The Way of Jesus 1.0

Uncovering The Way of Jesus 1.0 - Message by Dale Meredith at The Red Door Community Church.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Let us dive in to the passagethat I'm gonna preach from
today, and it's just a short one.
And today is all about really laying afoundation for this series, that we are
going to, explore over the weeks ahead.
And we're not sure how many weeksas yet, one of the fun things about.

(00:21):
Being red door, and maybe this willchange now that we're stepping into
adulthood, is a lot of churcheshave their teaching series like
mapped out for 18 months, two years.
I don't even really knowwhat we're doing next week.
I know it's gonna be on this, but Iwas waiting for this message to land
before I could commit to what's coming.

(00:43):
And so we do know some things, but wedon't know how long this series might
go for where the Lord might take it.
So we're quite open-handed with this,but we are certain of one thing.
That the Lord is highlighting somethingvery specific to us through this
series, and I'll just, refer thereto the little phrase, a conversation.

(01:04):
Uncovering the way of Jesus.
So today I am gonna preach to youas normal, but from next Sunday
on, we're actually gonna makeit more conversational based.
So there'll be two or threeof us up here discussing a
topic more than just preaching.
it.
To you.
And, so we felt to go thatway for this series at least.
So our scripture fortoday, let us have a look.

(01:25):
My friends Matthew seven verses 13to 14, and this is Jesus towards
the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
And he says, these wordsenter through Thenar Gate.
For why it is the gate.
And broad is the road that leads todestruction and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrowthe road that leads to life.

(01:47):
And only a few find it.
And so let me begin this way.
Who here listens topodcasts quite regularly?
Yeah.
Like a lot of us writearound to our podcasts.
I, I love podcasts.
listen to a whole diverse variety of them.
But have you ever stoppedto ask yourself why?
Particularly those of

(02:07):
you who are quite, rampant in your
podcast consumption, why do Ilisten to all of these podcasts?
Why are we, why do I seek outand to and consume this content?
And so, the podcast universe, it isvery vast at expansive, and while much
of it is devoted to current affairs andtrue crime and entertainment, a rather

(02:28):
significant portion is devoted to content.
That is aimed at, or what can be summed upin the phrase, living your best life now.
How to live your best life nowis essentially one way to sum
up a lot of the content thatexists out in the podcast verse.
We all wanna know the way to life,to know the way to live that works.

(02:51):
We wanna know what is the way that we canlive that will guarantee us the good life.
And so scripture.
Also has much to say onthis topic as it turns out.
So we come to this serieswith this question.
What is the way?
What is the true way?
What is the good way?
What is the way that we can knowthis life that we all seem, all of

(03:14):
humanity seems so hardwired to longfor and to seek out and to pursue.
King David at the end ofPsalm 16 writes this, you make
known to me the path of life.
You will fill me with joy in your presencewith eternal pleasures at your right hand.
And so the hope and the prayer ofthis series is exactly this, that

(03:35):
we would uncover this path of lifethat we would uncover this narrow
road that Jesus is speaking of hereat the end of the Sermon on the
Mount, this road that leads to life.
And yes, Jesus is the gate, as he says in.
John nine 10.
And yes, Jesus is a way,as he says in John 14, six.
But with that, there is also a way tolive that is the Jesus way and this

(03:57):
is the way that leads to life andit's the only way that leads to life.
And sometimes even though we love Jesusand would say that we are followers of
He way, that way can be covered to us.
And sometimes we need to go ona journey of uncovering his way.
Because sometimes we don't perceiveit or sometimes we perceive it

(04:18):
and we resist walking in it.
And so Jesus calls people not just tobelief in him, but to follow him, to be
as he is in the world, to be with him, tobecome like him, and to do what he did.
And why does he do this?
Because he wants to make noone to us, the path of life.

(04:42):
And so let's unpack this a littlemore, and I wanna begin by talking
about the problem that we face that isrevealed in this scripture we just read.
And so Jesus alludes to a problemin this passage, and it's a problem
for us all as we seek to knowand walk in the way of Jesus.
So let's just read thispassage of scripture again.
It's nice and short.
Enter through the narrowgate for why is the gate.

(05:02):
And broad is a road that leads todestruction and many enter through it, but
small is the gate and narrow the road thatleads to life, and only if you find it.
So now one error commonly madeabout this passage is to assume
that it's just talking aboutwho's going to hell and who's not.
And so interpret it this way,I think, is to misinterpret the
fullness of what Jesus is saying here.
This passage, like I said, is part of theSermon on the Mount, which is essentially

(05:24):
Jesus's manifesto for how to live inthe way of the kingdom, which is to say
the way to live truly and abundantlywith God, who is a source of all life.
In the here and the now, the way thatleads to life and flourishing for the
follower of Jesus, causing them tobe lights and blessings in the world.
And so these words in Matthew seven,Jesus clearly lays out the reality.

(05:44):
There are two ways to live in this world.
There is a narrow way that leadsto life and there is the wide
way that leads to destruction.
The narrow way, which is a lifeorganized and orientated by the presence
of Jesus and his teachings and thewide way, which is a life organized
according to the value systems.
Of the world.
And so what is the problem?
The problem is revealed inJesus' description of these
two ways, narrow and wide.

(06:06):
Wide means comfortable, convenient,popular, easy to find, easy to walk on.
Narrow means constricted, uncomfortable,hard to perceive, hard to find.
And so the problem revealed hereis encapsulated and clarified
in these words from the Book ofProverbs, which many of us are pretty
familiar with in Proverbs 1412.
What do we read?

(06:26):
We got it there, Sharon.
Yep.
There is a way that appears to beright, but in the end it leads to death.
Another way of phrasing this, thereis a way that appears right, because
it appears so wide and good andspacious and comfortable, but in
the end it leads to the destructionof life, not the flourishing of it.
And that is where we are going to gowith this series, A deep and careful

(06:47):
examination of the ways that we canbe on that scene right to us, but that
are not the way of Jesus at all andtherefore they are not good and they do
not, and will not and cannot lead to liferegardless of how deeply we feel that
they might be the good and right way.
So in one Timothy, the ApostlePaul talks about those who have
wandered from the faith, who havewandered from the way, and they have

(07:10):
pierced themselves with many grief.
And so to walk this wide way isessentially to do just that, is to,
to pierce yourself with many grief.
And so just let me giveyou a bit of an example.
If you are sitting here today.
And you are holding onto bitterness,resentment, offense towards another,
and you are feeling justified andright in that place because of the
nature of the wrong done to you.

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I would say to you, my friend,you are deceived and you are
piercing yourself with many griefs.
For the way of Jesus iswhat the way of forgiveness.
Without qualification,you are on the wide way.
That is not right orgood, no matter how right.
You might feel it.
To be, and I say this withgreat compassion, right?
This is why the way is narrow.

(07:51):
'cause how narrow and hard does it feelsometimes to forgive the most painful
of wrongs that have been done to you.
And plenty of people who profess faithin Jesus fall prey to this because
it feels so right sometimes to beoffended because of the depth of
the wrong that has been done to us.
But this is the wide way andit just will not lead to life.

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It cannot, there is no good way in this.
And I'm not talking about whenyou in a place of unforgiveness
and you are wrestling, right, youare wrestling on that to go on
that path of forgiveness, right?
I'm talking about when you have justgone, I am justified in my hurt and
your heart has been given over andthat bitter root has taken hold.

(08:35):
And so know this, you can be saved andyou can not be on the narrow way of Jesus.
You can be saved and still yet inso many ways, be deceived that you
are following Jesus on this narrowway, but actually be on the wide way.
And if you are not already, youwill experience the destruction.
Pain of that way.
And so that is with the pastor's heartthat I come before you with this series.

(08:58):
It is not to condemn, criticize,judge, make guilty, but it is for
those of you, and we all feel preyto this in different ways, who are
piercing yourselves with many griefsbecause you are walking the wide way.
Yes, you are.
Child of God, but for somereason, deception has taken hold
and you are walking on a paththat is actually destructive.

(09:19):
And so a couple of things to note aswe lay this foundation for this series.
There are only two ways.
There is no harmless, benign,Switzerland like third way over and over.
Scripture attest to thisdual binary reality.
Right at the beginning in the garden,we see this reality demonstrated.
Right in the beginning in Eden, and asSandy Richter writes in her book, the

(09:44):
Epic of Eden, she explains it this way.
In Eden, we find Yahweh promisingAdam and Eve Paradise if they will
remain loyal to their agreement.
The blessings are many,the stipulations few.
In fact, the only negative stipulationis you shall not eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil.
On the surface, this seems likea simple, even silly rule, but in
reality, this one edict encompassesthe singular law of Eden.

(10:06):
God is God, and we are not.
If humanity would simply acknowledgethe innate authority of the creator
would recognize that they were tenantsand stewards in God's garden, they
would live in paradise forever.
But if they had to have access to everypart of the garden, if they had to be
free to choose their own rules and decidefor themselves what was good and evil, if

(10:28):
they had to be autonomous of the authorityof the Great King, then they would die.
And you know the story.
The choice was autonomy.
The covenant was broken,and the curse was enacted.
So right from the beginning, we see thesetwo ways demonstrated right in the garden.
Consider these words of Moses tothe Israelites as they're preparing
to enter the promised land foundin Deuteronomy 30, 15 to 20.

(10:51):
And we got it on the screen here.
See, I set before you today, lifeand prosperity, death destruction.
I command you today to love the Lordyour God, to walk in obedience to him.
The narrow way and to keep hiscommands, decrees and laws,
then you will live and increase.
And the Lord your God will bless you inthe land you are entering to possess.

(11:11):
But if your heart turns away and you arenot obedient and if you are drawn away
to bow down to other gods and worshipthem, IE wide way, I declare to you this
day that you will certainly be destroyed.
I have said before, you lifeand death blessing and cursing.
Now choose life so that you andyour children may live and that
you may love the Lord your God.

(11:31):
Listen to his voice.
Hold fast to him.
For the Lord is your life, and hewill give you many years in the land
that he swore to give your fathers.
And so then fast forward again.
Also in the Old Testament though,as you read so many of the prophets
in the Old Testament, what is theycalled to the people of Israel?
You are on the wrong way.

(11:52):
Come back to the way of God.
In Jeremiah six 16, we seethese very famous words.
This is what the Lord says.
Stand at the crossroads and look.
Ask for the ancient paths.
Ask where the good way is andwalk in it and you will find rest.
For your souls, you will find life.

(12:12):
And so there are only two ways,and one of the deceptions we can
easily fall into is believingthat there is a neutral third way.
And so perhaps we know, or we've gottena nagging sense that we're not actually
walking in full devoted obedience toGod in certain areas, but we like to
think we're okay because we're notdoing obvious, obvious e evil, like,

(12:32):
you know, swearing or murdering.
And of course our intentions are goodand we go to church relatively regularly.
We might even tithe the, if nottithe, we at least give when we
feel really compelled and move to.
But as for loving enemies and turningthe other cheek and going the extra mile,
forgiving where it seems impossible,not judging others well, those ways,
they're really hard and it's not, it'ssurely 'cause I go to church and I do

(12:54):
some good stuff, that it's, it's okayif I don't actually walk in those ways.
Right.
And so we can't allow ourselves to bedeceived and we all do this in different
ways, that there is a neutral third way.
There isn't scripturedoes not afford us that.
And so why is the way narrow?
This is a really goodquestion to wrestle with.
The way isn't narrow, let me say this,because God is trying to be tricky

(13:18):
and enjoys making life hard for us.
It's narrow because of thecorruption of our own hearts.
It's narrow because we wanna be God.
And this goes back to the Eden story.
If our hearts were not corrupt, ifour wills were not broken, the way of
Jesus wouldn't actually look and feelso narrow and hard and restrictive.
It would look spaciousand good and beautiful.

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But because we are corrupted,sinful and selfish by nature,
our perception is distorted.
And what is good now looksbad to our natural eye.
And so this is what Paul refers toas the reality of our fleshly nature.
And he speaks of this here inGalatians five, verses 16 to 21.
When he says, so I say walk.
By the spirit and you willnot gratify the desires of the

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flesh for the flesh desires.
What is contrary to thespirit and the spirit?
What is contrary to the flesh?
They're in conflict with each other sothat you are not to do whatever you want.
The acts of the flesh are obvious.
Sexual immorality and purity.
Deery, idolatry and which craft hatred,discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish
ambition, dissensions factions and envy.

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Drunkenness, orgies and the like.
I warn you, as I didbefore that those who.
Live like this will notinherit the kingdom of God.
Now, when he says inherit there, take thatas meaning for those who live like this
will not walk in the way of the kingdom,will not experience the goodness of the
way of the kingdom, will not experiencethe joy and the peace and the flourishing

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and the true abundant life that onlycomes from living in the kingdom of.
God and my friends, as we come beforethis text, be very careful that we don't
just focus in on words like orgies and go,well, I don't have orgies, so I'm okay.
Right?
'cause we do, that's the partof our slippery nature, right?
We just pick the most dramaticevil thing in there and go, well,
I'm not that so, so I'm good.
Don't do that.

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Okay?
Don't wiggle out from under this.
All right?
When the conviction falls, it is ablessing and it's a goodness of God to.
Put you onto the narrowpath that leads to life.
He's good God, he's a good dad.
He wants you to know his good life.
And so there are parts in that passageI just read that are true of all of us.
We all engage in jealousy in some form.

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We can all get really angry.
We all have selfish ambition driving us.
Just when you've been around churchlong enough, you just get really good
at sanctifying it and putting it up.
But if we look at their hearts boldlyand bravely with full courage, knowing
that in the sight of God, he still lovesus, this isn't about proving our worth
to him, and we can look at it and go, ohLord, okay, there is this ugliness here,

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which is not of your way, which is if Igive myself over to it, I'm only gonna
be piercing myself with many griefs.
And so the way of Jesus, it isnot the way of our own heart.
Right.
Common wisdom of our daysprouted in different forms.
In songs, movies, advertising, and booksis the wisdom of follow your own heart.

(16:13):
Yeah.
And you will find the good life there.
How often do we hear it?
We play a game in ourhouse called Babylon.
Bingo.
Talked about this before.
So you've got the culture of Babylon,which is basically in scripture.
Is is there?
Yes, Babylon was a real place, but it'salso used to represent all that is anti
Kingdom of God.
And so, you know, when
we're sitting, watching moviesor whatever and, you know, you

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hear one of these phrases, it'slike, oh, just follow your heart.
And the music plays, and it's just like,oh, of course I've just gotta follow.
I've just gotta be true to myself.
Babylon.
Bingo.
Right?
Because that's the message of Babylon.
That is not the way of the kingdom.
Why?
Because our hearts are ina process of being healed.
Our broken wills mean weare now naturally turn in on

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ourselves with our primary focus.
Seeking to live first for ourown good, seeking our own way.
Let me ask you this,this question, church.
How often do you haveto have your own way?
Think about, you know, forthose of you who are married,
I have a shocker for this.
I love my own way.

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I'm so convinced that my way is the rightway, and if only Adam would just submit
to my superior wisdom and understanding,then our life would be good.
Right?
Oh, I've just firstbornare the worst at this.
And Adam and I are both first born.

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So welcome to the dynamicnature of our marriage, because
we both see this way, right?
How much do you have to have yourown way for you to be at peace,
for you to feel okay in the world?
I. It is a really good questionto sit with, and it was quite a
humbling one for me to sit with.
Let me tell you that.
Oh my gosh.

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So is this not, unless I've justsaid one of the mantras of our
culture, look out for number one,you gotta put yourself first.
You are the most importantperson in your world.
Be true to yourself.
And just like you wouldn'ttrust a broken compass to guide
you, your heart is broken.
It is not a reliable guide.
It is very easily deceived.

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Our hearts and ourwheels, they are broken.
They don't work as they were intended to.
We desire the wrong things.
We desire self-harming ways.
All those ways that Paul talked aboutin Galatians five, we just read.
They are self-harmingways that we can walk in.
And this is the common human conditionthat Jesus came to heal, to give

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us a new heart, to heal our brokenhearts, our broken wills that we
wouldn't just behave rightly, but thatwe would actually desire to do so.
This is what we've gotta becareful of with series like this.
I'm not preaching moralism.
What we are talking about isdeep heart transformation.
So you wouldn't just have to grid it outand walk the way of Jesus, but that your

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heart would be so formed and transformed.
That is what you would desire to do.
Is that not how Jesus lived?
You know, my will is to the will ofthe one who sent me, and that is, you
know, we talked about Pentecost Sunday.
You know, that's one of the rolesof the Holy Spirit within us is to
help form us into people's whose.

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Desire what God desires.
Dallas Willard putsit, frames it this way.
I've got it on the screen here.
Jesus calls us friends if we dowhat he commands in John 1514.
As God's friends, we always wannabe asking God what he's doing and
how he wants us to work with him.
Friends are people who understand oneanother, and so as friends of Jesus,

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we obey because we understand what God.
Our intimate friend is doing.
His intent for us is thatwe would grow to the point.
We would do what we want, becausewhat we want is part of that shared
understanding with God our friend.
This is what it is to be a child of God.

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This is what it is to be a follower ofJesus, just to be transformed into one
who can walk the way of Jesus and whowants to, we desire the same things
as God, and so we can easily slip intoa Christian life that is all about
gritting it out, gritting out a lifeof obedience to the way of Jesus, and
this is not what God wants for us.
No good parent wants to seetheir child obeying out of fear.

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Or out of trying toearn love and approval.
That's horrible, isn't it?
Jesus kind of set us free fromthe slavery of this way of living.
Living under fear.
But, and as we remember, like wesaid, Pentecost Sunday today, he
also gives us his spirit to empowerus to live in his way, to guide us

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in his way, and to transform us sothat we will want what God wants.
And so let me shift now toanother fundamental component
for this series as we seek tolay a foundation and let me pose.
A really important question to you.
Do you trust Jesus?

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Do you trust him?
Most often, what lies at the heartof our struggle to choose to know and
to walk in the narrow way of Jesus isthat we actually have a trust problem.
And I think if we truly trustedJesus and took him out's word,
we would walk that narrow way.
He speaks of freely andwith full confidence.

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Knowing that even though, yeah, sometimesit can be really hard and sometimes
it can be really quite painful, alwaysvery inconvenient that it is good.
If we truly trusted, wewould gladly give up our way.
For his, our selfish,self-centered, self-focused ways.
We would gladly dispense off them.

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We would see them for the absolutegarbage that they are, and we would
turn from them, run from them, andtake up his ways if we truly trusted.
I. If we truly trusted, we would walkgladly in obedience to all of it.
But we resist, we refuse.
We even rebel sometimes.
Some of you, even as we sit hereright now, you know God is calling

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you to walk a certain way in aspecific situation, have just gone no.
You're in a toddler's risenup and you're going, no,
I don't wanna, and there is a real
test of obedience for you at the moment.
And this place that you find ourselves.
Just think for a moment, thestory of the rich young ruler.
I mean, it's a story that'sappears in three of the four

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gospel accounts.
And, so we have this
young guy who comes before Jesus and hewants to know how to get eternal life.
How do I get the good life, Lord?
How do I get eternal life guaranteed.
You know, I've done all of this,I've done all of that since birth.
I've been, you know, my performance has
been stellar.
And, Jesus says, you
know, go, go away.
Sell everything you have, give the moneyto the poor and then come follow me.

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And so we say easily just narrow thatstory down to being around about money.
Yeah.
And the dangers of money and thedangers of worshiping money and how
it can stop us from following Jesus.
But actually the, the deeper truth thatunderlies this is the rich young ruler.
He didn't so much have a money problem.
He has a trust problem.
He couldn't trust Jesus.
The what?

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The good way for himwas the way of wealth.
That was where the good way was guaranteedand he just wanted that assurance
from Jesus that all these other stuffhe was doing was gonna, you know.
Double guarantee for him thathe would have the good life,
eternal life.
And, he couldn't do it.
And he walked away sad,because ultimately he did

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not trust his life to Jesus.
And so let us consider for a momentthe words of King David in Psalm 25.
We got it on the screen here.
Oh Lord, I give my lifeto you, declares David.
I trust in you.
My God.
Show me the right path.

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Oh Lord.
Point out the road for me to follow.
Lead me by your truth and teach me foryou are the God who saves me all day long.
I put my hope in you.
The Lord is good and does what is right.
He shows the proper pathto those who go astray.
He leads the humble in doingright, teaching them his way.

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The Lord leads with unfailing loveand faithfulness all who keep his
covenant and obey his demands.
Who are those who fear the Lord?
He will show them thepath they should choose.
They will live in prosperity andtheir children will inherit the land.
The Lord is a friendto those who fear him.
He teaches them his covenant.
My eyes are always on the Lord, but herescues me from the trap of my enemies.

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And so this psalm speaks loudly oftrust in confidence and God, and it
speaks with petition and expectationabout desiring and needing to know,
wanting to know the ways of God.
But it begins with a declaration of trust.
If we look back for a moment, theseries was, came out of Philippians.
What was one of the striking realitiesof the Apostle Paul that just leaps

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off almost every paragraph of thatletter, and it's, and it's this
reality that enabled Paul to live withunshakeable joy while staying faithful,
joyously, faithful to the call of Godand to the way of God, and it was his
profound trust and confidence in Jesus.
That's where it all came from for Paul.

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And so King David in this psalm,he trusts God with his life.
He trusts the character God, to be one inwhom he can put his whole trust and hope.
He trusts in the unfailing loveand the faithfulness of God.
He knows that God delights to show thosewho are devoted to Him his ways, and he
knows that the ways of God are the waysto life, the only way to life for the

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individual, for the community, and forthe generations that will come from them.
And so from this psalm, let us resolvenow to take hold of what David knew,
that God's ways are good, that theylead to life, that God wants to show
us his ways and to know His ways,though requires trust and humility.

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Or another way of saying it, it requireswalking in the fear of the Lord.
As David said in that psalm.
And so in light of this, let us considerthe very familiar wisdom that is exhorted
in Proverbs three, five to eight, andthere'll be very few of us here who aren't
familiar with this passage in some way.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your ownunderstanding in all your ways.

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Submit to him and he willmake your path straight.
Do not be wise in your own eyes.
Fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to yourbody and nourishment to your bones.
Again, it's just the same way ofsaying it's a different way of
saying what we have been talkingabout throughout this message.

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So question though, wheredo we get this trust?
If only there was a pill, if onlythere was a switch that we could flick.
Trust is hard.
Well, we know this, don't we?
Trust is hard.
Trust is really hard onthis subject of trust.
Brennan Manning in his brilliantbook that I just love so much called

(27:30):
Ruthless Trust writes, unwaveringtrust is a rare and precious thing
because it often demands a degree ofcourage that borders on the heroic.
When we face rejection, abandonment,betrayal, unemployment, loneliness,
depression, the loss of a loved one, whenwe are deaf to everything but the shriek
of our own pain, when the world around ussuddenly seems a hostile, menacing place,

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at those times, we may cry out in anguish.
How could a loving Godpermit this to happen?
At such moments, the seeds of distrustare so, it requires heroic courage to
trust in the love of God, no matter.
What?
It's good, isn't it?
And so there's very few of us here in thisroom that cannot relate to these words.

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And so by the way, of growing andfueling our trust in Jesus, let
me draw our attention back to alion from Psalm 25 that we read,
and it's this little lion here.
My eyes are always on the Lord.
What we are looking at will be whatwe are trusting in, what we give

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our attention and our thoughts to.
What do you spend most ofyour time thinking about?
What are the false gods, the anti Jesusways that you, my friends, are tempted
to trust in, you know, one of the waysof Jesus that we are called to walking
continually is this way of repentance.
And so repentance means changingdirection, changing your mind.

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What false gods, what anti Jesusways might you be trusting in that
you need to renounce and repent of?
This was one of God's continualcorrections to the Israelites
through his prophets in the OldTestament, you are worshiping,
you are trusting in false gods.
Repent.
Come back to me, walk in mygood and life-giving ways.

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And while it's unlikely there are anybal worshipers amongst us, we are at the
end of the day, a room full of idolaters.
I do not want to offend anyone, but weare, I think it was Augustine who said
The human heart is an idle factory.
We will worship.
Anything and everything except God.

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There is a reason why the firstcommandment is you shall have no
other gods before me, because ofthe waywardness of the human heart.
We are constantly latching on.
I find it, I've been in Jeremiahat the moment, and I just find
it so constantly perplexing.
The depths of idol worship that God'speople were drawn into, even after all

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that they had experienced with God.
They, they were sacrificingtheir own children to mole.
This is how far thepeople of God had fallen.
How far off the ways ofGod they had been drawn.
Oh, how, how can you have noone so much of Yahweh's good and
gracious presence, and they yetstill worship these other gods?

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But we gotta be careful ofgoing, oh, stupid Israelites.
Dumb.
No, because we're them.
They're us.
The same brokenness ofheart, same problem.
Abounds.
We are just as susceptibleto deception as they were.

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And so anything, even very good thingsthat we orient our lives around other
than God seeking to get from them, whatonly God can give hope, significant
security identity, these things are idols.
And so my hope is that this serieswill be a journey of repentance where
we can be challenged to see the wayswe're walking in and trusting in that
are not the ways of Jesus, where wewill have our wide ways exposed and

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the way to get off the wide way.
And onto the narrow is repentance.
It's the only way.
And so to help clarify this in light ofwhat we've been talking about, let me
read to you these words of Tim Keller.
He says this on repentance.
Martin Luther opened the Reformation bynailing the 95 thesis to the door of the
Wittenberg Cathedral, which was read.

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So it goes fun, fun fact, maybe.
the very first of these thesis wasour Lord and master Jesus Christ will
the entire life of believers to beone of repentance on the surface.
This looks a little bleak.
Luther seems to be saying Christianswill never be making much progress.
But of course that wasn'tLuther's point at all.

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He was saying that repentance is theway we make progress in the Christian
life, in religion, the purpose ofrepentance is basically to keep
God happy, so he will continue tobless you and answer your prayers.
This means that religious repentanceis a selfish B, self-righteous, and
C bitter all the way to the bottom.
But in the gospel, the purpose ofrepentance is to repeatedly tap into

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the joy of our union with Christin order to weaken our need to do
anything contrary to God's heart.
That is so good.
Have that view of repentance in mind.
It is not to keep God happy with youif that is your view of repentance.
You have missed the gospel and youneed to come back to the gospel,
but we'll get into that in a moment.
The purpose of repentance is to repeatedlytap into the joy of our union with

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Christ in order to weaken our need todo anything contrary to God's heart.
I. Yeah, there isa, there's an old sermon
that I constantly come backto and I reference for people.
I think it was, oh, I think we'regoing back to the 17 hundreds here.
Preacher by the name of ThomasCharmers preached a sermon
called The Expulsive Power of a

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New Affection.
And, his point was for
order us to truly change our behavior,it doesn't come from trying harder.
It doesn't come from guiltingourselves, condemning ourselves.
It comes from standing before the beautyand the wonder of God and having our
affection for him expel our affectionsfor anything else, for any other way.

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And so I wanna set before you with thisin mind, a challenge for the week ahead.
So some homework.
Who likes homework?
Yay.
No, not of hands.
Church, come on.
It's good.
It's fun.
Homework and a way to tap intothe joy of our union with Christ
as Kel Keller speaks of here.
A way to keep our eyes on theLord and to have our trust in him
strengthened as we gaze upon him.

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So your mission, we adore churchfamily, if you choose to accept it.
It's very timely at the moment.
Latest Mission Impossible movie came out.
Anyway, I won't go down that rabbit hole.
your mission, if you choose to accept it,is to read and think about Psalm 23, 3
times each day to write it out, to keep iton your person, to set a reminder on your

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phone, whatever you need to do to comebefore this psalm, three times a day to
think about it, to read it, to meditate onit, to pray through it, five, 10 minutes,
three times each day for one week.
And so let's read it now.
Because if we get the truth ofthis sermon to our hearts, it just

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postures us in a beautiful placeof trust and reliance upon God.
So the Lord is my shepherd.
I like nothing.
Stop right there.
Just, just, just meditateon those words there alone.
If you were to do that a few timesa day, just on that first verse,
it would do wonders for your heart.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.

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He leads me beside quiet waters.
He refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths.
For his name sake.
Even though I walk through thedarkest valley, I will fear no evil.
For you are with me.
Your rod and your staff.
They comfort me.
You prepare a table before mein the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head withoil, my cup over your flows.

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Surely your goodness and love will followme all the days of my life and I would
dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Imagine stopping and pausingwith this throughout your day.
How is this gonna orient your thinking?
The posture of your heart?
It's gonna bring you to a placeof peace and trust, isn't it?
And that's part of therenewing of your mind.

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Yeah.
That's how we transform therenewing of our mind as we come
before the truth of who he is.
So in saying this, and asI bring this to a close.
Let us remember and remind ourselves ofthe good news that we won't throughout
this series, fall into the temptationof some kind of moralistic legalism.

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Yeah, we won't be tryingto do the right thing.
Obey in order to earn God's approval.
So Ephesians two verses one through two.
Actually, it's more than one to three.
I think it's about one to seven.
And this is a passage we actuallyreferenced last Sunday as well.
And let's just read it andponder the meaning of it.
As for you, as for all of us, wewere dead in our transgressions and

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sins in which we used to live whenwe followed the ways of this world.
And the ruler of the Kingdom of the Air,the spirit who is now at work in those
who are disobedient, all of us alsolived among them at one time, gratifying
the cravings of our flesh and followinghis desires and thoughts like the rest.
We were by nature deserving of wr.But because of his great love for
us, God who is rich in mercy, madeus alive with Christ even when

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we were dead in transgressions.
It is by grace.
You have been saved.
It is by grace you have been saved.
It's not because you havewalked the right way.
It's not because you havedone a bunch of good things.
It is by grace.
You have been saved and God raised usup with Christ and seated us with him
in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

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In order that in the coming ageshe might show the incomparable
riches of his grace expressed inhis kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace.
You have been saved through faith,and this is not from yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not bywork so that no one can boast.
For we are God's handiwork created inChrist Jesus to do good work, created

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in Christ Jesus, to walk in his ways.
These good ways, these good works, whichGod has prepared in advance for us.
And so the message of the gospel,see the message of every other
self-righteous way of living.
The message of every other religious wayof living is you walk the narrow way to
prove yourself worthy of being saved.

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That is not the message of the gospel.
That is not the message of Jesus.
The message of Jesus is, I am the gate.
You come through me, my grace issufficient for you, and now you walk
this narrow way because I'm with you onit and I'm empowering you to walk it.
I've sent my spirit, which isthe message of Pentecost Sunday.

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To empower you and to form you into thekind of person who can live in this way.
In the here and now, and this isimportant, I mean, constantly challenging
this misrepresentation of the gospelhere at Red Door, Jesus did not come
to give you your ticket to heavenso that you could just live mindly
however you want in the in-between.
Yeah, he came to callyou into his kingdom.

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Now repent for the kingdomof heaven is here It is now.
Yeah.
And so we enter it through Jesus,through the blood of Christ, through
the life of Christ that we justremembered, that we participate in,
that we are permanently united to.
So it is with all thefreedom in the world.
That we pursue the narrow road,knowing that we have everything
we need and all that we trulyneed can never be taken from us.

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So we can go with full confidence, wecan go, even when it doesn't make sense
to us in our natural mind, we can go andwalk his ways when it's hard and it's
sacrificial and seems really painfuland counterintuitive because at the end
of the day, we cannot lose anything.
That truly matters to us because we havethe fullness of it now, and that is the

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glorious promise of the gospel that setsus on a shore foundation to love and
walk in the ways of Jesus, for the gloryof God, for the good of the world, and
for our own human flourishing as well.
You know my friends, you who are parents,you who are husbands, wives, friends,

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mothers, daughters, the greatest blessingthat you can be to the people around you.
Somebody who loves the narrow way ofJesus and is committed to walk on it.
Because what does that do That formsthe life of Christ in you and not
just in you, out of you through you.
What was the call?
Of God to the Israelites.

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He said, you're gonna go into exile, intoBabylon, you're gonna be exiled, right?
But in that place, seek the peaceand the prosperity of the city into
which I have called you for if itprospers, you too will prosper.
He says to them, that same core restupon us and how do we seek the peace
and the prosperity of the city?
We don't seek it.

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By being flipping keyboard warriorsand judgmentally without outrage.
That's the way of the world.
I don't care how manyscriptures you add to it, right?
Critique the world, condemnthe world around us.
That's not the way of Jesus.
That's not how we see the world around us.
Transformed for the glory of God.

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It is as we ourselves are transformedand step as people of light in the
way of Jesus into the world, thatthe world around us becomes blessed.
Amen.
All right, team, come on up.
Let us pray.
Just close your eyes andbow your heads for a moment.
Church, Lord,

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we come before you Lord, with our hearts.
Father, which we acknowledge inall humility can be very wayward
and susceptible to deception.
But Lord, we come before youknowing you are our good Father and
you desire to show us your ways.

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And you do not condemn us or shameus Lord, but to you, with such
generosity, give us yourself.
Give us your spirit.
To lead and guide us.
So come Holy Spirit, as we prayed rightat the beginning of this service, come
Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit, and leadus on the path of repentance that where

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we are not on the good way of Jesus, yourconviction would come and lead us onto the
right way, the good way, the narrow way.
And Lord we pray for courage this morning.
I pray for courage for everysoul here, courage to be able
to trust you wholeheartedly.
To lean upon you, Lord, not on our ownunderstanding, but in all our ways to

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lean upon you and to acknowledge you,to submit to you even, and especially
when these ways may not make senseor they seem so hard and so costly.
Lord, we ask for divine courage,
and we thank you Lord,that you are a good father.

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And that you delight in us and thatyou wanna show us the way to life.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.