29th November 2024

29th November 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matt 7:7-14 focus 13-14)


Message (Alan Burke)


For those in Christ we are to live in a way that conforms with the moral and ethical demand of the scripture. I hope that doesn’t come as a surprise to you, after all Jesus told his followers that “if you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:!5). If we bear the name of Christian, if we profess faith in Jesus Christ if we are those who ask, seek, knock and have entered the kingdom then we should live in response to that. Here Jesus drives that point home regarding entrance into the kingdom. As he does that Jesus, now gives a metaphor. He gave two options, the narrow gate with a narrow road, and a wide gate with a broad road. The narrow gate with the narrow road leads to life whereas the wide gate with a broad road leads to destruction. They stand in contrast to one another. 


The narrow gate with the narrow road that leads to life, this is the road that those who have asked have been given, those who have sought have found, those who have knocked on the door and it has been opened to them. It is the road of discipleship, but the wide road, the wide road that leads to destruction is for all who have not received the kingdom of God, who have not come in faith, who have not received the gift of the Father. 


There are many today who diminish the demands of the gospel, personal holiness doesn't matter, they have rewritten what it is to be a follower of Christ, they don't understand what it is to do to others what you would have them do to you, they are those who are making their way on the broad road. But for those who have come to salvation, who have entered the kingdom there lives have been reorientated, no longer do they live as they once did, no longer do they live as the world instead they are on the narrow path. They know that there is a cost to living as on who has come to know the kingdom, they live in response to what God has done for them in Christ Jesus, they will try to please him with their lives, the way of Christ is a narrow one, it calls us to live with kingdom values, living in any other way leads to destruction. 


The path that leads to destruction is a wide road because it has travelled by the majority of people. Look around today and there seems to be an ever increasing number of people here in this country who reject the truth of the gospel, they live without regard for the moral demands of God, and they try to lead other people to follow them, not to take the narrow path, the narrow road that leads to life put on a wide road that leads to destruction. The narrow road confines us, it imposes limits on how we are to live, it sets out how we live as those who are the followers of Christ, it places before us what is right, what is acceptable in all areas of our lives. It is a restrictive way to live, and as a result, few will choose to take, there is a cost to follow Christ, most people choose the path that means that they can live however they want, they might think that they have life, but it will lead to their destruction. 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q48. What are we specially taught by these words, before me,” in the first commandment?
A. These words, before me,” in the first commandment teach us, that God, who seeth all things, taketh notice of, and is much displeased with, the sin of having any other God.
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