How do you know if you are on the Narrow Path?

How do you know if you are on the Narrow Path?  Matthew 7.13-23

Sometimes it feels like “anything goes”.  Whatever makes you happy, then that’s okay, because hey—you only go around once, right?  We have come to a time when many people deny themselves nothing.  I mean, why should they, if they can afford to indulge their every fancy?  Yet Jesus taught us about the narrow gate leading to life; a narrow gate would not allow for self indulgence at every turn.

Indeed Jesus said, ‘if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me.’  Three of the gospels quoted this teaching of Jesus; therefore it appears to be a key ingredient in living for him.¹ So, how do you know if you have entered the narrow gate, and are walking on the right path, living a life pleasing to God?  (tomorrow—why making that choice matters more than anything else in your life!)

Jesus expounds on the narrow gate:  “Go in by the narrow gate. For the wide gate has a broad road which leads to disaster and there are many people going that way. The narrow gate and the hard road lead out into life and only a few are finding it.”  I think of our young people, high school students and even graduating seniors, who are so cowed by the pressure of the crowd, of watching eyes, of Instagram, that they find it almost impossible to carve out their own way.  I mean, how does a young man keep his way pure, as David asked?²  It isn’t by getting wasted with his friends, but by staying true to God’s teaching—those things he knows in his heart he ought to do, and choosing not to do the things he knows he ought not do.  Ah, the struggle with temptation and sin, captured by Paul in Romans 7.

Jesus continues, “Be on your guard against false religious teachers, who come to you dressed up as sheep but are really greedy wolves.”  The false teachers of today smile big smiles and tell you things you want to hear—they depart from Scripture at times and they do not usually teach about the narrow path, the path of total surrender to God and what he teaches in his Word, what he teaches in his Word, even when it is difficult in our culture!

“You can tell them by their fruit. Do you pick a bunch of grapes from a thorn-bush or figs from a clump of thistles? >>Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree is incapable of producing bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and burnt. So you may know men by their fruit.”  The other day, I took Bennett, my almost 2-year-old grandson, out in my back garden, and picked blackberries from my vines for him to eat.  Ah, such rapturous delight--delicious fruit from a homegrown vine!  Jesus makes the statement here that if we are true followers of him, there ought to be fruit in our lives that identifies us as such.  Fruits of love, devotion to God, self-control, service to others … fruit!

Jesus continues with some difficult words, “It is not everyone who keeps saying to me ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but >> the man who actually does my Heavenly Father’s will.  In order to do the Father’s will, we must know what it is he requires, which we glean from the pages of Scripture, from good and godly teaching, and then we give ourselves to those things.  We do the Father’s will when we make his mandates our own, devote ourselves to him, and let his refining Holy Spirit change us from the inside out.  Thus, we do the Father’s will, and on Judgment Day, he will know us, he will claim us for his own. 

Jesus contrasts his claiming us to the fateful day when others are rejected by him because he never knew them:  “In ‘that day’ many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we preach in your name, didn’t we cast out devils in your name, and do many great things in your name?’ Then I shall tell them plainly, ‘I have never known you. Go away from me, you have worked on the side of evil!’”  Matthew 7.13-23

Well it seems then that we know we are on the Narrow Path when our lives produce great fruit consistent with a godly person, and when we do our Heavenly Father’s will.  We know what his will is, and others will identify it in us, because we try to live our lives according to God’s teaching and instruction--when we are refined, and we can look behind us, and see how far we’ve come, and how we are growing in him.  Ah, the Narrow Path.

1 - Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 

2 – Psalm 119.9