Transcript

Good morning, church. Good to see you. Hey. We're continuing our series through the Sermon on the Mount. It's found in Matthew 5.

7. We've entitled this series Kingdom Living. And it's been said that this sermon is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. And we've been going verse by verse, and we're getting close to the end. We're in chapter seven, and he's starting to conclude his sermon.

He. He's. He's given us the principles and. And the character and what life in the kingdom is to look like for kingdom citizens. And now he's.

He's about to start about closing. Starting to close. If. If it were Billy Graham preaching this sermon, he would say, the buses will wait. That's where he's at right now.

He's like, the buses will wait. Come forward. Because what Jesus is about to do, he's. He's about to offer a fourfold set of pairs, four sets of pairs that kind of like an either or choice. And so this morning, we're going to be looking at the narrow gate versus the wide gate.

And then in the next couple of weeks, as he closes, he'll be talking about two different kinds of fruit that people bear. What kind of fruit? This kind or that kind. Then two different types of confessions of faith. And then finally he'll talk to us about two types of builders that build on two different types of foundations.

But today we're just going to focus on those two gates, the narrow gate and the wide gate. They all emphasize something slightly different about entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Now, as we've studied this sermon, we've seen how Jesus has described what it looks like for citizens of the kingdom to live. And now he calls us to a decision. He goes, okay, so this is what it looks like to live in the Kingdom.

How about you? Will you enter into the narrow gate? Because entering into the narrow gate means you're saying, yes, I want to call Jesus king. I want to live in the Kingdom. And so a choice is before us.

It's a simple choice because it only offers two options. It's simple, but it's not easy because the fact that there are only two choices causes us a problem as you consider our culture. Our culture celebrates options. I mean, we're Americans. We love a buffet.

We love a lot of choices. We love a menu that's got a lot of items. And we want to make sure. Is that. That fat free?

Is that gluten free? Is that, you know, we got. We gotta have a lot of choices.

We need options. And if we take a survey, it better not just be yes or no choices. There should be some undecideds. There should be, I'm not sure, choices. If it's multiple choice, we want options.

This is. And then when we think about religion, you'll often hear people say, well, that's what you believe. I believe there are many paths to heaven, that heaven's like on the top of a mountain and you can just start anywhere as long as you climb the mountain. So we believe there are many paths, many choices. But when we come to the words of Jesus, he doesn't give a menu, he doesn't give a buffet of answers.

He doesn't offer a customized journey. He gives two gates, two ways, two destinations. And he says only one of them leads to life. Simple but challenging. It challenges the mindset that we have that I wish we could just.

Couldn't I just go through the religious buffet line and get a little Christianity because there's some parts I like and oh, wait a minute over here, some self help books. There's some good self help books out there. Can I put that in my buggy? And oh, a little Eastern mysticism and some new age. And that's what I believe.

I'm going to choose what I believe. Like that. That's what the culture says. But Jesus says, no, there's really only two gates. And by the fact that you're thinking that way, you've chosen one of them.

That's challenging to our culture today. And that's why we need this message. Because the narrow way isn't just hard to find, it's easy to reject.

And it's not because it's unclear, it's because it's unpopular. The narrow way is not popular.

And yet it's the only way, Jesus says, that leads to life.

And so what's at stake is not just making a decision. And we live in a culture today that people are slow to commit. I don't want to commit, right? What's it, the fear of missing out? Right.

I'm afraid to commit now because I don't know if I. But Jesus calls us to commit. He calls us to make a choice. And what's at stake is eternal life. In Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus began to conclude his sermon by warning his Jewish audience that was listening there on the mount.

He's beginning to wind it down now. And he says, there's a wide road that many of you are on that leads to destruction. But I say to you, enter into the Narrow gate, because that leads to life. And I believe today we can choose to follow Jesus and enter the narrow gate that leads to life. And as we look at the sermon today, I think that Jesus gives three reasons why this gate is the narrow gate and why it's the only way to life.

So let's look. Two verses today. You're thinking really just two verses? Yeah. Well, you'll see, it's power packed.

You'll see 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. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard. That leads to life, and those who find it are few.

This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three reasons that Jesus said the narrow way is the only way to life. Here's the first reason. Because it requires an individual choice.

It requires an individual choice. Your mom can't make it for you. Your dad can't make this choice for you. Your spouse can't make it for you. You can't go up as a group and say, I want the group rate.

It's an individual choice that has the peculiarity of it being narrow, the gate is narrow, one at a time kind of choice. It's for you to engage. Now I say choice. It's really a mystery because it's Jesus in his spirit who woos us, who knocks on the door of our hearts. He's the one who actually seeks us before we ever seek him.

But as the scripture says, for by grace you've been saved through faith. And that not of yourselves is a gift of God. And, and so even our faith is a gift. And so it's a mystery. We are responsible to answer.

But he's helping us. If we would. Jesus says in the text here, he says, enter the narrow gate. That's how he starts. Of interest, the.

The Greek verb that we translate, enter, is in the imperative, and that means it's a command. He's really getting our attention. I've preached this whole sermon to you about what it means to live in the kingdom, enter the narrow gate, get off the wide path and enter the narrow gate. He's. It's an imperative, but it's almost like he's inviting us.

Or as. As we Read in Revelation 3:20 asked, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him. You've probably seen the classic artwork of Jesus knocking at a door. You've seen that, haven't you, the artist who made it.

Someone came to him after he did it, and he goes, oh, man, you messed up. You forgot something. He goes, what? I forget? You forgot the doorknob.

He goes, no, I didn't. Because the doorknob to the heart is only on the inside.

So Jesus, there's a mystery of this idea of him choosing us and us choosing him. And I would say today that if you sense the Spirit drawing you knocking at your heart, you have a sense of, I want to obey Christ's invitation, his command to enter, and you say no today. Or you say, wait, because we always say that and we don't want to commit. Let me think about it. I really believe.

Every time we say no, every time we say wait, it's as if another layer of callous forms across the heart so that we become harder and harder of spiritual hearing. Be careful. Jesus says, enter. And he says, it's an individual choice because it's a narrow gate. He contrasts all these words.

They're all like opposites. We have narrow and wide gates. We have narrow and wide ways. We have easy and hard ways. We have many who go through the wide gate and few who go through the narrow gate.

Do you see all these antonyms, all these opposites? Jesus is, hey, look, he's putting the cookies on the bottom shelf so even the little kids can get this. There's two paths. One's easy. Everybody's doing it.

It's a wide gate. The crowd, the many is going that way. But there's this narrow gate that only one person at a time, and they have to be answering my call. They have to hear me saying, enter, come on. And they say, yes.

And it's that my of both. And he's asking me, and I'm saying yes. And only a few will find it.

Yeah, but I wish there were more choices. I wish there aren't. This is what Jesus says here. And really, you'll see, that's the rhythm of the whole scripture. There are two paths, not three, not five, two.

And few will find it. I think it's because you're not looking. We're not really looking. We're looking for a lot of things. We're not really looking for this.

We're busy with life. And so you can't find something if you're not looking for it. If you find this, I'll tell you when we'll look for it. When we're in trouble, when we're hurting, when we've lost someone we love, when we're having trouble in Our marriage, when one of our teenagers is rebelling, when the doctor gave us bad news, when we lose our job, when your girlfriend breaks up with you. I mean, I get to go on, right?

These are all days when you might hit bottom and you might say, God help me, you might look. I'm not saying you'll find it because you might look in the wrong place. But if you look and you hear his voice, a few of you will find it.

You'll find Jesus. And he's the one inviting you into the kingdom. And what does it mean to come into the kingdom? It means to recognize Jesus as king, that he's the king, he's the boss, he's the master of your life. And he died for your sins.

This is why Joshua, as they were entering into the promised land, he turned to the Israelites and he said, there's a choice before you. And he says, choose this day whom you will serve. Choose who you will worship. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. What have you chosen?

How have you responded? Have you entered the narrow gate? It's narrow because it only allows one at a time.

As a father and as a grandfather, one of the most terrifying thing about being a parent or a grandparent is you can't choose for them. You can teach them. You can try your best to lead them. Oh, the desperate prayers my wife and I have prayed. Lord, change their hearts.

Draw them to you. You understand me? Parents, right? They have to decide. Each of them on their own.

What is this gate? What's its name? This gate, I'm looking for it. Jesus makes that simple. Here's what he says in John 10.

I am the gate. The name of the gate, it's Jesus. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I've come that they may have life and have it to the full, have it more abundantly full and overflowing. Jesus says, I am the gate. Gate has a name. It's narrow.

Only one at a time. And Jesus is the one inviting us in. A couple years ago, my wife and I visited our missionaries in Istanbul, Turkey. We have two families there that our church supports, and they're still there today. And we stay in constant contact with them, but we got to go see them.

We spent about 10 days over there. Now you have to. When you're traveling there. We often traveled the metro in Istanbul. It's a subway system and in fact, you can ride the Metro to almost anywhere in Istanbul.

But if you're going to ride the metro, you have to get a ticket. And there'll be a machine. You walk down these steep flights of stairs and you get down, way down under the city, and there's a machine there, and you pay and you get a ticket. And then you go over to these things called turnstiles. You know what a turnstile is.

And you hope and pray that ticket works, because there's soldiers standing around most of these. And you do that, and the gate opens and it closes right behind you, because it only permits one at a time. And you have to have a ticket. You have to have a ticket. You've probably been to sporting events like this.

You've been to different places that has a turnstile that only allows one at a time. Have you ever stood outside of it and said, I just don't believe in one at a time? I think you ought to offer a group rate. No, you don't do that. You accept the fact that it makes sense that it's one at a time and everyone has to have a ticket.

You understand that? And the same is true. This is what Jesus says. It's a narrow gate. Every individual must come as an act of the will and say I do to Jesus.

That's what we saw earlier at our first service, and then we showed the video of it just a moment ago. Every one of these six candidates, I asked them, do you repent of your sin? Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? And each of them had to respond, there's only one person at a time in front of me in the baptismal font. There's only one at a time in the baptistry.

And each of them is engaging a central question.

And their answer, the baptism doesn't save them. It's the confession of the faith in Jesus that saves them. Baptism just lets everybody else know who they're following. The way I say it in the service is it's like putting the wedding ring on. It lets everybody know you're married.

It lets everybody know you've said yes to Jesus. The narrow gate's like a turnstile. Have you bought your ticket? Have you received Jesus? Only one at a time.

What's the cost of the ticket? Well, Jesus already paid for it. The cost is saying, I do. I surrender my life to you. I recognize that you're the Son of God, that you're the Christ, that you're the gate.

And the only way to be right with the Father is through the Son. It's A decision of saying, yes, Jesus is the gate. He invites you to enter the narrow gate. Going to church, being born or brought up in a Christian family, there's no group race. As the old preacher said, you can go stand in the garage, it doesn't make you of an automobile, you can come to church, that make you a Christian.

It's a decision back to the will, a surrender of the life to Jesus. This is the first reason that the gate is narrow. It's one at a time. It's an individual commitment. Here's the second.

Because it demands personal heart change. It demands personal heart change. So this narrow gate leads to a narrow way. And this way is described. If you go through the wide gate, there's a broad way, a wide way, that's easy.

But the narrow gate leads to a narrow way. That's hard, it's difficult. Let's think about this for a second. What is Jesus saying? When we use the word way in the Bible, it almost always implies a way of life, a mindset, a way of thinking about life, a way of life.

He says, the wide gate leads to a broad way, an easy way. And I think it's kind of like this. A couple of weeks ago, in fact, the Friday before last, one of my best friends, we went to college together, he calls me up. We've been trying to work this out for several months, really. He's like, I want to come down on my Harley.

I want us to spend a day riding bikes together. And so been a while since I've ridden my bike. And so I was like, okay. In fact, I was sore for three days after this. We rode all day.

We went to the coast and ate at a restaurant and so forth. And I wanted to make sure on the journey that we didn't take highways because we're on bikes and I didn't want to have to go really fast. We were doing it for the journey, right? And so I wanted back roads. And so I was trying to get Google.

Someone told me after the first service, you know, you can hit a button on there that tells you not to use highways. I was like, didn't know that. But anyway, didn't know that. So, you know, I'm an old guy, you know, that's why some of you around here call me the og, okay? I can't help it, but I'm learning, you know, I still can learn, but anyway, I didn't know that.

So it kept trying to take me to four lane highways. Because if you just leave it on its default setting, which is What a. Apparently I've been doing. It defaults to highways. So it not only tries to give you the shortest way, but the.

But the easiest way. Okay, that's what it defaults to, and that's what you default to. That's what the human. We have an algorithm in our hearts. It's called sin Nature that wants the easy way out.

We want to take the shortcut, the easy way. And so what I told my friend Tim is, okay, I'm going to try to follow it because I have my phone. I've got a little holder that holds my phone. And I'm trying to avoid and I'm trying to just take old country roads all the way to the coast. And that's what we did it.

But might have got lost a couple of times, but we did it. We did it. Because the narrow way is hard. There's a lot of curves.

You can scare yourself. It looks like, oh, boy, that's a steep curve. I probably should have slowed way down. I could have gone off the. But the easy way, man, you can set your cruise and just lean back on the interstate going 75, maybe 70.

Speed limit. I'm a preacher. I should probably just go 69, right? I should do 70, right? What do you think, Tyler?

Yeah, that's a good public way of talking about it. But it's easy.

But the narrow way. He's already described. What is the narrow way? Well, we just go back. Go back to chapter five and read forward and catch up.

The narrow way is not only must you love your neighbor, you're supposed to love your enemies. The narrow way is stop calling your brother empty head because that's the same as committing murder. Stop lusting after a woman with your eyes, because that's the same as committing adultery in your heart. And he just keeps on, and it just gets more narrow. Whereas the world says, whatever.

Anything goes, you do you. We like that. In fact, our sin nature defaults to that. I get to choose. I can have a menu of things.

I can be what I want to be. And we're all born that way. I remember my oldest son, Stephen. His first sentence. I think it was his first sentence.

You know, every little kid learns to say, die, die, and ma. Ma. For most of my kids, the next word they learned was no, because they heard that a lot. They tend to repeat the words they've heard a lot. But his first sentence, I remember he said, I do it myself.

I don't know if we were trying to put his shoes on. I don't know what we were doing, but already that heart that we're all born with, I do it myself. We're all born with that. My way, myself. But getting on this pathway means leaving behind who I used to be.

It means dropping our baggage, what we used to carry. It means letting go of things we thought we loved that turned out to be idols. It's a narrow road.

What's the name of this road? We know we went through the Jesus gate to get on it. Well, here's what Jesus Sundays in John 14:6. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by me. It's a Jesus gate and it's a Jesus way, and we're to follow Jesus, empowered by Jesus.

Nobody could walk the narrow way but Jesus, he walked it for us. But then we can walk it now, empowered by Him.

It's not easy because the people on the wide road are constantly saying, come over here.

Come enjoy the party over here. We're having a big time over here. And maybe they even make fun of us and pick on us. No, no, I want to follow the narrow way. I want to follow Jesus.

There's a certain lifestyle he's called us to. In fact, here's what he said to his disciples. He said, there's a cost to this narrow way. In Luke 9, he says, if anyone would come after him, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

He says, you got the narrow way means saying no to my way and yes to the way of Jesus. That's what makes it narrow. Paul describes it like this. He says in Galatians, my old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. So now as I walk the narrow way, I'm following Him. But he also, by his Spirit, lives in me so that I'm able to walk the narrow path. The narrow way. Have you traveled by air lately?

It used to be so much fun back in the late 70s, 80s, even in the 90s, prior to 911, it was kind of a fun thing to do. Your family and friends could come and see you off. They didn't have to go through tickets and all that stuff and checkpoints. They could just sit and wave at you from the window as you boarded the plane. It was so much easier then.

You never had strip searches. You never had to hold your hands up and go through X rays A lot of people used to dress up. I remember wearing a suit and tie in the 80s, especially when I would be traveling with the corporation I worked for, they would actually give you silverware with food in those days. It's changed now. They've got so many rules and stuff you can carry on, stuff you can't carry on, and extra charges for your first checked bag and then extra for your second checked.

And they have to weigh a certain thing. And by the way, if you fly internationally, not everybody has the same rules. And so you'll leave home and you'll have your baggage. You finally, oh, man. I finally, they, you know, you walk through TSA checkpoint and you're holding your pants up because they took your belt.

You're walking barefoot because they took your shoes, right? And you're going through there. And then when they spit you out on the other end on all these stainless steel tables, you're trying to get all that stuff back. And there's crowds all around you. It's an anxious moment.

But now you got your stuff, you've cleared, and then you get to a foreign country and there's a different rule. And you're like, I'm gonna have to leave some of my stuff behind. I remember leaving Rwanda a few years ago. We were on a mission trip and we were getting ready to leave. It's time to go home.

And this stuff I was carrying, I had carried it all over the world. I had carried it from RDU to jfk, from JFK over there to London, flown from London to Kenya, from Kenya to Kigali, Rwanda, called a bus to Uganda. And now I'm going to go do it all in reverse. Same stuff. Been carrying it the whole way, checking it, going through customs, holding my pants up the whole way.

And they stopped me in Rwanda. And lady pulls out a pair of fingernail clippers in my little carry on bag, pulls it out. She goes, what's this? I said, fingernail clippers. And she goes, what's this?

I said, I think that's a fingernail file. Fingernail file. She goes, sharp on the end. You can't carry that on. I was like, it's that big.

It's been around the world. I got that like 30 years ago. It was gold in a leather little pouch. I think I got it from one of the first weddings I did like 30 years ago as a pastor. This face is just looking at me going, you can't take that guy on the way.

She goes, if you break that off, maybe you can. I'm like, you can have it. Just take it. Here, you want the leather pouch, too? They go together.

I was irritated. Sometimes when you have a sentimental attachment to something you love, something you almost wish you could just. I just don't. I'm not even going to get on your plane without my fingernail clippers.

I was tired. Then I remembered I got all these other believers from the church on the mission trip. And I figured, well, I am the pastor, probably shouldn't say anything else. Just let them have my fingernail clippers. It's a narrow path because it's strewn on either side.

If you could open your eyes spiritually and see the people that have gone before you, that as they grow in Christ, they've been casting off every sin and every burden and every idol that keeps them from following Jesus.

It's narrow because you can't take all that stuff with you. You got to let that stuff, that bitterness, that unforgiveness, that lack of reconciliation, that racism, that judgment, that tying your identity up in things of this world rather than in Jesus, who is your savior, little by little. It's narrow because they won't let you check your bag with that stuff. It's a narrow way.

Jesus said it's the only way to life. The narrow means we have to be ready to let go of some baggage. Some of the stuff you're carrying right now won't fly.

You need to let it go in order to walk on the narrow way. As Christ will stretch you, refine you, grow you, you'll never be the same. The narrow way is going to demand a changed heart that's let go of all this stuff that's been preventing you from following wholeheartedly. Well, that's the second reason. It's narrow.

It's a narrow gate. It's a narrow way.

And here's the third. Because it leads to an eternal consequence. It's a narrow gate, a narrow way, because you can only go one at a time. It's an individual choice because it's going to require repentance and heart change. And then finally, because there are only two destinations at the end of these two roads.

And one of the destinations is destruction, he says, and the other is life.

The broad row is popular. It's got all the best lighting. The narrow road, you have to get through some vines. It's kind of overgrown, and you kind of look for it, kind of have to be suffering a little bit before you'll even notice it.

Then you get on it and you go, wow, this. I didn't know I'd still have to go through some of this stuff.

But at the end, one leads to destruction and one to life. The word destruction is a word that's almost always translated destruction. In the New Testament, it doesn't imply annihilation or ceasing to exist. It more has to do with ruin or loss or utter perishing in a way that is both ongoing and tragic. Dr.

Carson in his commentary, says the destruction in view is not merely physical death, but eschatological ruin, final rejection by God, and exclusion from his presence. CS Lewis said that he thought, one of the worst things about hell is not the punishment of hell, but the absence of God, the absence of all goodness, the absence of all blessing. Because whether you're on the broad road, the wide road, or the narrow road, today all of us in this world are still experiencing the goodness of God, the blessing of God. But there's a destination where we have chosen to be spending eternity apart from God.

It's confusing because the wide road seems to make sense to our human vanity. This is why Solomon writes in Proverbs, there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death seems right.

A song popped in my head. I think this might have been a country song. If you're old enough, you might remember the lyrics. If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right. Remember that.

We delude ourselves into thinking, I can have it my way. And Jesus says, the wide road often seems right, but it leads to death. Indeed, Paul talks about this in Romans. He said, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. In Christ Jesus our Lord, you see the two destinations.

Death, destruction, or life. Indeed, Jesus was talking to a Pharisee, a teacher, a rabbi named Nicodemus. And he was talking to me. He says, I know that you're a great teacher. And Jesus said, I'll tell you the truth.

You need to be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. And he goes, I'm an old man. How am I supposed to enter back into my mother's womb to be born again? He goes, you claim to be a teacher in Israel, and you don't understand these spiritual things. He said, I'm talking about spiritual rebirth you must be born of the spirit, must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And then he gives him this wonderful verse that we, many of us, have memorized, this wonderful truth. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, not be destroyed, not die, but have eternal life.

Just two destinations.

Here's a sign on a road in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

It easily could have been a sign on one of our roads in western North Carolina with that hurricane recently. Right. Or it could have been anywhere around eastern North Carolina after one of the hurricanes. The sign says flooding ahead. Turn around, don't drown.

And just that sign is going to cause some of us to go. I need to check this out.

I need proof.

And turn around, don't drown. That's pretty good instruction. Turn around, don't drown. And I told this first service, I see my daughter here in the. Her and her mama.

Right after a flash, just like a thunderstorm came some years ago. And Robin, my wife, was driving our Taurus, our little Ford Taurus. And they turned down Aaron knew a shortcut. They turned down the neighborhood and there was water there, standing water from this sudden thunderstorm. And I think she goes, mama, you can make it.

You can make it, Mama. And so Robin gunned it. And water went over the windshield, went over the hood, and it stalled. And those Tauruses had an aluminum block motor. It cracked it.

Gary. What, honey? Something's wrong with our car.

Turn around. Don't blow up your motor. That could have been another one. They put a new motor in that car. My wife's playing music next door.

She's over there right now. And everybody in the gathering place is looking at her.

Hey, babe, I love you. She didn't know. My daughter didn't know. It didn't look that deep. And that's how we always look.

We go, I believe I can make it if I jump from here. I think I could land over there. We. That's just how we're wired. And Jesus has put up a sign and I'm holding it up as high as I can.

Today, there's two gates. One's wide, there's two ways. One's wide, one's narrow. It's two destinations of eternal destiny. And you're either on one or the other right now.

And I think you know. I think you know now so that you're without excuse. Which way do you choose? Jesus says, enter the narrow gate.

Enter the narrow gate. Because that's where life is.

Deuteronomy, Moses speaking. He says, I've set before you life and death. Therefore choose life. I'm going to pray for us right now. Some of you are seated here, some next door, some are watching online.

Let's do business with God right Now let's make a decision with the spirit of Christ. He's knocking.

What will you do? Will you open the door? Let's pray. Lord, I pray for that one. Right now that your Holy Spirit is stirring them, that you sense the spirit of Christ bidding you to enter into the kingdom.

Would you repent of your sin right now to the Lord, say, lord, forgive me of my sin. I know I'm a sinner.

I believe you died on the cross for me, Lord Jesus, and that you were raised from the grave and that you live today. Come and live in me.

Adopt me into your family. Make me a child of God. I will follow you as my Lord, my King and my Savior all the days of my life.

Thank you for saving me. You're praying that prayer of faith, believing. The Bible says if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Welcome to the family. Others are here and you're a believer, but you've been trying to hang on to some stuff and it's hard to walk the narrow road and keep carrying that heavy load you've been carrying. Would you surrender that part right now? That part that Jesus is asking you to let go of? He's saying, come unto me, you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So set aside every sin and encumbrance that's slowing you down from following Jesus today. Say it to him. Give it to him right now. In Jesus name, Amen.