The Narrow Gate And The Firm Foundation | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

2:15 For the next two months, I'm going to be out of the pulpit. I will be here some of the time on Sundays. You'll see me some of the time, but I'm going to be taking vacation and unpaid leave to be traveling across the state of Kansas, running for the United States Senate. And you're going to have a chance to hear from some of our other pastors and a few guest preachers as well, and it's going to be a great summer. I'm so excited. I'll be back preaching again in August, but again, I'll be back many Sundays between now and then. So today we're concluding our series of messages on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. We're coming to the end of his Sermon on the Mount. We've been studying this for the last five weeks, and we've been looking at the Sermon on the Mount because it is pivotal in understanding who Jesus is and what it means to be his disciples. A Yale University professor of church history, Yaroslav Pelikan, once said this about the Sermon on the Mount. He said it is the greatest moral document of all time. When Gandhi first read the Sermon on the Mount, he said it went straight to my heart, straight to my heart.

3:10 He read from this sermon almost every morning, even though he was a Hindu. He read from the sermon almost every morning. But when Gandhi looked at Christians in India, and when he traveled to other parts of the world, the countries where there were many Christians, he looked around and he said this, what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount. And what was true for Gandhi in India in the last century is true in America today. It's often true that what passes as Christianity is a negation of the Sermon on the Mount, the very things that Jesus told us was the will of his Father. So today, as we conclude this sermon, what we see is when Jesus came to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, it was as though he knew that would happen. He knew it would happen, and so he gives us four warnings, not just one, but four warnings. That's how Matthew chapter seven ends. If you have your Bible, I want you to turn to Matthew chapter seven. We're gonna start with the 13th verse, or 14th verse, 13th verse. And when we get to Matthew chapter seven, verse 13, we're gonna hear four different, they're called pericopes, little standalone statements from Jesus.

4:08 He probably shared these in different places, and Matthew compiles them together, and there's a quadruple warning. Like, make sure you get this right. Don't miss this. And so we're gonna try to understand these four things that Jesus said was really important for us to know and to do when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount. He did not want us to negate the Sermon on the Mount. He wanted us to live it. And by the way, in this, he was very similar to his brother or his half-brother, James, who said, be doers of the word and not merely hearers. So in each of these closing statements, Jesus gives us two pathways. He talks about either two different kinds of people, two different kinds of foundations, two different kinds of fruit that we might bear, two different kinds of roads that we might take. Each one is making the same point in a slightly different metaphor. And he's calling us to take the narrower of the roads, to do the thing that produces good fruit, to build our lives on a good foundation, and in the end, to do the will of his heavenly father. All right. So if you have your Bible, turn to Matthew 7, 13, and listen again to these words. Jesus said, enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow, and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Now, in response to everything that Jesus has said in the Sermon on the Mount, so all the things that he'd said in Matthew chapter 5, Matthew chapter 6, the first half of Matthew chapter 7, Jesus is saying, now, I've laid before you two roads. And this is not unlike what Moses does with the children of Israel, where he says, listen, I lay before you life and death. Choose life. Joshua does the same thing. The prophets do the same thing. Jesus comes along and he says, listen, there's two roads here. I want you to take the harder and narrower road because it's the one that leads to life. Now, this is true in our spiritual lives, but it's true in almost every other part of life, right? You know this, that if you're really determined to take the easy, safe, convenient path in life, you're never going to find life. You're going to have missed out on life. But if you take the hard road, you take the narrow road, you're going to find life. So this is true, I think, in marriage. So LaVon and I, this coming Friday, we'll celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary. You know how you make it to 44 years in marriage? Well, you have a lot of sacrifices and you put up with a lot of stuff

6:16 and you forgive an awful lot and you keep going and it's hard. It is not easy. And you talk to anybody who's been married more than four decades, they're going to tell you a marriage is hard, but in the end, it's worth it. Now, listen, I know there are people whose marriages were terrible and it doesn't work out, but I'm just saying for people who have a chance to have a great marriage, It is hard work and you stick to it. And when I've asked couples who've been married more than 60 years, what does it take to do this? You know what the number one answer is? Perseverance. You don't give up, right? And so for us, and more for LaVon than for me, it required sacrifice, hard work, forgiveness and forgiveness and forgiveness. All right, but today, you know, we're at the last third of our lives and it's awesome. And I'm so grateful for the partnership that we share. We found life because we went and took the harder path. It happens in organizations, in churches, in companies. So, you know, you, resurrection, God has used you to do remarkable things. We're going to take a look at some of those at the very end of the sermon today.

7:09 God's used you to do remarkable things, to change the world. But how did that happen? Did it happen because we all just showed up and said, hey, let's come be entertained on a Sunday, and we'll go back home, and we'll talk about how great the sermon was? No. It happened because we all said, here I am, Lord, send me. And we were willing to go places that scared us, and we were willing to sacrifice in ways that, you know, we were a little nervous about. And we were willing to do things that other people weren't willing to do. Right? And in the midst of that, God did something amazing. And in the midst of that, we found our own lives enriched. We found the life that comes at the end of the narrow road. No one accomplishes great things, experiences success in any area of life, and certainly does not know the life that God intends for us unless we're willing to take the narrow road and walk through the narrow gate. This reminds me of something I learned from the Franklin Time Management course years and years and years ago. It says this, the successful person, however you define success, is willing to do the things an unsuccessful person is unwilling to do. Are you willing to do the things an unsuccessful person is unwilling to do?

8:07 Are you willing to do the hard things, the difficult things, the things that make you nervous or a little queasy to your stomach when God calls you to do it? One of you recently reminded me of a video clip from the 1989 film Parenthood. And in it, Steve Martin and Mary Steenbergen are married, and they have several children. And Mary wants to have another child, and Steve's risk averse, and he's worried about the money, and he's worried about just how hard it is to be a parent and how nervous he is about having one more child in the world. And in the midst of that conversation they're having, an argument they're having, Mary's mother walks into the room and tells this story. Take a listen.

8:42 You know, when I was 19, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Oh? Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride. What a great story. I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled altogether.

9:16 Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around, nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it. Can I just ask you a question? Have you spent your life riding the merry-go-round? Or have you been willing to take the risk and get on the roller coaster? There are two roads, two gates. Which have you traveled by? Let's turn to Matthew 7, verses 15 through 20. So I preached from this text a couple of weeks ago. In it, Jesus warns his disciples not to follow false prophets. And then he lays out the difference between a false prophet and a true prophet, the kind of people we want to follow and the kind we don't, and really points towards the kind of life that we're going to live. And he says this, they will be known by their fruit.

10:11 They will be known by their fruit, by whether they produce good fruit that brings health to other people and life to other people, or they produce toxic fruit that makes people sick. I want to ask you this question. Are you producing good fruit or toxic fruit? Are the people around you blessed because of your presence in their lives? Do you invest in them? Do you care for them? Do you show them kindness? Or do they get only cruelty from you? I hope I know the answer to this question. And in life, are they experiencing love from you or something less than love? I think about a man I know, and he spent his whole life really in deep ambition, deep personal ambition. It's all about him. You know, he says whatever he needs to say to get ahead. He does whatever he wants to do to get ahead. You know, he's got these huge ambitious goals for his life, and he's driven to accomplish those goals. There's only one problem. If he ever actually reaches those goals, he's going to find he's miserable. Like when he finally gets what he thought he wanted, he's going to be miserable.

11:06 And the reason is that nobody wants to hang around him, that people don't like him because what he's produced in their lives is toxic fruit. Are you producing good fruit or toxic fruit? now if we want to know what does that good fruit look like again Jesus is pointing back to the sermon on the mount what does it mean to walk the narrow road it's the sermon on the mount what does it mean to produce good fruit it's the sermon on the mount so let me just remind you of what just a little of what we've learned in the sermon on the mount Jesus said blessed are the humble those who long to do what is right the peacemakers and the merciful are you producing this fruit be the salt of the earth Jesus says let your light shine before others that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. He says, don't tear people down. Love even your enemies. Do forgive a lot and love even your enemies. He says, pursue an authentic faith. Pray and live the Lord's Prayer. Don't make money your God, but seek first God's kingdom.

12:07 Don't judge. And here it is, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Are you producing good fruit or toxic fruit? All right, let's talk about Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 through 23. This is now the third of these pericopes, these short statements that Jesus makes. And this is what he says. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord. Now he's talking about the last judgment. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name. And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Go away from me, you evildoers. You feel the tragic note in this. I mean, these are people, so Jesus has two categories of people at the last judgment. He says, you know, they were both calling him Lord, right?

13:00 Lord means to be ruler, sovereign, master, right? They both said Lord, Lord to him. And the one entered into his father's kingdom and the other were sent away. And the difference was that those who were sent away did not do the will of his Father in heaven. They both apparently had faith. They both called upon Jesus as Lord, but it wasn't enough just to call upon Jesus as Lord. To walk in the path that leads to life is to actually do the will of his heavenly Father. It's interesting, to prophesy here. The Greek word signifies the idea of telling things in the name of God or speaking about the will of God. So these were people who could talk about the will of God a lot, but they didn't actually live it. So I want to ask you again, are you on the path that's going to lead to welcome into the eternal kingdom? Do you understand that what it means to be ready to do the will of his heavenly father and be ready for that day when your life comes to an end is to have not only called upon Jesus as Lord and Savior, but to have done the will of his heavenly father.

14:04 And that's captured in large part in the Sermon on the Mount. I just want to remind you, you know, Jesus is in essence saying it's not enough for you to call yourself a Christian and to go to church. There's a lot more to it than that. And you may remember the old saying, you know, going to church doesn't make you a Christian by itself. I mean, it's important. It doesn't make you a Christian by itself. Any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger, right? There's something else. You're never, of course, going to become a hamburger, but if you want to become a Christian, it's actually doing. It's not just belief and faith. It's belief in faith as a starting point and then leads you to doing, to follow the words of Jesus. This is what James also says in his epistle. He says, what good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply the bodily needs, their bodily needs, what is the good of that?

14:58 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. By the way, I was talking to a fellow this week and he had become a United Methodist. He'd been raised in a different church. I won't tell you the denomination, but he and his family, when he was a kid, started going to a United Methodist church. His dad was angry because the church that they went to was very judgmental and they were saying cruel things about people. And so they went to find another church. They decided, he said he went home that day from church. Their family walked out in the middle of the sermon, went home that day and his dad said, we need to find a Methodist church because those are people who don't talk that way. Now, there's a lot of churches that don't talk that way, but it just happened to be he somehow in his mind knew a United Methodist church was gonna welcome people. But then, you know, this man said, what I loved about the United Methodist is the fact that it's never just faith alone. It's always faith and works, that these two things go hand in hand. Now that should be true of every Christian, right? But it's a huge emphasis within United Methodism is that we practice both faith and works.

15:53 We are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But that leads us, as Paul says in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and then 10 that leads us to do what we were created to do, good works in this world, right? This is how it works. All right, so we will be welcomed in the kingdom of heaven both because of our faith and because we did the will of our heavenly father. All right, before we delve into Jesus' final words in the Sermon on the Mount, the fourth of those four statements that he concludes with, I wanna tell you about this house right here. Take a look. So this house is how it looked, I think, three years ago. It's in Santa Barbara. The address was 1037 Los Alturas Road. Jan Luck's late husband built it for her and for their kids 50 years ago. Jan lived there with her sons after he had passed until two years ago when the house began to slip down the hillside.

16:47 As it began to slip down the hillside, it was red tagged by the city and the family had to leave and they had to leave almost instantly. They had to leave all of their possessions inside the house. They grabbed a few things and they were able to go because at that particular moment when they examined it, they knew this house could fall at any point. Now, here's what it looked like as it began to slip down the hillside. And one more picture. Right, there it is. You can see how far it fell down the hillside. It ended up being torn apart. The house had been worth $2.7 million. At this point, it cost $1.4 million to tear it down. Now, that's a dramatic picture of building your house on a poor foundation. I wanna ask you, what kind of foundation are you building your house on? some years ago, Levon and I, it's been 20, 22 years ago, we were out looking at houses. We were gonna move from one house, we were gonna sell that house, we were gonna move to a different house. And as we were looking at houses, we came to one house and I just remember distinctly, there were huge cracks in the foundation in the basement.

17:41 Not just one or two, I mean, that's normal. But, you know, in Kansas, there's a lot of, you know, ground that, you know, it shifts some. But this house had cracks all over in the basement and then you went throughout the house and you found that there were sheetrock cracks almost everywhere. And the real estate agent, I'll never forget this, said, yeah, we call these houses dozer bait. This is designed for a bulldozer to come in and just bulldoze it down because it was built on a poor foundation. You know, the most important thing you build, the most important thing you do in building a house or a building, this building I'm standing in right now, it was months before anybody could see anything coming out of the ground. People are like, what's happening? Why is this building coming out of the ground? It's like, because they're building the most important part and it's the part you can't see, right? It's what's underneath the surface. And what's true when it comes to buildings is true when it comes to our lives, Jesus says. So listen carefully. Jesus said, everyone then, this is the final words of the Sermon on the Mount. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.

18:37 The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house. and it fell and great was its fall. And so he's asking us, what's the foundation you're building your life on? And so what he's challenging us to do is to build our life on him and what he has taught us in the Sermon on the Mount. To do all of these things we just learned about. And when you build your life on Jesus and not on yourself and your own ambition, not on anybody else, not on any other set of ideas, except for the ideas that Jesus offers us, you're gonna find that you're building on a firm foundation when you build your life on Jesus and on his words in the Sermon on the Mount.

19:32 And see, here's what happens when we trust in Jesus and we're seeking to know him and grow in him and his Holy Spirit's working in us and we're looking at his words and we're trying to live those words each day, even though we won't live them perfectly and we will all fall short of that and we're gonna need his grace again and again and again. But when we're striving to live according to his words, what we find is we have a house built on solid rock. that we find that our lives, when life gets hard, our house, our life still stands. I love the fact that he talks about building your life. Like you are building, right? You are a builder. You are building your life. And if you have children, you're investing and building in their lives. So you're building these lives, these little lives. You're building your own life. But are you building the most important part? Are you developing your soul, your heart, your spiritual life? Are you building your life, setting your life upon Jesus and the solid rock of his teachings? there's a great old hymn it was composed in the late 1700s probably you've heard of it before it says this how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in God's excellent word what more can be said than to you God hath said to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled and then each verse is more powerful than the one before until it reaches a crescendo in verse 5 listen to this the soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I will not desert to its foes.

20:52 That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake. What is the foundation your life is built upon? So I wanna ask you again, which road do you take? Which gate do you enter through? The narrow and hard one? Or are you seeking to live on the broad and wide and easy and safe one, the convenient one? and in your life, what kind of fruit are you producing? Is it good fruit or toxic fruit? In your life, are you doing the will of your heavenly father or are you only saying, Lord, Lord, coming to church and singing songs but never actually seeking to live for him according to his will? Or are you actually daily saying, here am I, Lord, use me? And then finally, what's the foundation look like that you're building your life on?

21:46 Is it a foundation of the solid rock of Jesus and what he teaches? Or is it your own ambition or your own comfort or convenience or your own ego? Which pathway is it? All right, so I wanna end by taking a few minutes to now talk about who you are as a church. And I wanna say this because I'm gonna be out of the pulpit for the next couple of months. I'll be back in August preaching again and then out for a while longer if I make it through the primary. But I wanted to have a chance just to remind you of a few things that I think are really important. So we started this church 36 years ago. It was me and LaVon. I was 25, she was 26. Our kids were two weeks old and three years old. And we came out with this deep desire. We had no idea what God would do here, but here was our desire. It was to, and let me just put up the purpose statement on the screen. And if you just read this out loud with me at any of our locations or online or on TV, this is the purpose of the Church of the Resurrection.

22:42 Our purpose is to build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians. Like that's what drives us. It's who we are. We are striving to build a Christian community, not a community of Christians, but a Christian community, a community that practices what Jesus taught us to practice, that loves and welcomes people no matter who they are. Our focus is to do that for non-religious and nominally religious people. Obviously, deeply committed Christians, we're really glad that they're here. And there are many of you over the years have grown to become deeply committed Christians, and that's awesome. But we never forget that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He was constantly looking for people who were broken or alienated or made to feel small or insignificant or not loved by God. He was always looking for those people, and he was drawing them to God. And then he tells his disciples, now you go out into the world and do the things that I have done. Make disciples of all nations. He told them at Pentecost, you know, you'll receive power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth, right?

23:41 So this is our driving passion is to build a community that does Christian things, that we welcome and love people, that is a church that is focused on reaching those who are wandering away from God or maybe slowly drifted away or have never known God. And so we're inviting them and we're demonstrating Christ's love to them. And we're, you know, we're modeling the faith to them. And then at some point we say, hey, you want to come to church with me? Or you want to go to Bible study with me? Or you want to go to Building Better Moms with me? Or whatever it might be. and why are we doing that? So that they and we together can become deeply committed Christians. You know what deeply committed Christians are? They love God with all their heart. They love their neighbors. They love themselves. And you know what? They live the Sermon on the Mount. They try anyway. They strive for it. Nobody's perfect at it, but they all strive for it. All right, so I wanna remind you of our vision here at Resurrection. So this is our vision statement. We'll put it up on the screen and I'd like for you to say this together with me. Our vision to be used by God to change lives, strengthen churches, and transform the world. You've been doing this for 36 years to change lives. So you don't change a life. The Holy Spirit changes lives, but you become an instrument to draw people to Christ. You become somebody who encourages people, blesses them, cares for them. Transforming lives is loving people, right? And so we're, as a church, our aim is to be a place of life transformation. So to transform lives, to change lives, and then to strengthen other churches. So this has been a part of our mission from the time we began this church is how can we help other churches? And do you know, you've done a lot of that over the years through our leadership institute, through giving away resources from this church, from encouraging people in other churches. Like this is part of what we do as a congregation. And then finally, we're in the business of transforming the world so that the world looks more like the kingdom Jesus spoke about. Changing lives, being used by God to change lives, strengthen churches and transform the world. All right. Over the last 36 years, you have done that in some amazing ways.

25:38 And I thought you might enjoy just seeing some of these video clips from the last 36 years. Take a look. So this was the McGilley Chapel Funeral Home. This was where we began. That was opening Sunday. And we started with about 90 people a Sunday that first month. And then it moved into, you know, helping people get engaged in service to each other and to the world. There were children and youth and adults, over 20,000 people in the last 36 years who gave their lives to Christ at Church of the Resurrection, who became Christians or rededicated their lives to Christ at Resurrection. 20,000 people. And then there were all the people that we served in the community and in the world. 20,000 churches we've encouraged, 40,000 church leaders that we've trained at our Leadership Institute. There are the wells in Africa, 200 communities that now have clean drinking water because of you. There were other locations that we started. There were the bed programs, the beds that we gave away, the food that we gave away and still give away. The mobile dental clinic, 200,000 books given away through our bookmobile. Every year, hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that are given away, thousands and thousands of units of blood given to save people's lives. That's Mason, Ohio there. All of these campuses of resurrection, nine of them in Kansas City, one in Mason, Ohio, the bookmobile, the houses that you built, the construction projects that you've been a part of, providing sack lunches for people who hungry, building medical clinics, providing lights in Africa to communities that don't have them through solar light kits, the food pantry at Overland Park, 20 food pantries across Kansas City receive food from you. All of the things that you have done to help people come to faith, to see lives changed, churches strengthened, and the world transformed.

27:18 Can I tell you how proud I am of you, Church of the Resurrection? I am so proud of the church that you have become and what you've done in these first 36 years. And I got to tell you, God is long ways from being finished with you yet. As you continue to love Jesus, build your life on that solid rock that is his teaching and your faith in him. As you continue to try to produce good fruit and not bad fruit, as you seek to do the will of your heavenly father, his heavenly father and yours, and you seek to walk the narrow path. Listen, as I take leave of you for a couple of months, I'm pursuing this crazy thing. because when I looked at our world, I thought, you know what? I don't see the Sermon on the Mount lived out in the realm of politics the way it should be and could be. Not that we're a Christian nation trying to do that. I'm just saying the values that are inherent in the Sermon on the Mount, I don't see that in the way I wish that was. In fact, I see the opposite.

28:16 What I see in a nation where 68% of the people claim to be Christians is often a negation of the Sermon on the Mount. and I began to feel, okay, maybe there's something else you can do. So I'm trying it, right? And it may not work, and I got to tell you, it's scary to me and to LaVon, and I feel like for us, it feels like at the moment, the narrow gate and the narrow road, the scary and hard, and I don't know how it's going to turn out, right? And either way, I feel like I win because if I don't lose, then I get to still be your senior pastor full-time instead of part-time, you know, for the next few years. So I'm happy either way. But I just felt like God said, why don't you try doing what you challenge people to do every week? And that is to take the narrower path.

29:04 So Anne Williams told me the story a couple of weeks ago. Actually, yeah, two weeks ago. Anne is our pastor at Resurrection Downtown. And she said that on the Sunday when I preached, this has been four weeks ago, I think it was four weeks ago, when I announced to the congregation that I was going to be running for the US Senate. She said, after the sermon was over with, I was walking out of church with another family in our congregation, Resurrection Downtown, and she said, I asked them, you know, so what do you think of Pastor Adam's announcement? And she said, the wife said, well, what I think is, we better be ready to step up.

29:39 Like, Pastor Adam's going to go do his thing, and it's time for us to step up and continue to do the things we've done, maybe even more than we've done in the past. Right? So you could say, well, Pastor Adam's not going to be here for the next six, eight weeks, next eight weeks. And so I'm going to take a little vacation from church. Or you can say, you know what? I was called, you were called to take the narrow path, to do the hard things. It was never about who your pastor is on any given Sunday and always about who Jesus is and the solid rock that you're building your life on if you're building it on Jesus and what he teaches us to do. Listen, it's not me that's counting on you to be in church while I'm gone.

30:21 It's Jesus that's counting on you to step up your game and to follow in the narrow path and to do the things that he's called you to do. All right, so I wanna remind you of a poem that I've always liked and it can seem a little trite. I mean, people, it's been overused, but I haven't shared it for probably 15 years. And yet it reminds me of what Jesus is calling us to do in chapter seven of the Sermon on the Mount. Robert Frost. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler. Long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the undergrowth. Then took the other as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear. Though as far as that, the passing there had worn them really about the same.

31:16 And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the one for another day. Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence.

31:38 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. Are you gonna ride the merry-go-round forever? Are you gonna get on the roller coaster? I wanna invite you to enter through the narrow gate and take the harder path.

32:03 Let's pray. Would you just whisper this prayer under your breath? thank you Lord for loving me please forgive me for my sins. Wash me clean and make me new. Forgive me for the times I've taken the easy path. when you called me to take the narrow and hard road. help me to follow you.

32:36 Help me to love boldly, to serve joyfully, and to lead courageously. Help me to trust in you, and help me to live your words from the Sermon on the Mount. In Jesus' name.