Worth Every Effort • Luke 13:22-30

55:25 Teaching begins

Notes

There are some things worth your whole life. Whatever it costs, it’s worth it. There are other things not worth your whole life.

I thought I would want to be a cartoonist. I was surprised to find out, I don’t want it enough to give my whole life. There’s only one thing in my life where I wanted to work that hard, to give it everything I have.

Jesus said, entering the kingdom of God is worth making every effort. I believe Jesus.

If you don’t believe Jesus, you won’t make that effort, and you won’t ever get into the kingdom of God.

It’s worth every effort to gain eternal life.

I’m reading in Luke 13 beginning with verse 22.

1. Jesus is not a trivial person. He is utterly given to what the Father wants Him to do.

A. Jesus continues to teach and preach about Himself.

1. He is in cities, which are walled and therefore major places. That’s where you have concentration of people and markets which would draw people from round about.

2. He’s also in villages, not walled, not important, not population centres. He is not ignoring them. There’s no place too small for Him.

3. He is speaking to every person. They’re all important.

B. He’s on His way to Jerusalem.

1. This is the main purpose for Him leaving heaven and His existence in the very form of God. It’s why He was born as a human baby, why He has lived on this planet for 30 years.

2. Jerusalem is where He will give His life to pay the debt of sin for every person. He is here to accomplish promises, covenants, to change people’s lives for all eternity.

3. Jesus is living His life according to the purpose of God His Father with all serious intent.

2. Someone asks Jesus a trivial question.

A. “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?”

B. This is a question the rabbis would discuss: what is the number of the elect? There are a number of perspectives on this.

1. Some would say that all the Jews would be saved, of course, except sinners and heretics. Abraham himself stood guard over the mouth of hell to make sure no Jew ever went there.

2. Some would say no, only if you are really serious and religious. It would be a discussion about which religious group had the right standards, if you practice according to our requirements, then you know you’re going to be saved. But then the question becomes, which group is right? Who teaches the truth? Who’s not serious enough, avoid those guys.

C. This is a theoretical question, it’s not practical.

1. If you came to the right answer it would make no difference to you or anyone else.

2. You can never figure out the answer. You can discuss and put forward your ideas and how you see things but in the end, who knows?

3. Therefore the question is a waste of time. It’s like being on forums nowadays and asking, “Is Product X better than Product Y?” You get a lot of discussion and video links to prove a point, and it goes on page after page, then it comes to the final answer: Your mileage may vary. It’s okay to have a favourite colour. It’s theoretical and trivial. Nothing has really happened.

3. Jesus makes this trivial question into an important challenge: you do everything in your power to get saved.

A. The verb “strive” could be paraphrased, make every possible effort with every fibre of your being to get saved. Enter through that narrow door! Whatever you do in life, this is highest priority. You need to get saved!

B. He says what will happen in the future. This will happen: many will seek to enter and won’t be able.

C. They will try after the owner of the house has shut the door. It was open up to this point, but now he has shut the door. He’s done. It’s final.

D. These people have a different idea, that it’s not a big deal that the owner has shut the door. It’s not important that they are late. They think, hey, show up whenever, the point is to finally get there. He should be glad we’re here at all. So they knock and say, “Let us in.”

E. The owner doesn’t let them in because he doesn’t know where they are from. I would have thought the question would be, “Who are you?” But the owner is not asking questions, he’s not considering them at all. He tells them a statement, “I don’t know where are you from. You’re not from here. You’re completely foreign, you don’t belong here.”

F. “We were close to you,” they say. “We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. We were in your presence.” The idea is, that’s close, isn’t it? We’re not foreigners, we’re pretty close to you.

G. And the owner of the house says again, “I don’t know where you’re from. You’re evildoers. Get out of here.” He doesn’t discuss with them, as if he would change his mind. He has shut the door, he’s not changing his mind. What he has done is done. The door is shut.

H. Why are they evil doers? Because if they were righteous they would already be inside before the door closed. They ignored his invitation, insulting the owner of the house. They should have obeyed him immediately. Slow obedience is no obedience.

I. These people made a decision before the door closed and now they have to live with it.

1. It’s exactly the situation with Jacob and Esau. They were twins but Esau came out first. He’s the firstborn of twins, he gets the birthright, the inheritance.

2. They grow up. Esau comes in from hunting, Jacob is cooking lentils. Esau says, “Give me some of that red stuff.” Jacob says, “Sell me your birthright.” Esau says, “What good is my birthright if I die?” So he sells Jacob his right to inherit for a bowl of lentils. Thus he despised his birthright.

3. Decades later, Isaac wants to give Esau the birthright. Esau wants the birthright. Jacob’s mother Rebekah gets Jacob to pretend to be Esau so that Isaac would bless him instead and get the birthright. Isaac was upset, Esau wanted to kill Jacob, but wait a minute. Esau sold that birthright to Jacob decades ago. He made a decision then that is still valid now. You can’t change your mind on a decision you made decades ago.

4. These people already made the decision to ignore Jesus. They closed the door on Jesus long before He closed the door on them.

4. “In that place” is outside and away from the presence of God. They weep and gnash their teeth forever.

A. They will never have eternal life with God, which is the whole point to life.

1.  Everything good is with God because He created all things and He is the source of all. He created it good because He is good.

2. These people will exist without God forever. Without God there is no good, no light, no peace, no hope, no love. It is existence without any good, because it’s without God Himself. It’s existence but not life. Revelation 20 calls it the Second Death.

B. Another reason for weeping and gnashing teeth will be regret that goes off the scale.

1. There are all the people you’ve ever read about. There is the Messiah. There is God the Father. They will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all the prophets there in the kingdom of God. They’re all receiving their inheritance, glory, honour, immortality, knowing the Father, the Father loving them.

2. Many will come from north, east, west, south and be in there as well. They aren’t Jews.

3. But that’s why Jesus says, some are last will be first, and some first will be last. Gentiles have no promises from God, they aren’t chosen to be His people. They don’t have the Scriptures with the covenants and the promises. They don’t have anything to do with God and yet there they are in the kingdom of God. They belong there.

4. And the first shall be last. Those born Jews with the word of God, the promises, the covenants, and the patriarchs, and the history—they’re outside weeping and gnashing their teeth and they will be no means get in ever, ever, ever. You are on the outside. This situation is beyond your power to change or fix it. You can’t do it over again.

C. You decide your eternal destiny now, in this life. It’s your decision to make.

5. How can some who shouldn’t be there go in to the presence of God, and those who should be there won’t make it?

A. Some strive with everything that’s in them, like their life depends on it, because they believe Jesus, that their lives depend on getting in to the kingdom of God. Therefore they strive to enter by the narrow door.

B. Some don’t believe Jesus, that their lives depend on getting into the kingdom of God before the Father closes the door. So they don’t make any effort to enter by that narrow door. They think they’re already in, they don’t believe they’re outside! The door is a formality, a ceremony that doesn’t mean anything. They are the important ones. The door can open for them at any time.

C. Those Gentiles and anyone who comes in have to come through the narrow door, or they won’t come in at all.

6. So what?

A. Getting into the kingdom of God is the most important thing you will ever do. It is eternal life or eternal death. It is your highest priority over anything you do in this life.

B. Jesus says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” Give it your all. This isn’t a side issue, a hobby, a pastime. Something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably. The Apostle Paul said, this one thing I do, forgetting the things that lie behind, and stretching forth to the things that lie ahead.

C. You begin entering by believing that you are outside the kingdom of God because you are a sinner. Gentiles understand that. I have nothing to do with God. Of course I’m outside. Jews have a problem with that because they have the law, the history. We’re God’s people! He chose us! Why are we outside? We’re all outside because we all have sinned against God. We all fall short of His glory.

D. So everyone has to enter the kingdom by a narrow door. The narrow door that you must enter through is Jesus the Messiah.

1. He said in John 10:9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

2. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6. Nobody, Jew or Gentile, can come to God on their own because no one is acceptable to God in their sin. You need to become sinless and perfect. You need the righteousness of Messiah.

3. The Jews don’t understand that they need to receive the righteousness of the Messiah for themselves. Romans 10:3-4 For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. You need Messiah’s divine, perfect righteousness, your own righteousness is nothing before God. As it is written, Isaiah 64:6

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,

And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;

And all of us wither like a leaf,

And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

D. You enter into His death on the cross. He is so narrow that you must leave behind everything you have, your sins and your good things and your own life. You and your unclean life died with Him. You don’t lose a few things, you lose everything.

E. You enter into His resurrection, His new life created in His image. In His life, by His Spirit, you live for God’s purpose, in the same way that Jesus lived for the Father’s purpose. Remember the beginning, that Jesus is doing what the Father wants right to the death. That’s the way you’ll live. His will is good, acceptable, perfect. Is that easy? I’ve never found it easy, comfortable, amusing. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it’s absolutely worth it.

F. Another door in Scripture is the door to your heart. Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me. That’s what you do right now, because the time to get right with God is right now. God doesn’t send anyone to hell. Before He closes His door people keep their door closed to Jesus.

G. The Father’s hand is on the door, and He’s going to close it, and then you’re in or you’re out. Do you believe that? It’s worth your whole life to strive to enter the narrow door.

Let’s pray.