Sermon on the Mount

Matthew chapter 7. Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged and with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take that speck out of your eye.

When all the time there's a plank in your own eye, you hypocrite. First, take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give to dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them underneath their feet and turn and tear you to pieces.

Ask and it'll be given to you, seek and you'll find knock and the door be open to you. But everyone who asks receives and the 1 who seeks pints and the 1 who knocks the door be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if you ask for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then that you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

So in everything, due to others, what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gates. The wide is the gate and broadest the road that leads to destruction. And many enter through it but small is the gate to narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it.

Watch out for false prophets They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. Buy their fruits, you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruits, but a bad tree bears bad fruits. A good tree cannot bear bad fruits and a bad tree cannot bear good fruits.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down have thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit, you'll recognize them. Not everyone who says to me lord lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the 1 who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, lord lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and in your name perform many miracles, then I will tell them plainly. I never knew you, away from me you evil doers.

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against the house, yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house and sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house. And it fell with a great crash.

But Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Because he taught as 1 who had authority and not as the teachers of the law. Pete. Thanks, Steve. I probably just need to say about Fight Club.

We're not just having hot wings. Unbearable hot wings. We are having a barbecue. There will be burger there. In fact, it'll be like I think it's gonna be the equivalent of it's called 3 guys.

So me me Tom and Karl. And you can make up your 3 guy burger. And then, there will be the trying of the hot wing, if you want to. But if you don't want to, Well, we'll see what happens. Great.

Let me pray. Father help us now. We need your help. We really do. It's so easy not to listen and really hard to listen.

It's so easy to get distracted and very hard to keep on course, and we need your help so that not only do we listen in our ears and our head, but actually we listen in our hearts. So help us we pray in Jesus name, amen. Okay. Let's imagine you're going on holiday, it'd be nice. Some are on holiday, and they're watching.

But imagine that you're on holiday, and you're choosing a holiday home. So you've got 2 on target, you're looking at these 2 homes, and therefore you then think, okay, well, I'm not sure which 1 to choose, so you go to the reviews. You see what stars they get. Here we are. Here's the first home.

5 stars. We would have given it more if we could. We absolutely love this place. Everything you need and more. The house is large and light and airy with plenty of space.

We will be coming again. 5 stars. Wow. Broad vistas, an easy walking access to popular wide open sandy beach. This house is the place to be on holiday, plenty of space for all to relax.

5 stars. With an indoor and outdoor pool plus sauna bath, steam room, games room, cinema, tennis court, and beautiful views with plenty of space, this is heaven on Earth. That's 1 house. Okay? I think you'd be tempted to to sign up.

Here's the second house. 1 star. We would have given it no stars or minus 5 if we could. This is not a holiday home, a void like the plague. 1 star.

A very small house. No room to relax. Came home early because we felt so uncomfortable and restricted. 1 star, narrow bed seriously restricted views seems to be run by a narrow minded person if the books and the DVD collection are anything to go by, we left early, this is no holiday home. Now, which are gonna choose?

Which would you choose? I mean, it's not fair really because there is no choice, is there? When it comes to a holiday home, it's obvious. You're gonna go for the 5 star 1, and not the 1 star 1. But imagine now that this was a description of life, This was description of a life to choose.

Which life would you choose? The 5 star 1 or the 1 star 1. Now again, you know, There's there's no choice, is there really, you know, broad vistas of life, or narrow minded way of life, restricted views. I mean, if that was a description of life, I don't think anyone would want to go down it. So it seems obvious, except when you read Jesus.

Now, listen to Jesus and see whether you really want him as your life coach. Because he says in verse 13, enter through here we go, 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. Jesus is saying take the narrow.

Take the narrow way. You wanna be part of me. You wanna be my follower. You go narrow. You go narrow.

You go 1 star in this world or minus 5 stars in this world, you go narrow. Now, this is the end, clearly, of a great sermon. And what he's doing is he's calling us to decision making. So he's basic finished his sermon, and now he's really saying, what are you gonna do about it? And the next few sections are all about basically What are you gonna do about it?

Who are you gonna listen to? Are you gonna listen to my words? Jesus then, the Lord, the son of God, has come from heaven to earth, to find found and establish a new kingdom. The kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. And he comes right in the middle of all these other kingdoms, and all these other ways of living.

And he's calling people from the kingdoms of this world to this new kingdom, this kingdom of heaven. He says, come and be part of this kingdom of heaven, but he makes it as clear as a bell that his kingdom is entirely different from all the other kingdoms of the world. This is God's kingdom, so it's going to be different from any other kingdom. This is the kingdom of light, not of darkness, this is the kingdom of heaven. And members of that kingdom then need to be different from the members of the kingdom of the world.

That's the sermon on the Mount. And we're gonna have different natures. We're gonna have different characters. And those different natures and characters will begin to be plainly seen by how we live, by our behavior, and how we treat people, and our attitudes to all kinds of things. The followers of Jesus is to break away from the kingdoms of this world break away from the crowds and be in the minority, in the few.

That's what he's saying. Look at it again. Verse 13, enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter enter through it. But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

The great thing about Jesus is that there is no small print. There's no small print with Jesus. He's up front. You wanna follow me, you're gonna be the narrow way. You wanna follow me, it won't be the popular way.

It's never it's never Come to Jesus, have a wonderful, easy life where you'll have full satisfaction and no trouble, And then suddenly there's a small print at the end, you know, when they speak very fastly, you may be persecuted and or even killed. It it's not that, is it? It's not Jesus is the icing on an already delicious cake, and it's worth having. There's a choice and it's stark between the kingdoms of this world all bunched together, broad, any kingdom you like of this world, doesn't matter which 1 you choose, and his kingdom. The narrow and abroad.

There are 2 gates, 2 roads, 2 crowds, and 2 destinations. And it's very simple. So we're going down to the crossroads together. Yep. It's hot it's hot in here, and bit cold and wet outside.

But which which way? Which what are you gonna choose then? Narrow? Broad. Well, let's have a look at the broad road first, the broad road, the wide road as it's described, 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. The word broad means spacious, roomy, That's why I said about the 5 star house. The broad road is spacious and accommodates the crowd and all their luggage. Yeah? There's no there's unlimited luggage on this road.

You know? It's not like, you know, Ryanair where you can only take tiny little, you know, thing, and even then they want to charge you for more, I'm sorry we're probably gonna be sued by Ryanair now, won't we? Yeah. But there we go. If you're Ryanair person, it's Philip Cooper, and he lives in New Morden, that you want to see.

And my name is Philip Cooper, by the way, and I see it. But, you know, there's no there's unlimited luggage. You you can live the life of ease. You don't have to worry about these standards of the sermon on the Mount. That Jesus has been banging on about.

There's no boundaries, do what you like. You can drive down this broad road as fast and as hard as you like. There are no maximum limits. You can go as fast and as hard, no safety limits here at all. Just go along.

Tolerance, permissiveness. They're the order of the day. You can be proud. Talk about being proud of yourself. You can be angry at people.

You can hate your enemy. You can be full of lust, whatever you want. Down this road. No need to pray. No need to fast unless you want to.

If that's what you wanna do, fine. It's all down to you. You can spend your money on yourself. If someone wrongs you, you can retaliate. Yeah?

The joy of retaliation. Yeah? And travelers down this road, well, they just follow their own inclination. Self love, it's wonderful. You could say 1 thing, criticize people for doing 1 thing, and you could do it yourself.

It it it it really doesn't matter. You can be a hypocrite on this road. It's fine. It's fine. You'll be alright.

Yeah? You can have mechanical religion on this road if that's what, you know, floats your boat. It's wide. It's open to all kinds of people. You can be irreligious, you can be religious.

You can have showy religion on this on this road. Lot of showy religion, you know, lots of funny hats and robes and things to show off your religion. That's all very, very acceptable on the broad road. CSus Lewis, he's always so good as neat to quote, but he describes in his autobiography, how as a schoolboy at 13, he began to be broad minded. Oh, sorry.

It just makes me laugh 13 year old. A 13 year old boy, he says, he began to broaden his mind. And then he says this. Have a listen to I was soon, in the famous words, altering, I believe, too, 1 does feel. Or I feel.

I was soon altering, I believe, to I feel, and oh, the relief of it. From the tyrannous norm of revelation, I passed into the cool evening twilight of higher thought, where there was nothing to be obeyed, nothing to be believed, except what was either comforting or exciting. It's so good isn't it? There's a 13 year old, and he comes into the broad mindedness, where there's no revelation. And in other words, there's no 1 out side telling you what to do, because now he's broad minded and he can do exactly what he likes, nothing to obey except which is comforting and exciting.

That's the broad road. That's the broad road. Do what you like. No revelation, tyrannous revelation, people outside telling you, revealing to you what is right and wrong. Yeah.

A wide gate in a broad road, it's popular. Many people says Jesus enter it. It's pleasing. It's probably fun and exciting and full of color and the best music and pleasure, and and the biggest pleasure, of course, is pleasing yourself. You don't have to give up anything if you don't want to.

You can if you want to. There's no cutting your right hand off as Jesus talked about. I mean, that's rather ugly, isn't it? If it causes you to sin, cut your right hand off. None of that.

There's no plucking your right eye if it causes you to sin. No. You can keep your right eye and sin. You can keep your right hand and sin down this broad road. Brilliant.

Yeah? No effort, no worries, no rules, no restrictions, unless you want effort rules and restrictions, Whatever floats your boat. Whatever car you want to drive. It's a broad road. That's the broad road.

Okay? 5 stars. That's a holiday, ain't it? That's a 5 star holiday there. Well, here's the second road then, the narrow road.

First 14, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life. And only a few find it. Now, it's interesting. There are 2 different Greek words that Jesus uses for narrow here. The first word for narrow is closely defined.

It means closely defined. And it means restrictive. Yeah? It's restrictive. This is a narrow gate closely defined You can't get into this road without going through all of these different rules.

It's restrictive. You have to prove. You know, it's it's like the old days of masks and temperature checks, and asking the questions, got off, cough, got off, you know, it's It's it's in order to get into this this, wash your hands. Yeah. It's it's 1 of those security I mean, America was 1 of the worst places I've ever been for security.

You know, you try and say something nice to the security guard, at least what what happened to me when I went to America last, I was trying to say something nice. Why are you talking to me like this? Why are you talking to me like this? What is up with you? So I was just trying to be polite and friendly.

I'm English, Well, I don't want to be talked to. Don't talk to me. It's sort of wanted to go home at that point. But there were then fingerprints, every thumb and finger, and there's, you know, got to prove your paperwork, your temperature. But even your heart test, We're gonna do a heart test.

Make sure you got a right heart before you get on this plane. Yeah. Narrow, restrictive, closely defined, The second word for narrow means compressed and confined. And it carries with it the thought of persecution. Pressed on every side, people against you.

Yeah? So this is how the verse reads. Enter through the closely defined, restrictive gate Small is the closely defined and restrictive gate and compressed and confined and persecuted is the road that leads to life. Who wants that? Who wants to follow that?

And yet Jesus says that is the way of the disciple, narrow, restrictive, persecution, opposition, The gate is narrow. You cannot bring your luggage in. No luggage. Complete luggage restriction. Yeah?

In this, you have to give up your self sufficiency. You have to be poor in spirit. Only poor in spirit. Not people that are rich in spirit. You can't come through.

You have to give up all your riches and be poor and expect, you have to hunger and thirst. You can't even bring your packed lunch onto this. No packed lunch. You've got a hunger and thirst when you're here. You've got to have a different appetite.

You've got to change your appetite. So that you hunger and thirst for rightness. So no pack lunches, you know, It's very restrictive. In John's gospel, which is part of the bible, Jesus calls himself the gate. She's interesting, isn't it?

You can only come on this road through him. He's the gate. He's the security guard man, funny enough. There's only 1 way in. No 1 comes to the father, God, this road.

No 1 comes to the father except through me, says Jesus. He's the gate. You come personally through the gate. 1 at a time, personally asking for forgiveness. Personally, repenting.

Personally giving up your rights to become a slave of Christ, personally seeking Jesus and to to for him to make you righteous, right in in the eyes of God. This gate is cross shaped. It's a cross shaped gate. Here's some verses from the bible. Listen to this.

Galatians chapter 2 verse 20. This is Paul writing. This is what a Christian is. I have been crucified. That's the cross.

I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Not only do we come through Jesus, we come through the cross. And as Jesus gave his life and died on a cross, then you must be crucified. You want to get through this gate, crucify yourself. That's how restrictive it is.

Here's another verse from Galatians chapter 6 verse 14. The world has been crucified to me and I to the world. In order to get through the gate onto the path of life, death has to happen. You can't even bring your life. Jesus died and rose again and you are in him and you need to die and rise again.

So that your attitude says Paul in Philipp should be the same as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature God became a servant even to the death on the cross. Humility is the order of the day to get into this gate. So no unrighteous anger lust, leave it at the door, retaliation, leave it there. Let your yes, be yes. Don't just do what you want, say things and do what you want.

You have to ask your father for help. You need to seek the kingdom of God first. You need to become slave of God, and therefore you'll be a slave of others. That's the narrow way. Got it?

So which are you gonna choose? Which do you want to choose? The life defined by the sermon on the mountain, all those sermons we've heard, or the life defined by self. The wider on the narrow road. Now, I've got to be a little careful here, because I might have given you the impression that there is a sort third road that we're standing on before we choose to go the narrow road or the or the broad road.

But the actual fact is we're all on the broad road. It's not a third road. You're on the broad road, and in order to get through the narrow gate, you have to choose to go through the narrow gate. You must choose to come off the easy broad road you need to repent and believe. And so can I ask you the question?

Have you done that? Have you repented and believed? Have you turned from self? Have you noticed how much talk of self there is? Have you noticed that even in the church people ask the question, well, hold it.

How do I find myself, and I'm finding myself, and I've got to and this self identity, and what are you talking about? If you're a Christian, you die to self. You live for Jesus. Stop going on about self. Stop finding self identity.

If you're a Christian your Jesus identity. You're the child of god through Jesus. So have you repented? It's not Christianity is not adding Jesus to your broad life. It's turning from you and turning to him.

And the way that you know you've come through that gate is that you continually are making that choice to go the narrow way. That's you're continually going through the narrow way. We must keep dying to self We must keep living for Christ. We must keep turning from the broad road and keep turning to the narrow road. We must keep taking up our cross.

And dying to self. So they're the 2 roads. Got it, broad, and narrow, but they're not the end in themselves. The 2 roads lead to destiny. And this is my third 0.2 destinies, life or death.

What do you want life or death? You want life or death? Do you want to live or do you want to die? I had some I think there were 12, 13 year old lads, me and Ann, we took on about 9 lads last night, smashing up the local playground. Got a wife there.

She just stood there looking at them. I wanted to ask them, do you want to live or do you want to die? I'll bring them up in the sermon next week as well. We've got some good stories about them. Do you wanna live or do you wanna die?

Yeah? Narrow leads to life, the kingdom broad leads to death, to be cut off from the kingdom. Look at verse 13, again, enter through the narrow gate wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter many enter through it. The word, destruction literally means ruin. Loss, perishing.

It has an eternal flavor to it as well. Internal ruin. It means to be completely severed It means to be cut off from life. It's sometimes translated in the bible wasted. You wanna live a wasted you know, people say, I'm gonna wanna get wasted this weekend.

Well, why don't you get really wasted? And really cut off and die. Yeah? You're gonna be wasted Well, Jesus warns us that the broad road, it might seem harmless when you tread on it, it might be the easy road you can take any luggage you like, but it will lead to death. Whatever you want, your pride, anger, lust hatred, showy religion, it all leads to death.

1 of the most famous paintings in the world, of course, is the last supper by Leonardo Daovinci. You've probably all seen it haven't you loads of times. It's painted on a wall. I went to see it once years ago, and it was like you could hardly see it. But it's 1 of the most famous paintings in the world.

It took him 4 years to paint that. It's quite a long time. Because I can paint a wall in about 5 minutes. But he he he painted it took 4 4 years to paint it. And when he came to Jesus, he wanted the right model of Jesus, He he wanted a person with a fresh face, who expressed love, and fullness of life, and he went out, and he found this boat called Petro Bantonelli.

And Petro Bantonelli set up for him, and he painted this fresh, lovely, loving, sort of young young man. 4 years later, he had left Judas to the end. And he wanted to pay Judas. And so the story goes that he went out on the streets to find a rough bloke. Bloke with a hard face, bitter, angry, He found this bloke, and he sat him down, and he painted him as Judas.

And it wasn't until after he painted judas that he found out that that was PetroBantonelli. It's the same face as Jesus. 4 years have destroyed this man. 4 years. You go down this road and you think you're free and you will get destroyed.

You'll get destroyed, says Jesus. It's not life, it's death. You think it's free and full of luggage, but it's death. And not only will it destroy you, you'll hurt loads of people because where there's no boundaries And everybody's living for their own kingdom, there'll be wars and hatred and division See, my freedom to drive dangerously means that you may get hurt. And your freedom to drive dangerously means that I might get hurt.

Down this broad road, everything's allowed, but there won't be any forgiveness. There won't be kindness. You'll find people will use you, you'll find no security, and you really won't find joy, and you'll find that you will start to die. And of course, in the end, there is full destruction of full cutting off into the wasteland of hell forever. Waste it.

The large crowd on the broad road, it gives it full sense of security. Really does, doesn't it? That's the problem. Everybody can't be wrong. All these people are doing it.

Let's do it. That's the delusion, isn't it? GK Chesterton, he was a Victorian sort of, I don't know, quite what he was, writer, and master, really. It's a phenomenal He said, right is right, even if nobody does it, and wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody does it, and wrong is wrong, even if everybody does wrong.

It's it's it's not popularity that makes truth, is it? You know? I mean, the scientists always talk like this, they waffle on, don't they about the consensus of scholarly opinion, and it's just a way of not thinking as far as I can see. I mean, the consensus of scholarly opinion some years ago was the earth was flat. The consensus of scholarly opinion.

When I was a kid, the consensus of scholarly opinion was that you automatically had your tonsils ripped out, and you append ripped out, because they were just products of leftover things of evolution, and then suddenly they found out they did stuff. They don't do that automatically now. Just because there's a consensus doesn't mean to say it's right, we need to listen to the creator for that. So the broad road, everybody shouting, do your own thing, and you can have rules if you want You can feel the victim if you want on the broad road. You can do all kinds of things on the broad road.

All lifestyles are open, except Jesus. But look at the other destiny. That all that leads to destruction. It will kill you. It will kill you.

Now we whack this home in a minute, but look at the look at the look at the narrow road. It leads to life, and only a few find it verse 14. The narrow road is like the tardis, isn't it? You walk in this little narrow road and something that's massive. It's a whole world in there.

Yeah? You leave yourself at the gate and you suddenly find God, and he's vast. Yeah? And and and it's not narrow minded in the way people talk about narrow minded. The thing about non Christians, they're often say, sort of the atheist will say, oh, you You know, you're so narrow minded, you needed to be more broad minded.

Well, the problem is, I've had the 2 life I have been a non Christian and I've been a Christian. Who's narrow minded? Yeah? I've been someone who didn't believe and I've now someone who believes. I don't know why I'm the narrow minded 1 because I've had 2 experiences.

You've only had 1, you narrow minded person. Yeah? So, it's not narrow minded in that negative way. This is the life of God. This is eternal life.

This is life that will give you integrity. This is life that is the authentic. We talk about bit finding the authentic you. This is an authentic life of God, lived out in a world with something to believe in, something to live for, people to live for. Even such a good life, it's worth having confined and persecution against you because this is true.

This is truth. So there's the 2 destinations. Life, or death. And of course, this life, not only is it life to live here or of of authentic life, but it leads to that glorious new world where everything is new and beautiful. Life.

So here's my last point then, nearly done. You're at the crossroads. Yeah? You there? What are you gonna do?

In our last section, last week in the sermon on the mount, we read these words. Just go back to them. It's in verse 7. And it says, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened.

Which of you, If his son asks for bread will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish will give him a snake. If you then know though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father in heaven give you good gifts to those who ask him? In Luke's gospel, the good gifts are the Holy Spirit. If you ask knock and seek, he will give you the Holy Spirit.

So here you are at the crossroad. And that's what you need to do. You're at the crossroads, and you need to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you and empower you to follow the narrow way of Jesus. Ask the spirit to give you eyes, clear eyes, so you can see down the road and see where it's going. Oh, that will destroy me if I go down that route.

Knock on the door and ask the Holy Spirit to open the gate of life, don't turn your back on the gate and look at the broad road. Seek the right way to walk in. Ask knock and seek and ask for the spirit's power to show you the crossway to to to walk. You're at the crossroads, you could write a song here, You could write a good blue song here. Went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees.

Yeah. Ask, seek, knock. Went down to the crossroads because in blue songs, you always have to repeat it. Went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees, went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees, asked the Lord above have mercy on me and save this poor soul, please. Now if you don't know, that's 1 of the greatest blues songs ever written.

Robert Johnson, who went to the crossroads, famous for going to the crossroads. But actually, I read a biography of him, Not so long ago. And his last words were believing Jesus Christ. So the devil didn't have him. But go down to the crossroads and knock.

So go through the sermon on the mount. You can do this on your tables just very briefly for a few minutes. Here you are at the crossroads. Lust. Lust is coming upon you.

What am I gonna do? The narrow road, the restrictive road of life, or the broad road of death. Lost. You're at the crossroads. Where are you gonna go?

Which way? Where then you ask, Holy Spirit, I need power here, I need to seek Christ, I need to live across shaped life, The broad road of pleasure is calling me to go down, but I can see it will kill me. That will kill me. That will make me an inauthentic person if I walk down that road. If I go down that road, it means that women will be mistreated if I go down that road.

No. No. No. I need to be down this road. The road of life.

The road of purity. Blessed are the pure in heart. I wanna go down that road so you ask, you seek, you knock. Or unforgiveness, That person's hurt me. I'm gonna go down the broad road of unforgiveness.

I could smash their face in. The right stuff about them. The broad road. But where is it going to take me? It will take me to bitterness, death, and to hell.

But, I would need to go down the narrow road. So I ask, can I seek, can I knock, that I may go down this cross shaped road, I may take off the desire for revenge? And go down the road of peace and have authentic life, or pride. Well, there's a broad road of pride. Or religion.

I can go down the road of outward religion and show off everything and all my religion and my garb. I can go down there Well, how would religion take you to hell? And all those robes and stupid hats that religious people wear, take you to hell, or I can go down this road. And live the life that Jesus wants me to live, to love and to give myself in sacrifice for others. What are you gonna do then?

The broad road, the narrow road. He's applying the sermon on the mount. On your tables and you can do this at home if you want to, I'm just gonna ask you just to open up the sermon on the mount from chapter 5 of Matthew, and just go through, and just see the broad and the narrow road. Just say, oh, which 1? And ask each other this, You know?

So go through the sermon on the mount. Bless are the poor in the spirit. Which which way am I gonna go? You know, you can go that detailed, light and salt, murder, adultery, divorce, oaths. Just go through those things.

Broadroad, narrow road. Just do that for a few minutes together on your tables. If you've got a really small table, you wanna join up with others, then do that. Okay. We'll stop there, but maybe that got the juices running, just discussing things.

But we'll take some we'll take some questions, any questions that you might have. So if the people are online, if you're staying around then you might – I'll repeat the question. Any questions that you have on what we've been seeing? Yes. So the question is that Jesus says that initial righteousness is you know, better than the Faraces.

You won't enter the kingdom of heaven, and then you need to be perfect because your heavenly father is perfect. So this is a pretty narrow gate. Because only 1 can go through. There's only 1 person that can go through that gate who has a righteousness better than anyone's, and that's Jesus. And there's only 1 person who is perfect as God is perfect, and that is Jesus.

And that's why I need to be in Jesus. And that's why the Christianity. So listen listen to our a to z, the 1 that's coming out soon, which is you for union with Christ. Because Christianity is not just believing a set of teachings over there, and I'm here. Christianity is organic, is living, your your you're you're living in Christ.

Jesus gave gives the illustration of a a vine, and we're the branch, and we're grafted in. And so as Christ died on the cross, I was gonna get you to look at Romans chapter 6, but it's a bit heavy. But we've done sermons on it. Have a listen to Roman 6. As you die with Christ, we've Christ died on the cross for our sins.

It's not just he died for our sins, but we die with him. And as he rose again, we rise with him, and that's why baptism is a symbol of going under the water and rising again. We die. And we rise again, says Paul in Roman 6. So the only way through this gate is only through him, in him, with him.

Yeah. So that's why we need Jesus, and that's why we wanna keep close to him and close to the cross and close to dying to self and rising again with him. So that's that's the answer there. Yeah. Yep, Paul.

Yeah. That's the life, I think. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

That's right. But but he's calling for us to keep on dying to self and rising again. So there is always that battle in this life. So this is true. Yes.

I've I've didn't explain that very well. Sorry. The question was, that there's there's 1 time we go through the gate. That's right for salvation. But we know we've gone through that gate, if we continually go through the gate.

So it's a continual living in Christ if you want to take those other things. It's continually being in the vine and growing with Christ growing the fruit of the spirit. It's not and this is why pilgrims' pro this is why Bunyan got it right. Pilgrim's it's pilgrims progress. It's not that he became a Christian full stop.

That's it, done, do what you like now. It's I've come to Christ, and I will live with Christ, and walk with Christ. And along this narrow way, you know, there was an old song, wasn't I'll walk with him and talk with him along the last hour away. I live. I live.

Christ no. He lives. That's it. He lives. He lives, Christ he is as he is today.

And and and and that is the Christian life. So there's this constant battle of the of the broad road and chuck Christ in and cut yourself off from Christ. And I think that's what he's saying at the end of this sermon. Yeah. Yep.

It seems like we kind of look back through the different expansion and says here is the narrower. Yeah. But the question is it that he says things like do not you've heard it said. You've heard it said, do not commit adultery, do not murder. And so forth.

And it seems like the old testament is the broad road. Now I don't think so. I think sorry. Was that the question? I think it's how the pharisees were taking it because we take it we we religion will always wanna go the broad road.

We always wanna go the broad road. So we do the minimum. Yeah? So you've heard it said, do not murder. I've never murdered anyone.

Yeah? So I'm alright. Yeah. Then he says, you call you you call your brother, a fool, and you're a murderer. He takes the law of God and restricts it and restricts it and restricts it or maximizes it, maximizes it, maximizes it, So you could say, okay, I'm a murderer, and you are a murderer.

Yeah? So therefore, you need the savior Jesus. And so that's what he does. Now, what we do is to say, oh, I'm a good living person. You know, I I I gave I gave her a a quote from a a woman in a sermon in Proverbs some time ago.

I thought we said, probably it might have been here. Where the woman was trawling this other woman, and it was violent, horrible stuff on the internet. And The woman that was being trolled and had the violence towards her found this woman's details, And then there's a recording of this woman. It was on the radio, where she's saying, I don't know why I did it. These are vile things I said to you.

I'm a good person, I'm a loving mother. Do you see what I mean? So she's calling herself a good person, a loving mother, and yet she was saying, I hope you die and you're a foul woman and and all of this sort of stuff on in private, on the internet. So, you know, we're always calling ourselves. We're always saying, I'm a good person.

Why you're not? Are you? You know, we're a great we're a wonderful country. Well, how do we treat refugees? Let them die in the Mediterranean.

And who cares about them? They're they're not English. You know, we've got to look after ourselves. So we come across as a a nice nation. Oh, we're gonna have a football match.

That's gonna bring the nation together and encourage others. And then we're a bunch of racists just screaming our heads off of 3 young kids that were trying to do their best. It it it comes out, doesn't it? Aren't we a good wholesome nation? We bring the nation together, and then suddenly we see the division.

When someone misses a goal. It's it's pathetic, isn't it? And so we're not good people, you know? And what Jesus does is take the law and show you that actually you've broken these laws. Yeah.

Okay. There we go. Anything else? Please ask questions. It pulls out the most radical in me.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I think that's the way God works, isn't it? God works God works as sorry, the question is, is that there seems to be an emphasis of God choosing us, often in the bible, but here is us choosing the way. But the way I think you you must divide those 2 things.

The way God works is is in choosing us, and he's chosen us before the foundation of the earth. But the way that he sanctifies us is by causing us to want to cry out to the spirit, and say, help me choose your way. So I think those 2 things are going together. And partly, his bringing us into the kingdom is to show us that he is the only 1 that could choose us and save us, and that you can't save yourself, and he uses the crying out to sort of save us. It's it's just this sort of I don't know whether I've explained it right, but it's in my sermon next week.

But it will be now. Yeah. I think he's making this picture. He's put giving picture language. Oh, sorry.

Why do only a few find the narrow gate? Yeah. I mean, this is a big dilemma for me, I have to say. And I've I've thought about this a lot and a lot and lot. I think it's he's he's using high so he uses hyperbole, so hyperbole is to make a point.

Yeah. And the bible uses that a lot. There's a lot of hyperbole to get you to get your attention. Only a few will find it. You know, are you gonna find it?

Are you gonna be in that few? And I think he's making that point that actually only a few will find it. So that you say, oh, hold it. I need to pay great attention because the draw is to go the broad road. The draw is to go the majority road.

Now, does this mean that there are less in heaven than in hell, and that's the worry That's the question. And lots of people say, yes. But there are lots of mean minded people out there. My feeling is, I'm with spurgeon on this, that the devil cannot win on any level. There will be more in heaven than in hell.

And so what he's saying here is just to get our attention and say, be careful, because we can't we will be drawn to the broad road. And you know what it is in the Christian life, even though you've become a Christian, you're drawn to the broad road, aren't you? It's so easy. Retallation is 1 of the easiest things, isn't it, in the world? So I had these 7 kids last night, these teenagers that, you know, were up in my face.

I mean, it's quite interesting. I said, why are you doing Why are you doing that? And they were level 5 violence immediately. You know, it's just pathetic. And I said, this is pathetic.

You know, what what is up with you? You're smashing up the very playground that you wanna play in. Are you mental? And then you want then they're calling you everything. Level 5 language.

You're right up there with the worst language you could get. To to an older bloke. It's quite extraordinary. And, you know, you've got to be careful not to retaliate, you know, in violence, there. I mean, I did wanna smack this little kid.

He he showed me his ass. Alright? Because I was I said I'm gonna film you and take you down a police station. And so he showed me his ass, and then he came up and said, you've got a picture of my bottom on your on your thing. You're a pedophile.

It's extraordinary, isn't it? Isn't it extraordinary? And he said, I'm gonna take the phone off you. I said, if you touch that phone, then you will find out what I might do. Okay?

So I think you'd be best not to touch that, mate. But in those situations, it's very easy to retaliate it's very easy to want to, you know, go for for these kids. And that's not right. I've gotta be like Jesus, even while I'm telling them off. I've got to not swear at them.

I've got to be reasonable to them. I've got to try to love them and show them their destruction of themselves. It's very easy to retaliate. There we go. You never thought you'd hear words like that in there.

Sorry about that. Sorry, sorry about that if it's offensive. Okay. Any other question? Okay.

Over to Steve.