The Path of Life
Notes
Transcript
We are on the home stretch of the sermon on the mount. What Jesus did in one shot, we are doing in…a lot more! But in Matthew 7:13 Jesus begins to draw things to a conclusion. He had been sharing who people in the kingdom of God are supposed to be, and that determines how the people in his kingdom are supposed to behave. Attitude before action, character before conduct, being before behavior. The next several weeks will look at the choice between two things, leading to different outcomes.
Do you ever wonder how we got along without GPS navigation built in to our phones and vehicles? We put a lot of trust in modern technology to help us get where we want to go. When I started driving, I still had to print directions from Map Quest. I’m convinced most older people have a greater sense of direction than us because you had to experience it to know it. I have the value of knowing exactly what my route is going to look like before I get in the car. GPS navigation is a wonderful thing. When it works properly, it tells you exactly where to go.
I want you to remember this statement:
The path you choose determines your destination.
The path you choose determines your destination.
If you want to arrive at the proper destination, you have to follow the proper path. If you want to get from Three Rivers to California, you would probably want to drive north to San Antonio, get on I-10 headed west, and it will take you all the way to Los Angeles. But if you get to San Antonio and head east, you may get to Jacksonville, Florida, but you will never arrive in California. The path you choose determines your destination.
In the next section of his sermon, Jesus draws a contrast between two gates.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
“For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
What Jesus is talking about here are two diverging paths. At the end of one path is a wide gate. The path to get to that gate is wide itself. The other is a second path that is narrow, leading to a narrow gate. Many take the broad path to the wide gate, but few take the path to the narrow gate. The wide gate leads to destruction. The narrow gate leads to life.
Now, as we listen to the words of Jesus, we may be asking why anyone would want to take the broad path to the wide gate leading to destruction. The answer is simple. They don’t know what is behind the gate, and at one point in time, neither did you. Imagine you have been hiking in the wilderness.
You have been following this trail hoping it will lead you to the way back to safety and civilization. Then you come to a fork in that road. You have a decision to make. Do you go left, or do you go right?You meet a man in the road and he tells you if you take the path to the left, it leads to the way of safety. You look down that path. It looks nice. It is wide, spacious, and looks easy to navigate. Others are headed in that direction, but there are a few headed down the other direction claiming that the path to the right is the way back to safety. How do you know who to believe? A choice has to be made. The path you choose determines your destination.
Everybody is on a path. The question is whether the path you are on will lead you to the right destination. The Bible says that God has a design for our lives. We will call this design the path of life.
You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
There is a path God has laid out for you. If you will follow that path, you can know God. You can experience his peace, discover his purpose, and have the assurance that you will be with him for eternity when you die. The problem is we have all lost our way and have gone off course from God’s path. The Bible says,
All of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way;
But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him.
The Bible has a word for straying away from God’s path: sin. Romans 3:23 says,
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Every one of us has chosen to take our own path. We exchanged God’s way for our own way, and though we may not realize it, we are going the opposite direction from God.
Ultimately, if we continue down this road, we will hit a wall. This usually comes in the form of a crisis or difficulty. It’s then we realize we are missing something. We don’t have a relationship with God. We don’t have his peace. We don’t know his purpose. We don’t have assurance of what happens to us when we die. Oftentimes, God uses a crisis or difficulty to get our attention. Our sin leads us down a road that is far from God and will end in not just physical death, but spiritual death and separation from God forever. This is the bad news of the Bible, but that is not where the story ends.
The good news is when we could not get to God, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Though Jesus was God, he set aside his eternal glory and was born a baby. He grew up like you and me, lived our life, yet did not sin. He was perfect in every way. Therefore, he was able to step in as our substitute to pay for our sin. The judgment we are owed was paid out to him.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Instead of being paid out death, we are paid out life because Jesus took our sin on himself and the penalty that went with it. The Bible also says,
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
On the night before his death, Jesus told his disciples,
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
The path we are on leads to destruction unless we trust Jesus and allow him to take us and put us on the right path. He is the only way to get back to a place of peace, of purpose, and assurance. He warns his listeners in this sermon on the mount not to choose another path. For that path leads to destruction. So we go back to the illustration from earlier. There are two diverging paths. One is wide and spacious. The other is narrow. Many are choosing the wide and spacious path. The choice we make is an act of faith. Who are we going to believe? Are we going to believe ourselves? Are we going to believe the one who says that the wide and spacious path is best? Or do we believe Jesus? Why do we believe Jesus? Because he rose from the dead.
We have many reasons to believe Jesus is who he said he was. He fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from the Old Testament. He demonstrated divine power over the element. He healed the sick, lame, and blind. Then he was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead. This is evidenced by eyewitness testimony, the fact that his followers were willing to die without recanting, and the fact that nobody could produce a body. If Jesus rose from the dead, he is God. And if Jesus is God, he is the only hope we have at returning to the path that leads us to God, to peace, to purpose, and assurance.
How do we get there? Two words: repent and believe. To repent means to turn around. It means we abandon the path we have set out on for ourselves. It means we no longer choose our own way, but embrace God’s way. To believe means to trust Jesus died for your sins, was buried and rose again. Trust means you are willing to follow Jesus down the narrow path that leads to life. Each choice is an act of faith. Who are you going to trust?
I have a very important question for you. Where do you think you are on this diagram right now? Do you find yourself on the path God has for you? Have you diverged from that path and chosen your own way? Are you in a place where you feel far from God? The answer is to repent of your sins and believe the gospel of Jesus. Whether you know you have been a child of God for a long time or whether you are realizing now that you never really had a relationship with him, if you are far from God, please turn to him. He will forgive your sins and you will be back on the path that leads to peace, purpose, and assurance.
If you know you are walking the path God has laid out for you, then it is your job to share this with others. Who is one person you know who is far from God that you could share this with this week? Begin praying for that person. Begin praying for boldness. Begin praying for the fertility of the soil you might sow in.