desire to my own will to my own notions of how I can be a man a woman a wife a husband a workman a good member of society I will not give up all of my to think and do as I please in these areas I'll remain above the earth

44:53 on the shelf admired safe secure alright he says except the grain of wheat fall into the earth and die it abides alone he that loves his life loses it but he that hates his life in this world and in the context what's it mean to hate your life in this world it means to put it in the bowels of death in the context to hate it is to say I'm ready to relinquish the life that up till now I've lived self-will serving the governing principle

45:36 I will to death in the death of Jesus now what does the Lord say he will not he that hates his life in this world shall be an extra super duper gloriously wonderfully super rewarded Christian no no only such shall keep it unto life eternal it's a condition of salvation and if you think you've got eternal life and you're not prepared to relinquish the life of self-will and self-serving it's your word against Jesus' words and you better

46:21 have a cross of your own with a righteousness of your own to get you into heaven because you won't have Christ's and if that doesn't convince you look at the next verse where he drops all agrarian imagery and speaks in the most blunt terms he that loves his life loses it he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal if any man serve me let him follow him and follow me and where I am there shall my servant be you see he assumes that the end result of hating your life

47:06 under the imagery of the seed going into the ground and dying is becoming a true servant of Christ and you won't be where Christ is unless you serve him now I'm not negating anything I said this morning the ground of our acceptance with God is not our servant I could not state it any more plainly unless God gave me another six languages in which to say it but the same that the only ground the sinner's acceptance is found totally exclusively without rival in the blood and righteousness of Christ says

47:49 you can never be Christ unless you die unless you hate the self-willed self-centered life and bury it bury it or you'll be damned you'll be damned you'll lose your life now dear people I'm not going to believe the words of my Lord Jesus Christ of their plain and obvious meaning we've got too much wide gate broadway religion in this place confession over the top of it too many of you serving yourself where the crunch comes

48:34 in your social life what you'll be with regard to your career what you'll be as a wife as a wife as a husband as a father as a son as a daughter it's not a matter of being ignorant of what Christ requires it's a matter of you saying I don't care what Christ requires I want to do what I want to do oh you'd never rear back on your hind legs and say it but come tomorrow morning when you get on your feet from the time you get up to the time you go to bed the governing principle of your life is self-will and self-serving oh you may even

49:18 throw in a little devotion to have your conscience why? because you can't live with yourself with an accusing conscience not really to come to the word of God to know the mind of God and to cry out for the grace of God to do the will of God to the glory of God you want to have your devotions so your conscience won't smite you the next time the preacher says are you having your devotions you can check it off oh yes I am I'm good I'm a good goody you're living unto yourself you don't want the word of God to rip you open you don't want the word of God to expose your sin you don't want the word of God to humble you you just want to quote it have your devotions so you can have a conscience that doesn't smite you the next time the preacher

50:03 says are you having your devotions or you have a pastoral visit and you're asked are you having your devotions my friends devotions that don't lead to a life of diligent obedience to Christ stink in his nostrils they stink in God's nostrils if devotions are not the bridge into a life of meticulous seeking the things of Christ in the real world where you live your devotions are a stench in his nostrils

50:47 you see why I've said the gate's narrow it's an awfully narrow gate why because there are so few that are ready to repudiate self-will and self-serving as the governing principle of their lives and Jesus said it is the most elementary issue in the call to discipleship that's why he said in Luke 14 26 if any man come to me and hate not his father mother brother sister yea and his own life also what life the life centered in himself just as the relationship to father and mother where there's an idolatrous attachment brother or sister

51:32 an idolatrous attachment it must be dealt with so this idolatrous attachment to self-will and self-serving must be repudiated or Jesus said you cannot be my disciple now folks I don't know about you but one thing I know in the day of judgment I sure want Jesus to claim me as one of his in the day of judgment he's one of your Lord for this and that reason

52:16 but at the end of the day if Jesus says I don't own him I've had it and my friend if you come to the place where you really are concerned whether Jesus is going to own you as his not the guy that you mingle with down in the lobby or the people that you have dinner with or the women that sit down at the lakeside and watch your kids in the summer what good will it do to have them say Lord Jesus she's one of yours if he says I don't claim her she never said no

52:58 to herself friends do you feel the pressure of this passage he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal and only such only those of him shall be with him and you can't serve him supremely while you're still serving self-will supremely and then I conclude my argument with this third line of biblical evidence I've demonstrated from the word of God

The Radical Replacement: Supreme Attachment to Christ

53:42 that self-will and self-serving have become the governing principle of fallen mankind and I'm not I'm not I'm not I've shown from the scripture that repudiation of self-will and self-serving is the most elementary issue in the call to discipleship now thirdly the actual replacement of self-will and self-serving with supreme attachment to Jesus Christ is always is always the radical result of getting through the narrow gate let me run it by you again the actual replacement of self-will

54:26 and self-serving with supreme I didn't say unrivaled unvarying I've chosen my words carefully would to God it was unrivaled would to God it was unwavering but that is not true according to the Bible or in Christian experience but the actual replacement is real of self-will and self-serving self-serving with supreme attachment to Jesus Christ is always without exception always the radical result of entering the narrow gate here I take you back to the text I read in your hearing 2 Corinthians 5

55:10 in verse 15 when God works by His grace to get a sinner through the narrow gate this is one of the things He always does Paul works in seeking to explain his own life some said the guy was out of his tree verse 13 whether we are beside ourselves it is unto God he said you accuse me of being crazy just like that that people say that preacher seems to be half intelligent yet he gets all excited and hollers and shouts like a crazy man he's got a screw loose somewhere well that's alright God knows the screws that are loose aren't here

55:55 and I hope they're not here Paul works Paul says alright you want to accuse us of being out of our tree a few bricks less than a full load God knows whether we're beside ourselves it's unto God whether it's of a sober mind it's unto you but here's the rationale for the way we conduct ourselves the love of Christ literally holds us in a vice-like grip Christ's love to us holds us in its grip but now notice how it does it not mystically it holds us but along a very logical train of thought because we thus judge and the word judge has to do with the use of your noggin

56:39 we are held in the grip of the love of Christ because we think a certain way and this is the way we think that one died for all that is Christ died for all of his people therefore all of his people in all of their sin in all of their self-centeredness their moral condition was of such a nature that not nothing but the substitutionary death of Christ could answer to their need therefore if Christ died for all of them they all died in Christ God passed his judgment upon what they were as self-willed self-centered polluted vile guilty sinners the sentence of death was passed upon them in Christ therefore

57:23 if they come alive in the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection unto what kind of life will God bring them if the self-centered self-willed life is such that it's consigned to death would God bring them out of the grave to live the same kind of life yes or no God would be tearing down or building up the very thing he tore down in the cross so Paul says no this is what we judge if one died for all therefore all died now and that he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto them themselves the self-centered life is what led

58:07 to their life being condemned to death in the death of Christ therefore this new life that is rooted in the virtue of Christ's death and in a passage like Romans 6 the virtue of his resurrection is a life no longer lived unto themselves but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again it is lived unto Christ the dominant principle of that life is no longer self-will and self-serving but it is Christ's will and Christ's service read on wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh we don't judge men according

58:51 to human standards even though we've known Christ after the flesh yet now henceforth we know him no more wherefore if any man is in Christ anew creation the old is past behold they are become new you see the setting and one of the marks of the new creation in Christ is a totally new focus no longer living unto self not unto a set of rules not unto the standards set by the elders not unto the rules of the church but unto him a person a person who died and a person

59:35 who rose again to secure our redemption Paul says that in every person in whom the spirit of God makes a saving application of the virtue of the death of Christ there is a radical replacement of self will and self serving with supreme attachment to Jesus Christ so he says I didn't write it is that true you sit here tonight and say I'm on my way to heaven in the virtue of the death of Christ then you ought to be able to say with equal conviction and with

60:20 tangible proof I am no longer living unto myself but unto him who for my sake died and rose again and the proof ought to be somewhere else other than in your own subjective judgments and feelings anyone who watches the pattern of your life ought to be able to shake his head and say there's no explanation for that man that woman that boy that girl but that they were put to death in the death of Christ and in the virtue of his resurrection life and power they're no longer living unto themselves but unto him who died for them

61:02 that's why Paul can say in Galatians 2.20 I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live it and it's in my flesh but it's so radically different it is not the I that means when he says I have been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I not the self-centered self-serving I Pharisee sitting at Gamaliel's feet stroking himself for his virtues full of his own

61:46 importance full of his own notions of how to serve God no my whole world is so radically reoriented to the mind and will and purposes of Christ that it's as though it's a different I yet not I but Christ lives in me yet he says it is I and the life which I now live in the flesh but the I so radically transformed that it is not I this is the man who could say you want to know my philosophy of life you don't need fifteen minutes much less an hour I'll give it to you in five seconds for the need

62:30 to live can you imagine someone coming to do an interview with Paul you've heard about this international missionary and all the mighty works God's done through him and we want to talk to you about his philosophy of life and so the man comes with his big legal pad and twenty pages and two or three ballpoint pencils in case one runs out and starts to skip and thinks well we're going to have us a big long day long interview sits down and says now sir give me your philosophy of life Paul says well I think I can do that in a relatively short time or to me pretty personal to live as all of life is Christ

63:14 well that's a very good introduction now would you mind going or to me is Christ well sir that won't make very good copy for the prime time news or for sixty minutes or forty eight hours I mean that's rather simplistic isn't it as if God gave you eyes to see and to understand what I'm saying only in eternity could exegete those words for to me to live is Christ but aren't you going to die you're going to go to Rome maybe have your head

63:59 drop in a basket oh yes I should add this and to die is gain end of discussion dear friends being a true Christian at the end of the day and at the end of the day in one sense is a very simple issue to me to live is Christ my will my capacities my strength my energy all this to engage in any of the manifold channels of life it all

64:44 into Christ his will his glory his honor his cause and when he says he's got enough glory from me down below and wants me to be transformed transplanted and bring him more glory in another place to die will be now am I saying that any one of us must be able to say those words with the same intensity and with the same consistent outworking no I am not saying that if that were so I'd walk off this pulpit and say I'll be the first to say the root of the matter is not in me but if that isn't the baseline

65:27 if you cannot say with some degree of honesty I'll be the first to say no longer is it to me to live is Christ plus indulging myself where the will of Christ and my own desires clash to me to live is Christ plus the approval of my peers where if to be identified with Christ would mean I'd be the social outcast everybody thinking I'm a weirdo and a goofball cutting off all my social contacts for dates you teenagers I say again there's no teenage standard of discipleship if you're not ready to bear a cross up there in the hill at Montville High or in Pequonic High or in any other high school

66:12 and be marked and socially ostracized you're not a disciple of Christ there's no teenage cross because there's no teenage hell there's no teenage salvation and don't you glibly say you're saved unless you too have come through the narrow gate where God says repudiate self-will and self-serving and settle from here on in you ain't true I say pastor the only true Christians are people that live that way there aren't many that's right few there be that fight

The Cost of Discipleship and the Few Who Find It

66:56 that's exactly right your conclusion affirms with Jesus will you be one of the few whatever it costs a few more breaths a few more tears a few more tears a few more laughs a few more birthdays a few more anniversaries and somebody will be spreading the word have you heard that so and so is gone what will matter then what will matter then only one thing will matter is you get through the narrow gate

67:41 did you get through where you found the restricted way for they alone lead to life there's no one who came through the gate at the greatest difficulty and water walked upon the way with the greatest hardship whoever looked upon the face of Jesus and said you know Lord I got some second thoughts about whether it was worth it every one of them will sing it will be worth it all when we see Jesus one look at his dear face all sorrow will erase so bravely run the race till we see Christ

68:25 I'm serving a notice I have throughout this I don't mean to be pugnacious several times my wife has said honey I don't know if I want to listen to your preach tonight I've preached out some things to her and I try to get out the pugnacious part with my wife and be a little sweeter when I get in the pulpit but dear people I feel these things in the depths of my being I believe this church is at a crossroads and they're all together that have a of a wide restricted way you reform precious few evidences that you ever got through the narrow gate

69:09 and I'm determined if nothing else that my hands will be clean of your blood and this is the last time I ever preach a series of sermons like this I pray God will let me live out my three score and ten and my bonus ten and give me strength and take me out from the saddle that's what I pray if it can glorify him who among us knows what a day may bring are you for real? come on get honest or in contemporary jargon get real

Call to Enter the Narrow Gate

69:52 have you come to that gate enough of what you are by nature and practice that you've said nothing in my hands I bring not one quarter of an inch of a thread from any fabric woven on the loom of my own performance nothing in my hands I bring simply that I cross I throw myself upon Christ and Christ alone and in so doing I say an irrevocable resolute

70:36 no to the governing principle of my life up till now self-will self-serving I repudiate that self and in the light of the love of God in Jesus Christ henceforth to be the bond slave of Jesus Christ enter in enter in at the narrow gate wide is the gate you can trip on through take up a profession it'll cost you no radical dealing with self-will and self-serving learn the language learn the forms go through the rituals

71:20 but it's a wide gate that issues into a broad road and it ends in destruction God help you to give yourself no rest till you get through the narrow gate that leads to a restricted way restricted way that issues in life let us pray Father what can we do but cry to you to have mercy upon us in an age that has so emasculated the vigor of the words of Jesus

Prayer for Mercy and Renewed Determination

72:04 so diluted his rightful claims over those who would be his followers we can only cry to you that your word like a sharp rapier will cut through many hearts and mercilessly cut away all of the moorings to a false hope and to false notions and by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit lash consciences to the word of God and to the cross of Christ and to the Savior who there died for sinners we pray that you would help us

72:48 who by your grace have reason to believe we have come through that narrow gate give us a renewed determination that we shall afresh say no to ourselves that we will not indulge ourselves in those subtle ways that would never make us the subjects of the formal discipline of the church but surely Lord grieve your spirit take the edge off the credibility of our witness before our wives and husbands and children and work associates Lord may we be with you willing to be marked men and women oh may we by your grace be monuments of the power

73:33 of our Savior's grace may we too like Paul be held in the vice-like grip of the love of Christ seal your word we pray dismiss us with your blessing in Jesus name Amen