Sermon manuscript:
A fellow asked Jesus whether there would only be a few who
are saved. Jesus does not answer yes or no. He instead gives an admonition with
some rather severe warnings:
“Strive to enter through the narrow door. Many will try
to enter, but won’t have the strength. Once the door is shut, it’s shut for
good. No amount of crying or weeping will be able to change it. Inside will be
the feast of salvation with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the rest of the blessed
from the north, south, east, and west.”
On first hearing Jesus’s words it can sound as though he is
intending to dash everyone’s hopes. And maybe, in a way, he is. Think of how
people regard what happens with death. The assumption is that everyone who dies
is fine. The only cases where there might be a shred of doubt is when the
person is notoriously a scoundrel, and we are pretty good at hiding how bad we
are from other people so there aren’t too many notorious scoundrels around. The assumption, otherwise, is that
everyone is saved just the way they are.
Jesus, in fact, is quite an unwelcome messenger among us.
Compare what Jesus says to what is commonly assumed. Which sounds nicer to you?
Jesus says that there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. No amount of begging
can make the door open once it has been shut. That’s included in Jesus’s view.
Then, on the other hand, folks assume that heaven is a place
for anyone and everyone, come as you are. Play your favorite games or engage in
your favorite activities. Only the most horrible criminal might be left out.
If we only consult our feeling and our reason we are of
course going to pick the second option. Why on earth would we strive to enter
the narrow door when all of this can be had for free?
But there’s something important to realize about popular
notions concerning salvation. They are basically in the realm of fantasy. Anyone
can believe whatever he or she sees fit about such things. It’s assumed that
there’s no hard and fast truth—whatever one needs to believe in order to get
by. The Christians have their views, but who’s to say whether they’re right? So
everyone believes whatever he or she wants to believe.
We do not do this kind of thing, however, with anything that
is taken seriously. There is no believe-whatever-you-want-to-believe
electricity book. If you believe wrong things about electricity this can have
some very stimulating results! So it is with basically every endeavor that is
worthwhile. You can’t just make believe whatever you want and expect to be
blessed.
We have a hard time seeing this, however, when it comes to
salvation because the results of false beliefs are not yet evident to us in
this life. Nobody’s burned to a crisp for believing fantasies about such
things. A basic tenet of our reason is that if there’s no harm, then there’s no
foul. Fantastic beliefs about the afterlife do not seem to negatively affect
anyone in this life, so let everyone believe as he or she wishes. To say
anything contrary to this makes you sound cranky, like Jesus, who speaks of
weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Faulty wiring
might work for a while until it doesn’t. Jesus says in another place: “Everyone
who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built
his house on bedrock. The rain came down, the rivers rose, and the winds blew
and beat against that house. But it did not fall, because it was founded on
bedrock.
Everyone who hears these words of mine but does not do
them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down,
the rivers rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it
fell—and great was the fall of it!”
The house that is built on sand can look just as sturdy and
comfortable as the one that is built on bedrock until the judgement. Then the difference
is completely apparent. We don’t want a house to fall down upon us. We don’t
want an afterlife where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. How quickly and
easily such a possibility is wished away by the vast majority of people. They
simply don’t believe in the existence of hell. They have built their house on
sand, but it will be fine because the judgement will never come.
Instead of salvation or the afterlife being in the realm of
fantasy or completely unimportant, you, as Christians, must understand that
this is actually what is the most important. Another way of saying the same
thing is that your life in this created world is one thing. Your relationship
with the Creator is the most important.
In order for your relationship to be good with the Creator,
you must be justified before him. So how may a person be justified? There are
only two ways. A person may be justified according to the Law or a person may
be justified according to grace. Being justified according to the Law is when
the Law is kept.
What does God’s Law say? We should believe in him and in
nothing else. We should use his Name rightly. We should call upon him in every
trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks. We should gladly hear his Word and
receive his sacraments. We should honor our parents and others in authority. We
should do good to our enemies. We should not commit fornication, adultery, or
divorce. We should not lust after anyone, but our desire should be for the
spouse whom God will give to us or has given to us. We should not steal or rip
people off. Instead we should be generous. We should not lie or gossip. We
should not covet, but be thankful.
I hope you can see even in this brief sketch I’ve given the
beauty and the goodness of the Ten Commandments. God’s Law is not bad or ugly
or evil. What kind of a wonderful human being would a person be if he or she
only partly fulfilled the Ten Commandments? Such a person would be pious,
loving, forgiving, truthful, and so on. Such a person would not live for
himself or herself. Such a person would live to serve others in love. But,
alas, no such person exists.
The Bible somewhat surprisingly says, “No one is
righteous. No, not even one!” If we kept the Ten Commandments, then the Ten
Commandments would justify us before God. The Ten Commandments would testify on
our behalf and say that we are good. We are justified. However, on the other
hand, if we have not kept the Ten Commandments—and no one has—then those same
Ten Commandments testify against us. Those Ten Commandments point to us and
say, “This one is an unbeliever. This one hates God’s Word. This one hates his
or her parents. This one is perverted.” And so on.
So theoretically we could be justified before God according
to the Law, but in reality, after the fall into sin, only Jesus has kept the
Law. If we are judged according to the Law we will be utterly rejected because
the truth demands that we should and must be rejected. But there is another
justification that avails before God. This is justification by grace.
Galatians 4 says: “In the fullness of time God sent forth
his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, so
that we would be adopted as sons.” God’s Law condemns us, so God sent his
Son so that he would be condemned in our place. In him, in Christ crucified,
then, we may be justified with a righteousness that is not our own. 2
Corinthians 5 says: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them. … God made him, [that is,
Jesus,] who knew no sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the
righteousness of God in him.”
God is the great justifier of sinners in our crucified and
risen Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for everyone’s sins so that they are
forgiven. Jesus’s righteousness, the very righteousness of God, is given to you
by the Gospel, by baptism, by the Lord’s Supper. This message from God to you
is to be received and believed. Thereby, although you are a sinner according to
the Ten Commandments, you are righteous according to grace. Jesus has reconciled
you, a sinner, to God together with everyone else. You are justified in Jesus
before God. He even says that you have been adopted as his own child. Of course
you must recline at the feast of salvation with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the
blessed.
So when Jesus speaks of salvation in our Gospel reading and says,
“Strive to enter through the narrow door,” we must understand that he is
saying, “Strive to live by faith in God’s promises.” Live by faith that you are
justified before God for Jesus’s sake. Live by faith that even if you should
die, yet shall you live, for Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the
life. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” In the midst of
sin, even when it is hot and fresh, live by faith in the suffering and death
that Jesus has already finished in agony on account of those sins. Although you
are foul in light of your sins, you are as righteous as God himself because
Jesus’s righteousness has been given to you in your baptism. Strive to believe
that.
It is very important that we understand Jesus to be speaking
of faith here and not about our own thoughts, words, and deeds. When we hear a
word like “strive” we can’t help but immediately think of hard work. That can
make it sound as though Jesus says that we better get to work. We better get our
act together. And in a sense that’s true. We better get our act together.
Contrary to the popular fantasies about the afterlife, where
being judged by God is the furthest thing from folks’ minds, people would be
better off even if that’s all they would think of with death. Of course, being
judged according to the Law will only work horror and terror if anyone is being
honest. God, to them, will seem like a policeman who’s come to punish them for
the sins they’ve committed by throwing them in hell. But this is a lot closer
to the truth than believing that each of us can just make up some fantasy for
ourselves about what it will be like when we die.
It’s a lot better, for example, for someone to realize that
electricity can kill them than to go on believing fantasies. Electricity is no
joke. How much more is it the case, then, that justification before God is no
joke! God judging you is no joke! You dying and appearing before God is no
joke!
But no amount of striving according to the Law will ever
make us righteous. We must strive to live by faith in Jesus, the forgiver of
sinners. Faith in Jesus is the narrow door. There is no other door available to
sinners. And Jesus’s words ring true: There are few who strive to live by faith
in God’s justification of us in Jesus.
Many within the Church believe that they are justified
before God because they’ve followed the rules. They belong to the right church.
They’ve taken the right actions. Thus they can live however they want in every
other aspect of their lives (within reason of course).
Those outside of the church think that Jesus, God’s Son, is
a myth or ineffectual. Even if they do believe that Jesus is true, they don’t
want to hear what he said or receive his sacraments.
For all unbelievers within and without the church, what
really matters about life are the accumulation of riches and pleasures and the
avoidance of pain. Their hopes for the afterlife end up being totally devoid of
God and his holy presence. The highest their hopes can reach is that the good
times will keep rolling.
So when Jesus admonishes us to strive, he really means it.
Few strive to live by faith. The door is narrow to eternal life. The only way
that we may enter it is through the blood of the Lamb of God, who takes away
the sin of the world. Therefore do not be deceived into thinking like most
people think—that what happens at death is no big deal; everyone can believe
their own fantasies. The Scriptures define death and life for us: “The wages
of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord.”
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