Freedom through the Narrow Gate [Part 1]

Pastor, author and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

There's a mystery. That which seems to be narrow and constricting, Jesus says, opens up the way to freedom and spaciousness and abundant life. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series called Unleashed, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. You can find out more about it and even receive a copy of your very own for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer at PastorAlan.org. Find out more about it and make your request or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Again, our website, PastorAlan.org. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? There's a mystery. That which seems to be narrow and constricting, Jesus says, opens up the way to freedom and spaciousness and abundant life. We're learning about what real freedom is according to the Gospel, and it runs quite contrary to many popular notions of freedom. In this series we call Unleashed, today we turn to Matthew chapter 7 for what is part of Jesus's concluding words of the famous Sermon on the Mount, which runs from Matthew 5 through Matthew 7. And what we're going to see today is, as we come right down to the center of the mystery, is how it's possible that something that Jesus describes as narrow could actually be good news, quite contrary to any other notion in today's culture. Matthew chapter 7 verse 13.

I start with the English Standard Version, but I'm also going to share with you the NIV afterwards. But the ESV reads like this, enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

I normally like the ESV, but I think that I like the rendering in the NIV better. It's subtle, but it's different. NIV says at Matthew 7 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. But small is the gate and narrow, it uses the word narrow rather than hard here, narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it. What did you hear about the woman who died and she went to heaven, stood at the pearly gates, Peter greeted there and she said, what must I do to enter? And he said, all you have to do is spell a word. And she said, what word is it? He said, love.

And she said, L-O-V-E. He said, right, come in and enjoy eternity. And so she stepped to the pearly gates into heaven and they chatted for a little while. And then Peter said, say, listen, I got to run a few errands.

Would you mind just sort of standing post here at the pearly gates for the next few minutes? And she said, what do I do? He said, well, you know the drill, you just ask them to spell a word. And she said, okay. Well, she was there.

And a few minutes later, to her great surprise, her ex-husband, a scoundrel, cheating, lying dog of a guy, showed up at the pearly gates. And he said, well, what must I do to get in? She said, well, all you got to do is spell a word. And he said, well, what's the word? She said, Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia.

Yeah. Is it hard to get into heaven? Well, most religious systems essentially say yes. At a risk of vast oversimplification, and apologies to anyone who is part of such a faith that might hear me and see I've oversimplified it, but in Buddhism, nirvana is achieved through following an eightfold path. In Hinduism, the goal is to escape out of the cycle of reincarnation, which you do by getting rid of bad karma. Things like Mormonism, you have to be baptized in the Mormon church, go through temple rituals in order to be made temple worthy.

In order to do that, you have to agree to abide by the word of wisdom, which includes restrictions like do not drink hot drinks. And then you have to live out an allegiance that if you're going to get to the highest, heaven has all of these continued requirements. I mean, the list could go on of religious systems. And then comes Christianity, which stands in utter contrast to all of these religious systems. Now, many people don't know that Christianity stands in contrast to these religious systems, but it absolutely does. Because what the Christian gospel says is no, there's not a system or things for you to do, but in fact, what the gospel says is that you could never do enough anyway.

If you wanted to know what that standard was, the standard would be too high, and you would never be able to reach it. And so the gospel is good news in that it says you have one way in, and it's through this person, Jesus. You can't merit heaven, but Jesus did. You can't be perfectly righteous, but Jesus is. And therefore, when you trust in Him, and you just believe with childlike faith in your heart, and you confess it with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, then you're saved. So people hear that, and they say, well, that sounds too easy and too simple.

So is it hard or is it easy? And what Jesus says here may be at first a little confusing when He uses this word narrow to describe the pathway to life. I don't think He's just talking about heaven, though that He is. I think He's talking about life in the kingdom of God, abundant life. And so I want to talk to you today about something that I just don't know of any scripture we could pinpoint that would be more important to talk about so that we as Christians could understand the good news of the narrowness of this gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we could be responsible and responsive in the midst of a culture that really has a religion of pluralism. We have a system of belief around us that essentially says that it's wrong to have a system of belief. And I want us to really understand this. So I think it'll be freeing for you personally, engaging to us as a people, and also helpful to us in understanding how to relate to this culture. So let's start with this. Part of what's confusing is that at first it seems so strange that Jesus would use the word narrow because narrow has negative connotations to it. Most everything you ever talk about. Narrow just feels constricting. It'd be like it's nighttime, it's raining, and you're on a busy highway.

What do you want? A narrow lane with a concrete barrier on the left and no shoulder on the right? No, you'd rather have a broad lane with some wiggle room and you'd feel safer. Interestingly enough, Jesus uses the word stenos in the Greek, and if you ever have a doctor tell you that you have stenosis of something, you don't want to hear that. Not stenosis of the spine or of the arteries or anything, because it means a narrowing. And there's not normally a word that you associate positive things with. The second word that He uses is that the ESV transcends hard, but the NIV translates narrow. It's thlibo, thlibo, and it means also pressed upon. Sometimes it could have the connotation of persecutions that come when you're pressed upon.

But both these words, narrow and compressed and restricted, they're sort of surprising that Jesus would use these words. You don't want to get yourself wiggling in where it gets more and more narrow. I remember years ago in the house we used to live in, we had an odor that began creeping into the house. It was first subtle and then awful, and we started thinking, oh no, smells like something that's crawled up under the crawl space and died.

I mean, this is awful. So my wife, of course, said you're going to have to crawl under there and find out what it is. And I put it off forever until it's so bad I thought, this is awful. And so I put on my spider suit, and I crawled up under the crawl space. This house was a narrow crawl space. At first you could crawl, but then you have to go back through a hole in the foundation and get into the place way more narrow. And I'm not really claustrophobic, but y'all, I got to where I couldn't do anything. The place where the smell seemed to be coming from, it gets more and more narrow until it comes to one part of the house was on a slab. And so it just got narrower and narrower until I got to finally, all I can do is I'm just slithering like a snake.

I can't even lift my head up one inch, you know, and much less could you turn or move or, I mean, and all of a sudden it dawned on me, as horrible as it would be to find a dead creature back here, I'll tell you what would be worse, to find a live creature back here. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. This is what the Lord says, I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.

The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album, Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastoralan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I said, if there is a possum or raccoon or something back in here, he could just come and eat my whole face and I wouldn't even be able to move.

I can't even, I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't move. I think when people think of narrow, that's what they think. Why would I, I don't, I don't want anything narrow in my life because narrow seems to be the opposite of freedom, doesn't it? It is the evangel. It means gospel. It means good news. And that's what it means. And yet it's come to be associated with narrow-mindedness, exclusivity, even bigotry or prejudice or racism. And I just want to pause here for just a moment to say that the part of this culture that is absolutely insistent on rejecting all forms of bigotry, this is something to be celebrated. And where does it come from this idea of smug superiority to other people? Well, it comes from the beginning. What I'm saying is that prejudice and the idea that I'm in and you're out, all of this finds its root if you go all the way back to the dawn of sin. For as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, what happened was they felt ashamed.

They immediately began hiding from each other and hiding from God. Don't ever forget this, that the result of sin is shame. And what shame does, it makes us want to hide, to cover up, to pretend. In other words, it becomes very hard to be honest. And not only do they hide, but they begin shifting and blaming, shifting their shame towards the other.

The woman that you gave me, she gave me the fruit to eat. Because here's what happens. The sense of not measuring up, that's what shame is, is so painful that if you don't know how to be honest with God and others, I mean, if you don't know how to receive the grace of God, if you don't know how to take your shame to God, then what you do is you find yourself burying your own shame. And it is, it is awful. And it might be just subtle, like an angst in the soul, or it might be something paralyzing. But in any event, it feels terrible. And what people do to try to get rid of that varies all the way from living very driven and perfectionistic lives to becoming addicted to substances. But also what people tend to do is they shift that shame towards somebody else. Scapegoat somebody. Blame somebody else.

Listen, if you find yourself being too critical of others, even people you love, you must bring this to God and say, why is this the case? Because usually it is rooted in your own shame. So what happens is that in order to mask insecurity, there has always been, within humanity, people that want to develop systems that say who's in and who's out. So you can put yourself in.

Some of them are just silly. I was, I joined a civic club in high school because it was a civic club in high school because it would look good on my college application. I didn't even care to be part of it. But in order to be in the civic club, which we didn't really do anything of any real civic service, but you had to go through some initiation rites.

And these were just simple and childless things. But one of them was, I had to go and wear a like a graduation gown and stand in front of a public store and sell coat hangers. And I couldn't join the club until I had made a certain amount of money selling the coat hangers.

I made pretty good money actually. You'd be surprised how many people needed coat hangers. But anyway, how silly that is. But of course we have much deeper and more serious things that people do in establishing these systems of who's in and who's out. And nobody, regardless of age or race, nobody who is trying to bear their own shame is immune from this. You can be in the highest socio-economic class and be in the elitist club that has its things that you have to do to be a member.

Or you could be in the lowest, most difficult urban environment and get into a gang that has awful initiations in order to be a part of it. And why I'm saying and taking, belaboring this for a moment is that I want to address this confusion very directly. Because if you think that what Jesus is talking about when He says narrow is the gate, is that it's an invitation to some version of Christianity that is about narrow-mindedness and bigotry. You've completely missed the gospel.

And it's exactly the opposite what Jesus is actually addressing here. We're not a people. We're Christians. We're not a people that are are coming across with a smug superiority that's just irritating people.

We have the very aroma of Christ and love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. I got a real chuckle. My brother who lives in Charlotte was in Winston-Salem on business and he was interacting with a man who I know and he's a good guy but you know different you know different kind of guy than I and in a lot of ways where his theological perspective is. But they got to talking and then it talked about me and my brother said yeah he said the guy said to me I've listened to your brother on the radio a few times and you know he's the least irritating evangelical I've ever heard. And I said I'll take whatever I can get.

I'll take whatever I can get. Jesus here is not talking about a restrictive type of thinking that leads to all of those kinds of expressions of insecurity that I was just describing. He's talking about something that leads into a spaciousness and expansiveness of life. And you must understand therefore that God is not a narrow God. He is an expansive God and He is broad and wide and deep in His love. And what we need the world to know is the expansiveness of the love of God. Some years ago I wrote one of the daily devotionals I write reading Paul's words and realizing how Paul just wishes that he could tell us how great the love of God is. And I wrote it like this I wish I could tell you how wide is the love of God.

You can't go around it. You can't find someone that God doesn't want to reach. God loves people lost in religion and people lost in rebellion. He loves old people and young people. He loves black people and white people and brown people and tan people. He loves people in North Carolina and South Carolina, North Korea and South Korea, the Far East, the Mid East and Down Under. He loves the rich and poor people, educated and illiterate people. He loves those who love Him and He loves those who hate Him. Oh the love of God is wide. Ellen Wright. We're putting a bookmark here and I'm glad we ended there because you hear the title is Freedom Through the Narrow Gate.

Maybe you've got questions. Well, Ellen's back in the studio sharing a parting good news thought for the day in just a moment in our series on Unleashed and of course the conclusion to this teaching in our next broadcast coming right up. This is what the Lord says. I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins and the palace will stand in its proper place. Those timeless words from Jeremiah 30 reveal the heart of God. He loves to restore. In ancient times, cities would often be rebuilt on top of the ruins of the former city.

The new city would stand higher with safer walls and a greater perspective. In Pastor Alan Wright's eight message CD album, Out of the Ruins, you'll discover how God can rebuild your life gloriously out of yesterday's disappointments. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing.

It's free and just a click away at PastorAlan.org. Alan, back here in the studio and freedom through the narrow gate. Some people will say, aha, I caught you. I got you. Right? Freedom, narrow gate.

How are those things exist? Exactly. This might be one of the greatest examples of the paradox of what real freedom is, biblically speaking. Right. Right. In the culture, everybody thinks freedom is wide open gate. All the choices.

Don't tell me what I should do. No version of the truth is better than another version. All of that. But when Jesus speaks of it, he is speaking because he is so for us and loves us so much. The love of God is so incredible. He wants us to have an expansive life. But what Jesus says is you come through what looks like a very narrow, narrow gate. And on the other side of it is that expansive life. The opposite is to look at all of life as if I have this expansive gate. But in fact, in the matter, if you just follow whatever you want and every whim of your life and every feeling you ever had, I think we all know it'll lead to a lot of poor decisions. And that suddenly becomes very constricting. Yes.

Right. So unlimited choices and your freedom actually gets constricted in the end. But a narrow gate through Christ and all the truth of God, he loves you so much. Then on the other side, incredible freedom. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.