“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.“Strive to enter in by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will seek to enter in and will not be able.Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.Strive to enter in by the narrow door: for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
3 sermons cite this verse
We'd like you to have a seat. So this is our first Sunday back on campus with our students back here. And so our freshmen arrived a couple days ago and our returning students are trickling in. They start school tomorrow. And so I just like a word for them I just have for this weekend is it's welcome and welcome home. The last words I spoke to our students last year, those who are graduating and moving on, or those who are just moving on for the summer were the words of promise that every time they come back, it's welcome home. And so the words to our incoming students this Sunday are welcome to our returning students, welcome home. And either way, it's so good. Like either way, this moment right now is, I love beginnings. Beginnings are so good. Whether that, again, is our freshmen, our incoming students, it's time to begin, or our returning students, it's time to begin again. Because there's so much unknown right now. I mean, obviously, I mean, think about those incoming freshmen, those incoming students, they arrive on campus and they have had to leave everyone who knows them and go to a place like this. They go to a place right here, right now, where nobody knows them, virtually nobody knows them, or those students even who have been away for three months and nobody knows what these last three months have contained in their lives. …
… and judgment to the impenitent, there seemed to be only a few who responded. Why in verse 24 he says, "'Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able." It's not easy to repent. That's the message. It's costly to repent. You have to change your entire view of yourself. And if you love your own life, you will lose it. But if you hate your own life in this world, you will keep it to life eternal," John 12, 25. It's hard to repent because you have to take the opposite view of yourself that you've cultivated your whole life to recognize your sin and wretchedness to the degree that you want to turn from it. And you offer God nothing but your helpless, wretched, sinful self, and you reach out for a Savior who is Christ the Lord. That's hard for sinners to do, because sinners have spent their life protecting their pride and sense of self-worth. …
… It's not so easy. In Luke chapter 13, listen to verse 24, "'Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.'" with great difficulty that you enter. There's a certain violence to it as you have to be separated from everything that was important to you. Listen to Luke 16, 16. The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. The people who come into the kingdom come because they are desperate. so desperate they are willing to abandon themselves. They're willing to confess Jesus as Lord and themselves as His slaves. According to Luke 14, they're willing to count the cost. According to the parables of Matthew 13, verses 44 to 46, they're willing to sell everything to buy the pearl of great price, sell everything to buy the treasure in the field. It's selling everything. …