JESUS ON THE NARROW DOOR

Father, your word has just said things which probably most people in Canada would find very deeply offensive.

And Father, some of us, if we were honest with you, we find the words very uncomfortable, maybe even depressing.

Father, you know what's going on in our hearts.

You know our loves and our fears.

We ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would gently but deeply take the words of Jesus and have them go deep into our heart, the center of who we are, deep into our mind and deep into our wills.

That our minds might increasingly have the mind of Jesus and our hearts might have the heart of Jesus.

And that Jesus would truly be our Savior and our Lord.

And all this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.

Please be seated.

Is Christianity exclusive and intolerant?

You just heard the gospel text.

Is Christianity exclusive and intolerant?

Can we, like a lot of Christians, pass off the exclusivity and intolerance as a product of Christendom or as a product of bad churches or bad Christians?

Or is the problem actually go right back to Jesus?

Is Jesus exclusive and intolerant?

That's the big question.

And I think maybe if you weren't paying attention, we're going to look at the text because for some of us it would be, it's a bit of a terrifying text.

It's a very un-Canadian and very unpalatable to us.

So it would be a great help to me if you got your Bibles and open them up to Luke chapter 13 verse 22.

Luke 13:22

And let's look at the text.

Let's, in a sense, be gripped by it, by what it says.

Hear it and ask the deep questions.

Because it asks a question which ever since I was in high school 100 million years ago,

a very, very common objection to the Christian faith is the exclusivity of the Christian faith.

It's a common objection that I've heard for many, many, many, many decades.

And this text directly comes at it.

So it's Luke chapter 13 verse 22.

Luke 13:22

If you don't have Bibles with you, there's always Bibles at the front of the church, which you're welcome to take.

Keep them afterwards if you'd like as a gift or you could return them afterwards.

And here's how the text goes.

Luke chapter 13 verse 22.

Luke 13:22

Jesus went on his way through towns and villages teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem.

And someone said to him, Lord, will those who are saved be few?

Lord, will those who are saved be few?

That's the big question.

It's a big question.

So how's Jesus going to answer it?

He goes in verse 24.

He says this.

And he said to them,

Strive to enter through the narrow door.

For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Many of us cry at that text.

You wouldn't believe how hard it is to organize moments like that, actually.

There's somebody out there actually waiting to hear this,

and then they pinch the kids just to make them cry at the right moment.

No, that's not true.

That's absolutely not true.

I'll say it again.

Strive to enter through the narrow door.

For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Now, just a couple of things about this text.

First of all, we see that the word saved,

which many people in our culture think is connected just to a certain branch of Christianity,

is actually a Bible word.

And at no point in time in the text does Jesus reject the word.

He accepts the word, accepts the question, and answers the question, and explains in part the word.

But the word saved is a Bible word, not a church party word.

But the next two things are actually far more worrisome, especially given what Jesus accepts the word saved.

The first is that Jesus says that there is a narrow door, and that there's only a narrow door.

And if that's not troublesome enough to many of us in Canada, he goes on to say that people will want to enter that narrow door and won't be allowed to.

In other words, for many of us, hoping that Jesus is going to give a pluralistic and tolerant answer,

he actually, not only does he worry us with the narrow door, but he seems to actually make it worse.

He touches on all of our deep fears of being excluded by saying that some will want to enter and they won't be able to.

Well, does Jesus qualify this?

He actually, well, we'll read.

He actually, at least just to grasp it in the first reading of the text, he actually seems to make it worse.

Verse 25.

When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door,

and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying,

Lord, open to us, then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from.

Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets.

But he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,

but you yourselves cast out.

And people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.

So this text, in a sense, you know, we think that when you die, you go to a better place.

That's the typical Canadian view.

And we think that Jesus will promote happiness and peaceful thoughts and calmness.

But the text makes clear that not only is there a narrow door, but that at some point in time,

the door which is open will be shut.

And who is it who shuts the narrow door but Jesus?

Jesus is the master of the house who shuts the door.

And his shutting of the door means that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And it's a very shocking text.

For many of us, it's not the sort of Bible text we'd want one of our friends to bring to us

and ask us to do a study.

It's not something we'd want to have discussed by a professor in class

or around the coffee break table in the place where you work

or at the play group where you brought the kids, where the kids are playing

and somebody says, let's talk about passages in the Bible.

And if they've read out this text, your hearts would sink.

You'd say, why don't we talk about another text?

Or at least you'd be thinking that.

Well, was Jesus, maybe he was just ignorant.

You know, this is going to be hard for younger people to believe.

Here's going to be one of my old person moments.

I graduated from high school 100 million years ago in Ottawa.

And when I graduated from high school, it was, I think, a school that had 1,400 or 1,500 people in it that year.

So my graduating class was like eight classes, all with like 25, 30 people in them.

But in the entire high school, there were two people who were Chinese.

Out of like 1,400, 1,500 students, two who were Chinese,

two who were from India, and two that were black.

The rest were white.

Interestingly enough, the two Chinese were both Christians.

And one of the black people was the head student in our graduating year.

Just a bit of an aside.

But maybe Jesus is just ignorant.

Like maybe Jesus just isn't aware of the fact that there's this pluralistic world out there

and that there's lots of different gods and there's lots of different paths.

Maybe Jesus is just a Galilean peasant.

And granted, he has lots of, you know, he likes to rub, you know, rub the politically powerful the wrong way

and he loves to, you know, he likes to support the people and all that.

But he's sort of a man of his day, a man of his age.

And he's just sort of ignorant of the broader social things that are going on.

Just not well important.

Is that what's going on with Jesus?

Well, actually, the very next words show that Jesus, that's not what's going on with Jesus,

if we'd continue reading.

And actually, in the very first words of verse 31, at the level of the original language,

these are connecting words.

It's showing that you need to, if you're going to begin with the question,

will those who are saved be few?

You need to continue reading on past verse 30 into verse 31 and on.

It's all part of how Luke and Jesus explain the answer to the question.

But it goes on in verse 31.

At the very hour, that very hour, some Pharisees came and said to Jesus,

get away from here for Herod wants to kill you.

And Jesus said to them, go and tell that fox.

Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow.

And the third day I finish my course.

Now, here's the thing about this right off the bat is that Herod isn't Jewish.

And everybody, I mean, we might not know it, but everybody in Jesus' day knows that Herod's not Jewish.

And so Luke, who's writing this gospel primarily to pagans and skeptics,

puts right in there a non-Jewish person, a person who worships other gods,

puts it right in there in the text.

And in fact, we might not remember it or think about it,

but in fact, Jesus grew up in Galilee.

He's ministering.

He's speaking right now in Galilee.

And one of the reasons that Galilee was sort of looked down upon by people in Jerusalem

was not just because it was rural, but also because it was multicultural,

that it was a mixed area where Jews and non-Jews lived together,

where those who worshiped the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob

coexisted as neighbors with people who did not worship the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.

And on top of all of that, every single Jewish person would have been seen regularly

unless they lived in a very, very remote village, Roman soldiers,

who were over the entire area.

And Roman soldiers were all pagans.

In fact, Jesus would have been deeply aware of the fact that there were many,

many different gods and many different beliefs about the different ways to God.

And he probably even knew that the Roman Empire was, in fact, from our point of view,

a pluralistic world when it came to religion.

It was polytheistic.

In fact, Jesus' words so far would have been an offense to the Jewish people

who believed that all Jews would one day be saved by the Messiah.

And Jesus is implying that they won't.

But that in a planet with, I don't know how many, hundreds of millions of people,

there were only one tiny little group of people who believed in one God

and weren't polytheists, and that's where the Jews.

And Jesus would have known that.

So Jesus isn't ignorant.

And the text reminds us that he's not ignorant by bringing in a non-Jewish reference

to help us know that, okay, whatever is going on with the words of Jesus,

it can't be that he's not aware of an option.

He's very aware of an option of being pluralistic.

And he's not afraid of dying.

So it's not that he's not going to say this because he's worried about offending people.

In fact, he says to Herod, by calling Herod a fox,

he's calling Herod a deceptive, deceiving, sort of slimy character.

So he's not afraid to offend.

And he's not about to be silenced, which might have been a little bit about what the Pharisees were trying to do when Jesus spoke.

So what's going on?

Well, let's continue just to finish reading.

I sort of stopped a bit too early.

So verse 33.

Nevertheless, remember he says, so go back to 32.

Go tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow.

And the third day I finish my course.

That doesn't mean literal three days.

It's just saying he has a course that he's following, that he's going along.

Verse 33.

Nevertheless, I must go my way today and tomorrow and the day following,

for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

Just sort of pause there for a second.

In the original language, must sort of has a bit of a sense of it,

but it's far stronger in the original language.

And afterwards, some of you can tell me how I pronounce the word.

I've heard it pronounced two different ways, so I'm not sure which is the right way to pronounce it.

But the word must in the original language is a telos or telos word.

It's the idea that there's this end, a goal, a defining objective that defines the whole purpose of the entire endeavor.

It is the end towards which everything moves.

And unless you know that the telos, the telos, is that which is being moved towards,

you don't understand anything that's going on.

And that's the word that Jesus uses about going to Jerusalem to die.

That first of all, he offends the Jewish people by saying that the source of danger for me is not the non-Jewish Herod.

The danger for me is Jerusalem.

That is where I will die.

And me going to Jerusalem to die is the defining moment.

It's that which explains every single thing about who I am.

It is my telos, my telos, my goal, my end, the end for me.

And he continues in verse 34 with very, very, all of a sudden, he seems like he's been hard-hearted.

And all of a sudden, something deeply emotional breaks out from him in verse 34,

which helps us to understand that all the way through, he's not been hard-hearted.

That's why the whole text together is so very important.

But in verse 34, he says,

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings?

And you would not.

Behold, your house is forsaken, and I tell you, you will not see me until you say,

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

So what on earth is going on in this text?

Is Jesus just one exclusivist butting heads with Jewish exclusivists?

Is he sort of almost a bit schizophrenic that on one hand he's hard-hearted,

on the other hand he's soft-hearted?

Like, is he sort of unaware or ignorant of what he's saying on one hand,

and on the other hand, like, what's going on?

Well, let's go back to the beginning of the text.

We're going to read it through quickly.

But let's look through the text, mindful of how the text ended.

And let's listen again to verses 22 to 24.

Excuse me.

And he went on his way through towns and villages,

teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem.

It reminds us that in the Gospel of Luke,

everything that's happened since towards the end of chapter 9

is all about Jesus going to Jerusalem to die.

If we'd forgotten it while we're reading it,

the text reminds us he's going to Jerusalem to die.

He went on his way through towns and villages,

teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem.

And someone said to him,

Lord, will those who are saved be few?

And he said to them,

And strive to enter through the narrow door,

for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Andrew, if you could put up the first point.

How wide is the narrow door?

It is as wide as the cross

on which Jesus the Messiah,

the Son of God, died.

How wide is the narrow door?

It is as wide as the cross

It is as wide as the cross

on which Jesus the Messiah,

the Son of God, died.

That's what we understand

when we hear that whole text.

That's the narrow door.

Jesus' death on the cross.

What about all the crying and the rejection?

Well, just one thing we have to understand here

before we get to that is,

you know, in our culture,

what we want,

one of the things that Jesus is saying

is that when we think of the narrow door

and tolerance and all of that type of stuff,

you know what we think of?

We think of theologies,

philosophies, ideologies,

sociologies,

anthropologies,

methodologies,

techniques,

rituals,

experience,

emotion,

and forces.

And we think in terms of all of those categories

and Jesus doesn't think in any of those categories.

He talks in terms of a category

that goes right to the heart.

The narrow door is not a theology,

ideology,

methodology,

technology,

ritual,

force,

or emotion.

It's a person.

It's a person.

And people touch our heart.

We can manipulate ideologies,

theologies,

philosophies,

sociologies,

anthropologies,

forces,

techniques,

methodologies,

and rituals.

We can manipulate them.

We can play with them.

And on one level,

we can try to manipulate and play with people,

but a person touches our heart.

And we can accept or reject the presence of a person touching our heart.

And that helps to explain the weeping.

Look at verse 24 again

and read the next few verses.

Strive to enter through the narrow door.

For many,

I tell you,

will seek to enter and will not be able.

When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door,

and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door,

you're knocking on Jesus,

saying,

Lord,

open to us,

and then he will answer you,

I do not know where you come from.

Then you will begin to say,

we ate and drank in your presence and taught in our streets.

But he will say,

I tell you,

I do not know where you come from.

Depart from me,

all you workers of evil.

In that place,

there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God,

but you yourselves cast out and people will come from east and west and from north and south

and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

And behold,

some are last who will be first.

Some are first who will be last.

Excuse me.

Here's the thing.

I'll put it up and then I'll explain it to you.

Next point,

Andrew.

It's a bit of a long point.

And if you,

you know,

you can always go online as of Monday and the points are always online if you want to write them down.

To be saved is to enter through the narrow door.

And it's not just a matter of entering through the narrow door.

It's not just having one experience of Jesus.

That's the imagery there is of being in a kingdom,

of having a banquet,

of being with other people,

of being there with Jesus in this,

in this place.

And so to be saved is,

in a sense,

both to enter through the narrow door and live life as a citizen in the kingdom where Jesus is always present as the Savior and the Lord,

and where growth means he becomes more present.

And I know it's ungrammatical to say to me,

but I threw it in even though it's not very grammatically correct.

to emphasize that,

you know what it is,

is we enter through the narrow door,

and the door is as wide as Jesus dying on the cross.

And we enter,

and being saved means that there's this narrow door,

Jesus dying on the cross,

we enter through him,

and then it's not just that we've had an experience,

and we can forget about it,

and move on with our lives,

into lives of ideologies,

and technologies,

and rituals,

and organizations,

and institutions,

and philosophies,

and anthropologies,

but we actually enter in to begin to live the life as a citizen in a kingdom where Jesus is the Savior,

and he is the Lord,

and he's always present.

And all of my personal growth into the future,

personal growth will now mean Jesus being more present,

not absent,

more present as Savior,

more present as Lord.

This week while I was preparing this sermon,

I was in a suburban coffee shop,

and I overheard a conversation before,

between four pleasant suburban grandmothers.

I'm guessing they're in their early 70s.

I'm so glad you don't know who they are,

because if they're in their 60s,

I would be so red-faced right now,

by guessing that they were in their 70s.

But they seem to be,

I've been in that suburban coffee shop before,

I've seen them there before,

they're obviously regulars,

they're obviously great friends,

and usually wherever they are in the Starbucks,

there's lots of laughter.

And we probably would love them to be our own mother or grandmother,

or love to have them as our neighbors,

and I overheard this conversation.

I heard one of them say,

all of a sudden,

I didn't hear what led up to it,

but all of a sudden,

popped into my ear,

one of them saying to another,

are you going to go to church this Christmas?

And the woman said,

yeah, I think I will.

And the first woman says to the second woman,

well, you never go to church.

And she says,

well, you know,

I like to hedge my bets with the big guy.

You know,

I like to hedge my bets,

you know,

so I,

you know,

I figure if I just sort of go to church every once in a while,

you know,

Christmas is as good a time as any,

I like the music,

and you know,

it's a good time,

and I sort of hedge my bets,

you know,

and the woman number three immediately says,

I don't need any big guy up in the sky telling me what to do,

and looking over my life.

I don't need a big guy in the sky.

And another woman chirped in,

I guess trying to diffuse the tension,

because she was a bit adamant about it,

there was some emotion in it,

and she said,

I don't go to church,

I just try to think good thoughts.

And then the woman who started it all off said,

well,

you know,

I'm Jewish,

and,

and my,

my husband likes going to all these religious festival type things at the

synagogue,

and I like being with my husband,

so I tag along with him,

just so I can spend some time with my husband.

And then the conversation moved on to different things.

Here's the thing.

Those women might say,

I'm not picking on them.

They might say,

Jesus,

I want to get into heaven.

And Jesus says,

you realize that when you come through this door,

you're going to live life as a citizen,

where I am the Savior,

and I am the Lord,

and I'm always present.

And the longer you're in there,

I will only become more present.

And they would say,

that is unacceptable to me.

But I want to come in.

And Jesus would say,

you realize the door is my death upon the cross for you because I love you.

And once you come through that door,

I'll always be present with my nail-scarred hands.

And you won't be able to go anywhere where I'm not there with my nail-scarred hands.

And I'll always be your Lord.

And I'm only going to get closer to you.

And they might very well say,

that is unacceptable.

On Friday,

while I was working on my sermon in a different Starbucks,

I'm sitting there,

and I don't know why this just popped into my head.

Maybe it wasn't the first time,

but there's this really nice young family there.

They're probably in their early 30s.

And they had a little girl who looked like she was three and a half or four,

and a boy who looked like he was around two.

And that and the mom,

you could just tell they sit down and go,

ah.

You know,

I don't know where they had lattes,

or, you know,

Americanos,

or something,

you know,

a pumpkin spice latte,

or something.

And they had some fancy Starbucks breakfast sandwiches.

And the kids each had a glass of ice water and a cookie on a napkin.

You could just sort of tell the parents were just ready to have a bit of a relaxed time with their kid.

And it seemed within moments of them sitting down,

I heard the little boy say,

I want to juice.

Just a quiet little voice.

I want to juice.

And then like 40 seconds later,

I wanted juice.

We bought him,

you have ice water.

You have a cookie.

I wanted juice.

And over the next five minutes,

it went from just a quiet,

I wanted juice,

to a louder,

I wanted juice,

to icy glares and shoves of his sister,

to a squawk,

to eventually,

a full-blown,

red-faced,

back-arched scream.

That not only did everybody in that restaurant here,

but probably everybody within 10 blocks

heard this little kid scream,

I want juice.

And he bursts into tears,

screaming,

with his back arched,

his face red,

full-throated.

Parents try to calm him down.

Eventually,

they realize the only thing you can do

is you pick the kid up under your arm,

and you walk out,

and you go to the car.

I just think,

I'm so glad I'm a grandfather,

not a parent.

And I didn't offer them any parenting advice,

because I was probably the same

when I was a dad,

missing the cues,

meltdown approaching.

But here's the thing,

we all know that that only happens to two-year-olds.

We all know that no adult has meltdowns.

But no adult says,

this is intolerable to me.

And inwardly,

even if they have such good social skills

that they do not stand their back arched,

red-faced,

screaming at the top of their lungs,

inside that's going on.

We know that doesn't happen to any adults.

See,

if you could put up the next point, Andrew,

it breaks the heart of Jesus

that some will say

that the grace to enter such a kingdom

is forever intolerable.

Some will say,

I wanted juice.

I want juice.

And the weeping and the gnashing of teeth

isn't like, you know,

those teenage girl movies,

you know,

where the slightly odd,

misfitted girl

is who's really the one

who's actually smart

and eventually takes their glasses off

and they're pretty

and eventually gets the good-looking guy

or even better,

gets to say no to the good-looking guy

and says yes to the quirky guy

and they're just mean

and the mean girls make the girl.

It's not like that at all.

It's not like that.

That's not what's going on in this text.

It's the two-year-old wanting juice.

And if we just read verse 31 to 35,

you see,

it's when you hear the heart of Jesus

that you understand that that's what's going on.

And listen again.

At that very hour,

some Pharisees came and said to Jesus,

get away from here

for Herod wants to kill you.

And Jesus said to them,

go and tell that fox,

behold,

I cast out demons.

He's healing people,

delivering people,

and perform cures.

He's healing and delivering people

today and tomorrow.

And the third day,

I finish my course.

Nevertheless,

I must go,

my telos,

I must go

my way today and tomorrow

and the day following.

For it cannot be

that a prophet should perish

away from Jerusalem.

Oh,

Jerusalem,

Jerusalem,

the city that kills the prophets

and stones those who are sent to it.

How often would I have gathered

your children together

as a hen gathers her brood

under her wings

and you would not.

Behold,

your house is forsaken

and I tell you,

you will not see me

until you say,

blessed is he

who comes in the name of the Lord.

It breaks the heart of Jesus

that some will say

that the grace

to enter such a kingdom

is forever

intolerable.

You see,

the image

here that we need

is not of a hard-hearted Jesus

casting people away

because they're not smart enough,

haven't gone to church enough,

haven't made enough money,

haven't been a good enough parent,

not the right race,

not the right nationality.

It's not a hard-hearted Jesus

saying that.

You know what it's like?

And maybe you've seen it

like I have sometimes.

It's like maybe a wife

saying to her husband

with tears in her eyes,

I don't want you

to divorce me.

I want to be married to you.

I think we can work it out.

I want to be married to you.

And the woman

has tears in her eyes

and the husband

looks away stony-faced.

It is a parent

to a child

or a child

to the parent.

The parent

saying to the child,

I want to be,

I want,

I just want to love you.

I just want to be your mother.

I just want to be your father.

I just,

I just want to help you.

I'd give anything for you.

And the kid

stony-eyed

looking away

wanting to have

nothing to do with it.

Or the kid

saying to their mom

or their dad,

I just,

I just want to help you.

I just want to love you.

And the parent being stony-eyed

on their course.

And that's what we see

of Jesus.

Because in fact,

and Andrew,

if you could put this

next point up,

here's the thing.

Because some of you might say,

does Jesus know who I am?

Does he know

how bad a parent I've been?

Does he know how,

does he know the things

I've done?

Does he know

how much of a failure

I've been?

Does he know

how much I've been rejected?

He could never

possibly want me.

But this text is saying

that if Jesus dies

on the cross

out of love for you

and that the narrow door

is his death

upon the cross,

that that in fact

is the power of God

that comes from salvation,

that when we put our faith

and trust in him,

that that saves us.

That it's not

our looks,

our abilities,

our accomplishments.

It's nothing like that.

There is,

what is a text?

It,

I cannot be so broken

or so sinful

or so excluded

or so distant

or so hated

or so other

that Jesus

will turn me away

when I come to him

with humble longing.

Blessed is he who comes

in the name of the Lord

with repentance

and faith in him.

No one

is so broken

or so hated

or such a failure.

And I don't have

a slide from it,

but there is no one here

who is so young,

so successful,

so popular,

that you don't need Jesus.

There's no one here

so rich

or powerful

that you don't need

Jesus.

That's the heart

of Jesus.

Jesus knows you.

In fact,

what we see

in this whole thing

is if you could put up

the final,

not the final,

the next point,

Andrew.

See,

here's the way

this text works

on us.

And this is why

we don't understand

the text

because we want

Jesus to answer

an intellectual question,

an anthropological,

sociological,

missiological,

ideological,

cultural,

ritualistic,

energetic,

technique-driven

question.

The question

was asked

of Jesus,

will those

who are saved

be few?

the text

turns everything

around

and Jesus

asks me,

will you

enter

through the narrow

door

and be saved?

You see,

questions of,

not that we can't

answer questions

of philosophy,

I'm not trying

to say that

and there's,

you know,

other types

and this is

a huge part

of the answer

but there's

other things

that can be said.

But Jesus,

you see,

religion and

spirituality

will always

just go

to appearances

and methods

and techniques

and ideas.

Jesus always

goes to the heart.

He goes to the

center of who

we are

in the context

of the reality

and the truth

of the living God.

And so we have

an abstract question

and Jesus

turns it around

and in a sense

when we're opening

the Bible,

the eyes of Jesus

are right there

looking back

at us

and he asks

me a question.

George,

will you enter

through the narrow

door and be saved?

That's the question

before every one

of us here.

Just two very

brief things

in closing

and we'll sort of

return to this

and we'll pray.

There's two other

things for Christ

followers in this text

which are really

important things

for us.

If you could put up

the first,

Andrew.

Jesus is telling

us to go to

every people group

on the planet

and tell them

about him.

Now we can't

manage this

as one congregation.

He's not telling

us as an individual

we can't go to

every people group

but he's telling

us that it's

a constant task

upon churches

that we pray

and do what we

can to go,

to go,

to every people

group on the planet.

That's what it

means about,

you know,

in the kingdom

there's going to

be from north

and south

and east and west

we have a

planet-wide God,

a planet-forming

God,

who calls

a planet-wide

people.

And you know,

while there might

not be fruit

at first,

this whole text

tells us that

there will be

people in every

people group.

There will be

people in every

people group

who will come

to faith in Jesus.

There will.

That's what Jesus

says.

And we're to go.

And that means

we're to go to

the farthest

corners of the

earth,

but we're also

to pray that

every people

group in our

community will

also have people

who will go

to the Muslim

community,

to the atheist

community,

to the intellectual

community,

to the political

community,

to the gay

community,

to the,

every community

without any

exception.

Jesus is telling

us to go to

every people group

on the planet

and tell them

about him.

And we're to give

to that and pray

to that.

That's why we

support missionaries.

That's why,

especially if you

come to the

Tuesday night

prayer meeting,

which I hope

you do sometime,

we pray for

the missionaries.

We pray for

missionaries in

our staff prayer

meeting on a

weekly basis.

We pray for

missionaries.

And one other

thing,

last thing,

Andrew,

Jesus is telling

me to have his

heart for this

city.

Jesus is telling

me to have his

heart for this

city.

If I enter into

a kingdom where

Jesus is present

and growth means

that he becomes

more present to

me, and if I

enter into a

kingdom where

Jesus is present

and he's present

as my Savior and

as my Lord, then

that means that I'm

to try to get the

heart of Jesus.

And you know,

it's so easy for

us to look at

Ottawa and think

there's so many

things going on in

Ottawa that are

far from God,

that are completely

opposed to God,

that are maybe

hateful to God,

and it can

seem as if

sometimes the

city has no

place for Jesus,

no place for

God, and to

take the city's

own understanding

of itself.

And this text is

calling us to

have Jesus'

heart for the

city, to

weep over it,

and to also

trust that there

are people still

unreached within

this city who are

to be reached with

the gospel and who

will respond.

God, please

stand.

Remember that the

great question of

the text is not

will those who are

saved be few, that

the great question of

the text is will

you enter through

the narrow door and

be saved?

And I just say some

of us might have

business that we have

to make with God

right now, that some

of us need to say,

and I'm not going to

give you a prayer to

lead you, and I'm

just going to say

that if the Holy

Spirit is pressing

upon you, then what

you need to just do

is just say, in a

sense, Andrew, if

you could put the

fifth point back up,

the question is, will

those who are saved

be few?

If you could put that

back up, that would

be great, very

helpful.

Maybe for some of us

here, the Holy Spirit

is impringing on your

heart right now, and

all you have to do is

say, yes, Jesus, I

want to enter through

the narrow door and be

saved.

Now, I understand those

other things that

you said, that George

said is in the text.

I see it in the text.

I understand that it's

not just a moment that

this is for life, and

it's going to mean I'm

going to make some

changes, you're going

to make changes in me,

but yes, I feel the

Holy Spirit pressing

upon me, and yes, I

want to enter that

narrow door and be

saved.

And for all of us who

are Christ followers, the

Holy Spirit is impinging

on our hearts.

For some of us, it

might be that we have

to confess before God

that we are taking the

city's definition of

itself, that we're

hating the city, or

that we're afraid of

the city, and that we

shouldn't be afraid of

the city or hate the

city, but ask for the

heart of Jesus towards

our city.

Or maybe he's calling

us to go to some

people group with prayer

to bring Jesus to them.

Or maybe it's just that

we need to have Jesus be

more present to us.

But the Holy Spirit is

impinging on your heart,

and I call you, invite

you, exhort you, urge you

to listen to that voice

of the Holy Spirit in

your life and call it to

God in prayer today, to

do business with God

before you leave.

Let's bow our heads in

prayer.

Father, we know that you

are touching many hearts

here this morning, and

Father, I don't know the

work that you're doing in

hearts.

I know the work that you're

doing in mine.

Father, I give you thanks

and praise that you know

our hearts, that you know

the center of who we are,

that you know our deepest

needs, that you know what

you are pressing on us at

this point in time.

And Father, we invite, we

give you permission, we

urge, we call out to you,

Father, that you would pour

out your Holy Spirit upon

us at our point of deepest

need, that that pressing

upon us by your Holy Spirit,

that that would bear much

fruit, that for those of us

who have never given or

entered that narrow door,

that we, they would enter

that narrow door today and

be saved.

For all of us, Father, is

whether it's the heart for

the city or whatever it is,

Father, do that work within

us all to your glory.

Father, make us disciples

of Jesus.

Make us disciples gripped by

the gospel, living for your

glory.

Father, pour out your Holy

Spirit upon us and form us

and mold us into a prayerful

Bible teaching church with a

heart for this city and a

heart for the world.

And this we ask in the name

of Jesus, your Son and our

Savior.

Amen.