Luke 13:22-30 Enter Through the Narrow Door
Good morning and Happy New Year! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 13. Today we are going to look at verses 22-30, and that’s on page 873 in the pew Bibles.
While you are turning there we’ll turn our attention to our catechism questions.
So now as we return to our study in the Gospel of Luke, I think that it is now coincidence that on this the day of the year that we are the most focused as a people on the time, the year that has gone and the year that is to come, it is no coincidence that the Lord has brought us to a text that very much has the same concern – time.
As we look at our text today we can speculate about the person asking Jesus a question and what their motivations might be, but what is much more important than the answer this person was trying to get from Jesus is the answer that Jesus actually gave.
So let’s look at our text together.
22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30 And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
Let’s pray.
So in my imagination this person that steps up and asks Jesus the question, just sort of looks around and asks, “Is this it? I would have expected Messiah to draw a bigger crowd than this… Will those who are saved be this few?”
And of course, as He often did, Jesus uses this question to address a larger issue to the crowd at large.
22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door…
So the question is asked by an individual but His response is given to the group. And this parable that Jesus gives in response to the question focuses primarily on the Jewish people but has important personal application to everybody.
Jesus used two different words for those who would enter the Master’s house: Seek, and Strive.
The Greek word for strive is where we get our English word, agonize. It means to exercise great intensity and effort, to struggle, to fight to enter through the narrow door.
In contrast, the word, “seek,” means to try to do something without success.
The narrow door in this parable represents salvation, entrance into God’s eternal kingdom. The person in the crowd asks, “How many shall be saved?” But Jesus’ response shows that instead of asking how many shall be saved, we should all be asking, “Shall I be one of them?”
For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’
The Jewish people had accounted their relationship to Abraham as their invitation to enter God’s kingdom, that because they could rightly trace their lineage back to him that made them a citizen of heaven.
These people ate and drank with Jesus outwardly but did not have inward communion with Him. He taught in their streets but they did not listen to His Word. They persevered in their unbelief and impenitence to the end.
JJ vanOosterzee wrote, “One may do much for his own salvation, and without success, if he omits the one thing that is needful.”
28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30 And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
Warren Wiersbe said, “Jesus pictured the kingdom of God as a great feast, with the patriarchs and the prophets as honored guests. But many of the people who were invited waited too long to respond; and, when they arrived at the banquet hall, it was too late and the door was shut.”
Again, Jesus’ original audience was Jewish, and He was calling to account those who were counting on other things for their entrance into the feast such as their own ideas of inheritance due to their lineage, as well as those who were invited but for various reasons decided to wait to go but when they arrived found the door shut to them. They also would observe those from the east and west, north and south, at God’s table instead of them; these are Gentiles not children of Abraham. And the result is anguish and anger as they are locked out of God’s kingdom.
Again, the narrow door in this parable represents salvation, entrance into God’s eternal kingdom. The person in the crowd asks, “How many shall be saved?” But Jesus’ response shows that instead of asking how many shall be saved, we should all be asking, “Shall I be one of them?”
I think that is a question we all must wrestle with.
I would also pose the question, why would anybody wait?
The narrow way, the way of Christ, isn’t easy. Entering through the narrow door comes at a cost.
Following Jesus means to admit that we are in fact sinners in need of saving, it means to submit our will to His, to let go of our pride and our false senses of security or goodness, to let go of the idea that we somehow deserve to enter into the Master’s house.
Striving to enter the narrow door does not mean that we work to earn our place or our salvation. As I already quoted our friend JJ vanOosterzee, “One may do much for his own salvation, and without success, if he omits the one thing that is needful.” And what is that one thing? Faith in Jesus Christ!
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
So how can we strive for that which we receive as a gift?
Hebrews 3:12-14 says, 12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
We must all be in a constant state of self-evaluation. Is there an evil, unbelieving heart, leading me away from the living God? Am I being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? Am I holding firm to my original confidence in Christ?
And for those that may think that time is on your side, that you will have time to get things right with God on your own schedule, once your done living your own way, once you get old, or tired of living fast and loose, once you have decided that it’s time to grow up: you don’t.
There is a time coming when the door will be shut. There is a time coming when it will be everlastingly too late to enter the Master’s house.
This thought should motivate us all to do everything we can to make sure that we have entered through that narrow door as well as invite as many people as we can to join us, for none of us know the day or the hour.
In Matthew’s record of these words he wrote, 13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Amen.
