Matthew 7:13-14: 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Revelation 3:20: 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

John 10:7-10: 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

2.  This passage is also in a particular context. In a sense it fits between three illustrations of what Eugene Peterson calls The Great Reversal. Read The Parables of the Mustard Seed and Yeast. Read Luke 13:30. The teaching this morning is about God’s surprising way of doing things.

What do we learn about the Kingdom in these three illustrations?

It is not about size or power but about the silent, invisible and organic nature of the Kingdom. The effect is in inverse proportion to the size – and that’s what fools people who want bigness and majorities. “It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile, and that a million square miles are almost the same as heaven.” E. M. Forster in Howards End.

What do we learn about entering the Kingdom in the teaching of the Narrow Gate?

3.  First, look at the nature of the one who asks the question.

Are only a few people going to be saved? The one asking the question seems to be assuming that is the case. It’s not just a few. It is a few of a minority of people. He’s probably not asking how many people in all the world will be saved but how many of US will be saved? How many of the chosen will really be saved?

John Calvin thought the man asking the question was probably one of the Pharisees because that is just where their mind would go. The importance of an exclusive few would be at the top of their minds. It was not so much a question of being worried about those who were not as it was wanting to keep things exclusive and hard to do. “Can we make this hard enough to keep out the “polloi”? Can we make sure it is the “oligoi”? There are times when Jesus seems to open up the Kingdom to many instead of just the few. “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” I came to seek and save the lost – not the righteous. All that would concern a Pharisee.

It says that large crowds were traveling with Jesus and a Pharisee would be concerned that all of them were going to be saved. “How many of these people are really as saved as me?” It was the same response as the disciples when asking if they should call down fire from heaven on those preaching in Jesus’ name but not one of them. It was the same when Jesus told the story of the wheat and the tares. How can we separate them from us? How can we know for certain who is in and who is out?

4.  Second, look at the nature of the question itself.

What can I know for sure? Oswald Chambers on certainty:

“Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life—gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God—it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy. Jesus said, “. . . believe also in Me” (John 14:1), not, “Believe certain things about Me”. Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.”

But it is also a question of “how much love is there?” How much capacity do you have to save? How big is the reservoir given the size of the need?

In Luke, the word “saved” is used more often for healing than it is for anything else. “Your faith has saved you.” It is used to mean the restoration of something that was lost – as in the lost sheep. It is used to mean the saving of a life. The question could well be “How many people will be healed or brought to wholeness or restored to life?” How much can you really do given the need? Why not turn stones into bread? This is what people need as much as anything. Why would you only heal a few instead of everyone?

5.  But whatever was in the mind of the one who asked the question, he was probably not prepared for the answer.

The Message puts it this way: He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention.”

Jesus tells the Pharisee to stop worrying about how many. But the first part of his response brings out the Pharisee in all of us. The way is narrow and hard to do. That is exactly what I want to hear. It makes me want to try harder to get in. I know how to do that. I know how to prove myself to God. I know how to keep out the others trying to push their way in.

6.  But I think Jesus is telling this believer in the narrow way that narrow means something else entirely.

John 10:7-18: 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. 11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father —and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life —only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The narrow gate is not something we do. The narrow gate is not our holiness or good life. I would much prefer the narrow way to be right beliefs or doctrine or behaviour because I can control that and define that. I can set the requirements. Unfortunately, that is not the nature of the narrow gate. It is something that has been done for us…and for the Pharisee that would be the hardest thing of all. It is the impossible life. It is not the teachings of Jesus or the example of Jesus. It is the resurrected life of Jesus in us.

If we come to the gate with anything else in mind we will never get through. I like the way Oswald Chambers puts it: “If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility will be overwhelmingly crushing.” “Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work…a worker without this concentration on God is apt to get his work on his neck.” The narrow gate is the sacrifice of the shepherd’s life – not the quality or self-sacrifice of the sheep. The only way into the Kingdom is through Christ. That is why Paul calls it a stumbling block. That is why he says we are crushed by it. We want to find our own way through the gate and we cannot. It is grace alone. It is not the narrowness we prefer.

Ross Douthat in “Bad Religion” There is not a shortage of religion in America. We have more than ever before. We are always looking for more religion – especially those that make us feel good about ourselves. The worst thing we can say about people is they are narrow.

The way IS narrow but the Kingdom is larger than we could imagine. The way is narrow but the people in it should be larger than life. They should be growing – not shrinking. They should be expanding – not collapsing.

The Last Battle:

The further up and further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside.

Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden at all but a whole world, with its own rivers and woods and sea and mountains. But they were not strange: she knew them all.

“I see,” she said, “this is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below. … I see…world within world, Narnia within Narnia.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Tumnus, “like an onion: except that as you continue to go in and in, each circle is larger than the last.”

That is what Jesus promised. The way is narrow but the Kingdom itself is broad.

7.  But that’s not the only surprise. Read the final verse. The things that were small to you before will be enormous. The insignificant things will be large. The first will be last. The least will be the greatest. Those at the back of the line will be at the front. Up will be down and down up. Not a good place for a Pharisee or one who wants certainty or greatness or exclusivity. How many will be saved? All who accept the gift of the narrow way.

Lewis said, “All that are in Hell, choose it. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find.”

“I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”

For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see.”

The gate to the Kingdom is narrow but it opens the way to life that is more than we can imagine. The way to Hell is broad but it leads to a narrowness that is nearly nothing. The size of a mustard seed or a speck of yeast is nearly nothing but the effect is eternal.