Discipline and the Narrow Door

[00:00:02] Well, good morning, everyone. [00:00:10] Turn my microphone on. [00:00:13] Good morning, everyone. [00:00:16] If you weren't awake a moment ago. [00:00:20] Well, you might have your bulletins handy today, because I'm going to refer to a couple of the texts that we have there, primarily the one from the book of Hebrews, the writer, to the Hebrews, there in verse, I believe it's six, says this my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. [00:00:50] And then he goes on a little later, for what son is there whom his Father does not discipline? [00:00:58] And then this in verse nine, beside this, we have an earthly father who disciplined us, and we respected them. [00:01:07] Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of the spirits and live? [00:01:12] And then verse 10. For they that is our fathers disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. [00:01:23] For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields peaceful fruit, righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Now, when I read this passage, every time I think back to a moment when I was a child, I don't know, eight or nine years old, and my father had asked me to go out and. And trim the rocks. [00:01:53] Trim the rocks was probably the worst job that existed in our household. [00:01:59] And trim the rocks meant, well, we had to push more, and I wasn't big enough to do that yet, but it would get close to the rocks, but not quite get the grass around the rock so it would get all fringy and, you know, kind of unkempt looking. [00:02:15] And those were back in the days when trimmers were those shears, you know, And I took both my hands to work the shears, and there were two rock walls, and it was both the top of the rocks and the bottom of the rock because there was grass at both levels that got all fringy looking. [00:02:33] And my dad asked me to go and trim the rocks. And I knew exactly what that meant. [00:02:39] And I turned on my heel and I stomped down the stairs, all the way down, speaking all sorts of dissatisfaction with that job that I had just been assigned. [00:02:53] Not happy about it at all, because first of all, it was hard work. And second of all, I had places to go and things to do. [00:03:00] And I spoke all sorts of invectives about this assignment. And my father telling me this out loud, did I not mention that my oldest sister heard every word and had this incredible ability to remember my every word. [00:03:28] And as she went running past me, repeating my every word, up the stairs she flew, found my father, and again repeated every word, whereupon I was called back upstairs. [00:03:46] And not only did I get to trim the rocks, I got to trim the trees and along the sidewalk and around the bird bath and the garden plot and everything. [00:04:00] And for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. [00:04:07] Are you with me? [00:04:10] But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. My father didn't just send me out to trim. He also said, you know, you're a member of this family, right? [00:04:31] Would you pray with me? [00:04:36] Lord, open our ears and hearts to hear your word and draw us near unto you through it, for your are our rock and our redeemer. [00:04:45] Amen. [00:04:50] Well, those were words of love, weren't they? That came from my father as he just spoke into this invitation to come back among the family members and participate in what it means to belong to this household. [00:05:06] It also reminds me of that little story that maybe you've heard this one. Little. Little Billy was given a BB gun for his birthday. And as it came about during the weekend, he got to go to Grandma's house and took his BB gun and he started practicing. Put a can on a fence post, you know, see if he could hit it. He couldn't hit anything. [00:05:30] And by and by, Grandma's favorite duck came walking through the courtyard. And he thought, well, I can't hit anything. I'm just going to take a shot. [00:05:40] He took the shot, killed the duck. [00:05:46] Well, he was immediately stricken with great terror, obviously shame. He ran over, grabbed the duck by the neck, threw it in the woodshed and kind of thought, well, there, that's the end of that. [00:06:04] Whereupon his sister came around the corner and said, I saw everything. [00:06:18] And of course, little Billy was, well, you're not going to tell anybody, are you? You're not going to tell Grandma, are you? You're not going to tell me, are you? Oh, no, she said, oh, no, I wouldn't think of doing such a thing. [00:06:32] Well, it got to be dinner time. And after dinner, it was little Susie's turn to clean the table and do the dishes, clean up the kitchen. [00:06:43] And she announced, billy's going to do it for me. Of course, Billy said, I didn't say, I'm not going to do that. And she said under her breath, she said, remember the duck? [00:06:57] And the next morning, it was time to clean up her room. And she announced, well, Billy's going to clean my room for Me? No, I'm not. I'm not going to clean your room for you. And she leaned in real close in her. In his ear, and said, remember the duck? [00:07:14] And this went on for a week. [00:07:17] You know, anything that had to be done around the. The country farm there, raking out the garden, pulling weeds, you know, mucking up where the. Where the chickens were and all these different chores. And every time it was Susie's job, she would say, billy's going to do it for me. Remember the duck? [00:07:38] And finally, by the end of the week, he. He just said he'd had it. He. He knew he. He just had to come clean. So he went running into his grandmother and he said, grandma, I'm so sorry, but I killed your. I killed your favorite duck. [00:07:54] And could you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? And she said, you know, I saw the whole thing through the window, and you've never heard this story before. [00:08:07] She said, I saw it all. And I was wondering when you were going to come in because you've been living a terrible life this past week. [00:08:17] And of course, she forgave him. And I can't help but feel that that same thing applies. [00:08:23] The discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Later, it yields peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Now, I don't know which sister you would rather have, but I prefer my sister to Susie. Right. Would you? I bet you agree, because everything came out, but it came out right away with my sister, and I was trained by it. I wonder if Grandma with Billy didn't also with her. Forgiveness. Make some instructions about making straight paths through your feet and strive for peace and see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, so that no root of bitterness would spring up and cause trouble and by it become defiled. [00:09:17] We're instructed to get about all of those things, but it seems like we only want to get about them after we've gone through some real trials and got ourselves all messed up with some sin or some sort of trouble. [00:09:32] And we're through it, and God forgives us, and we sense that forgiveness. And. And then we're all about getting ready to make straight paths and striving for peace and all of these. All of these things. [00:09:48] The reason for that is we always seem to walk ourselves back into the trouble of sin and pain and anger. [00:10:07] The writer to the Hebrews brought to our minds an event that took place in the Old Testament. If you look there at verse 18, it starts to highlight this event. You can read about it back in Exodus, chapter 19, where God instructed Moses to have the people, his people, step away from Mount Sinai and put a fence up around it and warn the people, don't even come near. Don't even touch Mount Sinai. And then God descended upon that mountain in a cloud and fire burst forth and God spoke to Moses, and there was rumbling thunder and earthquake, and it struck terror in the lives and the hearts of the people. [00:11:07] They were warned to not even touch the mountain, lest they die. [00:11:19] It was frightening. [00:11:21] It struck terror into the lives of God's people. There gathered around as they became aware of God's law being given to them. And when Moses explained God's law, of course they all said, oh, we will follow all of these laws. [00:11:45] We promise we will keep this law, knowing deep down inside they can't keep the spirit of the law, much less the letter of it. [00:11:57] Here's what the writer to the Hebrews said in 18. He says, you've not come to a mountain that cannot be touched. A blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further message be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given. If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. That's horror to these people. And indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. [00:12:34] The writer to the Hebrew says, that's not where you're at. [00:12:41] You have come, he says in verse 22, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to innumerable angels in festal gatherings. [00:12:56] And look down at 24, and you have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. [00:13:04] And to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. You have come to Jesus. And what do we find in Jesus but life and salvation and hope and love, all because he gives us his blood from the cross, all because he brings us forgiveness through that blood. All because it's a better word spoken than the blood of Abel. That could only out of. [00:13:42] You remember Abel, right? Killed by his brother Cain. [00:13:45] And his blood we see in Genesis, it's like it speaks out such words as vengeance and death and punishment. [00:14:04] But that's not what you've come to. [00:14:08] The writer, too, the Hebrew says, you've come to life and salvation and hope and love. [00:14:28] It's been a number of years ago, but there was this musical, the Music Man. [00:14:35] Remember the Music Man. [00:14:36] Harold Hill comes to town. Of course. He's an independent businessman. [00:14:44] Okay? He's kind of a charlatan. [00:14:46] He's always looking for an angle. And he wanders around the little town and discovers there's a pool table that's been brought into town. [00:14:59] And so he gathers the people around him and he says to him, he says, folks, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge, or you are unaware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the presence of a pool table in your community. [00:15:19] Well, he says, you got trouble right here. You got trouble right here in River City. [00:15:26] Trouble with a capital T, of course. In the next song in the musical, he indicates what the solution is to this troubled pool table in their community. [00:15:38] You remember what it was. A boys band. [00:15:41] And boy, you need a boys band and you need it today. [00:15:46] Why am I telling you this? [00:15:49] Well, I think that's a great illustration for what's going on in our world today. A world full of. Of degradation, a world full of temptation, a world literally full of sin. [00:16:02] And God's solution is not a boy's band. [00:16:08] God's solution is a narrow door. [00:16:17] Did you hear that in the gospel lesson? You can look there. [00:16:22] Jesus says, enter by the narrow door. [00:16:31] Jesus is the narrow door. [00:16:35] Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. As we have heard this summer, Matthew's gospel opens this up even more for us. Matthew says, enter by the narrow door, for the door is wide and the way is easy. That leads to destruction, trouble. [00:17:00] And those who enter by it are many. [00:17:03] For the door is narrow and the way is hard. That leads to life, and those who find it are few. [00:17:13] Jesus warning today to us is don't look for the wide door. [00:17:25] Wide door might represent things like world religions, for example, or good works. Do you know Christianity is the only faith system in existence where God comes to us, to people. [00:17:49] All other faith systems in our world call people to clamber up and to climb up and scratch their way, hoping to somehow get to God. [00:18:04] When God comes to us, he's saying, this is a narrow way, but go that way. [00:18:14] You see, Jesus receives those who listen to God's word and obey it. [00:18:23] He opens the door. He is the doorway and receives those who claim the blood of Jesus for their salvation and not their own efforts and not their own traditions or their own religious beliefs or their own religious practices. [00:18:43] Jesus receives those who offer sacrifices to God and not to themselves. You know, like, well, thanks for being me, patting ourselves on the back, you know, Jesus receives those who follow the way of the cross instead of of the way of the world. And you know the way of the world, don't you? [00:19:09] That way of wealth and power and fame and influence, you know, making a name for ourselves. [00:19:20] All of those, in short, are what Jesus says when he says, the last shall be first and the first shall be last. In other words, those who have put themselves last, those who follow the way of the cross, those who offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God, those who claim the blood of Jesus, those who listen to God's word and obey it. [00:19:48] The last shall be first. [00:19:56] You see, God doesn't miss seeing those who are following him. [00:20:06] I want to go back to that scene around Mount Sinai, you know, where there's terror and trouble and fear and all the anxiety because they can't touch the mountain, and yet they know their God is there. [00:20:25] And Moses says, back off. [00:20:31] And the mountain is shaking and there's earthquakes and smoke and fire and trumpets blaring. [00:20:39] Why did God do that? [00:20:42] I had to wonder at that. Why did God make that scene? [00:20:53] And I think it was to point out to his people their inability to keep the very law that he was giving them. This perfect law, keep this. And. And they say, well, we'll keep it. But they couldn't keep it. And century after century, they couldn't keep it. And God instituted method of sacrifice that would bring forgiveness to them, forgiveness for their sins, until the ultimate sacrifice was made in his son, Jesus Christ, who came to this earth and sacrificed himself so that when we are under the terror of our sin, we have a place to flee. [00:21:40] So that when we are caught up in trouble, he is there for us. [00:21:53] In short, that when we are terrified with our inability to keep the law, God is there to rescue us through Jesus on the cross. [00:22:08] You know, we follow the lectionary series, and either pastor or I, sometimes our elders read those texts. And those texts are always linked in some way. One of the texts that is given but we don't use all the time is the Psalm. Today's Psalm is Psalm 50, and I would recommend it to you to read later today as maybe as part of your devotions. [00:22:35] But in Psalm 50, verse 15, there's this wonderful promise that comes to us where God says, call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you. [00:22:49] You will glorify me. [00:22:53] Call upon me, he says, in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you. He is that reliable. He is the narrow door. [00:23:11] Amen.