The Sermon on the Mount has undoubtedly been a principal piece in the teachings of the church throughout the centuries. It is indubitably one of the most significant sermons in the New Testament. Our Lord, in this sermon, addresses topics regarding our standing/relationship with God as well as with fellow humans. He begins with the beatitudes, basically stating the kind of heart and life His followers have. Then calls them out as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Salt to add value and preserve, light to show the way and reflect His glory and His glorious kingdom. He goes on to contrast the redeemed with the ungodly, the implications of receiving the heart and attitude of the blessed on how the redeemed worships and relates to God, and how they deal with the many other issues of life including relationships with friends and enemies. By emptying ourselves of self, and giving it up for God, He admonishes us not to worry and not to have a spirit of carping criticism and fault-finding.
After admonishing His disciples to keep asking, seeking and knocking for our heavenly Father to grant to us the good and godly attitudes of the blessed, Jesus reaches the climax of the crescendo of His teachings, the decision-making point. He demands a decision about your destiny. In Matthew 7:13,14, He presents 2 gates (the narrow and the wide) to individual 2 roads leading to 2 destination populated by 2 different crowds. The remainder of the of the sermon builds upon these two verses. Our Lord basically contrasts two kinds of world religion: a contrast between divine righteousness and human righteousness, the religion of divine accomplishments versus the religion of human accomplishments. The exclusivity of divine righteousness imparted by God is reflected in the metaphor of the narrow gate and the difficult path to life, and few find it.
This passage is certainly thought-provoking and, quite frankly, demanding of greater focus for any Christian as they continue asking, seeking, and knocking, in hope of attaining eternal life with God our Father. What a tragedy it would be should all that time be wasted? We will like to invite you to join us at IBCZ this next Sunday, Jan 29, 2017, as we explore the metaphor of the Narrow and the Wide way drawing from the context of the Sermon and from the broader spectrum of the entire Scriptures.
Join us this coming Sunday as we worship and fellowship together as a family and respond together with Tohnyui Ndinyanka Fabrice to hear about The Narrow and the Wide Gate found in Matthew 7:13,14
Yours in Christ,
Tohnyui Ndinyanka Fabrice