Sermon Text

Grace, mercy and peace are yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear fellow partakers of the heavenly banquet,

Have you ever tried to get close to a celebrity when they come to town and meet fans at the Mall of America? Have you ever tried to get an autograph from the Twins or Vikings at one of the events that they have held? If you have, you know what kind of effort it takes to be one of the first people in line or to work your way through the crowd to get to the person you want to see. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who have the same idea that you have. Have you ever been disappointed? You put in all the effort, but there were so many people ahead of you that you couldn't even get close. On the other hand, how satisfying is it when you get your visit with that famous person, even if it is for about a minute. How much effort would you put in to be at the front of the line for heaven? How much effort would you exert to be with Jesus? If you try hard enough can you get through the narrow door?

I'm sure that this man who asked the question of Jesus wasn't the only one who has ever wondered this. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that quite a few of you have wondered the very same thing. He asked, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" The more and more that Jesus discussed the pitfalls to salvation, the more people like this man wondered if the total number saved would be very few. Perhaps you have thought about all the people around the world and wondered just how many of them will be saved. Jesus answers his question, sort of. Jesus says, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door." Instead of delving into the ratio between saved and not saved or pulling out a graph based on percentages, Jesus makes it personal. Basically Jesus says, "Don't be worried about those things of which you do not need to know, but make sure you are prepared to enter salvation." There is a good lesson in that for all of us. There are many things that God has not given us answers too in his Word. Therefore we should not be concerned with the abyss of God's hidden will and concern ourselves only with what he tells us clearly in his Word.

When Jesus answers the man's question, he speaks not just to the man, but to the whole crowd and says, "(You) make every effort to enter through the narrow door." What is the narrow door exactly? He certainly isn't speaking of the pearly gates from religious joke fame. Jesus makes it abundantly clear what this narrow door is in some of his great "I am" statements. He calls himself "the way" and "the gate" and "the life". Jesus is the door and the gate and the way to eternal life. It is only through Jesus that anyone enters heaven. Jesus is the narrow door.

How do we get through this narrow door? There is a reason that Jesus calls the door narrow. A narrow door is harder to fit through. Just exactly how wide this door is we don't know, but Jesus chose these words to teach the truth that it is harder to get through because it is narrow. He makes that point even more clear when he says, "Many will try to enter and will not be able." What does Jesus mean then when he says that many will not be able? How do we know that we will be able to get through the door?

Have you ever tried to walk through the door carrying as many grocery bags as you can? At the very least you have to bang and jostle your way through the door. Have you tried to carry all the bags into the hotel at once? You try, but eventually you have to put some of them down and take them through one at a time. Those are full size doors, what about a narrow door? We can't fit through the narrow door with any spiritual baggage. We can't go through carrying all of our sins with us because we have not trusted Christ to take them all away. We can't go through the door carrying trophies of our own self-righteous works so that we can show God how lucky he is to have us.

The only way that we are going to fit through the narrow door is if we come carrying nothing. We come knowing that we are sinners who do not even deserve to have the door open for us. We come having laid our sins at Jesus' feet for his forgiveness. We come trusting that God forgives our sins for Jesus' sake. We come, with empty hands, with hearts filled with Christ. As one author said we come on our knees. This is repentance. Repentance is a godly sorrow worked in us by the law because of our sins. Repentance is confession, laying our sins before God in sorrow. Repentance is faith, trusting that Jesus has taken away all of our sins. This is the struggle that Jesus speaks about, living each day in repentance.

We come like the prodigal son when he returned to his father, "God, I have sinned against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your child." We hear Jesus' voice, just like he said to the paralytic. "Take heart, your sins are forgiven."

Brothers and sisters, through faith which the Holy Spirit worked in you, God prepared you to fit through the narrow door. The struggle that Jesus calls us to continue is to daily recognize that we are sinners, having sinned in the things we have thought, said and done. Jesus calls on us to repent of those sins and look to him for forgiveness. None of us is exempt from this struggle. God strengthens us for this fight through his Word and through the Sacraments. In the Scriptures God brings our sins to light and shows us how much we have sinned against him. In the Scriptures God shows us and tells us how Jesus took away all of our sins on the cross. This is our own personal struggle that happens when law and gospel work on our hearts and move it mightily.

The narrow door is open, but there will come a time when the door will be shut and those who have not entered through the narrow door will no longer have an opportunity to enter through the door.

We already spoke about those who are carrying too much baggage to fit through the door. Sadly many who consider themselves Christians today are carrying too much baggage to fit. Either they love Jesus but refuse to think about sin or they believe that God doesn't really care about sin. They will try to enter in Jesus' name but since they are carrying the bags of their sin with them, they will not be able to fit. Other so-called Christians will be carrying their own trophies of righteousness that they have earned on their own. They will not fit through the door with their trophies because in essence, they feel they didn't really need Christ to fit through the door.

Then there are those who will try their own door. These are people who live under the delusion that all religions and all roads lead to paradise, they are just different routes for getting there. Many who call themselves Christians fall into this category today too. There are those who want to make Jesus be what they want him to be instead of who the Bible tells us he is. They like to put words in his mouth and pick and choose what teachings from the Bible that they will follow and the ones they won't. In essence they are drawing their own door on the wall next to the narrow door. They try to run through their door but only go crashing into solid brick. There is only one narrow door.

To others the door will be closed. It is God the Father who decides how long this door will remain open. When the disciples asked Jesus when the end would come and the door would be closed Jesus replied, "It is not for you to know the times and dates the Father has set." Remember! Stay out of the abyss of God's hidden will and stay with what he has revealed and he has revealed that the door will be closed.

Jesus urges us to make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because if we miss out, the consequences are ghastly. Jesus describes the scene as one of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus doesn't go into the horrible details here about what eternal death will be like, but he emphasizes that it will be a time of inconsolable sorrow because the judgment is final and cannot be reversed. It is an eternity banished from God and his love. Jesus tells those locked out, "Away from me."

Inside the great banquet is an entirely different story It is eternal fellowship of joy with the Savior. We get a foretaste of this banquet as Jesus gives us his true body and true blood to drink when he invites us to his table. We will feast with members of the Holy Christian Church that came through the door from the East and West, North and South.

Finally, Jesus gives us those famous words, "There are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last." What Jesus means is that there are those who seem to be a perfect fit for the narrow door and enjoy eternal life, but their hearts are far from Christ. The Pharisees of Jesus day seemed to be locks for glory, but in their hearts they were far from Christ and with too much baggage to fit through the door. On the other hand there were the misfits and those who would surely not make it through the door. These might be the tax collector or leper or woman caught in adultery or the like from the gospels. These people who seemed to be last will be first in the Kingdom of God. Jesus loved the old switcheroo and he gives his listeners one here.

So we know that we shouldn't ask the question about whether many will be saved or not. We know that Jesus calls on us be in the Word where law and gospel can bring us to struggle to enter through the narrow door. Does this mean we should not be concerned about who enters and who doesn't? Absolutely not. It is our job as Christians along with struggling to enter through the narrow door, to show people the door. Usually that means to send someone outside, but in this case it means to show people Jesus. We can't make someone saved. We can't make them fit through the door, but we can show them the door that Jesus may work in their hearts through the Holy Spirit and add them to the great banquet. Amen.