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January 14, 2024 - Morning Worship Service 11:00 A.M. Faith Bible Church - Sacramento, California Message "Invitation to His Kingdom" Luke 13:22-30
Good morning. Welcome to Faith Bible Church. We're glad to see each of you here. It's good that we meet together in the house of the Lord as brothers and sisters in the Lord for fellowship with one another and fellowship with our Lord.
And it's good to see each of you desiring to do that today. A few announcements. The Bible studies on Wednesday evening and they are the first and third Wednesday of each month. And the next one is the 17th at 5 .30pm.
So this Wednesday at 5 .30pm we have a Bible study meeting in the fellowship hall. And they're going through the book of Jonah. Also this coming Saturday is the women's Bible study at 10am. And they're going through 1st Kings and it's chapter 22.
In case you want to look that over. 1st Kings chapter 22. And the missionary of the month is Ellie Drizinga. Many of you know her ministering in Brazil. She ministers in the south part of Brazil. And they're involved with like starting churches and they have started a new church where she's working in the past couple of years.
Biblical counseling course will be Saturday the 27th. Saturday the 27th. That will be the Saturday just before the end of the month for the next biblical counseling course. And with that in mind let's go to the Lord in prayer.
We come before you this morning Lord thanking you that you love us. Thanking you for your great sacrifice that you accomplished. That we might have fellowship with you. That you give us hope in this world.
We do thank you Lord for the hope that we do have. As we meet together today may our fellowship be sweet together. May our fellowship with you be sweet. May you speak to us through your word as is presented this morning.
Help us to apply what we've learned to our hearts. Not just walk away and forget about it but be thinking about it and meditating on it through this week.
And we thank you.
We also remember Ellie Drizinga our missionary in Brazil. We uphold her before you. We thank you for her faithfulness to you and all that she has done for you. We thank you for being faithful to her and meeting her needs.
We would just pray that you encourage her heart in all that she does.
And we would thank you.
Be with the pastor as he brings your word today. And we would pray that you would help him to deliver the things you laid on his heart. And we'll pray these things in Jesus' name.
Amen.
I shoot before you this morning is. Romans chapter 2 verses 1 -4. Romans chapter 2 verses 1 -4. Therefore you are indisputable, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in whatever you judge another, you can yourself.
For you who judge practice the same things. We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and doing the same, you have escaped the judgment of God?
Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? And the Lord has mercy to me and to the Lord.
Please turn with me to Luke chapter 13. Luke chapter 13 verses 22 -30. Luke chapter 13 verses 22 -30. And he went through the cities and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Then one said to him, Lord, are there few who are saved?
And he said to them, strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open for us.
And he will answer and say to you, I do not know you, where you are from. Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you, where you are from.
Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves thrust out.
They will come from the east, the west, from the north and the south and sit down in the kingdom of God. And indeed, there are last who will be first and there are first who will be last. This is the word of the Lord.
Let us pray. Father, we are thankful that you are good. There is no one like you. Thank you that you have provided one way to be saved. And that's the person of Jesus Christ. Help us to enter through this narrow gate in faith.
Help us to respond to Jesus and his work on the cross and the resurrection in faith. Help us to not just assume and presume your grace, but to respond in faith, to trust Jesus as the only way to be saved.
In Jesus name, amen. This passage follows a lot of previous passages talking about the kingdom of God. And the key theme here is the urgency to respond. The urgency to respond to Jesus Christ. And this is important because oftentimes in churches and many programs in churches or other ministries, the urgency is oddly missing.
We were once financially supporting a missionary working with college students, and I will not name the name of the ministry. And he was a close friend of mine, so I would talk to him almost weekly to see how everything is going, how I can be praying for him.
He told me that there was an event on justice and Jesus. And I thought, what a great event. Justice and Jesus. There's no possibility of justice without Jesus. In fact, the cross is the very location in which God's justice and mercy meet.
How can the just God forgive sinners without someone else taking the place of the sinners? You cannot talk about justice without the crucifixion and the resurrection. For God to justly forgive us, Jesus dying on the cross was necessary.
He took our place facing the wrath of God. So I told him, wow, how was it? And he said, a lot of people came and that was great news. And I said, and they got to hear the gospel? And he said, not yet.
And I said, what do you mean? Well, how can you talk about justice and Jesus without sharing the gospel? He said, we didn't want to scare them away the first time, so we were waiting to share it at the third meeting.
I could not believe it. There's no guarantee that the people at the first meeting would even show up to the second meeting. You had the perfect opportunity to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but decided not to.
What if some of them actually died in between?
Who knows?
And that's because the urgency is missing. We prioritize how we're viewed as Christians more so than the urgency of the non-believers responding in faith to the gospel of Jesus Christ. One of my seminary friends would call it backdoor Jesus.
You do a program that someone else might like, a non-believer might like. Yeah, a volleyball team or a workout group, dance group, music group. But then, you know, behind the back door, you get Jesus in there somewhere at one point.
That's not urgency. And that's not what we're about here at Faith Bible Church. And that's because this passage tells us that we must urgently trust Jesus to be saved because the time to respond is limited.
We must urgently trust Jesus to be saved because the time to respond is limited. First, we must urgently respond to Jesus who is God's only path to salvation. We must urgently respond to Jesus who is God's only path to salvation.
In verse 22, Luke reminds us that Jesus' teaching is part of the larger journey. And he went through the cities and villages teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. Even when he is teaching in various locations, Jesus' purpose and goal point to Jerusalem.
The significance of Jerusalem really started in Luke 9, verse 51. After he revealed his identity as the Messiah and he shared what his Messianic ministry entails, Jesus had been facing Jerusalem and had been walking toward Jerusalem ever since.
And whenever we see Jerusalem from that point on, we need to remember the true purpose of Jesus' ministry. It's the cross. It's his journey to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Jesus' ministry was not just about teaching people.
He taught, but his main purpose has always been the cross. He was not just another rabbi who was there to teach people how to be good. He came to die for the wicked who saw that they never could be good in the first place.
Even during his teaching ministry, he never lost the sight of his true mission. The crucifixion and resurrection in Jerusalem. Luke will constantly remind us of Jesus' true mission over and over again.
By showing that Jesus is going to Jerusalem. Jesus is going to die. Jesus is going to be crucified. During his earthly ministry, it is important to note that Jesus was more than just a moral teacher or a religious teacher.
He was the divine son of God who purposed to save his people through his suffering and death. That's what's always been on his mind. The cross. Now, as Jesus is teaching, a certain person approaches him to ask a question.
Then one said to him, Lord, are there few who are saved? In the context of Jesus' teaching in the previous passages, this question makes sense. After all, he's warned Israel to repent or perish. From verses 1 to 4 of chapter 13.
In verses 6 to 9, Jesus warned Israel that the time is short to respond to God's gracious offer. Remember, they were like the fig tree that just didn't bear fruit. And the owner of the orchard was not pleased.
But he graciously gave them one more year. Figuratively, it's been barren for way too long. They were on a borrowed time to respond in faith to God. And their privileged status as God's people will not save them if they do not respond to Jesus.
Then in verse 10 to 20, Jesus taught them the reality of the kingdom of God. It's already here. And when it is fully consummated, nothing will stand a chance against it. You're going to be either for it or you're going to be crushed.
Like the other kingdoms. So in this context, a very careful listener among the audience would ask a valid question. Lord, are there few who are saved? Well, if the kingdom is already here and the time to respond is overdue, the logical question is, are there only few who are saved in the kingdom?
Will there only be a couple people in the kingdom? After all, our nation hasn't responded really. And you're warning us there's not much time. So are there only a few saved? Instead of directly answering the question yes or no, Jesus answers what this man must do.
Knowing that there's not much time to respond to God's kingdom. Verse 24, strive to enter through the narrow gate. For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. The command to strive here means to make every effort possible to enter through that gate.
Elsewhere, this same word is used to portray a battle. It's like a battle term or even a contest, like a sporting contest. Now, this does not mean your salvation depends on how well you fight and how on your athletic ability.
Right?
After all, entering the narrow gate itself is not literal. There's not a real gate that you enter through. Our entry is only possible through trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ. That's the act of entering the narrow gate.
It's narrow because there's only one person you trust. There's only one savior. There's not multiple. There are not many options. There's only one option and that's trusting Jesus Christ. And it's trusting the right Jesus Christ according to scripture.
Not whatever Jesus Christ you have in your head. The imagery means that we need to make every effort to trust Jesus before it's too late. Prioritize responding to Jesus gracious work on the cross. That ought to be your number one goal in life if you haven't yet.
That has to be the number one on the list of to-do list. To trust Jesus Christ. That's what it means to strive to enter through the narrow gate. You got to make this choice. This is more important than your lunch choice.
Now, here the narrow gate is a picture of entering into a banquet hall, right? You're invited. There's a celebration. The banquet hall may be large but here the entryway is small. And because the gate is narrow, it is exclusive.
There are not multiple doors. There's one gate. And fewer people than you might think will enter through this gate. Not only that, there's urgency to enter this gate. After all, it will not remain open forever.
This does not mean it is a secret club where you have to be part of a privileged chosen group of people. Where you have to know the secrets. You have to at least serve this many hours. You have to be giving to the church this amount.
No, it's not that at all. Rather, it means there will be many people who will not respond to Jesus despite their exposure to Jesus. There will be a lot of people who know about Jesus but will not commit themselves to Jesus.
That's why the gate is narrow. After all, in this context, Jesus is talking to that audience. The very crowd that's hearing Jesus speak and probably have heard Jesus speak for a while now. They've seen his miracles and they've heard his sermons.
The gate is narrow because only a few of them will actually respond in faith. The gate is narrow because they have to respond in faith to one person. Jesus Christ. Also, the narrowness of gate shows us that it is not us who set the standards.
It is God. Because God has established the entryway to salvation to be only exclusively through Jesus Christ. The gate is narrow. We don't get to define the gate. We submit to the only option of salvation that God has offered.
That's his son. This message of exclusivity does not float well. It doesn't get received well in our postmodern pluralistic context. Pluralism is this idea that there are many plural answers. The moment you say you're only saved through Jesus Christ alone, it directly flies against pluralism.
Wait, you mean to say that Buddha is not the way? Are you trying to say that Hinduism, Islam, they're wrong? In our day and age, to say that is a social suicide. But that's what Jesus is saying. The gate is narrow.
Because God has provided only one narrow gate, and that's one person. That's Jesus Christ. In the last half of the verse, Jesus intensifies the urgency. For many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
The offer to respond to Jesus will not remain open forever. At one point, many will figure out that Jesus is the only way. But by that time, it may be too late to enter the kingdom. Now, oftentimes, you will evangelize, as in share the gospel.
Share the gospel of Jesus Christ. That he died for your sin and rose from the dead. And you know what? Some of them may be open to Jesus. They might not even shut you down immediately. They may even understand the gospel.
And see that they need to be rescued from their sin. And they even seem to appreciate what Jesus had done for them. When I was in Japan for a mission trip for over the summer, I got to share the gospel really clearly with a Japanese lady.
Who understood English well. So that she actually understood the gospel. She understood the need to be saved because of her sin. And she understood what it meant for Jesus to die, suffer on her behalf.
And you could see tears rolling down her cheeks. And I thought, surely she would respond today. So when I asked her, would you say you trust Jesus? You believe what Jesus has done for you? Would you identify yourself as a Christian?
She said, no. That's not what I want right now. My community doesn't believe that. My family, none of them are Christians.
My friends.
She said, but maybe some other time. They want to wait. They want to explore other options. They want to live a little. Indulge in sin a little. They don't want to give up their past life. You know what?
Jesus can wait. He's waited for a couple of decades. What's a few more years? That's their mindset. However, this urgent message directly applies to anyone and everyone who has had some sort of exposure to Jesus.
People who grew up in the church and left it. If you have not placed your trust in Christ, this is your primary priority this morning. Sure, you've heard the gospel. Yes, the gospel is the old news. You've heard it multiple times.
The cross. But knowing that if you don't respond, you are outside the gate. People who've had Christian friends, coworkers, family, and they were gracious and faithful to share the gospel with you. You've heard it many times.
And if you have not placed your trust in Christ, you need to do it now before it's too late. People who visited a church on Christmas and Easter, and hopefully the church was faithful enough to share the gospel, because when else will you share the gospel if not Christmas and Easter?
If you have not placed your trust in Christ, you need to believe that he died for your sin and rose from the grave. That's the only way to enter through the narrow gate into the banquet hall. Now, why do we need to urgently respond to Jesus in faith?
God's only condition to salvation is our trust in his son, Jesus, before it is too late. God's only condition to salvation is our trust in his son, Jesus, before it is too late. And in order to illustrate the implications of responding to God's gracious offer of salvation, to enter into his kingdom, Jesus develops the imagery from the previous verse.
When once the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying, Lord, Lord, open to us, what's important to recognize is that the master is Jesus.
This is important because Jesus himself is claiming that he has the eschatological authority to shut the door to salvation. He has the authority to say when it's too late. He has the full authority to judge the world.
And this directly contradicts any liberal theology that believes that Jesus was just a good moral teacher but a human only, or the fact that Jesus never claimed to be God. People like Bart Ehrman famously have claimed that.
Here, Jesus is at least implicitly claiming divine authority in his eschatological role to judge. After all, who can judge God's creation aside from God himself? And at the door, it is Christ, the master of the house, who answers.
Now, the illustration shows that the pathway to salvation will be temporally limited. There is a time limit here. There's a deadline. There is an expiration date for faithful responses. Notice how these people respond.
Lord, Lord, open for us. These people are actually people in the audience. Look at the pronoun that Jesus uses, you. You begin to stand outside and knock. It's all of you, the audience member that Jesus is talking to, the very people who have heard his sermons, the very people who have seen his miracles.
Those are the people who have been following Jesus around. They have seen Jesus' authority. They've even dined with Jesus, some of them. Some of them conversed with Jesus. And notice how they call Jesus, Lord, Lord.
They even understand the authority of Christ. Now, how will Jesus respond to those who stand outside the door? And he'll answer to you and say, I do not know you, where you are from.
I do not know you, and I also do not know where you're even from. Now, it's not, this is not a case of divine amnesia, right? Oh, I haven't seen you in a couple of millennia. It's been, I don't know you.
No, the verb to know here means to know relationally, to know personally. What this means is just because you know about Jesus does not mean you belong to Jesus. Just because you know about Jesus does not mean you have a relationship with Jesus.
After the door is shut, there's no more opportunity for you to respond to Jesus, to be known by him, and to know him at a personal, relational level. The key, no pun intended, is to respond to Jesus in faith while you can.
And verse 26 shows the outside group's shocked response. We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. Eating and drinking together in Middle Eastern culture, even nowadays, but also back then, was significant.
It's a form of close relationship. You don't just invite strangers into the house now, but more so back then. It meant there was some deep connection. What they're saying is we hung out together. We were there during your earthly ministry.
We were the original group. We complimented how great your sermons are. Wow, I was really touched. We applauded when you healed that one guy. We even invited our family members to hear you preach. Do you not remember us?
Do we not belong to you? How does Jesus respond? But he will say, I tell you, I do not know you, where you're from. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. I do not know you and where you're from, so that these outsiders, who did have physical contact with Jesus, who did have social contact with Jesus, have no part in Christ.
They do not belong to him. They're not his. Jesus' response shows us that mere exposure to Christ does not qualify as a faithful response. Those people who have heard Jesus,.
And when you ask,.
So what do you say, do you believe? They respond to something like, yeah, Jesus and I are cool. That may not be a faithful response. Merely close physical proximity will not secure their eternal destiny with Christ.
Mere physical proximity will not secure their eternal destiny with Christ. They needed to respond by trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone. They needed to believe that Jesus died for their sin and rose from the dead.
Just knowing that he's a good teacher and he can perform some miracles will not do. Hence, Jesus commends them to leave. They don't belong to him. Then they have no business staying outside his door. Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity.
What this means is those who don't belong to Jesus will not be allowed into his banquet, no matter how close they got. Even their works cannot let them in because their works are filthy rags. They've only produced unrighteous works anyway.
They can't even fall back on that, not that it's ever possible to be good enough to be allowed in. Now, what will happen to those outside? Well, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves thrust out.
Verse 28 depicts a very detrimental result. Weeping and gnashing of teeth actually go together in the New Testament, most often in Matthew. But here we have it here too. This is both a physical and emotional response to this tragic news.
Gnashing teeth is grinding teeth, right? And people don't like hearing it, so I'm not gonna do it here. But it's a response to stress, right? There's something deeply wrong. The news is so horrible that their jaws physically clamp down.
Now, what's the news? And the news is these people are left out of the kingdom of God. They got to see the glimpse. They get a glimpse of the banquet hall, and they get to see their childhood heroes, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets.
The hall of famers of the Old Testament. Now, what do these saints all have in common? They have responded to God in faith. They enter the narrow door because they believed in God and his future promises of deliverance, which the current audience are seeing unfolded in the person of Jesus Christ.
The future promises of deliverance find their yeses in Christ yet. Unlike Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the prophets, these people did not respond in faith. Merely spectating Jesus' ministry is not enough.
Merely being Jewish is not enough. Merely physically interacting with Jesus is not enough. You must respond in faith. The unfortunate scene is only made worse when they do find out that the banquet hall is actually not empty.
They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God. It is not that these Jews who refuse to believe are cast out of the kingdom because, you know what?
Most people don't even make it, right? Who can be like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the prophets? The bar is too high. That's not the case. They actually find out the banquet hall is actually not empty.
It's full. They actually find out who actually made it into the banquet hall, and they're the people from all over the world. They're the Gentiles. They're not even Jewish. This would have been a great shock to the Jewish audience.
You mean we are left out, but they made it in? We can trace our lineage back to Abraham who is eating inside the banquet hall, but the descendants of our enemies who persecuted Abraham's children made it in?
And this is so shocking that even the early Christians, Jesus' apostles and his disciples, had a hard time receiving non-Jews into the church at first.
What's the first church scandal? It's the inclusion of the Gentiles. Wait, are we going to make them into Jews? Do they have to eat like us? Do they have to avoid pork, shrimp? Or do they just have to believe in the same Messiah?
That was the first scandal. And of course, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the apostles, us Gentiles do not have to convert into Judaism before trusting in Jesus Christ. It is the faith in Christ that brings us into the kingdom, not our ethnic or religious rituals.
Hence, Jesus makes the statement regarding the eschatological reversal. And indeed, there are last who will be first, and there are first who will be last. You may think you belong to the kingdom of God because of your ethnic background, but if you don't respond in faith to the Jewish Messiah, your Jewishness will not save you on Judgment Day.
In fact, those who persecuted the Jews, if they respond in faith to Jesus, will be invited into the great banquet. That is a great reversal. It's the faithful response that matters, not anyone's background.
Now, remember the initial question, Lord, will only a few be saved? Jesus answers that question at the end. The banquet hall is not full of Hall of Famers, where only a few and the best make it in. This scene, however, turns the responsibility on the questioner, rather than will there only be few who are saved, but rather will you be in the kingdom by responding now?
Are you going to respond to get in the door? And just as this unknown Jewish man had the opportunity to respond, I don't know how he responded, something you got to ask Jesus, we, this morning, have the same chance to enter the banquet hall, to be saved, to enter God's kingdom.
His kingdom is the banquet hall full of indiscriminately forgiven sinners. There's no discrimination when entering the kingdom of God. It does not matter whether you're Jewish or not, whether you were a Satanist, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, or Muslim.
It does not matter whether you were a drug addict, idolater, adulterer, or murderer.
However, you may say,.
You don't know the extent of evil I've committed in my life. You may say, I have blasphemed against Jesus Christ numerous times. He won't accept me. It doesn't matter your past sins. They've been paid for.
It doesn't matter your family lineage. You will receive a new one. God will welcome you into his kingdom if and only if you respond to Jesus in faith. And the time to respond is now, not later. The urgency is always there.
After all, no one knows when they will die. No one knows when Jesus will come back. Although there are uncertainties regarding death and the second coming of Christ, there's one guarantee, one security for those who respond.
The moment you believe that only Jesus' death on the cross has satisfied God's wrath against you, God's wrath that you accrued by sinning, all the evil things you've done, all the evil things you've said, all the wicked things you've thought that no one knows about, but God knows, the moment you believe those things can only be taken away and I can only be forgiven by God only if I believe that Jesus died for me on the cross, then there's one guarantee.
You have been transferred into his kingdom. You have entered the banquet hall. And you won't be kicked out. Although the doorway to salvation is narrow, salvation is exclusively for those who only trust in Jesus Christ.
It is exclusive. It can't get more exclusive than that. God will abundantly allow anyone who trusts Jesus into his banquet hall. Yet it is inclusive in a way that anyone, regardless of the background, regardless of their past, regardless of their current situation, regardless of their family, skin color, socioeconomic background, you are in as long as you trust Jesus Christ.
Let us pray. Father, we're thankful that you're so good to us in providing Jesus Christ as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins so that we may enter the banquet hall washed clean and forgiven. Help us to make the response now, make that choice now if we haven't already.
Help us to not think that just knowing the Bible trivia is enough. Help us to not think that having been part of the church for decades is enough. But help us to truly reflect, do I truly know Jesus because I believe that he has died for my sin and rose from the dead?
And there was no other way. In Jesus' name, amen.
We both stand together with me as we sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow. And I hope that you realize that all of our blessings do come from the Lord God our Father through Jesus Christ.
