Choosing the Way to Life – 9/1/24

I need to put a warning label on today’s sermon. This is tough stuff that Jesus is saying. And if you’re visiting, what we’re trying to do when we come together under God’s Word, is to hear “what does Jesus say?” Not, what can I, as a pastor, try to make this say that fits our culture so that we hear what we want to hear? But what does Jesus say? So let’s ask for help in doing that.

Father, I need help to say what you say, and we need help to hear. So pour out your Holy Spirit upon us. Manifest your presence among us in the way that you speak through your Word in very specific and clear ways. Help us to hear well and respond. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

One of the things I love about reading biographies is to begin to see these moments along the way of someone’s life. That might seem mundane or trivial at the time, but they are real turning points that lead to huge implications eventually. So let me give you an example.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his magnificent treatment of the first half of Joseph Stalin’s life, outlines some of the, he doesn’t intentionally do this, but he communicates a number of these turning points. Like how did a cobbler’s son from Gori, Georgia, eventually enter the Communist Party of what became known as the USSR and fight and kill his way to the top, ending up executing or starving to death 20 to 25 million people? 20 to 25 million people.

Now we could explore things like, let me just give you two examples. There are many. One, his father, who was a cobbler, decided to receive as payment not just money, but alcohol. This led to a deluge of alcohol and a dearth of cash. His father became an alcoholic and could not even continue as a cobbler because his hands became so unsteady. He became known in the community as Crazy Beso. He would beat his son Soso, which was Stalin’s nickname as a boy. Stalin would grow up despising any family that was stable. Stalin’s mother was often left alone. She typically had a number of men from the community who were looking out for their family, leaving Stalin’s paternity uncertain even to this day. One example.

A second example might be when Stalin was 16 or 17, in his first year of seminary, he read Charles Darwin and decided to become an atheist. He was talking to some of his classmates who were arguing over the injustices of the world. And he said this:

“God’s not unjust. He doesn’t actually exist. We’ve been deceived. If God existed, he’d have made the world more just.”

Which is so ironic considering he would be in the top three along with Mao, Hitler, and Stalin, who perpetrated more injustices than anyone in the history. And yet he claimed to be concerned about justice. Now, of course, no one actually becomes in one sense an atheist as Montefiore, who is Jewish, notes,

“Stalin’s Bolshevism aped Christ’s religion with its cult saints and icons.”

So Stalin stopped worshiping God. But he didn’t stop worshiping. Stalin worshiped Stalin. And his favorite devotional practice, in his own words, was revenge. Stalin loved designing and executing revenge. As Montefiore concludes near the end of his book,

“Stalin’s character, damaged yet gifted, was qualified for and fatally attracted to such pitiless predations. [Predations are like preying upon, killing people.] Afterwards, the machine of repression, the flint hearted, paranoid psychology of perpetual conspiracy and the taste for extreme bloody solutions to all challenges were not just ascendant, but glamorized, institutionalized, and raised to an amoral Bolshevik faith with messianic fervour.”

So Stalin did not cease to be religious, he created a different religion. And you could summarize it as: sacrificing people became the doctrinal statement of socialism. A series of what appeared to be small decisions culminated in the communist regime in the USSR, and then that spread around to China and many other countries. And those combined have totaled, without even being close, to more carnage and destruction than any other experiment in history.

Decisions matter. Turning points define direction and destination. And this is why Jesus, at the end of his sermon on the Mount, is calling us to choose. If you don’t get anything else today, that’s the message:  you’ve got to choose. He has taught us way back at the beginning in chapter 5, who we are in his kingdom.  How we live, second half of chapter 5. What we live for, chapter 6 (what we live for and don’t live for).  How to fix what is broken 7:1-12 (the part we’ve been in for weeks). And now here, near the end of his sermon, he is pressing that home with a section we could call, the choice before us. The choice before us. A new destiny. And here Jesus creates these contrasts between two gates or ways, two trees, two workers, two builders, and these contrasts of two roads diverging are communicating choice. You’ve got to choose between life and loss. As he says in verse 13,

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow, and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

So first of all, what does Jesus mean by destruction and life? Some people will say, well, he’s just talking about hell in heaven. Yeah. Others will say, no, it’s not talking about future. It’s talking about right now, achieving your potential or not. Let’s look at the words. Destruction is the word “apolaia” which means to ruin or loss, destruction. And it has a now and forever aspect to it. Destruction is a way of living like you’re losing. It’s a way of destroying your potential as an image bearer of God. But it’s ultimately much more than that. It’s a way of living, a kind of life of loss that culminates in eternal loss. The word life carries the idea of both a quality and quantity. A true existence. As Jesus describes in John 10:10,

“I came that they may have life and have it more what abundantly.”

And that word abundantly simply means more, excessively. And as Americans, we think of that as stuff like he lives an excessive life. He has lots of stuff. Jesus is not talking about that. He’s talking about having lots of life. So much life, your life is filled up and spilling over,. That kind of life. An above-and-beyond kind of life that refers to a now and a forever. As Jesus said in John 17:3, this is intensely personal.

“This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Or as Psalm 16:11 says,

“You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Do you see that?  “Pleasures,” which is quality, and “forevermore” which is quantity. They go on forever. So when Jesus talks about the choice between life and loss, he  is talking about a very different kind of life today. But he’s talking about a forever kind of life as well. And what we want to do today is show from this passage four contrasts to life and loss. Four contrasts. So we’re only going to get to verse 23, which is still way more than I should have bit off here. We’ll cover the next section next week. But the way to life in verses 13-23, four contrasts.

Number one, the way to life is not popular. It is a narrow way. Verse 13 makes this clear. Enter by the narrow gate. Why? Because, as Jesus explains in these two verses, the many will enter by the wide gate and follow the easy way. We have a chart on that. The many will enter by the wide gate and follow the easy way that leads to destruction. The few will enter by the narrow gate and follow the hard way that leads to life.

I think this is one of the hardest, most difficult parts of the gospel of Jesus, especially for Americans. I know in my heart I hate the thought of anyone missing out on something really good. And what Jesus is saying here, he’s making it painfully clear that most people would rather follow their own hearts to destruction than follow Jesus to life. Most people would rather follow their own hearts to destruction than follow Jesus to life. And you see it everywhere — in our movies, in our music — that today, ironically, the popular way is typically described as the unique way, like you’re the only one doing this. Deepti Raghav, who is a Bollywood producer, says it well,

“If you follow your heart, you don’t need to follow anyone.”

That’s the American dream right there. If you follow your heart, you don’t need a savior. You don’t need wise counsel.  Kids, you don’t need your parents. Just follow your heart, and then you don’t have to follow anyone. Or like Mike Dirnt says, he’s a Green Day bassist, the Green Day bassist,

“‘The Truth’ sounds a little mafioso to me, you know, to each their own way.”

To each their own way. And this is what Jesus is warning us against, is having millions and millions of micro narcissists following their own way along the wide path to destruction. This is not only hopeless, it is utter chaos. As Christopher Dawson, the British philosopher, writes,

“It seems as though a new society was arising which will acknowledge no hierarchy of values, no intellectual authority, and no social or religious tradition, but which will live for the moment in a chaos of pure sensation.”

That’s today…a chaos of pure sensation. The way of life that Jesus is talking about is in contrast to following your own heart. As Jamal Bandy describes through his own story, he says,

“For far too long I lived my life by the advice of strangers to follow my heart. I can testify from personal experience: it is truly terrible advice. It left me lost and confused. It had me bouncing in all directions with no true foundation to stand on.”

He goes on to describe how it destroyed his sense of calling and relationships.

“As if the thrashing of my career path and relationships wasn’t enough, my sense of self was also left in shambles. How I viewed myself would change by the hour. One moment I felt unsure of myself. The next moment my heart would burst with confidence, which would shortly vanish without a trace. How could I truly know myself if my heart sent so many contradictory messages about myself?”

There’s got to be a better way.

“The good news,” he says, “is that through no power or goodness of my own, I experienced the saving grace of Jesus Christ. It rocked me. It transformed and deepened my understanding of love. Being loved by a God, who is consistent, perfect, and faithful helped me realize how weak, unorganized, and untrustworthy my heart has been all along. Now my identity is secure in Christ, who is my deepest source of joy and satisfaction. My relationships have blossomed as I seek not to obey my fickle, self-centered heart, but to obey God’s call to serve others and love my neighbors. I’m no longer drowning in uncertainty about my future, knowing that an omniscient God ordered my steps from the foundation of the world gives me steady assurance when things don’t go as I planned. God can lead you perfectly and without fail.”

This is a way to an abundant life. So number one, the way to life is not popular.

Number two, Jesus says, the way to life is not easy. It is hard. So Jesus says in verses 13 and 14 that the way to destruction is an easy way, and the way to life is a hard way. Do people ever ask you, “How’s life?” that question “How’s life?” or “How’s life treating you?” I never know how to answer that question without sounding really sappy like cliche, but I’m going to say it anyway just because I don’t know a better way to say it. But I don’t think you can really answer that with one statement. At least I can’t right now. I have to answer it with two statements. Life is hard. Jesus is good. Both of those together.

Our kids came over a week ago, a week and a half ago, and we’re having a candid talk about Karen’s health and diagnosis, and we had an amazing time for several hours of singing and praying. It was just so encouraging. And I don’t know, I can’t remember who, one of them mentioned a song that I’ve been playing on repeat for a while that describes our faith as more precious than gold. And there’s a line, the second line that says, second verse that says,

“There is a secret we can only know walking through places we don’t want to go. Because in the dark we learn the story of hope, [of faith, I’m sorry,] our faith more precious than gold.”

That statement,

“There is a secret we can only know walking through places we don’t want to go.”

And there are so many times when you follow Jesus — you’re not following your heart, you’re following Jesus — that he will lead you through things that you really didn’t want to go through. But it’s in the darkness, in those hard things that you begin to see your faith grow more precious than gold. Like your view of Jesus is more and more beautiful. Your understanding and experience of the power of the Spirit becomes more and more real. So the very thing that I do not want to do, Jesus knows that there are times he’s going to take us through those, through those valleys. And he makes this clear in the Bible because he says, like here, that following me is hard. But he says in Matthew 11:30, do you remember that? “For my yoke is…” What? Whoa, contradiction in the Bible.

The word “easy” there is typically translated kind or good. And it’s in the context of a yoke. So the idea is, Jesus is saying, the way is going to be hard. But when you’re in yoke with me, you’re in a relationship with me, my yoke is not a heavy yoke. It’s not a hard yoke. It’s a good, it’s a kind yoke. I’m not in relationship with you to dump more burdens of performance and discouragement, shame on you. No, I’m here to carry that as we walk through hard things together. So it’s not an either or. Life is really hard, and Christians who won’t acknowledge that are lying about something. But that doesn’t mean Jesus isn’t really good and there aren’t deep, deep joys walking through really hard things. So the way to life…not popular, not easy, not obvious.

Number three. In verses 15-20, Jesus explains that this way is swarming with wolves. Matthew 7:15,

“Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

So the way to life is populated by false prophets who identify as sheep, as followers of Jesus. But inwardly in reality, they are ravenous wolves. They don’t feed the sheep, they feed on the sheep. So how do we spot these? I want to highlight two ways. The New Testament identifies a number of ways,  two ways here. First is implied, second is stated.

The implied is to look at the context. And that is, you’ll spot them by their words. Because in the immediate context, Jesus just said, the way is hard, the way is narrow. False teachers, prophets, generally speaking, will not speak those words. As Calvin said,

“Ambiguity is the fortress of heretics.”

There’s often a vagueness, an uncertainty, about a false teacher. Many years ago, Larry King, who died in 2021, had Joel Osteen on his television show. One of the things I liked about Larry King, whether you agreed with him or not, he gave the people he was interviewing time to respond. It was an actual conversation, not just a yell match. And King introduced Osteen as

“Evangelicalism’s hottest rising star, pastor for the biggest congregation in the United States.”

Osteen pastors Lakewood Church in Houston, and they have about 45,000 attend each Sunday and millions watch on TV. So during the interview, King, Larry King, who is a Jewish agnostic, is trying to get Osteen to explain what he believes about Jesus and about what happens to those who reject Jesus or don’t believe in Jesus. And Osteen keeps sidestepping the question, trying to be more positive. He says this.

“The gospel is called the Good news. The message is a message of hope. That’s God’s message for you. You can live a good life no matter what’s happened to you. And so I don’t know”

Now, count how many times, kids, count how many times you hear “I don’t know.”

“I know there’s condemnation, but I don’t feel that’s my place.”

And so King says, “We’ve had ministers on who said… You either believe in Christ or you don’t. If you believe in Christ, you are…going to heaven. And if you don’t, no matter what you’ve done in your life, you ain’t.”

Osteen responded, “Yeah, I don’t know.”

King asks, “What if you’re Jewish, [like him] or Muslim, you don’t accept Christ at all?”

Osteen answered, “You know, I’m very careful about saying who would or wouldn’t go to heaven. I don’t know.”

King asked, “If you believe you have to believe in Christ? They’re wrong, aren’t they?”

Osteen said, “Well, I don’t know if I believe they’re wrong. I believe here’s what the Bible teaches. And from the Christian faith, this is what I believe. I don’t know all about their religion, but I know they love God and I don’t know. I’ve seen their sincerity, so I don’t know. I know for me and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus.”

Now, to be fair, I’m not trying to humiliate Osteen, I’m just saying we all know what it’s like to feel pressure to say what people want to hear, right? But what is the job of a shepherd? To point the sheep to the way of life, the path of life, not loss and ruin. And so if a shepherd, when it’s said, that’s what King is doing. He’s giving him an opportunity to speak to millions of people who never hear the gospel, tell them about Jesus. And he says, “I don’t know.”

Why? I think we all get it. There’s an enormous pressure in our culture to say that all roads lead to the same place, to reject Jesus’s two roads diverged model and to go with a whatever-you-want, you-do-you, model. But when a pastor who’s worth about $50 to $100 million dollars is making bank off God’s people but won’t speak the truth, I think that’s what Jesus is talking about when he warns us of the wolves. Wolfs. So how do you spot a wolf? Their words. Secondly, their works. Verse 16,

“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit. But the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”

So the image is saying sheep, but in reality Jesus is saying wolf. Now he’s shifting to a different metaphor, fruit and trees. And the fact is that the initial stages of fruit trees are sometimes hard to discern. And that’s kind of the same image as they’re going to appear like sheep. They’re going to appear like good trees. But over time, Jesus is saying the fruit will be evident. A healthy tree bears good fruit. A diseased tree bears bad fruit.

Some of you may be familiar with a very controversial book that came out this summer called “Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda” by Megan Basham. The book has become a New York Times bestseller, and has prompted a ton of debate about the arguments that Megan makes that we do not have time to explore today. And some have pointed out errors in the book. But most people’s response to the book is fairly in line with their political leanings. If someone leans left, they hate the book, if they lean right, they love the book.

But the part that often isn’t discussed in the reviews is what I think as the main point of the book. And that is near the end of the book, Megan, in I think one of the first times, describes her story in detail. She talks about what it’s like to have been addicted to drugs and alcohol, to spend a lot of time in jail, in and out five years, and all the horrors that accompany that lifestyle. Waking up in jail and not knowing how she got there. Car crashes, emergency room visits, sexual assaults, shattered relationships. Utter despair. But when Jesus saved Megan, she joined a church that teaches the Scripture and shows how the gospel changes lives. She learned that we are no longer slaves to sin, that Jesus sets us free from bitterness, from bondage, from victimhood, from all the addictions we turn to in order to cope and cover up our pain. And then she makes a statement that is my favorite in the whole book. Here it is:

“Our God is still a God who brings dead girls to life.” [and boys] “Our God is still a God who brings dead girls to life.”

And then she explains.

“Many forces are trying to claim American churches for many agendas

And I would say that’s on the left and the right.

“but ultimately there is only one force, one agenda

She’s talking about the demonic agenda.

“We do not battle against flesh and blood. Satan’s wolves in sheep’s clothing secretly slip into the church for one reason: to prevent it from snatching more souls out of the fire.”

And so, whether we agree with all of her arguments or not, the point that she is ending with and that Jesus is emphasizing is, we as the church of Jesus, have to be able to identify the difference between sheep and wolves, and we must be able to label wolves, identify them, and flee from them, or else we will sacrifice the gospel of Jesus.

And you say, “why does that matter? Are you trying to win a partisan debate? Are you trying to win Bible trivia?” No. What Megan is saying is, this is a matter of life and death. She knows what it’s like to walk down the path of ruin and loss. And now she knows what it’s like to be on the path of life. And when you’ve experienced that change, you don’t want to give an inch. You don’t want to cave in to wolves who will make the church more agreeable in the culture, but will sacrifice the life-transforming power of the gospel. And that’s what we cannot do.

The way to life is not popular. It’s not easy. It’s not obvious. And then finally, it’s not earned. It’s not earned. In verses 21-23. It is experienced in Jesus, in Jesus. Look at verse 21.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

So Jesus here is contrasting the spectacular claims of those who say, and you notice they say, “Lord, Lord,” like see my fervor. I don’t just say, “Lord.”  There are the Lord people and then there are the “Lord, Lord,” people. Look at me. We prophesy in your name. We cast out demons in your name. We do mighty works in your name. If anyone is in, it’s us. And Jesus says in verse 23,

“I never knew you.”

I never knew you. And do you notice how exclusionary Jesus is in contrast to false teachers? Either I know you or I don’t know you.

“Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Jesus is saying, you enter my kingdom, not through your spectacular works, Judas did those, but through me.

“I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

Jesus is, and I don’t know if this is a real word, but it needs to be, he’s decompartmentalizing our lives. What does that mean? What these guys are doing is saying — and that’s why you see all these miraculous works — and then Jesus says, you workers of lawlessness. What is he getting at? Hear me. He’s not getting at a sincere soul who is seeking to follow Jesus and struggles, fails, and gets back up and now doubts their salvation again. That’s not what he’s talking about here. I know this passage often is interpreted that way by people with sensitive consciences.

But he’s talking about people who are doing these spectacular works in one part of their lives, and then they go home and treat their family like junk. Or dive back into their secret sins. And it’s almost like, well, if I do enough of these, they’ll offset this. And that’s what I mean by decompartmentalizing. Jesus is like, I don’t want a part of you. I’ll take the miracle part, and I’ll ignore the way you treat your wife part or husband part. No, I want all of you. All of you. I’m decompartmentalizing your life. I gave my life for you. I give myself to you, Jesus is saying, and you give yourself to me, this is a relationship. And yes, we struggle. Yes, we fail. That’s not what he’s talking about. Listen to this email that was sent to me years ago in response to this passage:

“I cannot help but remember my own spiritual state for the majority of my life. I used to be one of the people that our Lord would have told to depart from his presence, for he never knew me. That truth would have shocked me. I was very deceived. I was thoroughly convinced that I was saved. I grew up in church. I knew all the right things to say. I knew the truth. I walked the aisle. I signed the membership card. I was even baptized.

“Yet I lived a double life. I professed to love Jesus, but my life of racism, hatred and cruelty told a different story.

“Several years ago, the Holy Spirit revealed to me my true state and how I needed to give my whole life to Christ. He changed me. He taught me how to cry again. He taught me to care for people other than myself and to love people different than I. I am convinced that is the moment he saved me. That is when the true change occurred. I look forward to the day to hear a different call from my Lord, that of ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.’”

Now, I know we’ve covered a lot. Kids, teens, adults, covered a lot. It’s hard to take it all in. But this message ultimately is quite simple. Will you choose life? Will you choose life? Remember, that’s what Jesus is doing at this part of the sermon. It’s not just about accumulating more information. It’s not just about knowing how to answer the questions on the test. You’re either heading in this direction, or you’re heading in this direction. Will you choose life? And for some of us, this may be the first time we’ve ever said, “Yes Lord, I believe your Word. I don’t want my own way anymore. I don’t want to follow my heart to destruction. I want to follow you.” And for others our hearts have grown dull and numb. And it’s saying, “Lord, I know I’m on your path. I know I know you, I know you’ve saved me, but please wake me up. You’ve given me this word today because your Spirit is calling me out of my stupor to say there is a way to life and there’s a way to loss, and I’m on the way to life. But Lord, I’ve been stumbling along, taking it for granted. Stir my heart.” So wherever you’re at right now, let’s pause and pray, and you respond to what the Spirit is saying to you.

Father your way to life is not a popular way. It’s not an easy way, it’s not an obvious way, and I certainly can’t earn it. But there’s no other way. My heart is just aching, Lord, that there would not be anyone in this room who would reject your way. That we would respond by grace through faith, turning from our own ways to follow you, to believe in you, to know it’s a journey, and it’s not easy. And at times it will feel like we’re going against the current. But Lord, we choose life. And I pray that for many who may be doing that for the first time, others for the thousandth time, saying, “Lord, this is the way I want to live. I turn from my own way. I turn to you.” Please stir our hearts. Save souls. Stimulate desire to cultivate a greater delight in you so that we can spot the fake and turn from it. Thank you, Jesus. We pray in your name, amen.