The Kingdom of Heaven

Jordan Day · Tidal Church Moncton · August 4, 2024 · Kingdom Citizens series

Jordan Day teaches from Matthew 7:13-14 on the narrow and wide roads, showing that following Jesus is harder but leads to eternal life. We enter the kingdom of heaven by making Jesus King and taking part in God's kingdom now.

More from Jordan Day · The Kingdom Citizens series

Topics: Faith, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Good morning. It's good to be with you. I hope that you have enjoyed the first bit of your long weekend. I am excited to continue our sermon series, Kingdom Citizens, as we evaluate Jesus's arguably most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and that's kind of our summer series, and we're journeying through that. And if you haven't picked up one of our Kingdom Citizens books, I would encourage you to do so. It's actually written by a friend of mine, and she's phenomenal. And we just have so many good things that we can journey through as a church in this devotional. And we are just so excited for what God has for us in this season. And as I was preparing this, I was just thinking about life. I was just thinking about just what, what life has been like in the last little bit.

[0:46] And can I be honest with you? Life's hard. Life's hard, you know, I mean, I'm 21 and I'm experiencing all that life has to throw at you. And it's hard. And some of you're thinking, "Oh, well, Jordan, you should have started with like a funny story or something." But I feel like all of us can relate in the room and say that life's hard. We go through seasons where life is hard. And as I was thinking about that, I was thinking about, what have you done that's been difficult or challenging, but it's been worth it? Maybe it's like a really serious season of life. Or maybe it's just something casual, like putting in the work on a car that you've been working on, or in your schoolwork or at your job or whatever it may be.

[1:31] I remember in college we went on a ski trip, and if any of you know me, I don't ski or snowboard at all. And I had two very good friends of mine that are very, very good snowboarders. So obviously, me having a little bit of FOMO, I needed to be there. So I decided that I would go snowboarding, I would try it out. And has anybody in the room been snowboarding before? Like four. Okay. Yeah, that says how hard it is, right? So I decided to go snowboarding, and what people who haven't snowboarded have to do is they have to do like a training session, a lesson on something that people call the bunny hill. And the bunny hill is exactly how it sounds.

[2:17] It's very small and it's very, it's not very steep at all. And it's for beginners. And it is called the bunny hill. And you go on the bunny hill and you get this training session and this lesson from a snowboarding instructor. And I fell a bunch of times, but I was figuring out how to snowboard. Was it a challenge? Yes. But I was figuring it out after a little bit. The lesson started to get a little bit boring 'cause there wasn't much to this hill. It was very simple. It was very wide, it was not very steep at all. And I was getting quite bored. And by the end of the lesson, the ski instructor looks at me and he says, "Oh, I would suggest that all of you just stay on the bunny hill for the whole day." I'm like, "Excuse me, what?" Like, I bought a day pass. Like, that was expensive.

[3:02] Like, you can just picture the bunny hill right here. And then you just look up and there's the whole hill right there. All the different slopes, all the different runs. I can literally see my friends coming down the hill just cruising, going as faster than I could ever imagine coming down. And this guy looks me straight in the eye and says, "You need to stay on the bunny hill for the whole day." I'm like, "Absolutely not." Like, there's zero chance that I'm doing that. So I skip lunch and I take the whole lunch hour that we had as a group, and I practice on the bunny hill, practice and practice and practice. And in order to get on the hill, you actually had to complete one of like a challenge almost. It was a test to see that you were competent at skiing or snowboarding.

[3:48] Now my friends completed it on their first try. And after a while, after two hours of practicing how to snowboard, I had actually completed it two or three times. So I was feeling pretty confident. And what the ski instructor, snowboard instructor said was actually music to my ears. He said, "I can't force you to stay on the bunny hill, but I highly suggest that you do." I was like, "Perfect, amazing." So I finished it and I was like, "Okay, we're doing great. I'm feeling very, very confident." So I went on the hill and the slopes are categorized by colors and shapes on how difficult they are. Some of you have probably heard what a black diamond is. No, I didn't go on a black diamond, but I went on one of the blue ones, and it was after a few hours and I kept doing it, and I kept doing a bunch of different ones, and I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do one that's a little bit more difficult, one that's a little bit steeper."

[4:42] And my friends had gone ahead of me and they're much faster and better at this than me. So they were at the bottom of the hill almost. And this hill was actually right underneath the ski lift. If any of you have ever seen a ski hill, you know that there's a ski lift. If you haven't, there's this thing, there's a lift that brings you up the hill because it's so massive, right? So it was right under the ski lift. Lots of people watching me is a key component to this story. Lots of people watching me. So they're waving at me, trying to distract me or whatever, and I'm feeling confident, I haven't fallen in almost like 45 minutes to an hour. And I'm like, "Okay, I'm the best snowboarder there is." So I look up and I start waving. Okay, lots of you can probably see where this story's going. And I start waving, and I even give like a little peace sign, and they're waving at me or whatever.

[5:31] And little did I know, a little ways further down the slope, they, I don't know who did this. They put these little mounds in the hill, you know? And it's not just like a normal hill, the normal hill's pretty like even, but they decided to put these little mounds in it, I don't know, for fun or something. And I didn't know that. So I am looking this way and snowboarding this way, and all of a sudden this, my back edge of my snowboard just cuts right into the mound, right into the first mound. And all of a sudden, instead of my snowboard being on top of the snow, my snowboard is under the snow, and that's not what you want. So I just eat it. I fall flat on my back and I hit my head, honestly, pretty hard, but I was fine.

[6:17] But more so, I was embarrassed. It was embarrassing. All these people on the ski lifts just watched me. They're laughing at me. I was literally in the midst of waving to them as I was falling. And it was a mess, but it was worth it. It was worth it to go up the hill and experience it because, because experiencing snowboarding from the bunny hill is not really experiencing the fullness of what I had to offer, the fullness of even what I paid for. So there was no chance that I was staying on the bunny hill. But even though I fell, and even though there was these weird mounds from some person who decided to design it like that, I got to experience snowboarding to the fullest and I got to experience it with my friends and that was my goal.

[7:05] So I ask you again, have you ever experienced something that's difficult or challenging? Maybe it was difficult or challenging, but was it worth it? Sometimes we put all the work in and it just wasn't worth it at all. There's lots of times I would try to like put things together with the instructions. Like, anybody ever put something together from Ikea? Yeah, exactly. And you put it all and you spend hours and hours and hours and like you got the first two legs of a coffee table and you're like, oh my goodness. Like, sometimes it's not worth it. My wife would disagree, she loves Ikea. But we need to evaluate if something's difficult, is it really worth it? And that's what we're gonna be talking about today. We're gonna be starting in Matthew chapter 7 in verse 13, and the whole section is verse 13 to 27 in our Kingdom Citizens book.

[7:57] But today we're just gonna focus on the starting passage of that because it really sets the tone for the rest of it. And I hope you pick up a book, or if you already have one, I hope you journey through this for the rest of the week. And this can be the start of an amazing journey of God revealing Himself to you. But today we're just gonna focus on this passage and we're gonna go from there because it really sets the stage for the rest of, really, the ending of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. We're actually jumping to the end. And usually when a public speaker gets up to talk, we usually leave important things till the end because we want you to leave with it. It's something actionable that you can do, right? I mean, obviously I'd hope that you pay attention to what I might say at the end because it's really, really important, and Jesus is doing the same.

[8:44] So reading in Matthew chapter 7, starting in verse 13, it says, "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." Let me read that again. "Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." Can we read verse 14 together? "But small is the gate and narrow the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it." So Jesus talks in analogies, and He actually talks in these things called parables all the time. And we're gonna break down very, very quickly what that actually means.

[9:32] What is the analogy that Jesus is using? What does it actually mean that this gate is small and the road is narrow? What does that represent? Well, the road actually represents our life. It's often an analogy Jesus uses. There's a road that represents life. And this morning, this section right over here is gonna be the narrow road, and we're gonna step over here and this is gonna be the wide road. And Jesus gives us these two illustrations, this wide road and then this narrow road. And we're gonna evaluate which one is more worth it, which one is more worth it. Because Jesus says that the narrow road is more difficult, but the wide road is easy. It's easy to go through.

[10:17] Jesus is using this technique of opposites. He's saying two polar opposite things, wide and narrow, to illustrate a point, to drive home the point to which one leads to life and one leads to destruction. So now that we know that the road actually represents the way of life, well, this way of life is easier. Shouldn't I live this way of life? Shouldn't I live on the wide path because it's so much easier? Well, what does it say? It says it leads to destruction. And later on in Romans 6:23, it says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

[11:03] So obviously if the wide path leads to destruction and later on the Bible says that the wages of sin is death, and obviously then living on the wide path is living in sin, as easy as it may be sometimes, and then living on the narrow path is actually difficult. It's difficult. And we can see that living for Jesus is what it actually means to walk on the narrow path because it leads to eternal life. And it says that living for Jesus Christ our Lord is what leads to eternal life. Because in reality, our actions really will live out our words, right?

[11:49] The Bible says you are saved by your faith, but your faith is lived out by your works, right? We know the saying, actions speak louder than words, right? We've all heard that before. It's true. It's true because our actions testify if our words are really what we mean. If I'm walking on the narrow path, it shows the desires of my heart. And same for the wide path. We actually look deeply into the wide versus narrow analogy. It actually may refer not only to the majority versus the minority, but also to relative levels of difficulty or ease. Think about the bunny hill. It was pretty easy after I learned how to snowboard a little bit.

[12:34] I got the hang of it. But once I went on the actual hill, it was harder. Hence why there was a test on the bunny hill to see if you could even make it to the real hill. There was a measure of difficulty in between those. And there's a measure of difficulty between the narrow path and the wide path. Jesus actually uses this Greek word to describe narrow. It actually says it's pronounced thlibo, and it means to experience trouble or difficulty. It's the same word they actually use to describe the pressing of grapes to make wine, the pressing of grapes to make wine. It indicates that there's actually pressure and there's difficulty. Narrow describes the pressure that the world puts on us when we decide to live in holiness towards Jesus Christ.

[13:22] And why does the gate, there's no pressure here. There's no pressure. You can live in sin. It's easy, but it leads to destruction. And that's the harsh truth. Jesus gives us two promises. There's one road that leads to life And there's one road that doesn't. And it's the harsh reality of the world we live in. But we believe in a God that is just, so just that He cannot be okay with us living in a world that is not perfect. He calls us to a higher calling because He says sin is not okay. The bad things that happen are not okay. So we need to walk on the narrow path that leads to Him. So what does it look like to walk on the narrow path? What's like an actual tangible thing that we can take to walk on the narrow path?

[14:14] What do I have to do? What do you have to do when you walk outta this room today and you go throughout your week and you and you have your festivities or whatever you have planned for your long weekend? What do you have to do to be on that side of the path, to be on that path and not the wide path, to be walking in the direction of eternal life? What do we have to do? That's really the answer that all human beings strive for. It's the answer that I strive for. What do I have to do to be with Jesus? What do I have to do to experience life to the fullest? Well, to experience eternal life is really to experience the kingdom of heaven.

[15:00] To experience eternal life is to experience the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is the place where we experience eternal life. And when it says the narrow path leads to life, it's talking about the narrow path that leads to eternal life. Heaven is this place that we get to experience the presence of God without sin and pure holiness. It's not like earth. We get to experience God to His fullest. And there's no sin there. There's no harm there. It is eternal life. We don't have an end point. It's the blessing that God has given us. It's the promise that Jesus gives us in this passage. But it's really the promise that the Bible gives us for the whole book. The whole book is directed towards the promise that God has eternal life in store for us because He sent His Son and He died in our place.

[15:52] That is the promise that the Bible presents us. So to experience eternal life is really to experience the kingdom of heaven. So how do we get there still? How do we walk on the narrow path? How do we experience the kingdom of heaven? Well, we really need to become a part of the kingdom of God. And I know that's a big ask. It's a big ask. I'm asking us as a church, as a people, you as an individual. Maybe it's your first time and you're, and you're really wondering who this Jesus guy is all about. Well, there's good times and there's bad times. It's just like any path. Just like any path. There's good times and there's bad times. But I would be lying to you if I said that there was absolutely zero difficulty involved with following Jesus.

[16:43] I remember running cross country when I was in high school, and the first bit of the race is great. It's great 'cause you have lots of energy. But there was a time around the three and a half kilometer mark where I wanted to sit down. I wanted to stop, couldn't feel my legs, felt like my heart had fallen out like a kilometer ago. And like, I don't think I was breathing anymore. Like it was bad. It was not good. I was not a cross country runner, but that was the rough time in the race. But the second I got over that, the second I got over that mindset, said, "You know what? I'm gonna keep going." You turn around, turn around the corner and you see the finish line. Maybe that's where you're at today. Maybe that's the spot where you're at, where Jesus is talking about. Yeah, the narrow path involves difficulty. The narrow path is not necessarily always easy, but there will be times when Jesus will give you peace and Jesus will give you the characteristics of the eternal life that He has for us.

[17:36] It's a big ask to become a part of the kingdom of God. And I actually looked into what a kingdom actually means. I even went on National Geographic. It's true, okay? And it says a kingdom is a piece of land that is ruled by a king or a queen. If you even look up in the background of the slide, you even see that, like, kingdom on the hill. And honestly, stereotypically, that's what we think of when we think of a kingdom, right? Like a kingdom on a hill ruled by a monarch. Lemme tell you, that is similar to how the kingdom of God acts. We have a piece on the king's land that is designed for us. And He's inviting you in.

[18:21] He's inviting you to be a part of the kingdom. He's inviting you to participate in what He is doing now because although we see the kingdom of heaven later, we can get a taste of it now by participating in the kingdom of God. We can get a little taste of the kingdom of heaven. It says in the Bible, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." We can taste and see that the Lord is good by participating in what He is doing. Now there's lots of different ways that you can do that. I know lots of young adults who meet every Sunday night because they believe that spending time with other people who love Jesus is vitally important to their faith.

[19:10] And although they could be doing all of these other things that young people are all tied up in all the time these days, they choose, "No, I'm gonna pick the narrow path and I'm gonna strive towards Jesus. I'm gonna invest in my church family. I'm gonna be a part of the next generation that has set my eyes on Jesus." I know lots of people who could pick the wide path and take all the vacation in the world. And that's not a bad thing. But I know lots of people who have sacrificed their vacation to go on short-term mission trips and see how Jesus has changed their lives and changed the lives of people even beyond borders. They see that the power of Jesus is not bound by borders. And we see it in this room by all the cultures that are represented. And I preached on that just a few months ago. Jesus' power is not bound by borders. We see that the kingdom of God is present not only among, and not only in this room, not only in Canada, but in The Bahamas, in the Congo.

[19:59] And we see people actively deciding to take a piece of the king's land that is theirs. The king still rules over the land, but it's yours. You get to participate in that. And that's the gift that Jesus has given us. I know lots of people who could spend their time just at home and doing nothing and, and all these things and resting, and rest is a beautiful thing and it's something we definitely need. But I know lots of people who have chosen the narrow path and said, "I'm gonna take time in volunteering Kids' World." I know lots of people who aren't in this room right now 'cause they're taking care of your kids. And 'cause they believe that Jesus has something for them too. I know lots of people who decide to go into small groups and decide to serve on campus launches and decide because Jesus is calling them to a certain calling because they know that when they, When they live out their works, it is a profession of their faith.

[20:53] And they have their eyes set on the kingdom of heaven, and they believe that other people should be with them too, and they want everyone to come with them. Come. And that's the call, that's the encouragement. And I know lots of people in this room who believe that too. What's a further step that we can take in the direction of the kingdom of heaven so we can taste it more and more? So what is the kingdom of God? Like Daniel chapter 2, verse 44 says, "And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break into pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever."

[21:40] That's a characteristic of the kingdom of God. If I read that verse, that's a kingdom that I wanna be a part of. That's a kingdom that I wanna be a part of. When you think about playing sports, I always, I always resort to playing sports. When you think about playing sports, you wanna be on the winning team. You try to win. We like to win. It's part of our DNA, it's part of our makeup. Now do we lose respectfully when we lose? Of course, but you try to win. It's always nice being on the winning team. I'm watching the Olympics right now. I'm watching lots of it. And you can see these athletes just battling for the gold medal because they wanna win.

[22:28] Well, I'm telling you that the kingdom of God is the kingdom that wins. The kingdom of God is the kingdom that will stand forever. When everything else fades, the kingdom of God will still be there. It will still be there. That's a characteristic of the kingdom. And that's a kingdom that I wanna be a part of. Now here's the truth. If you're writing notes, write this down. If you're not writing notes, still write it down, 'cause it's important. In order to enter the kingdom of heaven later, we must participate in the kingdom of God. Now, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven later, we must participate in the kingdom of God. Now because all that is promised at the end of the narrow road, the kingdom of heaven, we can taste a little bit of it.

[23:18] Now, Jesus has sent His Spirit, and we get to experience what the kingdom of God is like. We get to see His church in action, and we get to participate in that. That's the invitation, that you can participate in what God is doing right now. That's the invitation, that's the blessing. We get to be on the winning team. We get to be a part of the kingdom. More characteristics of the kingdom. It says in Romans 14:17, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." When Jesus exemplifies for us how to pray, He says, "Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

[24:11] All these good characteristics of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God coming, and that's experiencing it. But it also says in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven." Remember our faith, what is in our hearts, what we say, what we profess will always be lived out by our actions. So my question to you today is, are you walking on the narrow path? Are you taking the steps in the direction of the kingdom of heaven? It's a hard question that we have to evaluate. And I was wrestling with it a lot when I was preparing my sermon.

[24:56] I was like, is it this harsh? But it's because God is so just, He loves us so much that He cannot tolerate us being on this side. It's not okay for Him, for us to live in sin, for us to experience life, not how it was designed. So He gave us this option, although it's difficult, although it might be hard, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And there is hope that we find in Jesus. We get to experience the kingdom of heaven in all that it has by experiencing eternal life with Him. But we must participate in the kingdom of God.

[25:41] Now that's what it looks like to walk on the narrow path. So how do we become a part of the kingdom? How do we claim that land that God is offering us? How do we say yes, I want to be a part of the kingdom. I want to be on the winning team. I want to walk on the narrow path no matter how difficult it is. Well, the reality is that when we make Jesus king of our lives, then we become a part of the kingdom. You can't be a part of the kingdom if Jesus isn't king. That's how a kingdom functioned. There were lots of kingdoms back in the day. If a certain king wasn't your king, then you weren't a part of the kingdom.

[26:27] You weren't. We must make Jesus king. We must. Because when Jesus is king, then we start to walk on the narrow path. And it's this blessing that God has offered us. He says, "You can have eternal life with Me. Just walk on the narrow path. Although it might be difficult, I promise. I promise I will be with you all the way, and you'll experience eternal life with Me." And it will be mind-blowing. It will be a blessing. I can't even imagine. I lost someone very, very dear to me this year. And that is a promise that I'm holding onto, that we will experience eternal life with Jesus, that we will experience the kingdom of heaven, that we will experience that hope.

[27:15] And it's an offer to all of us. We just need to walk on the narrow path with our little bit of time to experience eternity with God, and let's bring as many people as we can with us. 'Cause that's the calling. When Jim gets up here and asks us to serve and asks us to be a part of the campus and asks us to get on board with the vision, it's because the kingdom of God is on the move and it's at work. And we believe the kingdom of God is the place that everyone is welcome, including the people that aren't able to make it to 945 St. George Boulevard, including the people in Shediac and Miramichi and all up the east coast of New Brunswick.

[28:00] The kingdom of God is at hand. And let me tell you that everything that the wide path presents to us is not king. They're not king. Sin is not king. I drive down the street all the time to pick up my wife from work, and I gotta remind myself that homelessness is not king. Addiction is not king. Politics are not king. And I'm not talking about the politicians. I'm talking about what we think of the politics. Your own ambitions are not king. Our own sin that we're hiding, that we're working through.

[28:49] It is not king. Who needs to be reminded of that today? It's not king. The goals that are making you run away from God and not what He asks for you is not king. Your job is not king. Money is not king. Whether you're struggling with that or whether you have an abundance of it, either way, it's not king. Jesus is King. Jesus is King. And whatever the wide path represents, we have a promise that unfortunately it leads to destruction. So we need to reevaluate our priorities.

[29:34] We need to reevaluate how we are living. What is in our heart will be lived out by what we do. And if we're walking on the wide path, then we know that something's not right. And we need to take a shift, because you see that when I walk this way, I walk away from sin and I get to experience God to the fullest when I reach eternal life with Him. But the good thing, the blessing that Jesus has offered us by coming down and dying in our place, is that He left His Spirit. And we get to experience the kingdom of God now so that we can experience it in its fullest later. Because when we make Jesus King of our lives, then we become a part of the kingdom.

[30:24] And that's something that we need to grasp. And that's something that we need to hold on to. 'Cause when Jesus is King, then we truly do become a kingdom citizen. Maybe you're in this place right now and you're wrestling with that, and you're wrestling with, what do I need to put to the side to take the next step on the narrow path? Well, I invite you, we're gonna sing a song. It's called "King of Kings." And let us declare it as one voice that is taking the next step on the narrow path towards the kingdom of heaven so that we can experience all that God has to offer. Because God has so much in store for us, and He truly wants us to become kingdom citizens.

[31:14] Let's pray. God, we just thank You for who You are and the fact that You are King Jesus. You are King. Remind us of that as we sing. Declare You as the King of kings and declare You as the Lord of lords. We know that You have already won. We are on the winning team when we become kingdom citizens. Let us not shy away from that as we go throughout our weeks and our months and the rest of the year. Let us live a life that declares what is in our heart, that Jesus is King.