The Narrow Way

Introduction

All right. Well, good morning. Good morning. Something happened since the last time I was up here?

When I was recruited to do this, I felt more than capable, more than ready. What I didn’t know is I would be doing it with half my brain tied behind my back. I don’t know that Bubba Garner is old enough to have immortal words just yet, but I remember at the birth of his daughter Morgan. He said, I have never more longed for heaven. A place where there is no crying. And I tried a similar experiment to what John tried with his six-year-old son, but mine being an infant. I just the noises he made weren’t highly appropriate, I guess, for a lesson, nor conducive to rational thought, so I decided just to go with something totally different. But it is was one of the supreme joys of my life to sit there on my feet on the Ottoman last night with my son on my lap, and or my arms and my Bible on my lap and prepare some thoughts for this morning.

The words of B. Bowman, it just don’t get any better than that. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you with the for the joy and the fervor with which you sang this morning, and hopefully we don’t detract from that in any kind of way over the next few minutes. It’s a joy to be here. This morning, before we jump into the lesson, I’d like to engage in kind of an experiment, a bit of perhaps vocal illusion, if you allow me to coin a term. I want to try something that I’ve I’ve tried a few other times, and I’ve never been disappointed in this. But in just a moment, I’m going to give you two words. And based on those words, I’m going to guess what I think will be some approximation of what comes to your mind.

Now, were I a wagering man, which I am not, because that wouldn’t be appropriate, I would say that the efficacy with which I’ve seen this work in the past has been so high that I’d almost put money in it. But the words that I want to say to you this morning, I’ll give you a hint, they are a proper name, are Robert Frost. And I would be willing to bet that some percentage of you, maybe as high as 50 to 75%, had something like this come to your mind. Some of you are going like this. Some of you are going, wow, and some of you are going. That’s not what came to my mind. Well, for those of you that are slightly stunned by how I how I came to that conclusion to put up a picture of two roads dividing in a yellow wood, by me saying that you all of a sudden know how I came to the conclusion to put up a picture of two roads dividing in a yellow wood.

Because among the pantheon of great poets, perhaps the greatest of American poets is in fact Robert Frost. And his most well known verse reads like this. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. And sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood. And looked down one as far as I could, to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair. And having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though, as for that, the passing, there had warned them really about the same. And both that morning equally lay in leaves, no step had trodden by. Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood. And I took the one less traveled by.

To another set of diverging roads, to another set of diverging roads. And on and on and on it goes. And the more that we commit ourselves to the one that’s less traveled, the less likely we are to ever take the one that is more traveled by. You see, I think it speaks to the wonder. And in some cases, the sadness that we have with not being able to be two places at once. Matthew chapter 7. Jesus said, as he’s beginning the concluding remarks to his Sermon on the Mount, what we call the greatest sermon ever written or ever preached. I kind of think he probably did it extemporaneously.

He says in the 13th verse, the beginning of his conclusion, 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. One of the things that I like about reading this passage out of the original King James is that it says the way is straight. S-T-R-A-I-T. Not S T R A I G H D. S T R A I T. That word straight means strict or stringent. It means carefully defined and carefully controlled. And he says, enter through the narrow gate. Enter by the narrow gate. Because the wide gate and the broad way leads to destruction.

And there are a lot of people that go in by it. But the gate is small, and the way is straight that leads to life. And there are few who find it. Now, there are some exceptional similarities between this and other passages. In fact, we’re going to go over and spend a lot of time over in Proverbs chapter 4, if you want to mark that in the Bible. We’re not going there just yet. But we’re going to spend a lot of time in that passage this morning. But I want to talk to you a little bit about keeping the narrow way. Now, I kind of struggled with preaching this morning because Tony just preached an excellent lesson a few weeks ago on broadening the narrow way and how we try to expand the way of righteousness and how we sometimes try to include things that we know that we shouldn’t.

But what I wanted to focus on this morning is where this passage fits exactly within this great sermon. Because too often I think we begin to look at it, and what we see are dualities. What we begin to see, you might have heard a lesson that goes something like this. We call it doing it by the twos. There are two gates. There are two entrances. There’s an entrance that’s wide, that’s accommodating, that allows everyone to come in. And then there’s an entrance that’s narrow. Perhaps we’d even draw a parallel between John 10, verses 7 and 9, where Jesus talks about being the door to the sheepfold, and all who come in by me find life. Perhaps we talk about the wide gate versus the small gate, the wide gate versus the narrow gate, and we talk about the duality of these two situations.

We talk about what makes the difference between the two and what it truly means to come in through Christ, him being the entrance into his own kingdom or his father’s kingdom. Certainly talk about the two ways. The broad way. And very often when we think about a broad way, we think about a highway, don’t we? Or perhaps even a free way. A way that’s that’s traveled by many, a way that in our minds, when we see a broad way, we’re much more likely to take it, are we not, than a narrow way. A broadway to us is safety because we have become conditioned to believe that there’s safety in numbers. We’ve become conditioned to believe that the more people that travel a certain route, the more likely we are to be to be going in the correct or proper direction.

And yet Jesus says no. You take the small way, you take the narrow way, you take the straight way, a way that’s limiting, a way that’s well defined, a way that’s restrictive, a way that teaches perhaps self-denial and self-sacrifice, a way that taps down on self-righteousness and emphasizes God’s righteousness, that controls our sense of personal destiny and wants and emphasizes things like holiness. We talk about how the broad way is more conforming and more accepting. We might even go over to Luke’s account. Where in Luke the 13th chapter and verse 24, he records it as saying, strive, give diligence, pursue, work at.

The way that most people forsake, the untrodden road in the yellow wood, if you will, is not the path. Is not the path to destruction. But rather the path to safety in the life. And surely we could talk about the two groups of people. We’re at a decision gate, a logic gate, as we used to call it in programming. That we’re at the point where we’ve got to make a decision. We’re presented with a choice. And unfortunately, we can’t take the advice of Yogi Berra. When you come to a fork in the road, take it. We’ve got to make a commitment here. We’re going to have to realize, much as the poet said, that way leads us away. We’re going to make the choice to walk the narrow way, but we’re going to progress that narrow way, and we’re going to come up to the opportunity to once again take the broadway.

We’re going to have to choose again to take the narrow way. So before we can even really decide what way we’re going to go, we’re going to have to decide what kind of people we are. Are we broadway people or are we narrowway people? We could talk about the fact that there are two destinations. Notice that I say we could do this. We actually are doing this. You’re getting two sermons for the price of one. We can talk about two destinations. Top that, Jesse. No, okay. That we could talk about two destinations. One of the things that’s always interested me about this passage, when we’re there in Matthew 13, he says, enter by the narrow gate. He makes the decision for us. He tells us what the appropriate direction is right from the beginning.

Enter by the narrow gate. But why do we enter by the narrow gate? Well, because the broad way, the broad gate, the wide gate, the broad way, leads to destruction. Now, I don’t know about you. That just doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. I don’t care how many people are choosing the Broadway. I don’t care how many people are choosing that path. If the end of that path is personal destruction, that’s not a good deal. That’s one of those examples of buying in bulk is not always good. But the reason why we’re not talking about that this morning is I believe that Jesus teaches more than just the dual nature of man’s existence in this passage. It’s about more than just making godly choices in our daily lives, although that is a fine sermon.

And it’s something we need to take to heart. I believe he’s making a plea, an appeal, if you will. For them to choose life first by becoming a people who are spiritual. Choose the outcome. Do you want destruction? Do you want life? One of the things that I’ve come to understand over the last couple of days is how precious life is. I reference the little noises that Will makes as he’s sitting on my lap. You realize that how much of a struggle it is just to breathe when you’re that age. Even if there’s nothing wrong with you, your body’s not fully formed and just life is a struggle. A narrow, accommodating way. While it may be easy, it will never lead to spiritual victory because it doesn’t allow for growth.

You see, we choose our outcome. And I think that’s where why he begins the summation of this. You’ve got to remember again where this falls within the Sermon on the Mount. That this is the beginning of his summation. This is the beginning of the end of the lesson. Let’s continue in verse 15, if you’re still at Matthew 7. Where he says, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing. But inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

So then you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness, you who are without law, some of your translations may say. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell. And great was its fault. Now you may look at these at the beginning of verse 15 and going down through verse 27, and you may say, Jared, there’s a lot of duality in there. I mean, he compares the false teachers to those that aren’t false teachers, and he compares those that do the works of godliness to those who don’t. And he compares the wise and the foolish builders. Yes, he does. But every one of these things is reflecting back, I believe, on what he says in this last parable, which is hear what I’ve said and do it.

And so for us to really understand what he means by walk the narrow way, we need to understand what he said in the rest of the sermon. We need to understand what Jesus was trying to get them to pick up on. We need to understand that this is the first in a series of admonitions to trend and to head our lives in the direction towards more godliness. It’s an invitation to hear and to do and to avoid destruction. And so, this morning I would like to make for you four observations on keeping the one path. All of these are going to come out of the sermon itself. And all of these, I believe, are going to be summation of what he actually means when he says, Enter by the narrow path.

1. Keep Your Path True

First and foremost, if we’re going to keep ourselves on the narrow way, the path of righteousness, we’re going to have to commit ourselves to keeping our path true. Man will never sooner depart from the way of the kingdom than when he attempts to chart a course based on something other than the truth. In just a moment, we’re going to open up to Proverbs 16. But I want to say it’s interesting when you start talking about truth. How fluid the word truth has become in our minds. Truth has become something subjective to us collectively as a people. But when the Bible talks about truth, that’s not at all the case. Truth is never subjective. Truth is a standard. Truth is the opposite of lie. Truth is the opposite of untruth.

I was watching, I’m sure many of you were earlier this week when Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated each other over the creation and whether that was appropriate to be taught as applicable science or appropriate science. And I was listening as Bill Nye continually came back to stating, those are your facts.

And you can’t have your facts. And both of us be practicing truth. In order for it to be true, it has to be God’s truth. It has to be God’s holiness. It has to be God’s righteousness. It’s not a subjective standard. It’s not what Jared Bowman believes is true or Tony Mock or Mike Hens or Jay Everett. Sorry I won’t end, guys. But it’s not, it’s not a subjective standard. That truth has to come from the truth giver. Truth has to come from a fundamental sort, from a fundamental source. In Proverbs, the 16th chapter, verse 25, it says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. There’s a way that seems correct. There’s a way that seems appropriate.

But the end of that path is destruction. Man left up to his own facts and his own truth and his own wishes and his own desires is always going to fall short. Because the path does not correspond with the truth that’s brought from God. Romans the third chapter, beginning in verse 10. The apostle Paul writes, as it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together, they have become useless. There is none who does good, there is not even one. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues, they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood.

Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, Paul is quoting several different sources here, but what he’s saying is that ultimately, man, if choosing by his own desires and his own standards, is going to make the wrong choice.

If we don’t come to this choice with the obligation to choose something better than ourselves, if we don’t come to this obligation with the understanding that we need to choose something that brings us to God’s righteousness and on our own desires, we are going to make the wrong choice. We have to be dedicated to keeping a true path. He started this sermon with the Beatitudes.

If you were to open your Bibles to Matthew the fifth chapter. Have you ever wondered why? He started with those characteristics of a godly person. Have you ever wondered why Jesus began this again, arguably the greatest sermon ever preached? With blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

But if you hear what he says and do it, you’ll come to the conclusion of what’s necessary to the saving of the soul. But this is how to be a godly person. This is how you tame the inner man and tame the fleshly desires that are that we all struggle with. This is how you tame the creature that’s inside each and every one of us that says, I want what I want, I desire what I desire. We start by committing ourselves to keep a true course. And I want to say to you this morning that you cannot walk a righteous path if you start with something less than the truth. Proverbs, the third chapter in the fifth verse. The text reads, trust in the Lord with all your heart.

And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs, the fourth chapter, passage I told you to mark a little bit earlier. Beginning in verse 20 says, My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet, and all your ways will be established.

Do not turn to the right nor the left. Turn your foot from evil. See, this isn’t something new that Jesus is teaching. The fundamental commandment of stay with what’s true is something that registered with Solomon. It registered with David, it registered all the way going all the way back to Deuteronomy, where they were instructed to teach their young, to edify them in a way, to write these things on the doorposts of their house, to sit down and talk about them when they ate, when they ate, to talk about them before they went to sleep at night, for one generation to bring up the next and the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. Those instructions are about keeping a true path. Because when we lose sight of the truth, when truth becomes subjective, when truth becomes something that I feel, sorry I didn’t mean to do that.

2. Keep Your Heart Pure

When truth becomes something that I feel and something that is relative, when we start broadening the narrow way, as Tony talked about just a few weeks ago, we lose sight of what’s true because truth doesn’t change. Fundamental. Truth does not change. Secondly, if we’re going to walk the narrow way, we’re going to have to learn the lesson that we have to keep a pure heart. The reasonings for broadening the narrow way, as we spoke about just a few weeks ago. Begin with trying to reason righteousness from an impure heart. You know, you don’t have to look very far to find somebody, someone who’s trying to reason ungodliness and unrighteousness and trying to present it in a way that seems compassionate for God. The arguments that you hear for marriage, divorce, and remarriage for any cause are based on arguing ungodliness and unrighteousness, but with compassion.

The arguments, I’ve even heard of things like abortion, argue. With faith fervent compassion. What about the sanctity of the mothers and the lives that they’re going to sacrifice to raise these children that they never wanted? All that is undress is dressing up ungodliness with compassion. It doesn’t matter how compassionate we are. Ungodliness is ungodliness. And we have to start walking this narrow way, not only with a commitment to a true path, but a commitment to a pure heart. We used to say that we’ll speak where the Bible speaks and we’ll be silent where the Bible’s silent. That our own our only guide for living, our only doctrine that we will ever subscribe to is found between the pages of this book or found in the pages of this book.

You know what that is? It’s a plea for purity. It’s a plea for holiness. It’s a plea for godliness. And if there’s a plea that needs to go out today, if there’s a if there’s a clarion call that needs to be made for this generation, it’s get back to purity in heart.

Back over to Proverbs, the fourth chapter in the 23rd verse. We’ll just take this one verse since we’re I’m long winded and we’re running short. Watch over your heart with all diligence. For from it flows, for from it flow the springs of life. Think about that, and I think about Matthew the fifth chapter, where Jesus began talking about where murder begins and where adultery begins. How all of those things begin in the heart. How they heard, you shall not murder, and you shall not commit adultery, and you shall love your neighbor, but hate your enemy. And in every instance he tells them, guys, that wasn’t the original intention. That’s what you heard, and that’s what you’ve been taught, and that’s what you’ve applied. But that wasn’t God’s way.

God’s way is you is not just you shall not murder. God’s way is you keep your anger in check. You be good to your brothers and sisters. That you don’t become angry. God’s way is not just you shall not commit adultery. God’s way is whosoever looks upon a woman and lusteth after her has already committed adultery in his heart. More about that in a moment, but guys, and not just guys. Brethren. Because if you’ve read the statistics, women are having as many problems today with adultery as men are.

Somebody wants to take away your cloak, give him your tunic. Love your enemies.

Godliness is bringing the inner person and the tamed inner person out through the works of the outer man. It’s about what we do. It’s not about holding grudges, and it’s certainly not about chasing immorality. It’s about taming who we are. And we could talk about the hypocrisy of worship in chapter 6. And we could talk about how it is that the heart becomes corrupted when we begin to worry about the things of tomorrow again in the sixth chapter. But I want to say to you this morning that you cannot serve righteously with impure motives.

3. Keep Your Eyes Fixed

Thirdly, keep your eyes fixed.

Matthew 6 and 22 says the eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If in the light that is in you is darkness. How great is the darkness. Matthew 5 and 27 says, You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman and lusts for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better that you for better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Go back to Proverbs 4 when you have time. Count the number of times in those verses that the Father warns the Son to watch. Watch his heart. Watch his feet. Watch his ways. How many times do you see the admonition? I want to say to you this morning that godliness begins and sometimes ends with controlling what we put before our eyes. Now, so often when we get to this, we start talking about pornography. And absolutely, we have to control the desire to look at things that we know that we shouldn’t.

We talk about what’s on television, and we talk about the movies that we watch, and those are all pertinent things, and those are all important things. But you know what? Those are things that we’ve talked about time and time and time again. I think what we have to do is we have to learn to avert our gaze from the things that we covet. And let me tell you, there’s a lot more to coveting, and there’s a lot more to the lust of the eye than looking at the scantily clad member of the opposite sex. Covetousness begins with a heart that is not inclined to be satisfied with those things that God has already set before it. The eyes compete with the heart.

See, covetousness may be the greatest sin of the age. And yet I’ve never had someone come to me as a brother in Christ and say, I’m having a real problem with covetousness. I’m having a real problem controlling my eyes and controlling what that does to the desire of my heart that I find myself working and working more because I feel like I need this bigger or better. I feel like my kids deserve better, and I see what my neighbors have, and I want that. I’ve never heard that. I’ve never heard it said that I see these things and I want them, and I know I ought to be satisfied. But I’m not. And my eye begins looking around, and I’m looking at the kinds of perhaps friendships that I could have out in the world, friendships that are based around drinking and swearing, and friendships that are that are that are about engaging in perhaps even manly pursuits as we refer to them, and we become covetous of those things.

Why can’t I go and do those things? I tell you, one of the things that I have been so immeasurably grateful for in my time here are the friends that I have made. I knew Tony when I came. I considered Tony more of a mentor than now I consider him a friend. John and Sean, I can do Jay and John, I could keep going and Daniel. I could keep going and going and going. I’d leave somebody out. But that’s an encouraging thing. But when you’re without it, you begin looking at the world and you begin to say, why can’t I have that too? Why can’t I have those kinds of relationships? Why can’t I have that familial friendship, that kind of fraternity of brothers that’s based around things that are entertaining and joyous, and I covet that, and our eye pulls us off the path.

I will sing of the loving kindness and justice to you. Oh Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When you will come, when will you come to me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the works of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. I would ask for a show of hands this morning, but I know you people are honest, and I’d be afraid of the silence that we would get or the lack of hands we would have if I would say that we perfectly keep the covenant to set no worthless thing before our eyes. I know my hand wouldn’t go up.

I can’t say that I perfectly kept that. I can’t even say what Job has said in the 31st chapter. I made a covenant with my eyes not to look on such things. He speaks about looking upon a burgeon, someone that was not his wife. He says, I’ll make a covenant with my eyes. I tell you what, we need to come, we need to come to an agreement really quickly with these two things in our head.

Thinking as I was working on something this week. Okay. He’s building a crib. Pack and play, that’s what they’re called. And I’ve got to tell you something. You’ve never had a lesson in self-control until you’ve tried to build something by the good people at Draco. I’ve never had a lesson in patience like that. Because I was getting to what I felt was like a final step, and the pieces weren’t fitting together, and they don’t tell you it won’t go through a doorway. Yes, I built it on the wrong side of the doorway. I found out how to get it through the doorway, and then Lauren came home and said, Oh, I decided we wanted that on the other side of the doorway.

And I thought, you know, this thing is cheap enough. This has got to be defective. I should just throw this away. But you know what stopped me from doing that? What if my son was old enough to see me getting frustrated? Losing my temper. Not doing anything overtly ungodly, but just getting mad enough to throw something away. What lesson would I be teaching him? Would I be setting something worthless before his eyes?

4. Keep Your Brethren in Love

You see, you cannot look to eternity if distracted by concerns and lesser things. I think that’s what Jesus is saying at the end of the sixth chapter where he talks about sufficient for the day as its own evil. Seek first the kingdom of righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. See, it’s not just about the worthless things that we put in front of our eyes. Sometimes it’s the worthless things we put in front of other people’s eyes, which I think that’s why the last point on keeping this narrow way. We’ve got to learn to keep our brother in love. We really do. This is something Sean and I talk a lot about. I’ve learned so much from Sean. Learn how to be patient from Sean.

I’m still learning. But the overarching theme of the sermon, whether letting our light shine or embracing the beatitudes, most of what we find in here in some way touches the lives of those around us. Like James 1 and 27 pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this to visit widows and orphans in their afflictions and keep oneself unspotted from the world. Sometimes we get the unspotted from the world. I think we do a good job of that. But I tell you what we often leave out others. We forget to let our light shine before men. We forget the obligation to be kind and to be patient, to be courteous, to not render evil for evil. We forget how it is that just as others offend us, we have at times offended others.

And we forget the most precious of rules. In every thing, therefore, chapter 7, verse 12. Treat people the same way you want them to treat you. For this is the law of prophets.

Do unto others. As you would have them do unto you. And whether it’s Jesus Himself in Matthew 22, or Paul in Romans 13, or right here in Matthew 7. This statement of loving others. Loving God first, and then loving others and using ourselves in service to others. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. We talked about that this morning. Upon this hang all the law and the prophets. You see, Jesus didn’t intend for godly people. I should say God didn’t intend for godly people, and Jesus didn’t intend for his disciples to be some little enclave that the world never touches. He intended for us to be used in service to each other and in service to those that are around us.

We define ourselves by loving others and by keeping them in love, by helping them keep a true path and a pure heart, by admonishing them and helping them to keep their eyes fixed, to encourage them to turn away from worthless things and things that pull away from what we know are the paths of God, a path of godliness. I want to say to you this morning that we certainly cannot plot a path of righteousness that brings evil to our brothers and sisters. There’s just no such thing. There’s no such thing as a path of righteousness that brings evil to our brothers and sisters. It just doesn’t exist. If this love beyond itself is so foundational to all that we do, all that we are. How can we think ourselves unimportant?

How can we think it ourselves unimportant? How can we not see ourselves as striving for righteousness? How can we ever see ourselves rather striving for righteousness without extending ourselves to the betterment of those around us? Because I want to say for you this morning that you cannot keep a true path. Your heart is truly not pure, and your eyes are fixed on something lesser if your concern is not brotherly love. Because that’s ultimately what it means to be godly. Had we the time, I’d go back to Proverbs chapter 4 one more time. And I’d begin in verse 10 this time, and I’d read through the end of the chapter. And then we go over to the Beatitudes and we’d read those in Matthew 5. And what you would begin to see is there aren’t very many things that you can that you can say, this is godly, that do not extend themselves from the inner man to the outer man.

Conclusion

Because you see, pure and undefiled religion. Being pure and undefiled begins with getting outside of self. And so we have it. These four. Keep your path true. Keep your heart pure. Keep your eyes fixed. Keep your brethren in love. Now, how is it that these four observations will help us keep the narrow path? How is it that these four observations will help us keep the one true path, the path that leads to eternal life? Well, I think it’s pretty simple. The reason why this is the summation to this great sermon, not this sermon, but the one that Jesus preached. The reason why this is a summation to the great sermon that had these four truths contained in it, is because it is these four truths that are contained in the statement.

Enter by the narrow gate.

Because this isn’t just how you walk the narrow way. This is ultimately what it means to walk the narrow way.

Your soul was not right. You’ve wandered from the path of righteousness into the path of destruction. Don’t look back as the poet did and say with a sigh, I wish I could go back and make the choice again.

Don’t go into eternity regretting the choice to walk a more trodden path. Get back on the narrower way. Because you stand right now at the divergent of two roads. And if the path is not a narrow one that you find yourself on, come and join the few who are searching for righteousness. You owe some duty to God if your soul is not right. There’ll never be another opportunity, as convenient as this one, to come forward confessing your sins as we stand.