Matthew 7.13-14

Today, we have just two verses to look at. But these two verses represent a huge concept that effects every choice and decision and thought and desire we make on a day to day basis.

It is the beginning of the end of the Sermon on the Mount, the sermon in which Jesus is teaching his disciples what it looks like to follow him, what it looks like to be a citizen in his kingdom. And at the end of the sermon, Jesus talks about two roads, two kinds of fruit and two builders. The question is always, which one will you choose. The first is the two roads:

 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. ¹⁴ But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.


This is very appropriate that Jesus saves this for the end of the sermon. After looking back at all the things we have talked about over the last number of weeks on our study through the sermon on the Mount, we can see that following Jesus is really really really hard. 


Following Jesus consists of living a life that is separate from the majority of people around you, it just doesn't deal with your actions, but the heart and desires behind your actions, he wants you to have an audience of one, and he above all wants your entire life, everything sacrificed and given to him for his glory. 


That is really really hard!!!


But let me let you in on a little secret...It is really really worth it. 


The narrow path is narrow and hard, but it is the only path that leads to hope and peace and fulfillment and eternal life instead of death. 


The key to walking the narrow path is easy to say but hard to do. 


It is simply to live the in the now with an eternal mindset. 


So when we are faced with whether or not to sacrifice for someone in the workplace, to be late to appointment because we stop to buy a homeless person a meal, or even if we are faced with the temptation late at night to look at stuff we shouldn't, we live in every one of those moments with an eternal mindset. We have to think, "the narrow path leads life, the wide easy path leads to death."


So every time you are faced with a decision, just imagine yourself at a fork in the road, looking down one road that is narrow and another that is wide. And just remember the destinations that those roads lead to. 


Choose the narrow path, it is really really hard, but really really worth it.