Every Journey Has a Story - An Introduction (Part 5 of 5)

I have been on this most recent journey for almost two years now. I find my views and opinions of things that are not eternal changing every day. It’s not that the hot topics of the news cycles have now become completely unimportant or irrelevant to me. Quite the contrary. I simply find myself examining those topics—and my understanding about those topics—through the eyes of the Almighty more and more in order to find how He thinks on such things, and subsequently, how I am supposed to respond and live.

More importantly, in my study of the Sermon on the Mount, I find one overarching theme Jesus mentions often, but I hardly ever hear preached upon these days. That theme is the Kingdom of Heaven. More specifically, what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. What are its requirements? What will living in this Kingdom entail? How are its citizens to conduct themselves? Both now and for eternity? And how does being a part of that Kingdom relate to my relationship with God and my relationship with others?

As I read the Sermon, I’m discovering that I was utterly mistaken on many counts as to the Kingdom of Heaven’s demands. My theological biases, both book-learned and learned from experience, had shielded my eyes from the truth when I thought they had actually made me wiser. Like blinders on a horse, I was convinced they were keeping me focused on the task ahead—to win the prize, as the Apostle Paul puts it (Phil. 3:12-14). Until now, what I didn’t realize was exactly the opposite had occurred. The blinders were affecting my vision. They were impairing it, actually. All I could see was the singular track in front of me. ’Round and ’round I went. Racing past so much. Missing so much. Calling it “sacrifice” when it was truly disobedience. The finish line being somewhere in the distance; a final finish line we call “death.” I believed that the crossing of this finish line would usher the soul into heaven and into the presence of God for all eternity.

In many cases of my past, I was willing to run over anybody and anything who got between me and that prize, because the prize was the goal. The goal was achieved from right thinking and right living defined by me and my particular doctrinal beliefs. And even though I felt at times the Holy Spirit screaming at me to stop and listen, I ran headlong down the track, blinders firmly in place, never giving any true thought about the actual track or path I was using to reach the goal.

You can’t win the Kentucky Derby when you’re running on the track at Belmont. A worthy track, to be sure, but still the wrong one.

In those days, I could defend my actions. I knew the theological arguments. I understood the political landscape. I mean, that is the goal, is it not, for most American Christians? To spend their last breath, helping to defend our country and protect its freedoms, and then spend all eternity with God in heaven? It’s what we tell others when we share our faith, is it not? We don’t want our country to be run by Nazi-like invaders. So, we need to stand up for freedom. We need to defend the Constitution. We need this nation’s inhabitants to turn from their wicked ways and live moral lives.

But we also need to get God’s fire insurance. “Accept Jesus as your personal savior, and you will go to heaven. Your salvation can be sure. And while you’re here on earth, vote to keep Satan from running roughshod over the historical documents of this fine land.”

“Accept Jesus as your personal savior, and you will go to heaven. Your salvation can be sure.” Those are all true words. They are all theologically accurate, when read at face value.

Unfortunately, they only tell half the story of what Jesus has in store for His followers.

For decades, preachers have preached that the Kingdom of Heaven as a faraway place, beyond the sky, beyond the atmosphere, beyond the stars in the heavens. A place where angels sing 24/7 to God. Saints in white robes join in. It’s a mystical place. Some would even say it’s a bit strange or odd, actually. And it’s only described in detail by the Apostle John in the book of Revelation, like “he was on some acid trip” while exiled on the Isle of Patmos.

I’ve had Christians say to me that if this is what heaven is going to be like, then they aren’t sure they want to go.   

Oh, the ungratefulness.

But you see, that’s what theological half-truths can do. They make you into half of a believer, and Jesus says time and again that “half-believers” will not be allowed entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 7:21-23).

This really hit home for me one day not too long ago when I heard a statistic blurted out over a secular radio station. “According to the research,” the announcer said, giving a quick news update, “the majority of Americans say they are Christians.” He proceeded to read lines from the article before moving on to the next headline. For years, I’d heard similar statements about American Christians. I would always shrug my shoulders and say, “Yeah. It’s been that way for decades now. What’s new?”

This time, however, that statement hit me like a meteorite falling from the heavens. If that was so, then how could Jesus’s words in Matthew 7 be true?  

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (vv. 13-14).

Then, a few days later, I read an article titled, “Survey Finds Most American Christians are Actually Heretics,” from a secular online magazine, quoting Christian sources,¹ and the realization of Jesus’s words that follow in Matthew 7 made me shudder:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. 

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles? Then, I will say to them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evil-doers” (vv. 15-23).

When I read the Sermon on the Mount, and all the other scriptures that back up what Jesus says so succinctly in a mere three chapters, it starts to get a little daunting. Actually, downright scary. For example, how can Christianity be so prevalent in the United States, and yet since 2011,² an average of a million babies, created in the image of God, are aborted each year (cf. Ex. 20:13)? How can there be so many Christians, yet divorce has remained at a healthy (or unhealthy?) clip of fifty percent, give or take (cf. Malachi 2:16; Matt. 19:1-9; 1 Cor. 7:10-11)?³

On and on the reprehensible list goes.  

My point is not to shake a finger at any specific person and attempt to convict them. That is the Holy Spirit’s job (and He is much better at it than any of us). I also don’t want to get into “the weeds” and have you start sharpening your political and theological knives. That’s when truth truly gets shut down.

My point in bringing up these “same old, tired, statistical arguments,” is to show how incongruous those statistics are with The Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven doesn’t allow such a theology to enter the gate. As a matter of fact, Jesus said quite the opposite (Matt. 7:13-14). He said the doorway into Heaven was fronted by a narrow road. Few find it, He said. Few travel it. And those who do will look, act, and behave much differently than those on the broad road (for example, see Matthew 5:27-32, concerning the marriage rate in America). He said many would believe they were on this narrow road. Many of those folks would believe they were already part of the Kingdom of God and seemingly had the credentials to back up their claim (Matthew 7:21-23), but alas, they would be mistaken, even shocked when confronted by Jesus and not allowed entrance. They would find out all too late that they were travelers on the broad road instead. The one that leads to destruction. Jesus said, many find that road by their own choosing. Others would be deceived onto it.  

Some of the wayward travelers on the broad road would even be considered “good people” by today’s societal standards. Have you ever heard that phrase used to reference someone you know? I mean, let’s face it. You can’t cast out demons, heal the sick, perform many miracles, and be totally evil, right? Society applauds such efforts, commends the good people, and even gives them an award or two from time to time.

Yet, Jesus said they are not good. Instead, He called them evil-doers.

It was this section of chilling words from the lips of Jesus that forced me to my knees and plunged me into God’s Word. I did not want to be on the broad road. I didn’t want to think I was okay with my brand of spirituality, going through my Christian motions, only to hear in the end that I was not known by Jesus like I had believed all these years, despite what preachers preached, what theological books said, or what Church history left behind.

It was that deep dive that began to show me how monumental the Sermon on the Mount is. It is the hub, if you will. All of Jesus’s teachings throughout the gospel accounts relate back to and tie into the Sermon, which has been called by some “Jesus’s Manifesto of the Kingdom.” The Book of Acts and all of the epistles of the New Testament tie back to it as well. Even the Old Testament finds its fulfillment in it, which should not be surprising since Jesus said in His Sermon He came to fulfill the Old Testament, not abolish it (Matthew 5:17).

Yet, it is also the Old Testament, particularly, the Creation account in Genesis, that sets the table for all truth in the Bible, to include the Sermon on the Mount. If a person doesn’t believe that God created the heavens and the earth, and that He alone was its “designer,” then the belief of a “believer” is brought into serious question.

How can you say that, Kevin?

Simply put, if you don’t believe wholeheartedly and without any doubt that God created the heavens and the earth, in exactly the way He depicts it in Genesis 1 and 2, then when do you start believing in God’s Word? When does God’s Word become prescriptive for you as a believer, having authority to tell you what to do and how to live?

You see, if you discount Genesis 1-2 as anything but a factual account of how God created everything, then when do you stop discounting God’s Word? Genesis 3? Genesis 6? Genesis 12? When does the Bible start getting “accurate” as historical fact in your mind to the point where it can be believed and followed?

And since we are on this topic, if you don’t believe Genesis 1-2 is historically accurate and can be believed scientifically, then do you believe in John 1:1-5? John says Jesus was there, and everything was created through Him and by Him. And life, as we know it, is a result of His creationary actions.

As one preacher put it so succinctly, “Either you believe in the Bible, or you don’t.” It’s really that simple. Either you believe it all, or you believe none of it. No one can just believe bits and pieces and expect God to honor their lives with eternal redemption, for when you disbelieve one part, you make God out to be untruthful in that one part. And if He is untruthful in one part, then He is untruthful in all of it, for He is now a liar.

Oh, the blasphemy (Matthew 12:24-32).

I believe that if Jesus is truly my Lord, then I should listen to His words and His alone. I should ponder them. I should feast upon them. Everything I read, see, hear, and contemplate should be sifted through His Word, and not my political leanings, not my theological bent, not my limited understanding of the hot topics of the day, not my social media threads, and definitely not my puffed up, finite mind. If I am to be a true follower and disciple of Jesus, then I need to sit at His feet and listen, for I surely wish to be on that narrow path and hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And apparently, this isn’t an easy thing to do, or one would think the number of travelers on the two roads of Matthew 7:13-14 would be reversed, right?

As I started this revitalizing journey, I found myself experiencing—and I would say it’s for the first time in such a deep manner—the words of Paul in Romans 12:1-2. Although I had “experienced salvation” many years ago, and this passage had become my “life verse,” I see now how dangerously shallow my waters of life have been. Now, I understand, more than contextually, more than theologically, what it means to “not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed,” by the renewing of my mind, so I will know what God’s will is.

His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

A living sacrifice.

Offering my spiritual act of worship.

My hope is that these blog posts will set you on the narrow path as well. It’s not an easy path, though, as we will learn, and that fact alone will cause some people to shun it because we like things to be easy in the twenty-first century. However, the narrow path is life-giving. Both to the believer and to those with which we come in contact. The kind of life, abundant life, Jesus spoke of (cf. John 10:10) can only be found on this narrow path. It is where true joy lives.  

Therefore, I ask you, I beg you, to take off ALL your hats. Cast aside the political, theological, economic, sociological, historical, even the spiritual hats you wear on a daily basis, and walk alongside God as we look at His Word together. Don’t allow the blinders of your personal, biased viewpoints—the ones you have staunchly defended for years—to give you spiritual cataracts that in turn leads to eternal blindness. Allow Jesus to teach you. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. Allow God to transform you.

Then, maybe you, too, can experience life abundantly…possibly, for the first time.

One Last Clarification

As we move forward in this series, the first few chapters are going to look and feel like an anti-Semitic diatribe (again, we have to take off ALL of our hats before we proceed!). Let me assure you nothing could be further from the truth, as you will see this unfold when we get to the heart of our study in the later posts. Although God’s chosen people from the Old Testament and the religious leaders mentioned in the New Testament made choices with which God and Jesus took issue, rest assured, they aren’t the only ones. The Church of Jesus Christ has been similarly guilty of its own poor, spiritual choices, and there has been dramatic fallout from those choices. Even today, we are seeing the fallout of choices made in the last fifty to sixty years, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll discuss this in greater detail throughout this study.

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Thought for the Week:

How do you view Scripture? What do you actually believe about God’s Word?     

What we believe about His Word shapes our worldview. Our worldview then dictates who we are, how we act, how we react, and how we interact with the world around us. Therefore, it is critical that we have a Biblical worldview. Not just one that is grounded in the Bible. One that is grounded in what God intended and meant in His Word.

There’s a difference.

How we view Scripture, what we believe about it, and the worldview that unfolds from it, is determined through whose eyes we view Scripture. As we have seen, if we view Scripture through a multitude of lenses—political, theological, sociological, psychological, etc., then God’s Word finds itself having to bend the knee to these philosophies. When that happens, evil abounds.

Hence, the importance of how you view Scripture, and through whose eyes we see it.

NEXT WEEK:

This leads us to the next step toward the narrow road and into the abundant life Jesus has for us: A right understanding of God and His relationship to His people. Without this crucial and important understanding on our part, the Creation account and the Sermon on the Mount will be confusing and lackluster at best. At its worst, the Sermon will be condemning, on an eternal scale 

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ENDNOTES 

¹ Morris, G. Shane. “Survey Finds Most American Christians are Actually Heretics.” The Federalist. 10 Oct. 2016. Web. 29 May 2020. <https://thefederalist.com/2016/10/10/survey-finds-american-christians-actually-heretics/>

 

² Nash, Elizabeth, and Joerg Dreweke. “The U.S. Abortion Rate Continues to Drop: Once Again, State Abortion Restrictions are Not the Main Driver.” Guttmacher Institute.org: Guttmacher Policy Review. 18 Sept. 2020. Web. 29 May 2020.  <https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2019/09/us-abortion-rate-continues-drop-once-again-state-abortion-restrictions-are-not-main>

 

³ Stanton, Glenn T. “Divorce Rate in the Church—As High as the World?” Focus on the Family.com. 15 Aug. 2011. Web. 29 May 2020. <https://www.focusonthefamily.com/marriage/divorce-rate-in-the-church-as-high-as-the-world/>  - This older article from 2011 does point out that these statistics get a little skewed, depending on how we view a “Christian.” However, it also seems in this article they are pleased to report that the divorce rate is considerably lower in the church amongst committed believers who attend church regularly, yet in 2011, it was calculated at thirty-eight percent! That’s more than one-in-three marriages! Now, granted, it did not state if those divorces happened before the believer became a believer, but nevertheless…Yikes!

Pictures courtesy of  Pixabay and The Wesleyan Church and the following photographers/artists:

"Journey" - by akbaranifsolo

"Worship" - by Daniel Reche

"Thornbush" - by Kranich17

"Man Crying" - by StockSnap

"Road Sign" - by The Wesleyan Church

"Narrow Road" - by Tama66

"Genesis" - by Spencer Wing