The Door to Heaven
I. The door is narrow
II. The door will close
III. For now, the door is open to all
(Luke 13:22-30) Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. {23} Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, {24} “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. {25} Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ {26} “Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ {27} “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ {28} “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. {29} People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. {30} Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”
Tell me, have you ever thought to yourself, “Out of all the people in the world today, I wonder, how many will actually end up in heaven? Or “Out of all the people sitting in Christian churches, how many of them are actually Christians? Out of all those who say they believe in God, how many of them will God actually acknowledge to be his own?” I mean, if you or were to die tonight and go to heaven, do you think we’d find that there are more people in heaven than we expected, or less? Would we be surprised by how many of our friends and family are there—or how few are there?
If you’ve ever thought about questions like these, you’re not alone. Over 2000 years ago, Jesus ran into a man who was having some of those same thoughts. A man who was wondering how many people were actually going to make it through the pearly gates. In fact, he seems inclined to believe that there wouldn’t be that many. How does he put it? “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?”
Now, I have to tell you that Jesus doesn’t answer the man’s question directly. He doesn’t come right out and say, “Yes, there will “X” number of people in heaven.” There’s not this little sign over heaven’s door that reads, “Capacity: such and such.” Instead, Jesus focuses on how this man, or anybody else for that matter, can get into heaven. But what Jesus says is not exactly what the world wants to hear. In fact, there is a part of each one of us that doesn’t want to hear it either. But it’s something we need to hear. This is another one of those teachings of Jesus which initially wounds us, but in the end, it heals us. Today we turn our attention to what Jesus calls,
The Door to Heaven
He teaches three things about this door. He says that
I. The door is narrow
II. The door will close
III. For now, the door is open to all
First, the door to heaven is narrow. Isn’t that how Jesus describes the door to heaven here in our text? When the man asks, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?” what is Jesus’ response? He says, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and not be able to.” Jesus made a similar statement in the Sermon on the Mount when he told his disciples, “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.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
Now, why does Jesus say that the door to heaven is narrow? A number of things come to mind. First of all, a narrow door is designed to let in one person at a time. Think of those little turnstiles at an amusement park or stadium. Even though the place may have a capacity of tens of thousands, still people have to enter one person at a time. You have to show the attendant your ticket. You can’t huddle with your buddies and force your way in. You can’t borrow someone else’s ticket, or ride in on someone’s coattails. No, it’s one person at a time. So it is with heaven. In a sense, it’s every person for himself or herself. There are no group passes to heaven. You’re not getting in on the credentials of your parents or the good record of your spouse. No, the gate to heaven is a narrow door because every man, every woman, every child, will be judged by God on an individual basis.
But there another reason that Jesus calls the door to heaven a narrow one. It’s narrow in the sense that there’s no room for you to bring anything with you. Just as you can’t bring a rolling cooler of beer into Lambeau field, so also, you can’t bring a bunch of stuff with you into heaven. No, I’m talking about trying to bring your truck, or boat, or golf clubs in heaven. We’ve all heard the phrase, “You can’t take it with you.” Right? You’re never going to see a U-Haul trailer hitched behind a funeral coach.
No, I’m talking about something we are far more likely to try to bring with us. Something that we think will need to get through heaven’s door. And that is, our own morality, our own good behavior. You realize, there’s a part of each one of us that thinks that we when we get to heaven’s door, we’re going to have to prove our worthiness to God. We’re going to have to show God how we did our best to keep his commandments, we went to church, we prayed, we did our best to be kind of other people, etc. And even though good Lutherans know that we aren’t saved by our good works, there’s still a little voice inside of us that says, “Well, they certainly can’t hurt our chances of getting in. That ought to kind of grease the skids to get us through the door. But the fact is, if that’s the way we are thinking, we are going to be in for a rude awakening at the pearly gates. The truth is, it will take more than merely our best attempt at living a God-pleasing life to get into heaven. No, it’s going to take living a perfect life, a life with no sin at all. Talk about a narrow door!
The question is, who can do that? Who can live the sinless life that God demands? No one. No one, except Jesus. By living a perfect life, Jesus has become for us the narrow door. He’s become our gate into heaven. Isn’t that exactly what Jesus said? In John chapter 10, Jesus declares, I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. John 10:9. Or Jesus’ words in John 14, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6)
For all those people in the world who claim that there are many paths to God, any number of ways to get to heaven, where everybody is going to end up in a better place one way or another, Jesus clearly says, “No, there are not many doors to heaven. There’s one door. And that one door is me.” That’s why Jesus says that the door to heaven is narrow. It’s as wide as one person. And that one person is the God-man Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only entrance, the only door to heaven.
But not only is the door to heaven narrow. Here in our text, Jesus makes it clear that the door to heaven is II. a Door that one day will Close. After Jesus says to make every effort to enter through the narrow door, he tells us why. He says, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ “But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
You realize what Jesus is saying, don’t you? He says that the day will come when it’s too late to enter through the door. When a person breathes his or her last breath, that person’s soul immediately goes to either be with God in heaven or to be separated from God in hell. And at that point, the door to heaven is locked for that person. Here in our text, Jesus implies that there are going to be a lot of people surprised to find that they’re standing outside the door looking in. They will, in effect, come pounding on the doors saying what? Saying, Jesus… “We ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets.” In other words, “Jesus, we know who you are. We are familiar with what you taught.”
But notice what they don’t say. They don’t say, “We trusted you as our only hope for eternal life.” They don’t say, “We listened and believed in you as God’s Son and our Savior.” Tell me, who do you think Jesus is talking about with these words? Could he be referring to the Jewish leaders of his day? They certainly knew about Jesus, they were familiar with this man’s teachings. But when it came right down to it, they didn’t believe in Jesus as the promised Messiah. They weren’t depending on his righteousness rather than their own. But could it be that Jesus wasn’t talking only about the people of his day, but people today as well. I mean, people who know all about Jesus, people who hear about him in church every week, maybe even have learned about him since they were little children. And yet people who still are trusting in their own righteousness rather than Christ’s righteousness?
My friends, let’s not miss our Savior’s warning. “Many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” In other words, there are going to be a lot of people who think that they are going to get into heaven by knowing something about Jesus, being affiliated with a Christian church and by doing their best to follow the rules. And they are going to be shocked to find that none of those things will get them into heaven.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that there is no value in a Christian upbringing or receiving a Christian education, or being a member of a solid, Bible believing church body. What I’m saying is that not one of those things can save a person. Only Jesus can save you. And that’s exactly what he’s done. By his perfect life in our place, by his innocent death on the cross, Jesus has opened the door of heaven for each one of us. And not just for us, but for every other sinner in the world. In fact, that’s the third thing that Jesus teaches us about the Door to Heaven. Yes, I. it’s Narrow. Yes, II. Someday it will close. But for now III. It is open to all.
You’ve maybe noticed that one of the prevailing philosophies of our culture today is the idea of tolerance and coexistence. You’ve maybe seen the bumper stickers that say “Coexist. The underlying idea is that we’re all basically just good people trying to figure out God in our own way and the worst thing anyone could do is claim that their way to God is the right way or only way. That’s why people accuse Christians of being too “exclusive” because we say that Jesus is the only way to heaven. Is Christianity exclusive? On the one hand, yes, it is. Jesus clearly says that there are not many ways to heaven. He says there is only One Way. And he’s it. On the other hand, there is no religion that is more inclusive than Biblical Christianity. Think about it. What does a person need to do to qualify for God’s love? Do you need to be a certain skin color, or ethnic background? Do you have to come from a stable home, or get good grades or never be divorced? No. God’s love applies to all. It’s completely unconditional. Or think of it this way. Whose sins did Jesus not pay for by his death on the cross? Did he pay for the sins of Adolf Hitler? Osama Bin Laden? Donald Trump? Yes, he did. What did John the Baptist say when he saw Jesus coming toward him? “Look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the pretty good people in the world?” No, he said that Jesus takes away the sin of the world. The Bible says that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. You can’t get any more inclusive than that. If you live in this world, if you fallen even a little bit, or you’ve sinned a whole lot, you can be sure that God’s Son has made the ultimate sacrifice to open the door of heaven to you. How did Paul put it? There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-24)
My friends, that’s good news. To know that by his blood and righteousness, Jesus has opened the door of heaven for you. Believe it, won’t you? Believe what God has in store for you, in Christ. And know that when you walk through the door of heaven, you will not be alone. You will be joined by an international body of believers. How did Jesus put it here in our text? People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Man, what a glorious celebration that will be, a celebration that will encompass more than one or two believers, but millions and millions of God’s people, people who have been called by the gospel, through the door of Jesus, into a life in the presence of God that will never end. Can’t wait! Amen.