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The narrow way

A sermon extract on The Sermon On The Mount

In our series of extracts during his centenary year from the works of Dr. Lloyd-Jones, we come to his series on the Sermon on the Mount. Preached during the 1950s, it is a series still memorable in the minds of those who heard it preached and is still in print from IVP.

Certain things always characterise the Christian, and these are certainly the three most important principles.

Law and Spirit

The Christian is a man who of necessity must be concerned about keeping God's law. I mentioned in chapter one the fatal tendency to put up law and grace as antitheses in the wrong sense. We are not 'under the law', but we are still meant to keep it; the 'righteousness of the law' is meant to be 'fulfilled in us', says the apostle Paul in writing to the Romans. Christ coming 'in the likeness of sinful flesh . . . condemned sin in the flesh'. Well; why? 'That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit' (Romans 8.3-4). So the Christian is a man who is always concerned about living and keeping the law of God. Here he is reminded how that is to be done.

God's presence

Again one of the essential and most obvious things about a Christian is that he is a man who lives always realising he is in the presence of God. The world does not live in this way; that is the big difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. The Christian is a man whose every action should be performed in the light of this intimate relationship to God. He is not, as it were, a free agent. He is a child of God, so that everything he does, he does from the standpoint of being well pleasing in his sight. That is why the Christian man, of necessity, should view everything that happens to him in this world entirely differently from everybody else. The New Testament emphasises that everywhere. The Christian is not worried about food and drink and housing and clothing. It is not that he says these things do not matter, but they are not his main concern, they are not the things for which he lives. The Christian sits loosely to this world and its affairs. Why? Because he belongs to another kingdom and another way. He does not go out of the world; that was the Roman Catholic error of monasticism. The Sermon on the Mount does not tell you to go out of life in order to live the Christian life. But it does say that your attitude is entirely different from that of a non-Christian because of your relationship to God and your dependence upon him. The Christian therefore should never worry about his circumstances in this world because of his relationship to God. That, again, is fundamental about the Christian.

Reverence

The third thing is equally true and fundamental. The Christian is a man who always walks in the fear of God - not craven fear, because 'perfect love casteth out' that fear. Not only does he approach God in terms of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'with reverence and godly fear', but he lives his whole life like that. The Christian is the only man in the world who does live always with and under this sense of judgment. He must do so because out Lord tells him to do so. He tells him that his building is going to be judged, the test of life is going to come. He tells him not to say: 'Lord, Lord', not to rely on his activities in the church as being of necessity sufficient, because judgment is coming, and judgment by One who sees the heart. He does not look at the sheep's clothing outside but at the inward parts. Now the Christian is a man who always remembers that. I said earlier that the final charge that will be laid against us modern Christians is the charge of superficiality and glibness. This is manifested at this point more than anything else, and that is why it is a good thing for us to read about Christians living in past ages. These New Testament people lived in the fear of God. They all accepted the teaching of the apostle Paul when he said: 'We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad' (2 Corinthians 5.10).
That is addressed to Christians. Yet the modern Christian does not like that; he says he will have nothing to do with it. But that is the teaching of the apostle Paul as it is the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. 'We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ'; 'Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord.' Judgment is coming and it is going to 'begin at the house of God', where it should begin, because of the claim we make. It is impressed upon us here in the final section of the Sermon on the Mount. We should always be living and walking, distrustful of the flesh, distrustful of ourselves, knowing we have to appear before God and be judged by him.
It is a 'strait gate', it is a 'narrow way', this way that leads to life which is life indeed.