Finding true life is a question we keep answering, and the answer keeps moving. Pastor Carey opened “Finding True Life” with the versions we try. For a kid, true life is play. For a teenager it is autonomy. I can make my own decisions, now let me get some milk out of your fridge. Out of high school it is stability. In your twenties and thirties it is security, the job, the finances, the relationship. He is a couple of months from forty, so he said he cannot tell us what the definition looks like after that.
We ask the question hardest when we are between a rock and a hard place, and we usually ask it practically. Continuing the Sermon on the Mount series, he asked it spiritually, which is where Jesus answers it in Matthew 7:12-14.
Why Does Jesus Start With Treating People Well?
Verse 12 says whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
It dovetails off verse 11, where Jesus shows how good God is by contrast. Flawed people know how to give a good gift, so how much better is His good than ours? That kind of care is too good to keep to yourself. When something is good, you share it.
So treat people the way you want to be treated, in intentions and in actions. The intention is the motive, the action is the deed, and we already do both for ourselves.
Pastor Carey added a caution. Do not assume people want to be cared for the way you like to be cared for. Everyone has a different care tag. Some need words of affirmation, some acts of service, some gifts. Ask questions and learn what the tag says, so the person actually feels valued, heard, and seen. Law and Prophets means the whole Old Testament and every prophet from Moses to Micah, all of it summarized in that one line.
What Does Jesus Mean by the Narrow Gate?
This whole sermon has been Jesus saying do not do it your way, do it my way. Anger. Lust. Retaliation. Judgment. Divorce. In verse 13 He closes with a decision. Enter the narrow gate.
The gate has a name. In John 10 Jesus says He is the gate, and whoever enters through Him will be saved. Pastor Carey retold it as a mama duck and her ducklings, who follow her into traffic because they trust her. So He is saying follow me with no plan B. No fallback, no contingency, no substitute strategy. Full time, like a diehard fan, rain, hail, shine, or snow. Receptivity means we do not just admire the gate or talk about it. We enter it.
It is narrow because you cannot get through on your grandmother’s faith or your auntie’s faith, on church attendance, or because your brother is a pastor. It is so narrow you cannot even trust yourself to get in. You make your own confession and your own allegiance, and it is not a vote.
What is hard about it is the self-denial. Dying to self is where you say you are done with your preferences and your priority list, the ambitions mean nothing, and you just want Jesus. I am done trusting me. Jesus is not saying you cannot have dreams. He is saying He has supremacy.
What Did the Rich Young Ruler Walk Away From?
Not everyone is receptive. Some meet Jesus, agree He is right, and still are not sure they want to follow. The narrow gate is not convenient and not for the faint of heart.
Mark 10:17 has a rich young man hunting for Jesus. He kneels, which is respect, and asks one question, which is humility. Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? He wants to know without a shadow of a doubt that he and God are on good terms at his last breath.
Jesus points him to the commandments, and the man says he has kept all of them since he was a kid. Check, check, check. I am good to go.
Then the verse says Jesus looked at him and loved him, because you have to love somebody enough to have the hard conversation. You lack one thing. Sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me, which is the same as enter the gate. Draining the account means relying completely on Jesus, and this man was relying on the zeros in savings. He went away sorrowful, because he had great possessions. He never said no with his mouth. He said it with his body.
Where Does the Wide Gate Lead?
The second half of verse 13 says the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. Destruction is a word that demands attention. This is the gate where the conscience gets ignored and then severed, where the world keeps telling you what is good for you and selfishness gets applauded.
There is destruction at the end of that road and destruction along the way. Hate and retaliate and people get hurt. Let anger run you and it shows up as high blood pressure and anxiety attacks. Emotionally it is believing selfishness gets you ahead, then ending up alone and afraid with guilt as your god. James 4:4 asks whether we realize that friendship with the world makes us an enemy of God. If you passed the exit marked narrow gate, make a U-turn.
Why Take the Hard Path?
Verse 14 says the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Jesus tells us up front what we are signing for. It is hard. Hard hard. Picture a mountain ledge where you could go off either side and you cannot carry any luggage.
Pastor Carey suggested a cost-benefit analysis. What does following Jesus cost, and do the benefits outweigh it? Now run it the other way on walking away. On this path there is one master and one final say, and it is not us.
So why take it? Because Jesus gives the why. It leads to life, the deep and strengthened kind. No pain, no gain. No bees, no honey. Early mornings, late nights, being selective about what you watch and what you say. Few find it, which is its own indicator. If the path you are on is crowded, look again. Nobody stumbles onto this one. Pastor Carey called it sniper sight.
What Finding True Life Comes Down To
Sit down with someone in their seventies and they will tell you straight that what seemed to matter in their twenties did not. Sit down with a godly one and you get Psalm 42, where the soul thirsts for God the way a deer pants for water.
Pastor Carey landed on the old hymn about trusting and obeying. Trust Jesus even when you do not fully understand. Follow Him even when you do not agree. That is where true life is, and He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Plan your visit or find a life group and take that next step with people who will walk with you.