Sermon Tone Analysis

November 8, 2015

*Read Lu 13:22-27 *– A bank robber shoves a note to the teller: “Put the money in the bag, and don’t try anything funny.”

The teller sends back a note: “Straighten your tie and smile.

They’re taking your picture!” There’s a surprise you wouldn’t want to get.

But that can’t hold a candle to the surprise that awaits many on Judgment Day when they’re cast from God’s presence.

That’s the condition that Jesus anticipates when He says in v. 30: “And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

This doesn’t mean some line-crowders trying to get into heaven will be sent to the back of the line.

Here, He’s saying people the Pharisees looked down on as lost would end up in heaven.

But those Pharisees, and other religionists like them, will not.

They’re rejecting God’s grace thru Jesus.

The Pharisees didn’t get what Brennan Manning finally got: “Jesus comes for sinners, for those as outcast as tax collectors and for those caught up in squalid choices and failed dreams.

He comes for corporate executives, street people, superstars, farmers, hookers, addicts, IRS agents, AIDS victims and even used-car salesmen.

Jesus not only talks with these people but dines with them – fully aware that His table fellowship with sinners will raise the eyebrows of religious bureaucrats who hold up the robes of their authority to justify their rejection of truth and of the gospel of grace.”

So in answer to the question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”

Jesus says, “Forget theory and percentages.

Let’s talk about you.

The question isn’t will just a few be saved, the question is will you be saved.

Will you strive to enter at thru narrow door?” – which does not mean working our way in.

He’s suggesting something harder – acknowledging we can’t work our way and must go with no baggage thru the narrow door.

Most people will not humble themselves to go there – so in the end, few will be saved.

Which means, of course, many will be lost.

Many of them the most wicked among us, yes.

But also many who thought they were first – religiously circumspect – living good lives, BUT committed to self, not Jesus.

Matthew expands Jesus’ warning: Mt 7:13 “Enter by the narrow gate.

For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Everyone eventually reaches the fork in the road -- wide or narrow.

One leads to destruction; one to life.

But both are labeled “Heaven.”

Both claim to lead to go there.

It’s not like the wide way is labeled “Destruction” and the narrow way is labeled “Life.”

Both are labeled “Heaven”, and the wide way looks like a lot more fun.

But the narrow way requires that you check all good works at the door along with all idols.

The door is so narrow that there is only room for a truly repentant heart.

But while the wide road gradually narrows until all the temporal pleasures are gone and Destruction is all that awaits, the narrow way immediately opens up into a grand vista where Jesus reigns over pleasures forevermore at His right hand.

That’s the choice we all face, sooner or later.

So our series “Don’t Be Surprised”.

Three parts.

I. Few Will Be Saved II.

Many Will be Lost III.

It Pays to be Saved.

So, why will so many be lost?

*I.

The Performance Problem*

End for v. 24, “For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

Seeking to enter sounds commendable, doesn’t it?

It isn’t.

The very effort is the thing that’s wrong.

They are seeking; and they will not be able.

It’s all about them and their effort.

They are sweeping God’s gift aside and saying, “No, I will earn this.

I can be good enough.

I will make God accept me.”

It won’t work, Beloved.

We must come on God’s terms, not ours.

Those who seek God on their terms are actually spitting in His eye – refusing His revelation in favor of their perceptions; refusing His gift in favor of their effort; insisting on their standard in place of His perfection.

It won’t fly.

You can’t perform your way into heaven.

That’s a humbling thought.

Performers reject the word “Repentance” on the narrow door.

They choose the wide door where they can bring their own offering.

“See, Lord.

Perfect attendance in 2010.

$10,000 to the Building Fund.

Gave up a vacation to Hawaii for that.

See? Learned all those verses for confirmation.

Did not retaliate against that guy who stole my idea at work – and you know I could have.

See what I’ve done for you.

You have to take me!” Jesus response?

“Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last”?

It is “not by works of righteousness that we have done, but by His mercy we are saved” (Titus 3:5 para).

Prov 14: 12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”

The wide road to Destruction is filled with people who have bypassed the gift in favor of merit.

What a surprise they are in for?

“Pretty good” isn’t good enough.

During the Depression someone noted that Babe Ruth’s $80,000 salary was more than President Hoover was making.

Ruth replied, “I know.

But I had a better year.”

The Pharisees thought they were the Babe Ruth’s of their time.

They had a better year than anyone else.

But measured against God’s holiness, they fell far short.

Jesus told them in Mt 21:31, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.”

That was shocking!

Jesus was just telling them, great as their performance was, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Performance problem

*II .The Procrastination Problem*

Mid v. 24: “For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.”

They want in, but there’s a problem.

The door’s been closed.

That narrow door they walked by time after time, now it’s closed.

They waited too long.

They put if off because they didn’t believe, or because they thought they had plenty of time or because they wanted to get their fun first.

Or they didn’t want to repent.

They didn’t want Jesus when the opportunity was open.

And now – it’s too late.

The grammar in v. 24 is very telling.

“Strive to enter” -- present tense command.

Do it now!

But “will seek” and “will not be able” are future tense.