Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 199th episode. In this episode we’re going to continue our study of Matthew’s gospel. We are in chapter 7. This is the final chapter of Christ’s sermon on the mount which has been a tour de force of wisdom and Christian procedural guidelines. Learning to live out the principles highlighted in the Sermon on the Mount is an important part of establishing yourself in right relationship with God and with your neighbor. The teachings of Christ are wise both because they are the product of omniscience, and because keeping His commandments makes you a better person.
In the previous episode we discussed the principles established for the judgment of others. We learned the difference between judgment and reproof, as well as what conditions must be met in yourself before you are qualified to reprove someone else. Now we’re going to look at a portion of the chapter which gives us encouragement to pray so that we might ask God for the things we need. We’ll also unpack what’s often known as the golden rule: that you should treat others how you wish to be treated. We’ll finish this episode by examining Christ’s rather terrifying distinction between the narrow path of righteousness and the broad way of destruction. Let’s open our study by reading verses 7-11:
Mat 7:7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Mat 7:8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Mat 7:9 “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?
Mat 7:10 “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?
Mat 7:11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!
Earlier in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount He gave His disciples instructions on how to pray in a manner that honors God. Now He’s adding another dimension to prayer which is asking God for the things you need. Many Christians spend the majority of their prayer time in this side of the practice. I think you can make a case the majority of your time should be spent praying to honor God — but I don’t want to diminish the importance of asking for needs either.
When asking for God to satisfy our needs, we should note that our greatest need is for grace to obey His commandments and for our hearts to be sanctified. Many of the precepts given in the Sermon on the Mount — indeed in all of scripture — run in direct contradiction to the desires of our flesh. God’s more interested in the condition of your spirit than He is in the condition of your body, although we shouldn’t be shy to pray for the well-being of both.
I’ll readily admit that I don’t pray as much as I should. I think this is a common problem with modern Christians. The precept Christ articulates here is the idea of asking, seeking, and knocking. It’s the notion that we should pray often, pray with a sense of seriousness and authenticity, and pray repeatedly. Prayer is one of if not the most important avenues to grace. This means that if you want an abundance of God’s grace you need to form a strong habit of prayer. You should be asking for grace as fervently as a beggar asks for food or for money. Indeed without Jesus we are so deprived of grace as to be made more desperately impoverished than beggars.
In prayer you can present your wants and needs before God and then give yourself over to Him in your dependence on His support and His providence. This is one of the benefits of routinely asking God for what you need. It trains you to bring God into all of your desires. This kind of practice helps you develop a posture of humility in the way you walk through life. It’s not that you’re helpless to satisfy your own desires — it’s that your desires will never truly be satisfied if they are detached from God. Satisfaction does not have the same durability as purpose, and so when you’re chasing satisfaction sometimes what you really need is purpose. A right relationship with God is how you get both.
Even if your proverbial ducks are in a row and you feel like you have a good handle on life — you’re always only moments away from the slats being blown out from underneath you, causing you to fall into chaos. So when you ask for things in prayer you should ask like a traveler seeking direction. If you think you know enough on your own to live a good life then chances are you just don’t know how lost you really are. You don’t know how much you don’t know. The truth is that you need guidance and you need help if there’s going to be any hope of you not getting lost. This terrifying reality is brought to the fore each time we suffer things like arbitrary, unexpected tragedy or betrayal.
Asking for what you need in prayer is also compared to knocking on a door. Sometimes you have to knock more than once and often knocking is preceded by feelings of trepidation. Am I wrong to pray for this? What if God rejects my prayer? Many times you desire something godly — like marriage — but God knows it’s not the proper time for you. So you might pray for a marriage seemingly to no effect, but it may not be that God doesn’t want you to marry — it’s just that He doesn’t want you to marry yet. Revelation shows us this same illustration of knocking at the door only in reverse. Jesus says, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
This idea of seeking and knocking seems to be attaching prayer to action. Imagine you hate your job and for good reasons (some of you don’t have to imagine) so you pray to God for a better job. Based on Christ’s encouragement to support or follow prayer with action — it would only be appropriate to start looking for a job yourself after praying for one.
I think there’s something complacent and possibly even wicked about praying for a thing and then doing nothing to seek after it yourself. I want to be careful to note there are many instances where there’s nothing you can do — like with terminal illness. We’re not talking about those instances in this example. But I think some people will pray in a sort of “cheap” fashion and then do nothing on their own effort to acquire the thing they’ve prayed for. From the beginning, their underlying motive is to proclaim that God has rejected them or even God Himself doesn’t want them to have such and such. It’s an easy way to cast yourself as a victim and to justify failure. These kinds of prayers can be wicked because they come from a spirit of tempting or testing God.
Two of the most important examples of prayer bound to action are prayers for wisdom and prayers for strength to resist sin. God gives wisdom and grace to those who search the scriptures for it. So if you pray for the wisdom of God’s word and then you spend all of your time on TikTok — you should not be surprised when you do not receive the wisdom of God’s word. God gives strength to resist sin to those who avoid the occasion for it.
Maybe you’ve recovered from alcoholism and you pray for the strength to resist falling back into it. There’s some point along the chain of decision-making where your addiction to alcohol is less of a factor. It’s much easier to keep walking down the street past the bar than it is to resist ordering a drink while sitting at it. The same is true of infidelity. If you never allow yourself to flirt with a person who is not your spouse then you’re less likely to be in a situation where you have to resist the act of cheating. When it comes to sin, if you flee at the first sign of smoke then you’ll be saved from having to contend with the fire.
The core of this passage is the promise from Jesus that if we labor in prayer then our labor shall not be in vain. All this means is that God hears our prayers and He will give us an answer of peace so long as we are faithful in our pursuit of Him. Grasping this promise on faith is crucial to actually seeing the promise fulfilled. A person who trusts God is much more cheerful and constant in his obedience of God than a person to mistrusts Him. You are designed for obeying God. When you obey God you are functioning like an instrument performing its intended use. Obedience to God means living your best life — there is no better life on offer. Trusting in His promises fosters a cheerful and faithful spirit of obedience in you and this is what grants you peace.
Ask and it shall be given to you indicates that God, if He sees fit, will give you what you ask for. You’re not earning it or borrowing it — He’s simply giving it to you as a gift. If you desire something but haven’t asked for it, then the question becomes whether that thing is worth having at all. Seek and you will find reminds us that prayers are bound up in actions. The promise of “seek and you will find” is probably most germane to the project of finding God to begin with. If you seek God you will find Him, and once you’ve found Him your entire life will change.
The gospel is so important to this because the cross of Christ changed us from enemies of God to children of God. When enemies knock at the door the door remains shut against them. When your child knocks on the door you open it freely. That’s the difference the gospel makes. Because of Jesus, we are granted to knock on the door of the gates of Heaven and God will open it with mercy and grace.
The same is true of prayer. When we pray to God we are knocking on the door, and our prayers are received because of Jesus. When you visit a friend and knock on their door, you don’t just dash off when they fail to open it immediately. The same should be true of your prayers. Just because God has not answered them immediately doesn’t mean you should stop and run away — it means you should keep knocking and keep waiting.
Jesus makes a radical, yet fundamental Christian claim in this passage when He says, “everyone who asks receives…” Everyone. Unlike the apostolic gifts, this promise of prayer was not limited to Christ’s disciples. Whether you are Jew or Gentile, young or old, rich or poor, elevated or lowly, a master or a servant, educated or uneducated — everyone is invited to pray to God. Everyone is invited to come before the throne of grace so long as they come by faith. The reason for this is because God is no respecter of persons. All of us are equally damned without Jesus. God is not impressed by your family heritage, your workplace achievements, or your bona fides as a worker of charity. Even the best of these things do not absolve you of your need for the righteousness of Jesus.
The promises of God are interesting because whether or not you see their value depends on your faith. If your perspective is such that, “Well maybe God will show up in this thing or maybe He won’t.” then it’s likely you’ll perceive the promise as coming up empty. I think this is because you’re establishing your own parameters for determining whether God has satisfied His promise. Many of the smallest details concerning Christ were testified as prophecies centuries before He came to earth. Generations of people lived and died before these prophecies were fulfilled. Undoubtedly there were many who just assumed the prophecies were wrong or God was powerless to satisfy them. The same can be true of the things you ask for in prayer if you limit God’s framework to the wisp of vapor that is the timeline of your mortal life.
A faithful perspective concerning God’s promises looks more like this: God is so certain to satisfy His promises that God’s promises and His word are really the only sure foundation upon which to build your life. God’s promises are so certain that it is as if He has already satisfied them. When you ask for something in prayer by faith, provided this thing is congruent with scripture, you can be so certain of God’s promise to give it to you that in effect you already have it. Let me clarify this. Jesus said blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness. So if you are being persecuted for standing in your convictions or doing the right thing, and you pray for God’s blessing in the ordeal — a move of faith is to accept God’s promise as certain to come to fruition no matter what the present moment looks like. Then because I trust for God’s blessing, the manner in which I walk through the persecution will be completely transformed.
Here’s another way of illustrating it. The Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl endured the horrors of Auschwitz and he wrote about them in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. One of his major insights during his time in the death camp was that the journey laid out by walking in the truth was the best possible journey no matter how dismal it appeared. He made a faith-based commitment to tell the truth and accept the truth even if it looked like the truth would get him killed. This kind of faith-based deference is how we should approach the promises of God. We have faith in the goodness of God even when it’s hard for us to see His goodness.
Christ reflects on the goodness of the Father when He juxtaposes God’s willingness to give good gifts compared to human willingness. He reminds His disciples how ready each of them is to give their own children bread when they ask for it and how each of them stands ready to grant many of their own child’s requests. Then He reminds His disciples that human beings are evil and yet they still give good gifts — so how much more will the Father give good things to those who ask for it?
Jesus uses this juxtaposition between human parents and God the Father to illustrate important truths about His character. A child in distress bears zero hesitation in running to his or her parents with complaints. When a child bumps his head he doesn’t spend the afternoon meditating the philosophical quandaries of the will of his parents — he just screams and runs to his parents for help. Jesus is showing that we ourselves have opportunity to approach God in this manner. We can trust Him even more than a child trusts his own parents. This trust, when coupled with a robust theology, produces a sense of reverence and confidence in our prayer life.
When you petition God in prayer you should do so for good things. Praying for good things seems self-evident, but countless are the prayers which have gone up asking for revenge on one’s enemies. King David himself beseeched God on numerous occasions that God’s wrath might fall on his enemies. We ask God for good things which means we ask Him for whatever His will is for us. The teacher in Ecclesiastes says, “For who knows what is good for a man during his lifetime, during the few years of his futile life? He will spend them like a shadow. For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?” God knows what is best for us better than we know what is best for us.
The child prays for his necessary food and it pleases God to provide for him. But if the child asks for something dangerous which might cause him harm, God in His compassionate wisdom will deny the request. I think this is where some of the confusion starts concerning theology of prayer. We see parts of scripture like in Mark 11 which appear to suggest God will give us anything we ask for in prayer so long as we ask with confident trust. It’s self-evident to anyone who has ever prayed that this is not true. There are plenty of instances where God does not heal or where God does not open the doors you’re praying will be opened to you.
This is because God does not respond to prayer in a way that is violative of His sovereign will. If you’re asking for something that is a departure from God’s plan, even if you think it’s a good thing it cannot possibly be the best thing. So if God is going to execute His sovereign will whether we pray for it or not — what’s the point of praying for things at all? This is a question which is framed from the limitations of being stuck on a singular point in linear time. Since all you have is the present moment, you feel as if your prayer prompted God’s response which wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
But I think it’s better to consider how the act of you praying for it was also part of God’s sovereign will. You made a choice to pray, but God knew you were going to make the choice and He already knew the prayer. He led you on a journey of endless situational influences which developed you into the kind of person who would choose to make that prayer. If I asked you to review your entire life and sketch out each cause and its effect in generating who you are and where you are at this moment — you would not be able to do it. You would not be able to author a story which would perfectly replicate your life as it has unfolded to this point. God can do it with perfect accuracy while including details as small and seemingly unimportant as what you ate for breakfast 784 days ago.
God’s love for us becomes palpable once you understand His absolute sovereignty and couple that understanding with the fact that we aren’t constantly paying for our sins. Every moment of our day exists under the control of God, and many of our moments are filled with joy despite our sinful condition. When you begin to see your days this way then you begin to see the grace of God in nearly every breath you take. Life can be so good that many of us are afraid of losing it, and this goodness is proof that we live under the wings of a compassionate and merciful God.
I think one of the reasons why Christ encourages us to pray is because the more we become like Jesus, the more our prayers are filled with the language of God’s will. Take for example the Great Commission. The more we become like Jesus, the more important the Great Commission becomes to us because the Great Commission is important to Him. So as we continue to be sanctified we find ourselves praying for the advancement of God’s Great Commission. Similarly the more Christlike we become the more passionately we love the lost. Why is this? Because Jesus loves the lost. The more we love the lost the more likely we are to pray for them. Prayers for the Great Commission and prayers for the lost are prayers which are spoken in the language of God’s will. These are prayers God Himself desires to answer.
Another perspective which should encourage prayer comes from the consideration of how good parents never give their children harmful things in response to requests for good things. Earlier we saw the example of how the parent would not give a child a stone when the child is asking for bread. With many parents this response is almost universal within their means — so they give their child good things 100% of the time they are able to give it. If human parents are able to be so consistent then how much more so with God? God has no limitation to His ability. So I’m comfortable saying, and I believe it is theologically well-grounded to say, that God will never bring you something ultimately harmful in response to your prayers for good things. Understanding this truth means you can feel a sense of safety in your prayer life with God.
There are parents who do things destructive to their own children — but often these people suffer from the deep, worldview distorting effects of sin themselves. Setting these cases of chasmic, multigenerational evil aside, even the most incompetent of parents are imbued with a strong drive for compassion in regard to their own children. I’ve observed many parents who lack a sense of duty in key parts of their lives and yet they’ll work hard to provide for their children. This is because God has placed the providential instinct in the hearts of these people when it comes to their children. The placement of this providence marks out the parent-child relationship as special in the sight of God.
It is this parent-child relationship which God Himself assumes in regards to you. He owns you as His child, and so you can depend on Him with the same and greater readiness that a child depends on his human parent. Even people outside of the faith recognize parental love and caretaking, and they attribute such instincts to nature. It’s true that this instinct is found throughout nature, but I would suggest they spot the attribution one level higher and see its source in the Creator of nature Himself. The scriptures show that God compares His own concern for His people to that of both a father and a mother. He has both qualities in Himself and the way He sees His people.
The parent-child relationship is provided as the best possible illustration of God’s consideration of us, but even this illustration falls short. When describing the character of God scripture says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” When Jesus makes the comparison between human parents and God the Father in this passage, He calls us humans evil. What He means is that all of us are the progeny of fallen Adam. We are born with a kind of sinful corruption which separates us from much of the good nature found in God.
Even the best human parents have bad moments in which they can mistreat their children. This doesn’t have to look like being mean or neglectful either. Sometimes a human parent is too attached to his or her child and therefore inhibits development of that child. There are other times where a parent gives in to the desires of the child even when parental wisdom cautions against doing so. This might be an effort to get the child to be quiet or it might be the case that the parent is not strong enough to say no. God is always strong enough to say no. Psalm 27:10 says, “For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the LORD will take me up.” God has the advantage of omniscience, so He has a perfect understanding of what we need, what we desire, what is fit for us, and how all of these domains overlap.
Although it may be hard for us to recognize, God’s compassion as a Father far exceeds the compassion of human parents. Very often human parents feel undying love and compassion for their children even if their children go badly astray. In scripture we see examples of this with the father of the prodigal and also with king David’s love of his son Absalom. Parental love has an extreme quality which seems to disregard rational reasoning. But for all of this the compassion of human parents is like a candle to the sun when compared to God’s compassion for humanity. Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. Jesus beseeched the Father to forgive the people who crucified Him while they were crucifying Him. God’s grace is immeasurable. Let’s continue our study with verses 12-14:
Mat 7:12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Mat 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Mat 7:14 “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
This is the passage of scripture which is colloquially titled The Golden Rule. The reason for this name is because Jesus sums up the rest of the Law and the Prophets with a single principle: treat others how you wish to be treated. Jesus is saying all the other rules set down in scripture are pointing toward this end. The purpose of obedience to God’s precepts is that you would treat others how you wish to be treated. The two great commandments in the Bible are to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength — and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you get these two right then you’ll be getting the rest of it right as well.
So why do we even need the Bible if all we need to know are these two commands? I think it’s because the more degenerate we become the more we forget what these two commands mean. The minutiae of the law was given to Israel because Israel lived in a context of degenerate, pagan idolatry. They were surrounded by these kinds of cultures. They needed to be given object lessons in order to lift them up and separate them from the morass of wickedness which encompassed them.
The same thing can happen to us today. For many people the two great commandments seem self-evident and need no further explanation. But there is a growing segment of the population who is losing the meaning of God, the meaning of love, and the meaning of neighbor. How can you love God and love your neighbor if you don’t know who God is, who your neighbor is, or what love means? Idolatry corrupts your soul until these definitions escape you — and then you are brought back to a level of needing particularized instructions in order to repent and re-learn how to live.
But assuming you haven’t suffered the worldview-distorting effects of idolatry, the heuristic of loving your neighbor as yourself works rather well. Even if you are a selfish person who has gone badly astray, you can still infer how others would want to be treated because you know how you want to be treated. This basic percept of righteousness rightly follows Christ’s instructions on prayer — because God will not listen to our prayers if we have given ourselves over to wickedness. God hears the prayers of the righteous, and these are people to commit themselves to all that is honest, lovely, and of good report. Practicing devotion to God through kindness to your neighbor is a necessary ingredient to a healthy prayer life.
So Jesus is teaching us to love God and love our neighbor. As a Christian, treating others how you wish to be treated applies to every person you’re involved with. It’s a principle not to be reserved for your friends or withheld from your enemies. The Golden Rule is so eminently valuable and so self-evidently true that many secular leaders throughout history have espoused it. When people outside of the faith speak highly of Jesus it’s almost always in the context of this principle. The Golden Rule is easy to believe because it’s so easily testable. You need only deploy it in your own life to stabilize many of your relationships.
What’s interesting about the Golden Rule is that it provides practical wisdom in the reverse form as well. Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto yourself. The next time you’re tempted to wrong someone, try to imagine how you would feel if the wrong was inflicted upon yourself or upon your loved ones. Understanding the Golden Rule both positive and negative is an essential part of a well-developed faculty for empathy.
Another benefit of treating others how you wish to be treated is that it keeps you humble and reminds you that you are equal with your neighbors in terms of how you deserve to be treated. This process is also greatly beneficial for learning and expanding your own horizons. Part of this reciprocal love means analyzing your neighbors circumstances so you can determine how you would want to be treated if you were in those same circumstances. When you seek to understand someone else’s circumstances you often become enlightened in places where you previously had moral blind spots.
There’s also the issue of God’s judgment to keep in mind. Scripture is clear that you will be afforded the same measure of mercy which you extend to others. So if you’re harsh in the treatment of your neighbors you can expect God to be harsh with you in turn. I would much rather err on the side of mercy and remain under the protective shield of God’s grace. That’s why I never speak pejoratively about individuals and instead focus most of my attention on ideas. You can ruthlessly pick apart an idea while leaving your love for the person uninterrupted. That’s an expression of what Jesus did when He died for us while we were yet sinners.
Jesus further supports the Golden Rule by telling His disciples that all of the law and the prophets hang upon it. Loving God and loving your neighbor is the spirit behind all of the rest of God’s laws. One of the reasons why loving your neighbor as yourself is such a memorable law is because it’s so simple and so easy to relate to. Every reasonably healthy person wants good things for themselves, and therefore they understand what it means to give good things to their neighbor. It’s also notable because it provides an easy metric for determining whether or not a person is walking in alignment with the Spirit of God. If someone claims to be a Christian and yet mistreats his neighbors, I think we have some serious questions to ask about this person.
So what are some disciplines you might practice to make yourself better at this? I think a good step is to become careful and intentional with the way you act and speak. If you couple self-control with the ability to be precise in your speech then you will be able to love your neighbor well. Sources of mistreatment in a Christian’s life almost always include some kind of temptation or powerful emotion. Countless people have caused irrevocable damage in their relationships merely by indulging something like unjustified anger for a few moments. You should resist lashing out in any kind of emotion which is not first subordinated to rational thought. If you can become the kind of person who means what he says and says what he means, then your neighbor will always know where he stands with you.
Inculcating these kinds of habits is not easy because our natural inclinations are contrary to them. That’s why they are called disciplines. The etymological root of discipline is the same which composes disciple. The faithfulness to daily take up your cross in discipline is why Jesus says the path which leads to life is narrow and difficult. It’s also the case that, for whatever cosmic reason, we live in a universe where the opportunities to produce destruction seem much more self-evident than the opportunities to produce good.
I’ve used this thought experiment in sermons before but just imagine how you could destroy your own life and the lives of everyone around you in the next ten minutes. There are probably many heinous visions which come to mind. Now instead imagine how you could do the same measure of good to your own life and the lives of everyone around you. Remember you’re only given ten minutes to accomplish it. There’s almost no conceivable way. This deep, structural truth about ourselves and about our universe is what Jesus illustrates when He says, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Jesus is also reminding us that there are really only two destinations for us. Heaven or Hell. I think this is true even of the present moment. It’s certainly the case that everyone has dissonant motives and everyone sins. But the general arc of your life is either aiming up or it’s aiming down. Aiming up is a lot harder and requires much more self-sacrifice. But aiming up is also the only reliable method for developing a durable sense of meaning and purpose. It’s also the only reliable method for promoting the spiritual well-being of yourself and your loved ones.
The wide gate and the broad path leading to destruction also indicates the freedom of restriction associated with nihilism. If I believe that life is meaningless and nothing matters in the end then I am set free to indulge my appetites and follow the worst parts of my heart. But if you put this into practice you will absolutely, undoubtedly suffer spiritual and physical breakdown. The good parts of yourself will atrophy and the wicked parts will become increasingly corrupt. The trials of life will push you off your unstable footing into an ocean of chaos which is too often attended by needless, cyclical, self-inflicted misery. You are not designed for the directionless freedom of the broad path of destructive nihilism. You are designed to be obedient to God.
Christ also cautions that there are many who enter in through this wide gate of destruction. It’s certainly the case that if you allow the stream of culture to mindlessly carry you away, it will corrupt you without mercy. We should never forget that it was a crowd of people calling for Christ’s crucifixion. Had we been in that crowd and not been practitioners of careful thought and action — we would have been calling for His crucifixion as well. Majority opinion is worse than unreliable when it comes to the development of ethical guidelines. Safety in numbers is an illusion should you decide to go to war with God. Instead of capitulating to the deviant trends of a wicked generation, you should do what you can to stand apart from them and call them upwards to something higher.
Jesus said the broad path leads to destruction, and I can tell you that destruction is no joke and should not be trifled with. You need not look beyond the life we inhabit to see there are many people trapped in a daily hell of their own creation. They get lodged into these dismal circumstances usually either because their wickedness is correct in their own eyes or they don’t take destruction seriously enough. I think two of the most common mistakes people make with regards to destruction are thinking it won’t happen to them or believing they can handle it. You are deceived if this is your rationalization. It will happen to you and you will not be able to handle it.
Whether sin is publicly, proudly pronounced or kept festering in the dark, the destructive outcomes are the same. The only way to stem the bleeding is through confession and repentance. Confess your sins to God and pray that He might sanctify you from them, creating in you a clean heart. Do not allow shame to prevent you from going to God in prayer even if your struggle is a daily recurrence. It’s a good rule to avoid beating yourself up if you’re having a difficult time breaking free of something. I don’t believe it’s possible to win spiritual battles without the hand of God, so you need to be patient and trust that He’s going to show up for you.
When a person becomes a Christian it’s symbolically illustrated as a new birth. I think there’s more than symbolism at the spiritual core of this — because I do think there’s a deep, fundamental transformation. But part of the reason it’s referred to as a new birth is because they are passing through the narrow gate to the path of righteousness. This passage was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus. To pass through the narrow gate means to pass from a state of sin into a state of grace. This doesn’t mean you never sin again, it means you face your future sins with the help of God instead of facing them by yourself.
Regeneration by the power of the Holy Spirit means old things must pass away. Learning and growing is a difficult and often painful process because it requires you to put to death the version of yourself who lived before you learned and grew. For myself there was no self-evident moment where I decided I believed in Jesus. Instead I walked through a prolonged period of watching myself die, only then to be confronted by the scriptures with what I already knew was true. I knew the most authentic form of love was the love which God defined. I knew it could be no other way, yet still I conducted a careful philosophical inquiry to be as certain as possible before committing my life to Christ. I could see how passing through the narrow gate would require much of my old self to die. Fortunately for me, by God’s grace, much of it already had.
Human beings are born into sin which means our natural appetites are contrary to the will of God. As a result, rebirth in Christ requires that the bent of our soul must be changed and corrupt habits must be broken off. This struggle for life within oneself is to be waged amidst a culture whose tendency is also toward destruction. So it’s very much like swimming against the stream and you will encounter a lot of resistance. This is why I say it’s not possible without the Spirit of God living within you.
To follow Jesus effectively forces you into a position of humility because of the recognition of dependence you have on Him. This is why one of the great barriers between God and man is the pride of man. Jesus calls us to have child-like faith, and for people who love power child-like faith is difficult to swallow. There are also certain conditions which exacerbate the problem. One of them is wealth. Having great wealth doesn’t doom you to corruption or wickedness, it just increases your vulnerability to it. If a wealthy person is imprudent, he can become a bug-light which attracts nefarious people.
He will also need to overcome the temptation of feeling too secure in his wealth. If a person gets paid a lot to do a job, it can be easy for them to close themselves off to improvement. One reason is because they don’t think others are qualified to criticize them. How could I criticize Warren Buffett on his investment strategies? So if I have a lot of money and my pastor tries to point out a part of my life that needs changed, it’s easy for me to use my money as evidence that I’m doing things right and that he is wrong in his criticism.
Another factor which complicates humility is power. It’s hard to admit when you’re wrong if you occupy a position of great power. A leader never wants his followers to begin questioning the legitimacy of his leadership. If I’m wrong about something in a really big way, and then I publicly confess that I’m wrong, it can be tempting for people to wonder what else I’m wrong about. The only real way out of this conundrum is to hold more tightly to truth than you hold to power. Understand that all power outside of God is illusory. Whatever leadership authority you have is only yours because God gave it to you.
It’s also important to note how Christ points to more than just a gateway, but to the actual narrow path of righteousness itself. Sanctification is not a one-and-done moment where you go from being condemned to being saved. There is a one-and-done moment in terms of being saved but that’s called justification. Justification is the moment you are covered in the righteousness of Jesus. Sanctification is like a purification process across time and it takes the rest of your life.
Walking this narrow path in the Spirit is what it takes to be sanctified. It’s a daily commitment to the mortification of sin. You deny yourself, you keep your words and your actions under control, you work to love others well even when you don’t feel like loving them. This is what it looks like to be a Christian and the path is indeed very difficult. But there is hope, because the more and more you grow to be like Christ the easier the path becomes and the more it opens up to you.
I don’t know the eternal destination of any individual person. Such a judgment goes beyond the purview of my wisdom. What I do know is that God’s judgment is perfect and I trust Him completely. I believe He is comprehensively sovereign and that everything is going to end exactly as He intended it to. Some have understood Christ’s words concerning the two paths to indicate a comparatively small remnant will be in Heaven. When I say comparatively small, think billions. Proponents of this idea draw on Noah’s story and how God only saved a small remnant from the flood. They also point to the rise and fall of Israel throughout the generations — and how God repeatedly restored their society from a remnant of His people.
Even if only a small remnant of humanity will be in Heaven with Jesus in the hereafter, you should not let that discourage you. Whatever is the case, it would be certain this remnant did nothing on their own merit to be there. While you’re alive here on Earth you should make a daily commitment to walk the path that leads to life and godliness. Being on this path means you are in the favor of God and this will bring comfort to your soul. To be in the presence of God and to have Him smile on us is the eternal bliss of which we can get a taste in the present moment. A life well lived is a life lived in obedience to Jesus. It is your best life. And while the path will be challenging at times, the end of the road will justify all of the struggles. One moment in Heaven will make amends for a lifetime of struggling here on Earth.
In the Old Testament Moses set before Israel a simple choice between good and evil. Christ has done the same in this passage. And it’s fascinating because in almost all other circumstances this would hardly be a choice at all. If I presented you with a smooth, easy path which you knew ended in something like a horrible car accident and then juxtaposed this to a difficult path which you knew ended in something like winning the lottery — everyone would choose the difficult path.
Yet when our eternities are set before us we struggle with the choice. Maybe that’s because God is sovereign even over that choice. But I can say for sure that if you keep knocking and you keep seeking after God in prayer, He will open the gate for you. He will open it readily and expectantly, as if He knew the entire time you were coming. God’s grace is a gift freely given to us, and so is the faith we need to accept it. So take the opportunity to walk through that narrow gate each time it presents itself. Pick up your cross and follow Jesus. March upward and onward to the city of God. Life is hard and there are a lot of things out there that can break you down. You will have a lot of battles to fight. But fighting is the best option you have. It’s the best option your family has. And if you fight the good fight, you’ll never be fighting it alone.
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