Transcript
To be a disciple of Jesus, I pointed out last week, is to be a follower of His.
And to be a follower of Jesus is to confess that He is Lord, that is to say He is the
one ordained of God to restore a fallen and broken world back to God and to all the blessings
of His kingdom.
It means to spend time with Him.
It means to learn from Him with the view of changing our behavior so that we become like
the Master and it means ultimately sharing in His mission to make disciples of all nations.
And it is making disciples that Paul and Barnabas are after here in Acts chapter 14 as they
wind up their missionary journey.
They're not just interested in winning converts, they're interested in winning men and women
who are devoted followers of Jesus and so it is that having reached the end of their
first missionary journey, they now turn around and they revisit the cities where they had
established churches and had won Christian converts.
Listen again to how Acts puts it in that verse that we've read many times together, Acts
chapter 14 verse 21, "Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening
the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith."
We're having a problem getting that slide up, but we'll go on.
So the question that we've been considering together is the question, how do they go about
strengthening and encouraging the disciples?
Remember they lived in a hostile world, all three of the cities that they're visiting,
they had tried to get rid of Paul and one of them they had tried to kill him.
How do you keep believers going in that kind of a hostile environment?
Well as I've pointed out in these short verses that we've read together, there are in fact
three strategies that the Apostle Paul follows to strengthen and to encourage the disciples
and so far we have started to look at the first of them and that is this, he gives a
very realistic picture of the Christian life.
He gives them a very realistic picture of the Christian life, he says we must go through
many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.
We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.
And so far we have identified, we have looked at one of three reasons why it is through
many hardships that we enter the kingdom of God.
The first reason is because the gate is narrow and the verse that we reference is Matthew
7, 13 and 14, enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad 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 if we can get this picture back up, this is of course the picture that we were looking
at last week, it is the classic illustration of the broad road and the narrow road and
since last week I did a little further investigation as to the history of this and the history
is very interesting because it was first published in 1886 in Stuttgart, Germany and the artist
was Paul Beckman but the art was commissioned by a rich merchant woman by the name of Charlotte
Ryland.
Now Charlotte was the daughter of a preacher but had drifted away from the faith that in
the early years of her marriage had lived a pretty worldly life.
She got married, she had a number of children after her third child was born, her second
child age two took sick and died.
She viewed that as God's correcting discipline in her life and so she turned back to the
faith of her youth and gave herself to the Lord and became actively involved in evangelism
and as part of engaging in evangelism she engaged Paul Beckman to draw up this particular
picture modeling the old way of life that she used to live versus the new way of life
that she had adopted and it's a very fascinating history and very telling in terms of her life.
The scripture passages that the poster is full of was designed to engage people in conversation
and so we've taken the liberty to produce a smaller version of that poster and I've
put the scripture readings in larger print so that even the oldest among us can read
them but here's what I want to recommend, those of you that have families of school
age children particularly, we have a limited number of copies of both of the desks, take
it home with you, make a game out of that.
See who can look up a passage the fastest, read the passage because it is illuminating
what scripture passages are referred to in the process of trying to communicate this
particular truth.
So to carry on from last week we saw that each of the two ways has a gate and the world
has a very broad gate that you can see over here and the kingdom of God has a very narrow
gate that you can see on this end and the reason for the narrow gate as we saw is that
the broad gate, let me back up and say the broad gate, all you have to do is be born
into the world and live a natural life and you're automatically on the wrong road.
You don't have to do anything to be wrong.
It comes naturally but to get through the narrow gate you've got to come to Jesus, you've
got to come through faith and you have to leave all your sin behind and everything else
that you find your identity in and that is extremely difficult sometimes and that is
why entering into the kingdom for many people is difficult.
So Jesus puts it this way, make every effort to enter through the narrow door because many
I tell you will try to enter and will not be able to.
Don't know about you but I've always found those to be exceedingly sobering words.
Think of Lot's wife so attached to Sodom she couldn't bear to leave it behind.
Think of the five foolish virgins who were awaiting the coming of the bridegroom but
they didn't have enough oil they weren't prepared and they got locked out of the kingdom.
Think of the rich young ruler couldn't part with his wealth and therefore turned his back
on the coming of God's kingdom.
Well that's what we pick it up this morning not only is the gate into the kingdom very
narrow so says Jesus is the road.
The road is narrow as well and the verse again small is the gate and narrow the road that
leads to life and only a few find it.
And that of course stands in sharp contrast to the previous verse wide is the gate if
we can put that slide up wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction
and many enter through it.
So again notice you have a broad gate and you have a narrow gate and then the broad
gate leads to a wide road and the narrow gate leads to a narrow road.
Keep that picture up for just a moment and let me point out a number of the features
of the broad road last week I pointed out a number of them a dance hall a casino and
a theater but there's subtle nuances in there that you almost need a magnifying glass to
be able to try to find and here's one of them you can't read that possibly from back there
but on this pillar that holds up the welcome sign is the name Bacchus.
Let me see how much you know about ancient mythology anybody remember who Bacchus is?
That's right he was the god of wine merrymaking and partying he was the one responsible for
putting people under the influence of the wrong spirit and so you can't see it very
well here but this is a drinking party over on the side.
Over here on this pillar you find the name Venus the goddess of sex beauty and all of
that kind of thing so right behind that pillar is a lady of the night propositioning this
man so there you see values of the word lust of the eyes the pride of life and the lust
of the flesh and then of course here's a guy who was beating the snot out of his donkey
here are people engaged in buying and selling here's the lottery over here here's a guy
being held up and nations at war over on this end and of course this Sunday train which
as I said last week must have been a big issue back in those days to place it that close
to the fires of hell you know that's an interesting little aside.
It's interesting just for your information that let me just move that along to the next
one I got to show you this one the next picture please there's something with my clicker today
that's given us trouble up there here is a new version of the broad in the narrow way
number of years ago a preacher in a setting such as this in fact a church called Maranatha
Church in the Netherlands put a challenge out to his congregation for somebody to come
up with a new version so two men took him up on that they engaged the services of an
artist and this is what they came up with and we won't spend a lot of time on it but
you can't help but notice that's a rather huge golden calf over here somebody's watching
a big screen TV a pretty bare lady there just for the record here's the guy trying to entice
him in I like this little choir doing their little evangelism in front of the narrow gate
here you have your drinking party again here is the house of prostitution these people
are dancing this lady is coming out of the supermarket which is open seven days a week
and what I like is is this church which is half underwater and I think the point is that
this is a church that waters down the gospel and over here is a guy in black who represents
the magical powers of darkness and of course you can't see the forest for the trees and
the intent of that is to put it in the hands of young people to have conversations together
about the Broadway versus the narrow way so in contradiction to that is of course the
narrow road if we can have that slide back up please the narrow road let me point out
some of its features because they're also very interesting there's of course the fountain
of water where you draw life from Jesus but over here is a church building because one
of the first things that happens when you come to faith in Christ is you begin to share
in the life of God's people and you're drawn together over here is a Sunday school not
sure what the little bridge represents that verse says that Jesus is the way I suspect
the water represents the waters of baptism but particularly interesting are these three
buildings because this is a hospitality tent a cup of cold water a given in the name of
the Lord this is in fact I'm pretty sure an orphanage and this is a deaconess building
and there's an interesting history to that because Charlotte Ryland was instrumental
in building a place in Stuttgart an institute for taking care of the poor and at the highest
point of its history in the 1920s they had 1,200 women living in there and you know from
our kind of terminology it's almost like a hospital or a place of respite for people
who are in trouble so the path starts rather steeply because the Christian life is a climb
up when you first get into it then there's sort of a meandering path which is a fairly
easy road but then watch this one on the way to the eternal city think of you know Hannah
Herdnard's book Heinz Feet on Heinz Places if you've ever read it or Pilgrim's Progress
you meet up with a roaring lion up there and life in the kingdom cannot be lived in natural
strength the road is narrow and the way is hard because it can only happen through union
with Christ and Paul puts it this way in Galatians chapter 5 he says but by faith we eagerly
await through the spirit the righteousness for which we hope for in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value the only thing that counts is faith expressing
itself through love so you've got two gates a wide gate a narrow gate a wide road and
a narrow road and we enter into the kingdom of God through many hardships because we have
to leave behind all the flesh all our own areas of glory and in the surrender to Jesus
we walk out the journey and if the world is characterized by the pride of life the lust
of the flesh and the lust of the eyes the kingdom of God is characterized by the qualities
of faith hope and love so there you have the first two reasons that I'm giving you out
of this passage why through many hardships we enter into the kingdom of God but there's
a third one and that is that God uses suffering particularly he uses persecution to refine
the church and if we can move these slides along please then we will come to verse John
15 verse 20 no servant is greater than his master if they persecuted me they will persecute
you also and Paul echoes that same thought in second Timothy 3 verse 12 when he says
in fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted and
the question is of course why does God allow that to happen there are many answers but
one of the answers is that God uses the sufferings produced by persecution to refine us as through
fire Peter in 1 Peter 1 the verses 6 and 7 puts it this way for a little while you may
have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials these have come so that your faith of greater
worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire may be proved genuine and
may result in praise glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed graphically we can
picture it this way if we can get that next slide up we the kingdom of God is the holiness
of God and we sang about that earlier this morning God is so holy that that he cannot
tolerate anything that falls short of his standard he wants to share his glory with
us but for him to share his glory with us we have to leave behind us all this that interferes
with the presence and the power and the holiness of God and when by faith we're joined to
Jesus positionally as you know we're placed over here but in reality there is still very
much this a part of our life and sometimes the bad things that cling to us we can sort
of put them off and we can live the new life but you know just as well as I do that as
long as we're in the here and now time and time again the pride of life the lust of the
eyes the the lust of the flesh we get overtaken by it and and all that you know you look at
the history of Old Testament Israel you look at the history of the New Testament Church
many times we have to go through the fire in order to be refined to let go of the things
that we hold on to so dearly and so Peter again later on in 1 Peter 4 verse 1 puts it
this way since Christ suffered in his body arm yourself also with the same attitude because
he who has suffered in his body is done with sin as a result he does not live the rest
of his earthly life for evil human desires but rather for the will of God and so far
in the Western world you and I you know we haven't known a lot of persecution other
than maybe you know somebody makes fun of us because we go to church or somebody makes
fun of us because we don't participate with them in their particular behaviors but mostly
we're pretty free to do what we want to do aren't we but that's changing of course because
as our society in a wholesale way rejects the values of the kingdom the the resistance
towards faith and towards people of faith is becoming more and more pronounced I don't
know how many of you know the journey that Trinity Western University out in BC is going
through a number of years ago they ran into a lot of trouble because they wanted to get
their teachers accredited that had to go all the way to the Supreme Court because teachers
unions were fighting them on faith and behavior issues and the same thing has surfaced again
now because in the year 2016 Trinity Western University wants to open a law school and
so far the Ontario Bar Association and the Nova Scotia Bar Association have both gone
on record as saying they will not accredit their graduates and the reason is that every
student that attends Trinity Western University which is of course a Christian University
has to sign a covenant agreeing to abstain from sexual intimacy that "violates the sacredness
of marriage between a man and a woman" and you can imagine where that goes in today's
society and so the argument is we don't want you training lawyers because we don't trust
that they will treat everybody equally so Trinity Western has just gone to court and
have launched a lawsuit to try to address that particular issue because if you look
at the history of societies that that persecute Christians it never starts by killing Christians
it starts by you're gonna lose your job it starts by you're not gonna get your promotion
it starts by we're gonna box you in and as I said earlier what is happening in China
now is that China goes through these waves of persecution where sometimes they really
let up the pressure and the church just really flourishes and then when Christians become
too high profile or too threatening they they pull the rug out from underneath and so far
in news reports that I have read in recent months they have destroyed 25 major church
buildings to try to to stop the growth of the Christian church one of the cities that
we've been I visited a number of years ago when he and I went to China was the city of
Wenxiao and that is known as the Jerusalem of China because it has a higher percentage
of Christians than most any other community and one of the news stories just this past
week that is a huge nine-story church complex with a huge cross on top the congregation
has been informed to get out because the authorities are going to tear it down that kind of persecution
is not that far from our doors and when it happens the question is can we stand and can
we persevere in the ways of gone so three reasons now that I've given you why through
many hardships we enter into the kingdom of God we enter through the narrow gate and you
gotta leave your pride and your arrogance and in your world behind you we have to walk
the narrow road where we take up our cross and we follow Jesus and then we face persecution
in a world that wants nothing to do with Jesus so here's the big question can you guess what
the big question is why does anybody want to be a Christian because it is not a picnic
that we are invited to it is a crucifixion and the shoulders we stand on are men and
women who have bloodied the paths of history with their sacrificial blood of martyrs so
why be a Christian why stand firm well the answer of course you don't have to be too
brilliant to figure that one out is the two gates and the two roads lead to very different
destinations listen again to the scripture moving it on to Matthew 7 verse 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 the road that leads to life and
only a few find it and notice again if we can go to the next slide how that is pictured
graphically on the poster that we've been looking at together and we'll do a close
up if we can go to the next slide here you see the lake of fire the destruction wrought
by God the judgment on the ways of the world and the end goal here is the heavenly city
the new Jerusalem and you can possibly read the small print that is associated with this
but let me read you some of the verses because it will give you a handle on on just how I
don't know how to describe it just how black and white scripture is on this issue Deuteronomy
32 verse 22 for a fire has been kindled by my wrath that's God speaking one that burns
to the realm of death below it will devour the earth and its harvests and set on fire
the foundations of the mountains the next verse second Peter 3 10 same theme the day
of the Lord will come like a thief the heavens will disappear with the roar the elements
will be destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare and there's
no way that you'll be able to see that from your distance but up here maybe you've got
really good eyes you can see it is a way scale anybody see that right here the scales of
justice and that comes from the book of Daniel or Bell Shazer you will recall is feasting
away in his party and the hand of God appears writing on the wall may not may not take a
loop for sin and the word take all their means you have been weighed on the scales and you
have been found wanting the clear teaching of scripture is that everybody that has ever
ever lived in the day of the resurrection is going to stand before the judgment seat
of Christ and give account of himself or herself Paul puts it this way second Corinthians 5
10 we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what
is due him due to him for the things done while in the body whether good or bad it's
the great white throne judgment where God hands out his rewards and his punishment and
the scripture makes it so plain that those who are on the broad road who come to that
day a judgment are going to face an absolute lack of mercy Matthew 25 verse 41 he will
say to those on his left the part from me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared
for the devil and his angels sobering words because beyond that there is no longer an
avenue of redemption it is eternal condemnation and the challenge for people is to not allow
themselves to be deceived that somehow or another they can walk the broad road and still
God will be kind to them at the very last moment without their repentance Ephesians
5 6 7 let no one deceive you with empty words for because of such things that is that whole
list of the works of the flesh because of such things God's wrath comes on those who
are disobedient so on the other side then if we can move forward we have the city of
God the New Jerusalem and one of the references there is the classic Revelation 21 the verses
one through four then I saw a new heaven and the new earth for the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea I saw the holy city the
New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed
for her husband and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying now the dwelling of God
is with men and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will
be with them and be their God he will wipe away every tear from their eyes there will
be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away
scripture is so very very clear that for those who enter through the narrow gate by faith
in Christ those who walk the narrow road taking up their cross following Jesus manifesting
his character even in the midst of great persecution at the end of time they will receive their
reward because they will enter the New Jerusalem the city of God that God is building next
verse describes it similarly Hebrews 12 22 to 23 you've come to Mount Zion to the heavenly
Jerusalem the city of the living God you have come to thousands upon thousands of angels
in joyful assembly to the church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven and again
you may not be able to see it but all of these are angels blowing their trumpets over here
again it's hard to see here you have the demons flying around over the darkness and what's
significant to note here is the crown and the palm branches and that scripture reference
is Revelation 3 verse 21 where the Lord Jesus says to the church to him who overcomes I
will give the right to sit with me in my throne just as I overcame and sat down with my father
on his throne and then the next verse Matthew 16 27 the son of man is going to come in his
father's glory with his angels and then he will reward each person according to what
he has done two gates wide gate a narrow gate two roads a wide road that's easy a narrow
road that's hard two different destinations the lake of fire or the city of God every
man woman and child in the world including you and me sitting here we are on one road
or the other God has given his son to make it possible that we move from the one to the
other to avoid the destiny of judgment and to experience the blessings of God but it
means we not only have to enter through the narrow gate it means we have to commit ourselves
to walking the narrow path in the confidence that in Christ the journey will be worth our
while
you