Text: Matthew 7:13–27
Preacher: Pastor Brian Sauvé
Broad & Narrow, Sand & Stone
This morning, we’re going to talk about one of the top three most offensive aspects of the Christian faith in terms of popular opinion—and it’s one of those core doctrinal issues that separates true Christianity from many false versions of it.
I’m talking about the exclusivity of Christ, the exclusivity of the Christian faith.
All Christians confess that their is one faith, one Lord, and one baptism. All Christians confess that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, that nobody comes to the Father except though him. All Christians confess that there is salvation in no one else but in Christ, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
The world is perfectly fine with you if you confess that Christ is a way to God, to transcendence, to salvation. They are even totally find with you if you confess that Christ is your way to God.
But the moment you proclaim Christ as the only way that any man be saved—the moment you tell the world, “Christ is not just my way or a way, but the only way to be saved”—that is the moment that you have committed blasphemy and must be dealt with. Nobody will bat an eye at you if you say, “Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Humanists may all be on different trails, but they are each climbing the same mountain to truth.”
What you may not say is what the Lord Jesus says this morning in Matthew 7:13–27. Look there with me, if you would. This is the Word of the Living God:
“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. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
-Matthew 7:13–27
Thus ends the reading of God’s Word; may he write it on our hearts by faith.
Three Issues
Now, this is not normal, but I actually don’t know if we will make it through the whole section this morning. So we may have a part two on this text, but I don’t want to rob us of what is glorious and helpful in Jesus’ words here by trying to rush through it.
That said, there are three issues to understand, believe, and obey in the words of the Lord to us in this section:
First, we need to understand the glory and audacity of this hard saying of Jesus—that there are only two ways, the wide or the narrow. That there are only two foundations to build on, sand or stone. That you can have him and have life, or you can have anything else and death.
Second, we need to heed the various warnings that he issues as we face this chasm that cuts through all of reality. He doesn’t just tell us about these two ways and two foundations. There are voices that might lead us astray. There are ways we could stumble. He lays those before us as well.
Finally, we need to see how the Lord’s instruction in this section of the sermon has particular relevance and application for the specific audience in front of him and the moment in God’s story of redemption that he stands in as he gives this instruction. And seeing this will help us resolve what might at first glance appear to be a tension between his words here and the confident declarations of many other passages in the Scriptures—including some of Jesus’ own declarations in the very next chapter of Matthew!
Broad & Narrow, Sand & Stone
Let’s begin with the glory and audacity of Jesus words, as he weaves together two images in this section to make an audacious point. First, in verses 13 and 14, he says,
“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. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
-Matthew 7:13–14
Then, in verses 24–27, he says,
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
-Matthew 7:24–27
I know that these are probably familiar images to many of us—the broad and narrow way, the house built on the sand and the stone. And the meaning isn’t hard to discover, right? The way into the Kingdom of God which has arrived with Jesus is narrow—there is only one door, and it is Christ himself. There is only one rock on which to build, and it is Christ himself.
He lays before us two ways: Himself or anything else. It’s that simple. You can have Christ as your rock, Christ as your door, Christ as your path, Christ as your hope, Christ as your destination, or you can have anything else.
Think about how narrow that is. Jesus is a nobody from nowhere, seemingly, the son of a working class builder from Nazareth. He is standing on a hill somewhere in Galilee. He is not preaching from a throne in Jerusalem. He is not dressed in high priestly garb. He is not surrounded by powerful men, but fishermen. And yet he has the audacity to say, “Stand on me or fall. Follow me or die in the wilderness.”
Do you see why this is so offensive to virtually everyone? But that is the nature of truth: There is only one right answer, and that right answer excludes all possible wrong answers.
You must deal with Jesus on this level: He is either the rock and the way, or he is nothing. He will not let you have him halfway. He will not let you split allegiances. You will either have Jesus as Lord God, Savior, and King, or nothing.
I want you to think this through carefully with me. This is the testimony of Scripture: You are lost without Christ. You are dead in your sins and trespassers. You are without hope in the world. You don’t know what you’re for, you are in the way of God’s wrath, and you need forgiveness, a new heart with new desires, adoption, and help.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that you are a sinner? Do you believe that you need cleansing? Do you believe that the only way back to the Father is through the washing of the blood of Christ? Do you believe that the world is lost without him?
The very first thing Jesus does in this passage is to lay out two ways, and only two says, that all the world faces. Do you see what that does, straight off? It means that the very first thing you must do if you would follow Christ is to embrace weirdness. It means that you will confess that which the world abhors. It means that you will be walking the opposite way of the world.
Now, humanity universally senses that there is a wrongness in the air. We all sense it. We all long for something better than what we have in front of us in the world. Everyone knows it. We all feel the weight of our own guilt, and the glaring reality that others are guilty.
We’ve all been sinned against, seen sin committed against others. We’ve all seen the curse at work in death, disease, and suffering. And so everyone everywhere is looking for, and has always been looking for, some sort of fix.
The most popular industry in the world has always been selling solutions to the problem of sin and death and guilt that can make you feel better without leaving the broad road to destruction. In some way, all marketing boils down to this: Buy this thing, do this thing, follow my advice, read my book, buy my course, take this class—whatever—and you can have peace and glory.
But Jesus cuts through all of it. You don’t need better habits on the road to destruction; you need a different road. You don’t need to rearrange the furniture in the house you’ve built on sand; you need a different foundation.
So again: Are you a sinner? Have you contributed to the wreckage of the world? Are you a gossip? A liar? Do you disrespect your parents? Are you arrogant? Do you justify yourself, never admitting fault? Do you have an internet search history that would bury you under a pile of shame if we were to put it up on the screens this morning for all to see?
Are you hiding? Do you have things you just hope that nobody will ever find out about you? Are you rude? Are you angry with your kids constantly? Are you easily offended and frustrated? Do people walk on eggshells around you? Are you disrespectful to your husband? Do you dress immodestly? Are you a lover of money? Are you ungenerous? Do you love to spend money on yourself, but never give to the church?
Do you hate authority and refuse to submit to anyone? Are you stingy with grace? Do you harbor grudges easily, measuring out forgiveness in a thimble and then demanding grace by the gallon?
Have I missed anyone yet? What I want you to see is that the problem with us isn’t one big thing, it’s everything. In Adam, we are warped, curved in on ourselves, dead. Our problem isn’t one that can be fixed with a few cosmetic tweaks here and there.
And so the answer to all of our ills isn’t to make another pledge that today things will be different. That you’re going to grit your teeth today and do better. The answer isn’t to do what we all love to do and just hide better.
The answer is that you need Christ. You need to be washed clean from your sin. You need a different road, not a different pace on the same road. You need to confess before a holy God that there is nothing good in you, to receive his mercy, and to walk by faith after the Lord.
And for those of us in Christ, the answer is to keep plodding after the Lord in simple, faithful obedience to him—keeping short accounts of our sin, refusing to harbor it and hide it and pretend like it’s not there.
False Prophets & False Converts
With those paths laid before us, we need to heed the various warnings that he issues in this text. He doesn’t just tell us about these two ways and two foundations—he also warns us about different ways that we might take the wrong path or build on the wrong foundation.
From verse 15–23, there are two people he warns us against, the false prophet and the false convert—and I think both of these types of person are people he would warn us not only not to listen to, but not to become.
False Prophets
First, he warns us about false prophets. Look at verse 15,
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”
-Matthew 7:15–20
The way is narrow and hard that leads to life, but the way to destruction is broad and easy. How surprised should we be, then, to find out that there the broad and easy way has a good marketing team? That’s what false prophets are. They are going to stand there and tell you, “You don’t need to pay that cost and follow Christ. There’s an easier way. Look! Just go down that road and you’ll be fine.”
False prophets are not hard to find, are they? How hard is it to find voices telling you not to follow Christ, or at least if you’re going to follow him, to do so as one deity in your pantheon, one path among many, your own personal religious choice? Easy!
Even more, Jesus is speaking about wolves in sheep’s clothing—false prophets who pretend to be Christians. Again, how hard is it to find such people? Easy! They’re a dime a dozen in every generation of the church.
Every generation of the church will have to deal with jackanapes coming out of the woodwork, denying this doctrine or that doctrine, emerging into a new kind of Christianity, dulling the edges of the less popular doctrines of the faith, and generally trying to seduce you into believing that you can have a costless Christianity, a Christianity that will offend nobody, cost little, and profit you much.
But if what he has said about these two ways that are before us are true, then should we expect it to possible to be on the narrow way and yet seem acceptable and cool and in the inner ring of those on the broad way? Of course not!
And yet this is the play that is run over and over against the church by false prophets:
“I’m a Christian, but I’m also a lesbian. Christ wouldn’t reject me for who I love!”
And yet Paul says that the unrepentantly sexually immoral will not inherit the Kingdom of God, and that you really, really know a culture has lost its mind when their women exchange their nature passions for what is not natural.
“I’m a Christian, but I left my husband for another man because our marriage had lost the spark. Christ wouldn’t reject me for following my heart!”
And yet the Scriptures tell us that unrepentant adulterers won’t inherit the Kingdom of God, despite what the divorce courts might allow.
“I’m a Christian, but Paul couldn’t possibly have meant that wives were to submit to their husbands, or that women ought not teach or hold authority in the church, or that women ought to be workers at home. What he *really* meant was that women should be pastors, wives should keep the daycares in business in pursuit of careers, and that the word for ‘submit’ in Greek is pretty ambiguous.”
I’m trying to poke all of our most precious cultural idols, if you can’t tell.
Here’s the point: Following Christ will be costly. It may cost you your own family, and it may cost you your life. It may cost you the respect of many in your life. It will certainly cost you your inclusion in the cool kids’ tables of the world.
So the warning is simple: Don’t listen to the marketing team for the broad way to destruction. Don’t listen to them, whether they are a TV personality or your own mother. Don’t listen to false prophets. And you can know that you’re dealing with a false prophet if they don’t sound like th Bible sounds.
False Converts
Second, he warns about the reality of false converts—verse 21,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
-Matthew 7:21–23
Profession is not enough. Ostentatious, external displays of religious activity are not enough. Saying an incantation is not enough. Praying a prayer is not enough. You must be born again.
The name of Jesus isn’t a magical talisman. There is a difference between the visible church—the people gathered in churches on any given Sunday—and the true church, the collection of all the saints from the beginning of history to the end.
One of the most pernicious—yet on the surface, tiny—doctrinal missteps that the church has made is to exchange the precious doctrine of the perseverance of the saints for the sinner’s prayer and a “once-saved-always-saved” approach.
Now, to be clear: If you are saved, you will never not be saved. If you are in Christ, you will remain so. You cannot be born again and then unborn-again.
But what we have done is to exchange the doctrines of regeneration and faith and perseverance for revivalism, emotionalism, and false assurance.
We try to whip people into an emotional fervor, convince them to pray a prayer after us, and then tell them that no matter what they do, they will go to heaven, because that prayer you just said saved you, and after all, “Once saved, always saved!”
But not only is that not the way the Apostles preached the gospel to the lost, but the Scriptures say these inconvenient things like what you find in Colossians 1:21–23
“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard…”
-Colossians 1:21–23
We must persevere in faith to be saved. There will be many who make professions of faith, then by their works and words later prove that, as John says in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”
We must persevere in the faith to be saved. And yet here is the glorious promise of God to rest in, and in your resting persevere, that he who began a good work in us will see it through to completion on the day of Christ Jesus, because it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure.