Psalm 107:1-9; Luke 13:22-30
by Rev. Brian Spangler
Introduction: How would you describe discipleship? Entering a narrow door? The Narrow Door
Jesus uses here the analogy of a narrow door, imagery He had also used elsewhere. In Matthew 7:13-14, for instance, Jesus had told the disciples, “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.” In John 10:7, 9, Jesus told them, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture.” Later in John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus then makes it clear throughout His teaching that a love relationship with Him is crucial to the fullness of our lives both now and for eternity.
Jesus uses this analogy because His hearers were familiar with two types of doors or gates in Israel. One door or gate was big enough to accommodate large numbers at once. The other type was large enough for only one person to come through. The word narrow is linked to that of being hard, which in the Greek refers to suffering. Jesus tells us in Matthew 16:24, that if we are to be His disciples, we must deny ourselves and take up our own cross and follow Him. Following Jesus will not be easy, but only in and through a relationship with Him can we be saved. So the issue then is whether we know Jesus, trust in Jesus and are continually being transformed by the Holy Spirit to be more like Him as we take our own journey to the cross, sacrifice. The cross of Christ is the gate and door that leads to life.
Making Every Effort to Enter This Door
How much effort and spiritual sweat are you putting into your discipleship? God is not into guilt trips, but He is into spiritual journeys, where He invites us to become like Jesus. While it is important to stress that we are saved by God’s grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone, we still must be active and obedient participants in what God wills to do in our lives. We cannot sit back in our spiritual recliners or be spectators in what God is doing all around us. Jesus tells us here, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door.” Jesus is telling us here that our compelling concern should be to get through that door. In other words, we are to worry about our own discipleship, not that of others. The word here for effort is agonizomai, which is Greek for agony. It means to endure intense struggle or pain in order to follow Jesus. As Hebrews 12:1 tells us, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
Anything that is keeping us from Jesus must be immediately thrown away, in order that we might be more like Jesus.
The key here is that discipleship entails relationship. How much time do we actually spend with the Lord? Do you surrender all of your anger, hurt, dreams and desires to Him? I read a great book by Dallas Willard, called The Great Omission. He suggests this great omission is discipleship; that we are too satisfied with people saying they believe in Jesus instead of equipping them for a life of spiritual growth as they follow Jesus. Willard says, “Our lives should be more different…We do not give ourselves to it in a way that allows our lives to be taken over by it…discipleship means going with Him, in an attitude of observation, study, obedience and imitation… discipleship is a decision to devote oneself to becoming like Christ.” In The Emotionally Healthy Church, Peter Scazzero talks of our need to be spiritually healthy. We can do this by letting Jesus take us beneath the surface of our spiritual icebergs, where the true danger lies and where most of our true selves can be found.
Will we commit ourselves to a deep life-transforming discipleship or just to scratching the surface of following Jesus? Will we go along with the crowds on the wide and easy road, or will we follow Jesus on the challenging road? Are you making every effort to be more like Jesus? Let us come before God in prayer, seeking His forgiveness and inviting the Holy Spirit to reveal to us how we can do this.
