As we\u2019ve studied His sermon, we\u2019ve seen how Jesus has laid out what it looks like to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God. Now, as He closes, He calls us to a decision, to a choice. Whose kingdom will you choose? And it\u2019s this choice that we\u2019re discussing today. It\u2019s a simple choice. For Jesus only offers two options: the wide gate or the narrow gate.<\/p>\n
That confronts our desire for spiritual autonomy. It challenges the mindset that we can take a little bit of Christianity, a little bit of self-help, and maybe sprinkle in some Eastern philosophy and end up just fine. But Jesus doesn\u2019t leave room for a middle path! And that\u2019s why we need this message today. Because the narrow way isn\u2019t just hard to find\u2014it\u2019s easy to reject. Not because it’s unclear, but because it’s unpopular. And yet, it\u2019s the only way that leads to real and lasting life.<\/p>\n
In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus began to conclude His sermon by warning His first-century Jewish audience that there were only two spiritual paths, the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life, and He instructed them to enter through the narrow gate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13397,"template":"","tags":[],"series":[2968],"scripture-book":[1307],"scripture-chapter":[1340],"speaker":[2007],"class_list":["post-13396","message","type-message","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","series-kingdom-living","scripture-book-matthew","scripture-chapter-1340","speaker-gary-combs"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/message"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13398,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/message\/13396\/revisions\/13398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13396"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=13396"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-book","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-book?post=13396"},{"taxonomy":"scripture-chapter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/scripture-chapter?post=13396"},{"taxonomy":"speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker?post=13396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}