Why does Christianity seem so narrow?

I think I'd be ignorant to say that Christianity is the only right religion. I don't know what the right religion is; it's just what I believe it is. Some people that I've met, I've had friends, and the minute they find out about me or the minute that I do anything that doesn't follow their religion, they don't want anything to do with me. There's a lot of good and there's a lot of bad that can come out of it. I'm not sure if it's from religion that the bad or the good comes out of it or whether it's the people. I respect a lot of faith, and I think that Christianity is a pillar that's influenced by the other great religions in the world. It's very important because we have to learn how to be Christian. We have to discover a way to do it.

My view on anyone who claims to have a monopoly on truth is that there's no one truth about anything. I think that a lot of religions say the same thing in different ways. Welcome to Explore God, our series for seven weeks here at Twin Lakes Church. My name's René. If you weren't catching us earlier this morning, I'm one of the pastors here at TLC. But before we get into the question this morning, what I want to do first is look back at the adventure that we all lived last weekend. How many of you were here last weekend? Raise your hand. It was pretty exciting.

So what happened was, in brief, PG&E accidentally cut our power, and we found out we would be without power only hours before our Saturday night service. So our amazing facilities and IT teams scrambled to find big generators to power at least two buildings on our campus and ran what were basically long extension cords into Munsky Hall, where we crammed all three weekend church services. And I'm really grateful that it was a beautiful day because we could meet outdoors for overflow in this service, for example. The kids were also mostly outdoors for their services. TLC and Espanyol, which normally meets there in Munsky Hall, had to move over to the room next to the hub. You see them on screen right now.

So it was amazing. We had to set up hundreds of extra chairs and find all these generators. You all had to be super flexible. And you know what? It was awesome. We saw God work in amazing ways. I overheard somebody say, "The devil took our power, but God gave us church." And that's exactly what it felt like. So I just want to thank all of you who were so flexible last weekend. And let's put our hands together and thank the amazing tech team and facilities team who really helped to make it all work.

Now I want you to grab your notes that look like this. And if you're joining us online, you can go to TLC.org/notes. You're going to need these to follow along today because this Explore God series, I mean, it's pretty deep, right? We're going through the top seven questions that researchers say people have about faith, about God, about life. And what's really cool is we're doing this series with over 170 churches from all around the Bay Area sharing ideas, sharing resources. That is my favorite thing about this series. It's been so fun to renew relationships and get to know some of these pastors.

But speaking of the Bay Area, how many of you remember the famous columnist Herb Kane, who used to write for the San Francisco Chronicle? I mean, he was a celebrity in the Bay Area, maybe the biggest celebrity in the Bay Area. But he famously wrote about a conversation that he overheard between a Northern Californian and a Southern Californian. He swore that this was actually an overheard conversation, not something he made up. But it was so typical. The Southern Californian said, "You Northern Californians are so arrogant because you call San Francisco the city. Your Bay Area is the Bay Area. Lake Tahoe is the lake as if there were no other cities, no other Bay Area, no other lakes in the world." To which the Northern Californian responded thoughtfully, "Well, there aren't any that matter." Now, is that true?

But a lot of people have that same exact problem with Christians. So your Savior is the Savior, right? Your Scriptures are the Scriptures. Your way is the way. How do we respond to that? Just, "Well, there aren't any others that matter." I don't think so. As we continue this series, let's talk about how to respond, how to think about the question. Why is Christianity so narrow? It's a common question. Many, many, many reasonable people and compassionate people have this question about our faith. You often hear it maybe not quite expressed this way, but something like this. It's wrong to say that God only lets people into heaven who follow your rules. It's wrong for Christians to be the morality police on everybody else. It's wrong for Christians to be intolerant of other faiths, to marginalize other religions, and even atheists and agnostics just because they disagree maybe even slightly, the interdenominational strife.

And in fact, religion causes endless violence whenever it thinks that it is the only true way and enforces its views on everybody else. Now, it might surprise you that though I am a devout Christian and a pastor, I agree with every one of these statements. It is wrong to say that God only lets those who follow your rules into heaven. You know why? Because you don't get into heaven by rules. And that's right in the Scripture. And it is wrong for Christians to be the morality police. I mean, that's all through Scripture. But I was just looking this morning at 1 Corinthians 5:12. Are you familiar with that? Paul says specifically, what business is it of ours to judge those outside the church? That's not our job. And it is wrong to marginalize or be intolerant of people of other faiths or other, no faith at all. Why is it wrong? Well, you don't see Jesus doing that, do you, ever?

And religion in fact can lead to violence and has sadly led to violence again and again in Christian history. Think of the Crusades or the Inquisition or the witch trials and many, many more. And research tells us it's only getting worse right now. Tension between religious groups is rising globally, each one claiming that they are the one. It explains a lot of what's in the news today, right, in the Middle East. And so it's very important, very relevant that we look at this question today. Now, there's a lot of ways to approach this. You could approach it philosophically. You could approach it from a standpoint of formal logic. You could approach it historically. But what I want to do this morning is I want to go to Jesus and just stay with what Jesus himself had to say about this question. Because frankly, he's the authority on this, right? I don't really care what Christians say or how Christians behave or what historians say or philosophers say. I actually need to answer this question. I really want to go to Christ.

And I want to look at four truths that Jesus taught that help us know how to answer this, how to comprehend it. And you need all four of these or you miss the whole picture. Listen, if you're a spiritual seeker this morning and you find yourself being drawn to Jesus, Jesus intrigues you. But this idea of is Christianity narrow has sort of set you back from committing your life to Christ. I think you're going to discover some things today that will really challenge maybe your perceptions and inspire you. And the same goes if you would call yourself a veteran churchgoer. If you've been looking for a little boost to your faith and actually a challenge to the way you live your life, you are going to find it when we look at how Jesus dealt with this question today. So are you ready for that? Ready to be challenged?

You know, I mentioned these 170 churches doing this series together. One of my favorite things about that is we're able to share our ideas. For example, a man that I admire named John Ortberg spoke on this exact topic last weekend at Awakenings Church, pastored by Ryan Ingram over in San Jose last weekend. And then as we've been doing, as I've been doing, he uploaded his message, shared it to our shared folder for the series so we could all use it. His message was so great. I am going to quote him and paraphrase him extensively today, and I won't footnote it every single time, but here's kind of the tell. If you hear something that you think is particularly brilliant, that's John.

So let's dive in. Watch how this builds. First, let's look at the claims of Jesus Christ. What did Jesus actually claim about this? Well, famously in John 14:6, Jesus said, you know, I am the way. The way didn't say a way didn't say the best way. I'm the way and the truth and the life. And in case you're like, well, maybe we've misunderstood. He doubles down on it. No, no one comes to the father except through me. Now, what kind of all the outrageous things that Jesus said, and he said some amazing things, some outrageous claims. This one in some ways is sort of in a class by itself, isn't it? Because a lot of other religious teachers said, well, I can show you the way, but Jesus said, I am the way. What does that even mean? How could he be the way?

Well, here's the way I kind of frame this. When I look at the different families of faith, I see four general approaches. Generally, they all sort of agree the world is not as it should be, or at least it doesn't seem like it. I'm not as I should be. So what do I do about it? How do I change? How do I get forgiven? How do I go to heaven? How do I reach enlightenment depending on the family of faith? And generally, and this is an overgeneralization, of course, but I see four general approaches. What you could call the addition approach. Do more good stuff, right? More rituals that are religious, more pilgrimages, more good deeds. The subtraction approach, do less bad stuff. Stop doing my bad habits and maybe even live an ascetic lifestyle where I'm like a monk or a hermit. Maybe even eliminate all desire and attachment.

And then there's the knowledge approach, learn more deep stuff. Achieve enlightenment. Perceive past the illusions. Get to know the Bible better. Now, what's sort of the problem with all four of these approaches? Well, the way I see it, the problem is what you could call inequity of ability. Not everyone is able to do all these things. Certainly not equally. Some people have more willpower. Some people have more brainpower. Some people have more money to go on expensive pilgrimages to places. So when you're trying to kind of earn your way, it's very, very unequal in people's ability to do it. Thank God there is also grace. The grace approach, which is just receive God's free gift. The only requirement is knowing that you have nothing to offer. And then you're astonished as you receive grace. It changes you from the inside out.

Because the grace approach, follow me here. Listen. It says, "God so loved the whole world that was lost that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to pay for our sin debt on the cross, to rise again and conquer death, and then to give the Holy Spirit to empower us to change." It's all a gift that we simply receive. And the beauty of grace is that really it is the most inclusive way when you think about it. Because everyone can equally simply receive a free gift. Your ability, your capability, your productivity, that has nothing to do with it. For example, you might have noticed in the baptism video that we showed earlier, I baptized out of the many, many people that we baptized. I baptized a very athletic, brilliant PhD student up at UC Santa Cruz. And I also baptized a beautiful, enthusiastic young adult member of our Joyful Noise class for adults with learning disabilities. And in the grace approach, they're exactly equal before Jesus.

Not one of them could earn or merit more or less than the other one, because it's all 100% a free gift. Like Tim Keller says, I love this quote, he says, "Salvation earned by good works or moral effort would favor the more able, the competent, the accomplished, the privileged. But salvation by sheer grace favors the failed." The outsiders, the weak, because it goes only to those who know that salvation must be by sheer grace. Grace really is the most inclusive way because nobody is left out for any reasons of merit. You know, I love the hip-hop artist propaganda, that's what he goes by, and he had a great point in the small group video this week for this series. He said, "Why is narrow necessarily bad? If I'm in an archery contest, narrow's the bull's eye. If I'm in a marriage, narrow is faithfulness. If I'm sick, narrow is the right diagnosis. There is good narrow.

Yet, even the word narrow leads me to a very problematic saying by Jesus Christ. You ready for this one? This one's even worse from one perspective, Matthew 7:13, "Enter through the narrow gate." Say, "Narrow gate." Narrow gate. "For wide is the gate. Broad is the way." Say, "wide." Wide is the gate. That leads to destruction. "Many enter through it, but small is the gate." Narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it. Many thoughtful people have big problems with this saying of Jesus Christ, mostly because they assume that believing in a narrow way means narrow mind, and that believing in a narrow way leads to people being unthinking, irrational, blindly compliant, intolerant bigots. And sadly, it often does.

I don't know how many of you grew up going to church. Raise your head if you grew up in a church when you were a kid. Okay, and it was probably in some denomination, right? Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, were represented by all kinds of different denominations here. So John Ortberg was preaching this, and he says, "When he grew up, he grew up Baptist in the Midwest." And he said, "I really, truly remember thinking when I was a kid, like most of the people in heaven are going to be my people, the Baptists." And there's going to be some Lutherans represented there by Martin Luther who kind of get it, and there's going to be some Wesleyans represented by John Wesley, and there'll probably be a few Catholics represented by, you know, St. Francis of Assisi, but all the rest will be Baptists led by Jesus Christ.

So, I mean, it really is true that it's possible for Christians to really kind of slip into this kind of thinking, right? Christians can act like narrow way equals narrow mind, but here you have number two, the paradox of Jesus, the puzzling paradox of Jesus Christ, because Jesus has this narrow teaching about himself, "I am the way, the truth, the life; no one comes to the Father but through me." Narrow is the path that leads to life. But look at how he lives. Lots of verses here, but look at Luke 15:2. "But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them,'" referring to Jesus. "Another verse, 'All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'" Another verse, "Jesus quotes his critics, 'The Son of Man came eating and drinking.' You say, 'Here's a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'" His teachings could be hard, hard to understand, hard to follow, and yet the most fringe folks, the most marginalized minorities, the most scandalous sinners were drawn to Jesus, and he seems to delight in their company.

Here's the paradox when you look at the Gospels. Jesus has this narrow teaching, admittedly, yet a wide welcome. Say "narrow teaching, wide welcome" out loud. "Narrow teaching, wide welcome." Quoting Ortberg again, "Jesus made claims that were staggeringly exclusive, and Jesus attracted crowds that were scandalously inclusive." He did both, and we Christians often miss that. So the Barna Group is a research company. They poll--people have quoted them several times. Well, they recently did research. As we all know, American society is polarized, right, full of hatred. It's divided. It's hostile. Well, here's how mad it is. According to their research, most Americans, whether they're religious or not, indicate that they would find it difficult to have a natural, normal conversation with a member of a group that was different than them, other than them.

Now, depending on who this--maybe this wasn't--this was a question of all Americans, so depending on who the person was, they might have been talking about a Democrat or a Republican or a Muslim or a Jew or an atheist or an evangelical or a member of the LGBTQ+ community or a Mormon, right? Just anybody was other than them. Got that? Now, get this. The single group that has the hardest time having a natural, normal conversation with minority groups is evangelical Christians, followers of Jesus. But it gets worse. In fact, not only do evangelical Christians have the hardest time having normal conversations with atheists or Muslims or people of a different sexual orientation, 28%, that's a lot of evangelicals--I'm not making this up--say they would have a hard time having a normal conversation with other evangelicals who disagree with them politically.

By contrast, the longest conversation with Jesus recorded in the Bible is between Jesus and a pagan Samaritan, five times married and divorced, currently living with a man outside of marriage, scandal-ridden woman, that no other rabbi in the country would have gone near. In other words, oddly, followers of the most inclusive man in human history have become the most exclusive people in American culture. But Jesus was exactly the opposite. Again, Jesus was remarkably narrow in his teaching and outrageously inclusive in his relationships. And here's the thing, if we claim to be followers of Jesus, well, obviously, that's how we're supposed to live, too.

If you're thinking about it, you might be thinking, "Well, that's pretty messy, because if I'm supposed to be outrageously inclusive, I'm going to be hanging out with people who hate the fact that I'm a devoted Jesus follower and believe that Jesus is the way, and they're going to get mad at me and make fun of me." And not only that, but my Christian friends are going to probably misunderstand and assume that I approve of everything thought and believed and acted on by these people that I'm hanging out with. René, I could be maligned, I could be misunderstood, this is messy. Yeah, exactly like Jesus. And if we follow Jesus, we're supposed to be willing to be misunderstood and maligned exactly like Jesus was, and that's point three, the challenge of Jesus.

Look how Jesus challenged us. Love your enemies. Do good to them. Why? You'll be children of the Most High because he's kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Jesus says, "Love." Say love out loud with me. Love! Why? Because God does. Say love again. Love. Notice he doesn't just say tolerate. We hear a lot about tolerance these days. It's the most popular bumper and sticker in Santa Cruz, I think, except for the Santa Cruz logo. But tolerance is great as far as it goes, but tolerance kind of sets a low bar, right? That's like a minimal quality to it. It comes from the Latin root tolerencia, which means to endure or put up with. I would say that's not actually what we all crave.

If only the world would put up with me. Nobody longs for that. I'm paraphrasing Ortberg again here. When Laurie and I got married, I didn't stand in front of the pastor in the church and say, "I promise to tolerate you from this day forward." To put up with you until death brings blessed relief. That's not what I promise. She should have walked if I said that. Jesus didn't say, "Tolerate your enemies. Put up with them." Jesus says love. Tolerate is great as far as it goes, but Jesus never commanded you to tolerate people. Did you know that? Never once. He goes a million miles further. And he says love.

Here's an important question that doesn't seem to get asked enough in our climate right now politically. Why should I tolerate anybody? Why should I show tolerance? Why shouldn't I just look out for number one and look out for my own tribe and my own family? That's the way it's been done in human history, for most of human history. Who came up with this idea of universal human dignity and human rights anyway? That comes right out of the Bible. That comes right from the teachings of Jesus. You know, a couple of weeks ago I got to meet a brilliant Yale professor named Miroslav Volf. And listen to what he says. He says, "It's no accident that the first government in the world that broke religion and the state apart and created religious freedom was the colony of Rhode Island, led by a Baptist minister named Roger Williams in the 1600s who was a very conservative, devout Christian leader.

Yet look at what he wrote as part of the charter for Rhode Island. It is the will and command of God that since the coming of his son, the Lord Jesus, a permission, that is freedom of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, that means Muslim, or anti-Christians, consciences and worship be granted in all countries and nations, and that they're only to be fought with that sword which is only in soul matters able to conquer it, the sword of God's spirit, the word of God." Do you get this? Kind of next door in Massachusetts in the 1600s, they're burning witches. Roger Williams, meanwhile, is saying things, atheists, Jews, Muslims, welcome, you're welcome to worship here alongside Christians. He's saying things that most countries in the world today still aren't saying. And it wasn't because he was some proto-progressive. He was far from that. He was a devoted follower of Jesus.

And it was precisely the narrowness of Roger Williams' devotion to Jesus as opposed to the wide, broad prejudice of his day that led to the broad-mindedness of the way he treated people. So maybe finding the narrow way of Jesus and offering wide acceptance are not mutually incompatible. In fact, maybe they're mutually connected. Maybe the narrow teaching of Jesus actually leads to the wide welcome of Jesus. Amen? Maybe the problem with arrogant and oppressive Christians throughout history is not that they were Christians, it's that they weren't Christian enough, right? In fact, look back at Luke 6 where Jesus tells us, "Love your enemies, do good to them." I mean, he goes further. Just look at the rest of the verbs in the next few verses. He tells us to bless, pray, give, show mercy, forgive.

Here's what I want to point out. Listen, this is the narrow way. When Jesus tells us to do these things, he's telling us to do something that is hard. The wide way, the broad way is to just do what everybody else on the planet does. And when you're provoked, you push back and you hate and you curse and you take and you judge. And he says, "That way leads to destruction." But the narrow way that only a few find, because only a few actually do it, in the long run, this leads to life. And by the way, this is why we do these exact things as a church together every fall. We call them not so random acts of kindness, but we bless our community, we give to our community, we love our community. Why? Because Jesus told us to, so we do it.

You know, people look around now more than ever. They see wars and violence and they long for this. And it's because of who Jesus uniquely is that our giving is wide, our love is wide, and our witness to the community is wide. I hope you get in on this. Before I get to the final quick point, here's our local outreach director, Robin Sperlak, to explain a little bit of what this is all about this year.

Yes, October and November are our acts of kindness months, and we want to bless our community. First of all, let me tell you about ways you can donate. There are four different areas that we need donations. One is new pajamas for infants through age 18 for boys and girls that are in transitional housing situations, such as foster care or homelessness. Secondly, we need new or gently used clean winter coats for adults that are unhoused. Third, we need gift cards that are going to go into appreciation bags for the staff at Rio Del Mar Elementary School, their whole staff, and we need some gift cards for those bags. And fourthly, we will have a food drive for Second Harvest coming up at the end of the month, and we need food for that.

Now, if you also would like to participate by physically being involved, one, on October 21st, we need people to help clean up trash at Seacliff Beach. And that same day, we'll be assembling the bags for the Rio Del Mar staff. And on Saturday, October 28th, we need volunteers to help sort those pajamas and bag those up, as well as put hygiene bags together for the unhoused. You can find out about all of this at tlc.org/aok. It will list those dates, how to sign up, the donations, and if you don't like any of those projects, but you have your own idea for your small group or your family, please come up with your own idea of a way to bless somebody in our community in the next month. Thanks.

Yeah, and that Beach Cleanup Day is this Saturday, and you can meet me and Robin and many, many more volunteers at 9 a.m. at the bottom of the stairs on Seacliff Beach. That's going to be a lot of fun. And all the details are on the back of your notes under acts of kindness. Let's wrap this up. So let's say you still are like, "Yeah, but the whole narrowness thing, it hurts me. It bothers me." Look at point four, which is the promise of Jesus. Look at what he says. "Everyone who asks receives…" Say everyone. "Everyone who seeks finds…" And two, say everyone. "Everyone who knocks, the door will be opened." Everyone. That is a promise from Jesus. If somebody honestly and diligently seeks, they will find.

Now, Jesus is not saying all paths lead to God. He was very clear about that, wasn't he? But he is saying God reaches out to all people, and God gives all people, everyone, an equal chance to respond to the truth. I don't know exactly how God does that. We should be careful not to say more than Scripture says. Neither do I know exactly what God is going to do with every single person who ever lived on the planet at the last judgment. It's not ours to judge. Remember, God, not God. That's an essential truth about life. Say God not with me. God, not. But I do know this. God will be completely fair.

What I want to leave you with this is this. The narrow gate of Jesus is so often misunderstood. But however you decide to respond to it, I think it's beautiful. The narrow gate is not narrow-mindedness. The narrow gate is throwing all your hope on Jesus Christ alone. The narrow gate is following Jesus alone. The narrow gate is doing what Jesus tells you to do. When Jesus says, you know, only a few find it, he's not saying, you know, this is how many people are going to end up in heaven. He's saying for most people the Broadway is just sort of their default mode in life, including most Christians. They just drift wherever the cultural winds blow, right? You're always being discipled. You're always being molded. You're always being taught, shaped by something. What is it for you?

Are you going to let it be Jesus alone? That's the narrow way. Or are you going to let yourself be influenced and shoved around and discipled by a big, unfocused blob of angry, chaotic, distracted cultural influencers, whether it's pop culture, politics, or something else. That is the wide way. People just wander around letting themselves be blown here and there. The narrow way is staying focused on Jesus Christ. Now, maybe you're saying, well, that sounds great if you believe Jesus is really divine and therefore has the authority to make these claims. But why should I believe Jesus is even God? Great question. We'll try to answer that question next weekend. But for now, I want to wrap up by circling back to our very first verse today, where Jesus says, "I am the way."

A man named Charles Gears attends TLC. He's in my midweek small group. And a while back, he sent me this email, and I loved it so much. I asked him if I could share part of it today with you. And he said, "No, but I'm going to anyway." No, he said, "Yes." He says this, "I spent years trying to fix myself with things outside of me, everything from alcohol to heroin and most of what's in between. Drugs didn't work. Fast cars, promotions, girlfriends, dozens of other things provide a little bumps of counterfeit happiness. But they didn't give me what I was really looking for. I constantly wanted more. There was never enough of anything." So, you see, he tried the wide way, didn't he? That led for him to destruction.

He says, "The problem was inside of me. It wasn't until I invited Jesus to be inside of me into the very innermost part of me that I found peace. Once I let his love in, I started loving myself and loving others. Instead of taking from the world, I began wanting to give to the world, to make a difference in the world." Do you see? Receiving grace changed him from the inside out. And he closes, "Thank you, God. Thank you for never giving up on me and for loving me when I was incapable of loving myself." See, Charles tried the wide way, and then he found the way, Jesus Christ. What about you? Which way will you choose?

Let's pray. Would you bow your heads with me? Heavenly Father, I just want to pray for people here today who, maybe they're sitting here thinking right now, I've been trying the wide way, but today I want to choose Jesus. And I know it's challenging, but I want to choose Jesus Christ. I want to pray, "Lord, I surrender to you. I commit myself to you as my Lord and as my Savior." And I pray for everybody here, and we pray for the world. We pray again with deep sorrow for people in Israel, those who lost family in the horrendous terror attacks last week, and for those who are innocent in Gaza, and of course all over the world. Sudan, Ukraine, and those right here in our country going through tough times.

I pray that we as followers of Jesus show that being on the narrow path of Jesus does not mean being narrow-minded. In fact, it means our arms are wide open with love because you love the whole world so much you sent your one and only Son. And so we want to live the Jesus way, and it's in His name we pray. Amen.