SERMON ON THE MOUNT
TWO GATES AND TWO PATHS
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 7:13-14
JANUARY 13, 2002
God spoke to the Hebrew people through Moses as recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, the 30th chapter and the 15th verse. God said, “See, I have set before you this day both life and good, and death and evil. Therefore, choose life.” God spoke to the Hebrews through Joshua as recorded in Joshua 24:15. God said, “Choose ye this day whom you will serve.” God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah as recorded in Jeremiah 21:8 and God said, “Unto the people say, ‘Thus sayeth the Lord. Behold, I have set before you the path of life and the path of death.’”
You see, God is a God of choices. He wants you to make choices in your life. He wants you to choose who you’re going to serve. He even wants you to choose your eternal destination. It is in this light we come to our passage of scripture today in the Sermon on the Mount, a passage where Jesus deals with the two gates and the two paths. From this passage of scripture, Jesus gives us two instructions, and these comprise our two teachings.
First of all, choose the narrow gate. Choose the gate that leads to life. In the ancient world, one of the most prestigious titles was the title “Soter.” Epicurus, the famous philosopher, was given this title Soter. Ptolemy IV, King of the Ptolemaic Empire, a Greek-speaking empire, was also given the title Soter. Nero, the hideous emperor of Rome throughout the Hellenized world was called Soter. Zeus, King of the Gods in Greek mythology, was called Zeus Soter. The God of Healing in Greek mythology was also called Soter.
Today, we have in the field of theology an area of study called soteriology. Soteriology deals with the means of salvation. How can we be saved? What must we do to be saved? The word soteriology comes from the word “soter,” which is the Greek word meaning “Savior.” There are many soteriologists, many theologians, around the world who believe the gate of salvation is wide. They believe in truth that there are many gates. They believe that Buddhism provides a gate of salvation; Hinduism, a gate of salvation; Islam, a gate of salvation; Judaism, a gate of salvation; Christianity, a gate of salvation. Many gates. Truly, the gate is wide. But the Bible tells us there is only ONE gate of salvation. The gate is narrow. The Bible tells us that that one gate is Jesus Christ because He is called Soter. He is called Savior.
He was given this title at His birth. “You will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior…” Soter. He accomplished all that this title represents through His death and through His resurrection. As He died on the cross, He took on the sins of the world. As Marsha sang if you are a Christian, you came to the cross and the burdens of your heart rolled away. You came to the cross and you embraced Christ and you found forgiveness of sin and eternal life because He died in your place and He died in my place. He died for your sin; He died for my sin. He died in substitutionary atonement, and He alone is Soter. He alone is the Savior.
I shared Christmas Eve (and I’m sure many of you were there) how this title “Savior” is not meant to be an offense to the other religions of the world. The reality is that the other religions in the world do not even claim to offer a savior. Muhammed does not offer to be your savior. He never took the title Soter. He never even claimed that he could forgive people their sins, and he did not die for the sin of the world. You can read the Koran, and you will find no savior there.
Buddha did not claim to be the savior of the world. He did not take the title Soter. He did not die for the sins of the world. He didn’t offer to be your savior. You can read the Tripitaka and you won’t find a savior there. Krishna did not take the title savior and does not offer to save you from your sins. He did not die from the sin of the world. You can read the Bhagavad Gita. You won’t find a savior there. You can read the Hindu Vedas. You won’t find a savior there.
So, the fact that Jesus is called the only Savior is not really an offense to the other religions of the world because they don’t even claim to offer a Savior. You can look in Judaism, and Moses does not take the title Soter. Moses doesn’t claim to be the Savior. There is no savior in the Old Testament except by type and by prophecy, and that’s all fulfilled in Christ. Jesus is the Savior.
Really, the religions of the world simply instruct people within the context of their own religious constructs how they can find salvation through their own effort, what they must do to save themselves. That’s what all the religions in the world do. They simply tell you what you must do to save yourself (because there is no savior) and how your good works must exceed your bad works. Eventually, perhaps through many lifetimes, perhaps through many reincarnations, hopefully you can save yourself. But the Bible tells us Jesus is the Savior.
We live in a very diverse world. If you’ve studies anthropology, you know that there are many different types of people. Biological anthropologists tell us that people differ morphically. There are endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs. People come in various shapes and sizes. That’s true right here in the worship center this morning. You’re all beautiful, but we vary morphically. Biological anthropologists tell us that we vary hematologically. Some of you have Type A blood. Some of you have Type B blood. Some of you have Type AB blood. Some of you have Type O blood. Some of you are Rh Positive. Some of you are Rh negative. We vary. We are diverse even hematologically. Our blood differs.
Biological anthropologists tell us we differ racially. The Bible really indicates red, yellow, black and white—all are precious in His sight. I wish we were more racially diverse in this congregation. But we represent the demographics in which we serve. People differ racially, however.
Cultural anthropologists tell us that people differ spiritually and religiously. There are Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians the world over. Even Christians differ, cultural anthropologists tell us. I mean, there are Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians. Then even Protestants differ. There are Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, non-denominationalists. People differ.
Linguistic anthropologists tell us that people differ in terms of language, and we know that. There are more than 3,000 spoken languages in the world. Incredibly, there are literally hundreds of thousands of differing dialects. People differ, and yet the Bible is very clear. In the final analysis, when we come to the last day, when we come to the final judgement, there’s only going to be two types of people: Those who enter by the narrow gate and those who enter by the wide gate.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that He’s going to come again. He’s going to come with the angelic hosts. He says He’s going to sit on His glorious throne, and before Him are going to be gathered all the nations, and He’s going to separate them one from the other as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Just two types of people. That’s all there are going to be. Those who choose life and those who choose death. There are going to be sheep and there are going to be goats.
You may have read recently where the Institute of Animal Psychology in Cambridge, England, has done an amazing thing. They’ve formed a test tube hybrid, combined a sheep and a goat. They’ve created a new animal they call a “geep.” I mean, it really is true. They’ve combined a sheep and a goat and come up with a geep.
A lot of people think, “Well, you know, that’s how it’s going to be in the final judgement—a lot of geeps,” because everything is gray. We’re all geeps. But it’s not going to be like that. Jesus isn’t confused. He says, “I know My sheep. They hear My voice. They follow Me.” There are only going to be sheep and goats. I think there are going to be some surprises. Some people might be surprised when you’re saved. There are going to be surprises all over the world.
Christ might choose to save some people who have never even heard His name. That’s a possibility. It’s up to Him. He’s King of Heaven. He’s Lord of Lords and King of Kings. “The Father judges no one,” He says, “but has given all judgement to the Son.” He can save whom· He will. But this we know. He will save those who believe in Him. He will save those who accept Him. He will save those who receive Him as Lord and Savior. This is the gospel, and we take this message to the world. He is Soter. He is the Savior.
There’s a very old joke I kind of like. It’s about a man who had a hard time making choices. He just made horrible decisions, horrible choices. He received this vast inheritance. He had a lot of money, but he didn’t want to just sit on it. He wanted to invest it and grow it. He had a chance—this was years ago—to choose between Beta and VHS and he chose Beta. That was too bad, because VHS has come to dominate the market. He still had money left over and could make more choices. He could choose between Atari and Nintendo game systems. He chose Atari. That was too bad, because Nintendo came to dominate the market of game consoles.
He was really desperate now and almost all of his money was gone, but he was told he could retrieve it. He was told there were brilliant investment opportunities in Brazil. He was told that two of the best opportunities in which to invest were in Brazilian sugar cane and in Brazilian coffee beans. He thought, “Well, I don’t want to make a mistake,” so he went to Brazil to check them both out. He wanted to make the right choice. There in Brazil he made his decision to invest all the rest of the money he had in Brazilian sugar cane. It was too bad because that was a time when much of the world was beginning to be concerned with empty carbohydrates, and the sugar industry kind of went south, but coffee houses began to proliferate all over the world.
Well, there he was, destitute and in Brazil. He thought, “What am I going to do? I just want to go home. I want to go back to the States.” He went to the airport. There were two flights. One was on Continental Airlines. The other flight back to the States was on something called Amazon Tropical Air. He’d never really heard of that. He wanted to choose Continental. That was his first choice, but all of his other first choices had gone bad and so he chose Amazon Tropical Air. That was too bad because the flight never made it to the States. About half-way between Brazil and America, the engines began to fail. The announcement came that everyone was going to have to bail out of the plane.
This man got in line. He was the last to receive his parachute. Just he and the pilot remained. The pilot said, “There are only two parachutes here. I’ll let you choose.” He said, “They’re probably both good.” The man chose the one on the right, and that was too bad. As he was flying through the air, he pulled the ripcord, and nothing happened. He pulled the auxiliary cord, and nothing happened. There he was—just one bad choice after another and all coming to an end. He was a good Catholic. He cried out, “St. Francis, save me!” Suddenly this giant hand descended from the heavens and just snatched him right up in the air, just held him suspended in the air. He breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly he heard this deep voice, “St. Francis Xavier or St. Francis of Assisi?”
Of course, it’s an old joke, but it’s still true that there are a lot of people who make bad choices. A lot of people in this world make bad choices, one right after another. That might be true of some of you. You might look back on your life and think, “Wow! I’ve made one bad choice after another,” but there’s one bad choice you can’t afford to make. Don’t choose the wide gate. It leads to destruction. Choose the narrow gate. Choose Jesus. He is Soter. He is the Savior.
There’s a second teaching from this passage of scripture, and it is this: Choose the hard path. Choose the narrow gate and choose the hard path. The Greek word here for “hard” is a word capable of many meanings. It literally means, “to press together.” It can mean “to press together so as to make something compact or hard.” It can also mean, “to press together so as to make narrow.” That’s why some of your translations translate this “the narrow path.” It can also mean, “to press together so as to stress.” This could mean the stressful path. In any event, it doesn’t matter because all Bible scholars and theologians agree that what’s being talked about here is the path of righteousness, the path of obedience. That’s the hard path. That’s the narrow path. That’s the stressful path—the path of obedience, the path of righteousness. The easy path is the path of disobedience where you just do whatever you want to do. Choose the hard path. Choose the path of righteousness.
There’s a sense in which God revealed the path of righteousness to Moses on Mount Sinai more than 3,200 years ago when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are listed in Deuteronomy, chapter 5, and they are listed in Exodus, chapter 20. Because they are ten in number, they are sometimes called the Decalogue. But in the Bible the Ten Commandments are never called the Decalogue. In the Bible, the Ten Commandments are called “The Testimony.” Because the Ten Commandments were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant was called the Ark of Testimony. Because the Ten Commandments were in the Ark of the Covenant and the Ark of the Covenant was in the tabernacle, the tabernacle was called The Tabernacle of Testimony.
The Ten Commandments were called The Testimony because the Ten Commandments represent the testimony that God gave Moses on Mount Sinai, all that God requires of man in relationship to God and in relationship with each other. They are God’s testimony. Of course, the question that Bible scholars and theologians are debating today is this: Has Jesus brought a new testimony? Has He brought a new testament?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said He has not come to abolish the law but rather to fulfill it. But then time and again in the Sermon on the Mount, we see Jesus say, “You’ve heard it said of old… but I say to you…” and there seems to be some sense in which His testimony is new. The Ten Commandments were inscribed on two tablets. Most Bible scholars believe that the first four commandments, which were greater in length, were inscribed on the first tablet, and the last six commandments, shorter in length, were inscribed on the second tablet. The four commandments on the first tablet had to do with our duties towards God, and the six commandments on the second tablet had to do with our duties towards men, our duties towards each other.
Most Bible scholars agree—Jewish and Christian—that the first four commandments regarding our duties to God, the first tablet, is really summarized in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5, where we are instructed to “Love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our strength, and with all of our mind.” This is a summation of the first four commandments with regard to our duties to God. Then again, most scholars, Christian and Jewish, agree that the last six commandments concerning our duties to men, the second tablet, are summarized in Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 18 where it is said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This summarizes our duties to men.
Our Lord Jesus tells us that these two commandments, love God and love your neighbor, are the greatest two commandments and they do indeed fulfill the law. But here’s the strange thing. You come to Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus goes to the cross, and He says, “A new commandment, a new ‘mandatum’—a new mandate—I give to you. Love one another.”
Well, how is it new? It was in the old testimony. It was in the old covenant. It summarized the last six commandments of the Decalogue. How is it new? Well, somehow it’s new in Him. All of the commandments are new in Him. The Decalogue itself becomes new in Him. It’s really when you read the Sermon on the Mount that you begin to understand the testimony of God and the depth of its meaning. It’s all new in Christ. You only understand the path of righteousness when you look at Jesus. When you go through the Sermon on the Mount as we’ve been doing this past year and into this year, that you understand the path of righteousness has to do with morality. But it’s not just external actions. It has to do with our inward thoughts.
Jesus tells us adultery is wrong, but so is lust. Jesus tells us murder is wrong, but so is anger—when we’re angry with our brother or sister. Obviously, this is the hard path, the path of righteousness. The way Jesus defines it, it’s not easy to walk. The path of righteousness is not only the path of morality but it’s the path of piety, because in the Sermon on the Mount we see that we are to be people of prayer, and we are to be people of Spirit-led fasting. We are to be givers of alms. We are to be, if we’re on this path of righteousness, people of piety. And yet our piety cannot be ostentatious so as to impress others. Then we become like the Pharisees, and we become hypocrites. The path of righteousness is hard. It’s a path of morality, a path of piety. It’s also, as we have seen in the Sermon on the Mount, a path of mercy and grace because we do not walk the path perfectly and we are in need of mercy and grace.
We are instructed, if we would walk the path of righteousness, to show mercy and grace to others—not just to our friends and neighbors, but even to our enemies. So, as we’ve seen, we are to be giving and forgiving. Even with regard to our enemies, the path of righteousness is hard.
In the New Testament, the word for righteousness is “dikaiosune.” This word is used in three different ways. Sometimes it’s used of “imputed righteousness,” the righteousness you receive when you enter the narrow gate. When you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, suddenly your sin is forgiven you and His righteousness is vested upon you as a free gift. Imputed righteousness.
Other times in the Bible, dikaiosune refers to “behavioral righteousness.” In this sense, none of us are righteous. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” Only God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is righteous. Yet we’re told that we must “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” That’s part of what it means to walk the path of righteousness. You’re seeking His sanctification.
There’s a third way that dikaiosune is used in the New Testament. It’s also used with regard to social justice and the way we treat the oppressed, the way we treat the poor, the way we treat the afflicted. In fact, in the African American communities across America, usually the word righteous is used in this sense. How do you treat the poor and the oppressed? Are you righteous? This is also a biblical usage of righteous. If we would walk the path of righteousness, we must care about the oppressed, the poor, the afflicted.
The United Nations claims that the 225 richest people in the world have collective assets equal to the collective annual income of 47% of the world’s people. That’s incredible. Think about that. The 225 richest people in the world have collective assets equal to the collective annual assets of 2,500,000,000 people. Can that be possible? That 2,500,000,000 people working all year long collectively make the same amount of money that 225 people already have? Is that unbelievable?
I know in this worship center there are probably no Socialists. If there are any Socialists, there aren’t many. There are probably no Communists. You don’t want to see individuals deprived of the right of the private ownership of property. You don’t want to see wealth forcefully redistributed. You don’t want to see a world where everybody makes the same thing. That would deprive people of incentive and ultimately would produce sloth. Yet, don’t we have to admit that the world is not fair? It’s not a fair world. It’s just not just.
The United Nations claims 20% of the world’s people consume 87% of the world’s goods. That’s not fair. The United Nations claims that one-third of the world’s population lives in poverty, two billion people. Most of them are going to go to bed tonight hungry, and that’s not fair. You might be thinking that the problems are overwhelming. If you’ve gone with us to Juarez on our missions trips, you’ve seen “the colonias,” the seas of poverty. If you went with us last year to Egypt and you looked out over the city of the dead, it’s just an endless sea of poverty. You know these are microcosms in a great macrocosm of poverty the world over, at least throughout the Third World. The problem just seems insurmountable.
Yet the United Nations says it’s not an insurmountable problem at all. They claim that every year the people of Europe and the people of North America spend $37 billion on dog food, perfume, and cosmetics. They claim that the amount of money spent every year in Europe and North America on those things would be enough to supply every year food, clothing, housing, and health care for all the poor people of the world with $9 billion left over! Of course, I don’t believe they’re saying we shouldn’t feed dogs. I don’t believe they’re saying that perfume and cosmetics are intrinsically evil. They’re not. They’re just saying the problem is not insurmountable. And yet, it is insurmountable for you and it’s insurmountable for this church. We can’t control how Europe and North America spend their money, but we can choose to walk the path of righteousness.
As a church, we choose to walk the path of righteousness. There’s a percentage of every dollar you give that goes to poor people all over the world because we support relief agencies all over the world and ministries that care. There’s a percentage of every dollar you give that goes into the inner city because we care about people less fortunate. You must choose every day to walk the path of righteousness. You must choose it every day.
Tomorrow I have lunch with Jack LaPietra and Luis Villarreal. Jack LaPietra is the pastor of one of our inner-city churches, New Life in Christ. Luis is the president of Save our Youth, an inner-city ministry which seeks to provide suburban tutors for inner city kids. Gene and I meet with Jack and Luis for lunch every month. We do this because we’re co-laborers, co-workers for Christ. We do this because we are joined with them in ministry. We do this because they’re our friends. Jack and Luis have become special friends. They’re just awesome people.
Luis is out in the lobby today. He’s out at our City Ministries table today out in the lobby today. Luis is an amazing man. He graduated from Westmont College, where I was also privileged to go. Luis competed in track and field and cross-country. His daughter Elena just graduated from Stanford University. She had a full scholarship in track and field and cross-country. Luis and Nancy have wonderful kids, not just Elena but Anna and the youngest, a boy named Amato. They’re wonderful kids and Luis is an incredible guy. Luis is one of the greatest leaders in the Hispanic community in Denver. He deserves that because he loves Christ and he loves people. He’s articulate and humble. He’s all of those things. He’s desperately in need of suburban people who would go and help tutor inner city kids.
Luis has a special heart for this because he was reared in poverty. He grew up in poverty. He was from a large family without a dad. His dad died when he was very young. But the mercy and grace of God was upon him. A suburban white man had compassion on Luis and became a kind of substitute dad to him, befriended him, became a mentor to him. God blessed them both in that relationship. That’s why Luis has such a heart for Save our Youth and such a heart for linking suburban and urban people. But we’ve got to choose to walk the path of righteousness.
I know some of you are being led by the Spirit of Christ today to go to that table where Luis is today and to volunteer, to say, “I choose the path of righteousness.” It’s a path of morality. It’s a path of piety without hypocrisy. It’s a path of mercy and grace and a path of social justice. It’s a hard path and it must be chosen. Let’s close with a word of prayer.