The Way of Jesus 1.0

Let us dive in to the passage that I'm gonna preach from

today, and it's just a short one.

And today is all about really laying a foundation for this series, that we are

going to, explore over the weeks ahead.

And we're not sure how many weeks as yet, one of the fun things about.

Being red door, and maybe this will change now that we're stepping into

adulthood, is a lot of churches have their teaching series like

mapped out for 18 months, two years.

I don't even really know what we're doing next week.

I know it's gonna be on this, but I was waiting for this message to land

before I could commit to what's coming.

And so we do know some things, but we don't know how long this series might

go for where the Lord might take it.

So we're quite open-handed with this, but we are certain of one thing.

That the Lord is highlighting something very specific to us through this

series, and I'll just, refer there to the little phrase, a conversation.

Uncovering the way of Jesus.

So today I am gonna preach to you as normal, but from next Sunday

on, we're actually gonna make it more conversational based.

So there'll be two or three of us up here discussing a

topic more than just preaching.

it.

To you.

And, so we felt to go that way for this series at least.

So our scripture for today, let us have a look.

My friends Matthew seven verses 13 to 14, and this is Jesus towards

the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

And he says, these words enter through Thenar Gate.

For why it is the gate.

And broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it.

But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.

And only a few find it.

And so let me begin this way.

Who here listens to podcasts quite regularly?

Yeah.

Like a lot of us write around to our podcasts.

I, I love podcasts.

listen to a whole diverse variety of them.

But have you ever stopped to ask yourself why?

Particularly those of

you who are quite, rampant in your

podcast consumption, why do I listen to all of these podcasts?

Why are we, why do I seek out and to and consume this content?

And so, the podcast universe, it is very vast at expansive, and while much

of it is devoted to current affairs and true crime and entertainment, a rather

significant portion is devoted to content.

That is aimed at, or what can be summed up in the phrase, living your best life now.

How to live your best life now is essentially one way to sum

up a lot of the content that exists out in the podcast verse.

We all wanna know the way to life, to know the way to live that works.

We wanna know what is the way that we can live that will guarantee us the good life.

And so scripture.

Also has much to say on this topic as it turns out.

So we come to this series with this question.

What is the way?

What is the true way?

What is the good way?

What is the way that we can know this life that we all seem, all of

humanity seems so hardwired to long for and to seek out and to pursue.

King David at the end of Psalm 16 writes this, you make

known to me the path of life.

You will fill me with joy in your presence with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

And so the hope and the prayer of this series is exactly this, that

we would uncover this path of life that we would uncover this narrow

road that Jesus is speaking of here at the end of the Sermon on the

Mount, this road that leads to life.

And yes, Jesus is the gate, as he says in.

John nine 10.

And yes, Jesus is a way, as he says in John 14, six.

But with that, there is also a way to live that is the Jesus way and this

is the way that leads to life and it's the only way that leads to life.

And sometimes even though we love Jesus and would say that we are followers of

He way, that way can be covered to us.

And sometimes we need to go on a journey of uncovering his way.

Because sometimes we don't perceive it or sometimes we perceive it

and we resist walking in it.

And so Jesus calls people not just to belief in him, but to follow him, to be

as he is in the world, to be with him, to become like him, and to do what he did.

And why does he do this?

Because he wants to make no one to us, the path of life.

And so let's unpack this a little more, and I wanna begin by talking

about the problem that we face that is revealed in this scripture we just read.

And so Jesus alludes to a problem in this passage, and it's a problem

for us all as we seek to know and walk in the way of Jesus.

So let's just read this passage of scripture again.

It's nice and short.

Enter through the narrow gate for why is the gate.

And broad is a road that leads to destruction and many enter through it, but

small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only if you find it.

So now one error commonly made about this passage is to assume

that it's just talking about who's going to hell and who's not.

And so interpret it this way, I think, is to misinterpret the

fullness of what Jesus is saying here.

This passage, like I said, is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is essentially

Jesus's manifesto for how to live in the way of the kingdom, which is to say

the way to live truly and abundantly with God, who is a source of all life.

In the here and the now, the way that leads to life and flourishing for the

follower of Jesus, causing them to be lights and blessings in the world.

And so these words in Matthew seven, Jesus clearly lays out the reality.

There are two ways to live in this world.

There is a narrow way that leads to life and there is the wide

way that leads to destruction.

The narrow way, which is a life organized and orientated by the presence

of Jesus and his teachings and the wide way, which is a life organized

according to the value systems.

Of the world.

And so what is the problem?

The problem is revealed in Jesus' description of these

two ways, narrow and wide.

Wide means comfortable, convenient, popular, easy to find, easy to walk on.

Narrow means constricted, uncomfortable, hard to perceive, hard to find.

And so the problem revealed here is encapsulated and clarified

in these words from the Book of Proverbs, which many of us are pretty

familiar with in Proverbs 1412.

What do we read?

We got it there, Sharon.

Yep.

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

Another way of phrasing this, there is a way that appears right, because

it appears so wide and good and spacious and comfortable, but in

the end it leads to the destruction of life, not the flourishing of it.

And that is where we are going to go with this series, A deep and careful

examination of the ways that we can be on that scene right to us, but that

are not the way of Jesus at all and therefore they are not good and they do

not, and will not and cannot lead to life regardless of how deeply we feel that

they might be the good and right way.

So in one Timothy, the Apostle Paul talks about those who have

wandered from the faith, who have wandered from the way, and they have

pierced themselves with many grief.

And so to walk this wide way is essentially to do just that, is to,

to pierce yourself with many grief.

And so just let me give you a bit of an example.

If you are sitting here today.

And you are holding onto bitterness, resentment, offense towards another,

and you are feeling justified and right in that place because of the

nature of the wrong done to you.

I would say to you, my friend, you are deceived and you are

piercing yourself with many griefs.

For the way of Jesus is what the way of forgiveness.

Without qualification, you are on the wide way.

That is not right or good, no matter how right.

You might feel it.

To be, and I say this with great compassion, right?

This is why the way is narrow.

'cause how narrow and hard does it feel sometimes to forgive the most painful

of wrongs that have been done to you.

And plenty of people who profess faith in Jesus fall prey to this because

it feels so right sometimes to be offended because of the depth of

the wrong that has been done to us.

But this is the wide way and it just will not lead to life.

It cannot, there is no good way in this.

And I'm not talking about when you in a place of unforgiveness

and you are wrestling, right, you are wrestling on that to go on

that path of forgiveness, right?

I'm talking about when you have just gone, I am justified in my hurt and

your heart has been given over and that bitter root has taken hold.

And so know this, you can be saved and you can not be on the narrow way of Jesus.

You can be saved and still yet in so many ways, be deceived that you

are following Jesus on this narrow way, but actually be on the wide way.

And if you are not already, you will experience the destruction.

Pain of that way.

And so that is with the pastor's heart that I come before you with this series.

It is not to condemn, criticize, judge, make guilty, but it is for

those of you, and we all feel prey to this in different ways, who are

piercing yourselves with many griefs because you are walking the wide way.

Yes, you are.

Child of God, but for some reason, deception has taken hold

and you are walking on a path that is actually destructive.

And so a couple of things to note as we lay this foundation for this series.

There are only two ways.

There is no harmless, benign, Switzerland like third way over and over.

Scripture attest to this dual binary reality.

Right at the beginning in the garden, we see this reality demonstrated.

Right in the beginning in Eden, and as Sandy Richter writes in her book, the

Epic of Eden, she explains it this way.

In Eden, we find Yahweh promising Adam and Eve Paradise if they will

remain loyal to their agreement.

The blessings are many, the stipulations few.

In fact, the only negative stipulation is you shall not eat of the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil.

On the surface, this seems like a simple, even silly rule, but in

reality, this one edict encompasses the singular law of Eden.

God is God, and we are not.

If humanity would simply acknowledge the innate authority of the creator

would recognize that they were tenants and stewards in God's garden, they

would live in paradise forever.

But if they had to have access to every part of the garden, if they had to be

free to choose their own rules and decide for themselves what was good and evil, if

they had to be autonomous of the authority of the Great King, then they would die.

And you know the story.

The choice was autonomy.

The covenant was broken, and the curse was enacted.

So right from the beginning, we see these two ways demonstrated right in the garden.

Consider these words of Moses to the Israelites as they're preparing

to enter the promised land found in Deuteronomy 30, 15 to 20.

And we got it on the screen here.

See, I set before you today, life and prosperity, death destruction.

I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him.

The narrow way and to keep his commands, decrees and laws,

then you will live and increase.

And the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient and if you are drawn away

to bow down to other gods and worship them, IE wide way, I declare to you this

day that you will certainly be destroyed.

I have said before, you life and death blessing and cursing.

Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that

you may love the Lord your God.

Listen to his voice.

Hold fast to him.

For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land

that he swore to give your fathers.

And so then fast forward again.

Also in the Old Testament though, as you read so many of the prophets

in the Old Testament, what is they called to the people of Israel?

You are on the wrong way.

Come back to the way of God.

In Jeremiah six 16, we see these very famous words.

This is what the Lord says.

Stand at the crossroads and look.

Ask for the ancient paths.

Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest.

For your souls, you will find life.

And so there are only two ways, and one of the deceptions we can

easily fall into is believing that there is a neutral third way.

And so perhaps we know, or we've gotten a nagging sense that we're not actually

walking in full devoted obedience to God in certain areas, but we like to

think we're okay because we're not doing obvious, obvious e evil, like,

you know, swearing or murdering.

And of course our intentions are good and we go to church relatively regularly.

We might even tithe the, if not tithe, we at least give when we

feel really compelled and move to.

But as for loving enemies and turning the other cheek and going the extra mile,

forgiving where it seems impossible, not judging others well, those ways,

they're really hard and it's not, it's surely 'cause I go to church and I do

some good stuff, that it's, it's okay if I don't actually walk in those ways.

Right.

And so we can't allow ourselves to be deceived and we all do this in different

ways, that there is a neutral third way.

There isn't scripture does not afford us that.

And so why is the way narrow?

This is a really good question to wrestle with.

The way isn't narrow, let me say this, because God is trying to be tricky

and enjoys making life hard for us.

It's narrow because of the corruption of our own hearts.

It's narrow because we wanna be God.

And this goes back to the Eden story.

If our hearts were not corrupt, if our wills were not broken, the way of

Jesus wouldn't actually look and feel so narrow and hard and restrictive.

It would look spacious and good and beautiful.

But because we are corrupted, sinful and selfish by nature,

our perception is distorted.

And what is good now looks bad to our natural eye.

And so this is what Paul refers to as the reality of our fleshly nature.

And he speaks of this here in Galatians five, verses 16 to 21.

When he says, so I say walk.

By the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the

flesh for the flesh desires.

What is contrary to the spirit and the spirit?

What is contrary to the flesh?

They're in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want.

The acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality and purity.

Deery, idolatry and which craft hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish

ambition, dissensions factions and envy.

Drunkenness, orgies and the like.

I warn you, as I did before that those who.

Live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, when he says inherit there, take that as meaning for those who live like this

will not walk in the way of the kingdom, will not experience the goodness of the

way of the kingdom, will not experience the joy and the peace and the flourishing

and the true abundant life that only comes from living in the kingdom of.

God and my friends, as we come before this text, be very careful that we don't

just focus in on words like orgies and go, well, I don't have orgies, so I'm okay.

Right?

'cause we do, that's the part of our slippery nature, right?

We just pick the most dramatic evil thing in there and go, well,

I'm not that so, so I'm good.

Don't do that.

Okay?

Don't wiggle out from under this.

All right?

When the conviction falls, it is a blessing and it's a goodness of God to.

Put you onto the narrow path that leads to life.

He's good God, he's a good dad.

He wants you to know his good life.

And so there are parts in that passage I just read that are true of all of us.

We all engage in jealousy in some form.

We can all get really angry.

We all have selfish ambition driving us.

Just when you've been around church long enough, you just get really good

at sanctifying it and putting it up.

But if we look at their hearts boldly and bravely with full courage, knowing

that in the sight of God, he still loves us, this isn't about proving our worth

to him, and we can look at it and go, oh Lord, okay, there is this ugliness here,

which is not of your way, which is if I give myself over to it, I'm only gonna

be piercing myself with many griefs.

And so the way of Jesus, it is not the way of our own heart.

Right.

Common wisdom of our day sprouted in different forms.

In songs, movies, advertising, and books is the wisdom of follow your own heart.

Yeah.

And you will find the good life there.

How often do we hear it?

We play a game in our house called Babylon.

Bingo.

Talked about this before.

So you've got the culture of Babylon, which is basically in scripture.

Is is there?

Yes, Babylon was a real place, but it's also used to represent all that is anti

Kingdom of God.

And so, you know, when

we're sitting, watching movies or whatever and, you know, you

hear one of these phrases, it's like, oh, just follow your heart.

And the music plays, and it's just like, oh, of course I've just gotta follow.

I've just gotta be true to myself.

Babylon.

Bingo.

Right?

Because that's the message of Babylon.

That is not the way of the kingdom.

Why?

Because our hearts are in a process of being healed.

Our broken wills mean we are now naturally turn in on

ourselves with our primary focus.

Seeking to live first for our own good, seeking our own way.

Let me ask you this, this question, church.

How often do you have to have your own way?

Think about, you know, for those of you who are married,

I have a shocker for this.

I love my own way.

I'm so convinced that my way is the right way, and if only Adam would just submit

to my superior wisdom and understanding, then our life would be good.

Right?

Oh, I've just firstborn are the worst at this.

And Adam and I are both first born.

So welcome to the dynamic nature of our marriage, because

we both see this way, right?

How much do you have to have your own way for you to be at peace,

for you to feel okay in the world?

I. It is a really good question to sit with, and it was quite a

humbling one for me to sit with.

Let me tell you that.

Oh my gosh.

So is this not, unless I've just said one of the mantras of our

culture, look out for number one, you gotta put yourself first.

You are the most important person in your world.

Be true to yourself.

And just like you wouldn't trust a broken compass to guide

you, your heart is broken.

It is not a reliable guide.

It is very easily deceived.

Our hearts and our wheels, they are broken.

They don't work as they were intended to.

We desire the wrong things.

We desire self-harming ways.

All those ways that Paul talked about in Galatians five, we just read.

They are self-harming ways that we can walk in.

And this is the common human condition that Jesus came to heal, to give

us a new heart, to heal our broken hearts, our broken wills that we

wouldn't just behave rightly, but that we would actually desire to do so.

This is what we've gotta be careful of with series like this.

I'm not preaching moralism.

What we are talking about is deep heart transformation.

So you wouldn't just have to grid it out and walk the way of Jesus, but that your

heart would be so formed and transformed.

That is what you would desire to do.

Is that not how Jesus lived?

You know, my will is to the will of the one who sent me, and that is, you

know, we talked about Pentecost Sunday.

You know, that's one of the roles of the Holy Spirit within us is to

help form us into people's whose.

Desire what God desires.

Dallas Willard puts it, frames it this way.

I've got it on the screen here.

Jesus calls us friends if we do what he commands in John 1514.

As God's friends, we always wanna be asking God what he's doing and

how he wants us to work with him.

Friends are people who understand one another, and so as friends of Jesus,

we obey because we understand what God.

Our intimate friend is doing.

His intent for us is that we would grow to the point.

We would do what we want, because what we want is part of that shared

understanding with God our friend.

This is what it is to be a child of God.

This is what it is to be a follower of Jesus, just to be transformed into one

who can walk the way of Jesus and who wants to, we desire the same things

as God, and so we can easily slip into a Christian life that is all about

gritting it out, gritting out a life of obedience to the way of Jesus, and

this is not what God wants for us.

No good parent wants to see their child obeying out of fear.

Or out of trying to earn love and approval.

That's horrible, isn't it?

Jesus kind of set us free from the slavery of this way of living.

Living under fear.

But, and as we remember, like we said, Pentecost Sunday today, he

also gives us his spirit to empower us to live in his way, to guide us

in his way, and to transform us so that we will want what God wants.

And so let me shift now to another fundamental component

for this series as we seek to lay a foundation and let me pose.

A really important question to you.

Do you trust Jesus?

Do you trust him?

Most often, what lies at the heart of our struggle to choose to know and

to walk in the narrow way of Jesus is that we actually have a trust problem.

And I think if we truly trusted Jesus and took him out's word,

we would walk that narrow way.

He speaks of freely and with full confidence.

Knowing that even though, yeah, sometimes it can be really hard and sometimes

it can be really quite painful, always very inconvenient that it is good.

If we truly trusted, we would gladly give up our way.

For his, our selfish, self-centered, self-focused ways.

We would gladly dispense off them.

We would see them for the absolute garbage that they are, and we would

turn from them, run from them, and take up his ways if we truly trusted.

I. If we truly trusted, we would walk gladly in obedience to all of it.

But we resist, we refuse.

We even rebel sometimes.

Some of you, even as we sit here right now, you know God is calling

you to walk a certain way in a specific situation, have just gone no.

You're in a toddler's risen up and you're going, no,

I don't wanna, and there is a real

test of obedience for you at the moment.

And this place that you find ourselves.

Just think for a moment, the story of the rich young ruler.

I mean, it's a story that's appears in three of the four

gospel accounts.

And, so we have this

young guy who comes before Jesus and he wants to know how to get eternal life.

How do I get the good life, Lord?

How do I get eternal life guaranteed.

You know, I've done all of this, I've done all of that since birth.

I've been, you know, my performance has

been stellar.

And, Jesus says, you

know, go, go away.

Sell everything you have, give the money to the poor and then come follow me.

And so we say easily just narrow that story down to being around about money.

Yeah.

And the dangers of money and the dangers of worshiping money and how

it can stop us from following Jesus.

But actually the, the deeper truth that underlies this is the rich young ruler.

He didn't so much have a money problem.

He has a trust problem.

He couldn't trust Jesus.

The what?

The good way for him was the way of wealth.

That was where the good way was guaranteed and he just wanted that assurance

from Jesus that all these other stuff he was doing was gonna, you know.

Double guarantee for him that he would have the good life,

eternal life.

And, he couldn't do it.

And he walked away sad, because ultimately he did

not trust his life to Jesus.

And so let us consider for a moment the words of King David in Psalm 25.

We got it on the screen here.

Oh Lord, I give my life to you, declares David.

I trust in you.

My God.

Show me the right path.

Oh Lord.

Point out the road for me to follow.

Lead me by your truth and teach me for you are the God who saves me all day long.

I put my hope in you.

The Lord is good and does what is right.

He shows the proper path to those who go astray.

He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way.

The Lord leads with unfailing love and faithfulness all who keep his

covenant and obey his demands.

Who are those who fear the Lord?

He will show them the path they should choose.

They will live in prosperity and their children will inherit the land.

The Lord is a friend to those who fear him.

He teaches them his covenant.

My eyes are always on the Lord, but he rescues me from the trap of my enemies.

And so this psalm speaks loudly of trust in confidence and God, and it

speaks with petition and expectation about desiring and needing to know,

wanting to know the ways of God.

But it begins with a declaration of trust.

If we look back for a moment, the series was, came out of Philippians.

What was one of the striking realities of the Apostle Paul that just leaps

off almost every paragraph of that letter, and it's, and it's this

reality that enabled Paul to live with unshakeable joy while staying faithful,

joyously, faithful to the call of God and to the way of God, and it was his

profound trust and confidence in Jesus.

That's where it all came from for Paul.

And so King David in this psalm, he trusts God with his life.

He trusts the character God, to be one in whom he can put his whole trust and hope.

He trusts in the unfailing love and the faithfulness of God.

He knows that God delights to show those who are devoted to Him his ways, and he

knows that the ways of God are the ways to life, the only way to life for the

individual, for the community, and for the generations that will come from them.

And so from this psalm, let us resolve now to take hold of what David knew,

that God's ways are good, that they lead to life, that God wants to show

us his ways and to know His ways, though requires trust and humility.

Or another way of saying it, it requires walking in the fear of the Lord.

As David said in that psalm.

And so in light of this, let us consider the very familiar wisdom that is exhorted

in Proverbs three, five to eight, and there'll be very few of us here who aren't

familiar with this passage in some way.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Lean not on your own understanding in all your ways.

Submit to him and he will make your path straight.

Do not be wise in your own eyes.

Fear the Lord and shun evil.

This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones.

Again, it's just the same way of saying it's a different way of

saying what we have been talking about throughout this message.

So question though, where do we get this trust?

If only there was a pill, if only there was a switch that we could flick.

Trust is hard.

Well, we know this, don't we?

Trust is hard.

Trust is really hard on this subject of trust.

Brennan Manning in his brilliant book that I just love so much called

Ruthless Trust writes, unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing

because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.

When we face rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unemployment, loneliness,

depression, the loss of a loved one, when we are deaf to everything but the shriek

of our own pain, when the world around us suddenly seems a hostile, menacing place,

at those times, we may cry out in anguish.

How could a loving God permit this to happen?

At such moments, the seeds of distrust are so, it requires heroic courage to

trust in the love of God, no matter.

What?

It's good, isn't it?

And so there's very few of us here in this room that cannot relate to these words.

And so by the way, of growing and fueling our trust in Jesus, let

me draw our attention back to a lion from Psalm 25 that we read,

and it's this little lion here.

My eyes are always on the Lord.

What we are looking at will be what we are trusting in, what we give

our attention and our thoughts to.

What do you spend most of your time thinking about?

What are the false gods, the anti Jesus ways that you, my friends, are tempted

to trust in, you know, one of the ways of Jesus that we are called to walking

continually is this way of repentance.

And so repentance means changing direction, changing your mind.

What false gods, what anti Jesus ways might you be trusting in that

you need to renounce and repent of?

This was one of God's continual corrections to the Israelites

through his prophets in the Old Testament, you are worshiping,

you are trusting in false gods.

Repent.

Come back to me, walk in my good and life-giving ways.

And while it's unlikely there are any bal worshipers amongst us, we are at the

end of the day, a room full of idolaters.

I do not want to offend anyone, but we are, I think it was Augustine who said

The human heart is an idle factory.

We will worship.

Anything and everything except God.

There is a reason why the first commandment is you shall have no

other gods before me, because of the waywardness of the human heart.

We are constantly latching on.

I find it, I've been in Jeremiah at the moment, and I just find

it so constantly perplexing.

The depths of idol worship that God's people were drawn into, even after all

that they had experienced with God.

They, they were sacrificing their own children to mole.

This is how far the people of God had fallen.

How far off the ways of God they had been drawn.

Oh, how, how can you have no one so much of Yahweh's good and

gracious presence, and they yet still worship these other gods?

But we gotta be careful of going, oh, stupid Israelites.

Dumb.

No, because we're them.

They're us.

The same brokenness of heart, same problem.

Abounds.

We are just as susceptible to deception as they were.

And so anything, even very good things that we orient our lives around other

than God seeking to get from them, what only God can give hope, significant

security identity, these things are idols.

And so my hope is that this series will be a journey of repentance where

we can be challenged to see the ways we're walking in and trusting in that

are not the ways of Jesus, where we will have our wide ways exposed and

the way to get off the wide way.

And onto the narrow is repentance.

It's the only way.

And so to help clarify this in light of what we've been talking about, let me

read to you these words of Tim Keller.

He says this on repentance.

Martin Luther opened the Reformation by nailing the 95 thesis to the door of the

Wittenberg Cathedral, which was read.

So it goes fun, fun fact, maybe.

the very first of these thesis was our Lord and master Jesus Christ will

the entire life of believers to be one of repentance on the surface.

This looks a little bleak.

Luther seems to be saying Christians will never be making much progress.

But of course that wasn't Luther's point at all.

He was saying that repentance is the way we make progress in the Christian

life, in religion, the purpose of repentance is basically to keep

God happy, so he will continue to bless you and answer your prayers.

This means that religious repentance is a selfish B, self-righteous, and

C bitter all the way to the bottom.

But in the gospel, the purpose of repentance is to repeatedly tap into

the joy of our union with Christ in order to weaken our need to do

anything contrary to God's heart.

That is so good.

Have that view of repentance in mind.

It is not to keep God happy with you if that is your view of repentance.

You have missed the gospel and you need to come back to the gospel,

but we'll get into that in a moment.

The purpose of repentance is to repeatedly tap into the joy of our union with

Christ in order to weaken our need to do anything contrary to God's heart.

I. Yeah, there is a, there's an old sermon

that I constantly come back to and I reference for people.

I think it was, oh, I think we're going back to the 17 hundreds here.

Preacher by the name of Thomas Charmers preached a sermon

called The Expulsive Power of a

New Affection.

And, his point was for

order us to truly change our behavior, it doesn't come from trying harder.

It doesn't come from guilting ourselves, condemning ourselves.

It comes from standing before the beauty and the wonder of God and having our

affection for him expel our affections for anything else, for any other way.

And so I wanna set before you with this in mind, a challenge for the week ahead.

So some homework.

Who likes homework?

Yay.

No, not of hands.

Church, come on.

It's good.

It's fun.

Homework and a way to tap into the joy of our union with Christ

as Kel Keller speaks of here.

A way to keep our eyes on the Lord and to have our trust in him

strengthened as we gaze upon him.

So your mission, we adore church family, if you choose to accept it.

It's very timely at the moment.

Latest Mission Impossible movie came out.

Anyway, I won't go down that rabbit hole.

your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to read and think about Psalm 23, 3

times each day to write it out, to keep it on your person, to set a reminder on your

phone, whatever you need to do to come before this psalm, three times a day to

think about it, to read it, to meditate on it, to pray through it, five, 10 minutes,

three times each day for one week.

And so let's read it now.

Because if we get the truth of this sermon to our hearts, it just

postures us in a beautiful place of trust and reliance upon God.

So the Lord is my shepherd.

I like nothing.

Stop right there.

Just, just, just meditate on those words there alone.

If you were to do that a few times a day, just on that first verse,

it would do wonders for your heart.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths.

For his name sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil.

For you are with me.

Your rod and your staff.

They comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil, my cup over your flows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I would

dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Imagine stopping and pausing with this throughout your day.

How is this gonna orient your thinking?

The posture of your heart?

It's gonna bring you to a place of peace and trust, isn't it?

And that's part of the renewing of your mind.

Yeah.

That's how we transform the renewing of our mind as we come

before the truth of who he is.

So in saying this, and as I bring this to a close.

Let us remember and remind ourselves of the good news that we won't throughout

this series, fall into the temptation of some kind of moralistic legalism.

Yeah, we won't be trying to do the right thing.

Obey in order to earn God's approval.

So Ephesians two verses one through two.

Actually, it's more than one to three.

I think it's about one to seven.

And this is a passage we actually referenced last Sunday as well.

And let's just read it and ponder the meaning of it.

As for you, as for all of us, we were dead in our transgressions and

sins in which we used to live when we followed the ways of this world.

And the ruler of the Kingdom of the Air, the spirit who is now at work in those

who are disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying

the cravings of our flesh and following his desires and thoughts like the rest.

We were by nature deserving of wr. But because of his great love for

us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when

we were dead in transgressions.

It is by grace.

You have been saved.

It is by grace you have been saved.

It's not because you have walked the right way.

It's not because you have done a bunch of good things.

It is by grace.

You have been saved and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him

in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable

riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

For it is by grace.

You have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not by work so that no one can boast.

For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good work, created

in Christ Jesus, to walk in his ways.

These good ways, these good works, which God has prepared in advance for us.

And so the message of the gospel, see the message of every other

self-righteous way of living.

The message of every other religious way of living is you walk the narrow way to

prove yourself worthy of being saved.

That is not the message of the gospel.

That is not the message of Jesus.

The message of Jesus is, I am the gate.

You come through me, my grace is sufficient for you, and now you walk

this narrow way because I'm with you on it and I'm empowering you to walk it.

I've sent my spirit, which is the message of Pentecost Sunday.

To empower you and to form you into the kind of person who can live in this way.

In the here and now, and this is important, I mean, constantly challenging

this misrepresentation of the gospel here at Red Door, Jesus did not come

to give you your ticket to heaven so that you could just live mindly

however you want in the in-between.

Yeah, he came to call you into his kingdom.

Now repent for the kingdom of heaven is here It is now.

Yeah.

And so we enter it through Jesus, through the blood of Christ, through

the life of Christ that we just remembered, that we participate in,

that we are permanently united to.

So it is with all the freedom in the world.

That we pursue the narrow road, knowing that we have everything

we need and all that we truly need can never be taken from us.

So we can go with full confidence, we can go, even when it doesn't make sense

to us in our natural mind, we can go and walk his ways when it's hard and it's

sacrificial and seems really painful and counterintuitive because at the end

of the day, we cannot lose anything.

That truly matters to us because we have the fullness of it now, and that is the

glorious promise of the gospel that sets us on a shore foundation to love and

walk in the ways of Jesus, for the glory of God, for the good of the world, and

for our own human flourishing as well.

You know my friends, you who are parents, you who are husbands, wives, friends,

mothers, daughters, the greatest blessing that you can be to the people around you.

Somebody who loves the narrow way of Jesus and is committed to walk on it.

Because what does that do That forms the life of Christ in you and not

just in you, out of you through you.

What was the call?

Of God to the Israelites.

He said, you're gonna go into exile, into Babylon, you're gonna be exiled, right?

But in that place, seek the peace and the prosperity of the city into

which I have called you for if it prospers, you too will prosper.

He says to them, that same core rest upon us and how do we seek the peace

and the prosperity of the city?

We don't seek it.

By being flipping keyboard warriors and judgmentally without outrage.

That's the way of the world.

I don't care how many scriptures you add to it, right?

Critique the world, condemn the world around us.

That's not the way of Jesus.

That's not how we see the world around us.

Transformed for the glory of God.

It is as we ourselves are transformed and step as people of light in the

way of Jesus into the world, that the world around us becomes blessed.

Amen.

All right, team, come on up.

Let us pray.

Just close your eyes and bow your heads for a moment.

Church, Lord,

we come before you Lord, with our hearts.

Father, which we acknowledge in all humility can be very wayward

and susceptible to deception.

But Lord, we come before you knowing you are our good Father and

you desire to show us your ways.

And you do not condemn us or shame us Lord, but to you, with such

generosity, give us yourself.

Give us your spirit.

To lead and guide us.

So come Holy Spirit, as we prayed right at the beginning of this service, come

Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit, and lead us on the path of repentance that where

we are not on the good way of Jesus, your conviction would come and lead us onto the

right way, the good way, the narrow way.

And Lord we pray for courage this morning.

I pray for courage for every soul here, courage to be able

to trust you wholeheartedly.

To lean upon you, Lord, not on our own understanding, but in all our ways to

lean upon you and to acknowledge you, to submit to you even, and especially

when these ways may not make sense or they seem so hard and so costly.

Lord, we ask for divine courage,

and we thank you Lord, that you are a good father.

And that you delight in us and that you wanna show us the way to life.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.