Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 13:22-30, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 50
- Date: Sunday, March 22, 2026 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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A Narrow Door in an Unexpected Place
A Narrow Door in an Unexpected Place Oh, you all have no idea how much I have missed you and missed being in a place where I can park anywhere I want. We missed being here last Sunday morning. We tried to watch church. We were driving down I-40 somewhere around Knoxville, Tennessee, and started up the service.
And we were watching right along with you all, and one minute there was power in the blood, and the next minute there was not power anywhere at all. So I even texted my wife and said, what happened to the streaming? She stepped out and called me and told me what happened. She said, you know, we lost power.
She said, but it is nice to have the proof that you were watching church. So we missed being with you all. If you are not aware, I recently had the privilege of accompanying a group of our middle-school students to Washington, D. C.
And drove all of the way there and all the way back, and some while we were there, some of the time we took the train. But I am just made for a much slower pace of life and a lot less honking. I will just put that there. We got to do several incredible things.
We got to see several things that I have only read about in history books. Loved it. Loved every minute of it. I think for a lot of us, the highlight of the week was getting to go to the Capitol.
I had contacted Senator Lankford’s office about a month ago about trying to get a tour of the Capitol. And what we actually got was an invitation to come to his office and have coffee with him. And the kids got a photo op and everything. And then a member of his staff led us on a guided tour of the Capitol.
And I am not used to a lifestyle where every building you walk into, you have to go through security. And take your belt off and all of that. One of the days, even to get in the building, we just parked in. We had to go back through security and had to half-undress and go through scanners and all of that.
But in D. C., there is a very specific procedure for getting anywhere you want to go. And It was that way at the Capitol. We showed up early in the morning outside his office building, and we had to go through security, and then we went up to his office and had coffee, did all of that.
And one of the staffers then led us down corridors, and we had to go a certain way over into the neighboring Senate office building, and then down a particular elevator into a particular level of the basement. And then they took us through another level of security, and I said, “Wait, why are they doing this?” Turns out they had to check all of our phones for anthrax, and I mean, that is just stuff I would never think of. You had to go through this line, pass security here, go to another specific desk where they tag you for where you are about to go, and then follow the guide down another corridor. Then you get on a little train, and you have to get on a specific train, and you have to sit in a specific spot because some of them are reserved for senators, whether they are there or not.
Then they take you to another place down this train, and you get in another line. They tag you based on where you are going, and you have to get in the right line every time. I am used to Lawton, where we can just walk down any sidewalk we want to and go in. It is not that way.
You have to get in a specific line. You have to be with a specific person. You have to get there at a specific time. There was one place that we went into where you follow the guide in at a specific time, and the doors automatically close, and the lights automatically start. If you are not with your group and you are out there when it is closed, you are just out of luck.
The Way Jesus Describes Salvation
None of this is how I intended to open this morning’s message, but it was amazing how well it fit with the message I had prepared, as far as Jesus talking to His disciples about a very narrow door and a very narrow set of circumstances that get us where we are trying to go in eternity. ### The Way Jesus Describes Salvation Jesus says there is a very narrow set of circumstances. You have to come a certain way. You have to be with the right person. The irony was that being in that city, where I suspect Jesus is not as highly followed as He would be even in a city like ours, everything they do going through life prepares them for what Jesus is talking about.
There is a very specific way to get where you want to go and very specific people you have to be with. I did not want to test security, but I had a feeling they would be right on top of me if we stepped out of line. But Jesus, in the passage that we are looking at today in Luke 13, is talking about that very idea: getting where we are trying to go in eternity and the way that we get there. So as we continue our study through the book of Luke, we are in Luke 13 this morning, starting in verse 22.
Starting in verse 22, here is what Luke records: “And He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem.” And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us.’” “Then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ And He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from Me, all you evildoers.’ And in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” “When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.
Salvation for Anyone Who Comes
And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.
Jesus Challenges Human Assumptions
And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” ### Jesus Challenges Human Assumptions Jesus is teaching as He’s traveling toward Jerusalem. This is as He is determined to go to Jerusalem because He knows that is where the cross is, and that has been His goal all along was to go to the cross for us and for our salvation. And as He’s making his way down there, though, He’s teaching in every village that he comes to. And the people, as they are listening, somebody asks him this question, are you saying there are only a few who are going to get into the kingdom?
And Jesus responds by telling this story. And they were shocked at this idea that only a few might get into the kingdom. They are asking for clarification. Are you saying that is the case?
They were shocked by this. And what we see right from the beginning of this passage is what we know from the rest of Scripture, that Jesus challenges human assumptions about salvation. If we were to go out after we leave here and just find random people on the street and poll them about how they think someone gets to heaven, assuming they believe in heaven and assuming they believe in God, everybody would probably have a slightly different answer. But those answers would fall under some major themes.
And some of those themes might be, well, I just think everybody goes. Some of those might be, well, if you are good enough, I think God just lets you in. I have even heard people say, well, God and I have an understanding, like they made some kind of deal with God. In my experience, God does not make deals.
On this trip, Lord, if you’ll help me fall asleep right now, then that did not happen. But certainly when it comes to salvation, none of us have an understanding with God, other than the fact that we understand things from His perspective, and we are sinners in need of a Savior. But there are these assumptions about salvation that are common to us as humans. They just come from the way we see the world, and Jesus challenges those.
He challenged their assumptions about salvation in their day, and He challenges ours today. Some of their assumptions were that just by virtue of being a descendant of Abraham, they were going to get in. That if you were a Jewish person, someone descended from Abraham, you are part of this national covenant, we know that, and so you are just automatically in. As long as you haven’t done anything too horrendously terrible, you know, you are not Hitler, you are not Stalin, you are not Pol Pot, you are not a serial killer, you are not abusing children, that as long as you are, you know, basically okay, that you are just getting in.
And so for them, the idea that somebody wouldn’t make it into the kingdom was the exception, not the rule. And yet Jesus had been saying things up to this point that really challenged that, and it surprised them. It shocked them. Some of the things that Jesus had said, even in the passages that we’ve looked at in the last few weeks, if you go back a few weeks in time where Jesus was talking about God cutting down the fig tree.
And the discussion about, I have waited all these years for figs. I will continue to work it, and we’ll see if it bears fruit in the next year, and if not, we’ll cut it down. He’s talking about the nation of Israel. And that is something that they understood, that when he talked about the fig tree, a lot of times It was a symbol of the nation of Israel.
He’s telling them there is coming a time where God is going to judge the nation that they were part of, when they were assuming they were all getting in. And then right after that, we have the ruler of the synagogue who got his nose all bent out of shape because Jesus healed the woman on the Sabbath. And He says, oh, no, no, you can come any day to get healed as though that guy’s just offering healing. Like, why did not he ever tell them that?
Because he couldn’t heal anybody. But you can come any day to get healed. Why would you do it on the Sabbath? And Jesus began to critique this man and began to show that the rulers of the synagogue really do not even understand how salvation works.
They have no idea how the kingdom works. And this is an ongoing theme with Jesus, pointing out that yes, there is a purpose for this national covenant that God had with Israel, but just being a descendant of Abraham does not guarantee that you are going to be saved. And there were some who were even among the religious leaders who did not have a clue about how salvation works. And this leaves the question in their minds, is he saying that we are not all getting in?
Are you saying there are only going to be a few? And Jesus answers that question with a story that basically says yes. But this was a huge shock to them. But if they paid attention to him, it shouldn’t have been.
Because from the very beginning, Jesus had been challenging their ideas about salvation. Just like Jesus challenges our ideas about salvation today. When our human mind says, well, I am not that bad. Jesus raised the standard and said, you’ve heard it say that you shouldn’t commit murder, you shouldn’t commit adultery.
I am telling you, if you’ve been angry with somebody without a cause, if you’ve looked at somebody with lust, these inward things that they thought, oh, we are so good. Jesus clarified that they were not going to be saved on their own merits. Oh, we are all just getting in.
If we are good, everything Jesus said challenged their ideas about salvation, about how it works and about how we receive it. ### The False Assumption That the Way Is Broad Some of the false assumptions that they had, and that we have today, are right here in this passage that we have already read. Some of the things He confronts, we still deal with today. Now, the four things outlined in this passage are not the only wrong ideas that people have about salvation, but they are pretty common ones. This morning I want to share with you what this parable teaches us about the wrong things we assume about salvation.
The False Assumption That the Way Is Broad
As we continue verse 23 and into verse 24, He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” We see the first false assumption: that the way to salvation is broad. As Jesus begins to answer their question, He says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” Notice, He does not give them a yes or no. He does not say yes or no. But the answer he gives, the story he tells, tells you the door is not as wide open as they thought.
Not in the sense that God is keeping people out. But if you think you are just going to wander in haphazardly, it does not work that way. There is the idea that the way of salvation is broad. When He says, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able,” He is pointing out that there is one way to salvation.
It is narrow, and it is not found by accident. Again, I want to be very clear. This idea of the narrow door is not God saying to anybody, “You cannot come in.” It is saying, “You can come in, but you have to come in this very specific way.” I remember a commercial years ago advertising for a TV channel, and they had people saying different things about who they were and what they believed. One of the actors said, “I believe in all paths to God,” and that went all over me because it is not true.
But I thought later, well, I also believe in all paths to God. I believe in all one path that there is. I believe in all of it. There is just one, and I believe in all of it.
But there is this idea that is common in our time that there are many paths to God. Because it sounds narrow-minded, it sounds harsh to say there is only one way. But the answer to that is that if you understand our sin and you understand the holiness of God, the fact that there is one way to God at all is one way more than what we deserve. So He has given us this narrow door.
He talks about those who would want to come in, but they are not going to be able to enter because they do not want to come through the narrow door. It is true of our day, and it was true of Jesus’ day, that there were people who wanted salvation; they just did not want it on God’s terms. I would love to go to heaven. I would love the mansion.
I would love the golden streets. I would love all of that. But you mean I have to trust in Jesus and confess my sins? I do not want to do that.
I will look for some other way. Jesus said there would be people who would stand outside and seek to enter, but they would not be able to come in, not because the door was closed to them, but because they wouldn’t use the door. And when we think today that, oh, there are these many ways, the way to salvation is broad, I can end up there by accident. Jesus challenges that assumption, we are not going to end up there by accident.
We are not going to just aimlessly wander into the kingdom. We have to be willing to go through the narrow door, and this directly contradicts the modern pluralism that says there are many paths to God. As a matter of fact, Jesus said elsewhere that broad is the road that leads to destruction. There are many roads, but the broad way does not lead to God. ### The False Assumption That There Is Always Time It leads to destruction.
There is a second false assumption that we see in verse 25. He says, “Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us,’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’” Jesus told this story about a man who invited others to a feast. This is a story that he tells in a few different places, and there is different variations on the story. Jesus taught for about three years.
I am sure he told some of his stories multiple times. There are some things I have to try to remember, have I told you this before? Because I do not want you to think, oh, again, this story, I am tired of hearing it. But Jesus frequently talked about feasts and people being invited to feasts.
And so when He says this man got up and shut the door to his house and people were standing outside, I think that is what He’s talking about, that the people being invited to the feast, but they refused to come at the appointed time. And so he shut the door. And when they knocked, he refused them entering. And he said he did not know them and that they did not belong there.
The False Assumption That There Is Always Time
And this confronts the second false assumption that there is always time to get right. I have heard people say, and you probably have too, you know, I believe in Jesus, and I know I need to be right with God, but I will do that later. Maybe they are worried about what they’d have to give up. Maybe they’ve still got some sinning they’d like to do.
But there is this thought that there will always be later. Folks, the Bible does say that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that, the judgment. We know that each of us has an appointment with God that is coming, and we do not know when it is. For many people, that will come in old age, and yes, there are many years.
But we do not know. We do not know when those things will happen. We all probably know somebody who has died far younger than anybody should, or people who have died unexpectedly. Nobody saw it coming.
And we do not look to those things to try to scare people, but to come to the sobering reality that we can say there is always tomorrow, but we do not know that for a fact. Growing up, every Sunday I heard the pastor say during the invitation that God promised us eternal life if we trust in Jesus, but He never promised us that we would live to see tomorrow. That is true. We think there is always time.
These people thought they had plenty of time to come to the feast. But Jesus says there is a time when the homeowner comes, shuts the door, and bolts the door. Those who are at the feast are inside, and the ones who just thought they would come when they got around to it are on the outside, banging to be let into the feast. The owner says, “I do not know you or where you are from.” It is another way of saying you do not belong here.
Again, not that he was not willing for them to come in. But they refused to come in at the appointed time, just like in the first case. It is not that God says you cannot come in. It is that God says you have to come in through this narrow door.
There is a time for us to get right with the Lord, and the time is not tomorrow, it is today. It is right now because we do not know what tomorrow holds. One of the most tragic lies that we ever tell ourselves is that we will get right with God tomorrow. God is merciful.
You look at the story of Noah. For 120 years, God had Noah there building the ark, preaching righteousness, trying to get people to turn. And people would not repent. And even at that, there is a week after Noah gets on the boat before God closes the door and causes it to start raining.
There was a time when God continued to extend grace and forgiveness and extend the opportunity to be saved. But then there came the time when the door was closed. We cannot gamble. We have to make sure that our stubbornness does not outlast God’s patience.
We need to get right with Him while there is an opportunity. ### The False Assumption That Familiarity Is Enough And we come to verse 26. The people are responding when the homeowner says, I do not know you or where you are from. You do not belong here. You did not come.
You do not belong here. They say, then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from me, all you evil doers.
The False Assumption That Familiarity Is Enough
This is the third false assumption that familiarity with Jesus is enough. That it is enough to just know about Jesus. These people were near Jesus, the people He’s talking to and about. They were near Jesus.
They were familiar with Jesus, but they did not know Him, and He did not know them. Now, when the Bible talks about knowing somebody, it uses that term in a few different ways. A couple of weeks ago, when a group of us went to the apologetics conference in Shawnee, Sean McDowell talked about the different ways you can know something that are referred to in the Bible. You can know something intellectually.
I know that two plus two is four. I know that the capital of Finland is Helsinki. There are certain things I know intellectually because they are just facts. There are other things that we know experientially.
I know that I do not like traffic because I have experienced traffic. I know that I am tired because I am experiencing it. We can know things experientially because they happen to us. There are other things that we can know something or someone personally, intimately.
I know my wife. Most of the time, I know how sHe’s going to react to something. I think we could game out a conversation between us and pretty well know where it is going to go sometimes, because I know her personally. There are other people that we know, we have an acquaintance with, we have a familiarity with them.
That is not enough. There are people you know here from church, but you do not know them on that intimate basis. If you drive home from church, walk into your locked house, and somebody from the praise team is just in your kitchen, that is going to weird you out, right? Maybe not if you are married to somebody on the praise team, but you know what I mean.
“I know you, I love you, but why are you in my house?” Okay, that kind of relationship. You can be familiar with somebody and there still not be that relationship. I have met James Lankford a couple of times. I have met Ted Cruz.
I think the girls said they rode up an escalator Wednesday with Josh Hawley. We are familiar with some members of the Senate. But there are still certain places in that building that if we tried to go into, somebody’s going to tase us. Because we do not have that relationship to be there.
When Jesus says to the people, I do not know you, Jesus is not, oh wait, I thought Jesus knew everything. No, Jesus knows who they are. But He is saying there is not that relationship that entitles you to be here. Sometimes we think familiarity with Jesus is enough.
I know about the Bible. I have gone to church. I know the stories. I remember these things.
Surely that is enough. These people were encountering Him in the synagogues. They did not just know about Him like we do. They actually were in proximity to Him.
They saw Him. They ate and drank at His table. They listened to Him as He taught in the synagogues. They were interacting with Him, eating at the tables, and listening to Him.
They thought that was enough. But as I have told you multiple times during this series on Luke, there is a huge difference between following Jesus and following Jesus around. A lot of these people were following Jesus around, and they thought that was going to be enough to get them into the kingdom. “Oh, He knows me.” Yes, He has seen you on the street, and you have said hi, but do you have an actual relationship with Him? Going to church, being around Jesus, being around people who know Jesus, and knowing things about Him are all wonderful things, but they are not enough. ### The False Assumption That We Are Entitled to Heaven Because some of these people who knew Him to the point of being familiar with Him, even when He was there in physical proximity, He said, “That is not enough. I will turn to you and say, ‘I do not know you.
The False Assumption That We Are Entitled
Depart from Me.’” And then in verse 28, the fourth false assumption appears. He says, “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.” I read this and immediately think of the temper tantrum. There is no fury like a woman scorned, they say. But there is also no fury like a small child who realizes their sibling got something they did not.
These people are weeping and gnashing their teeth. And these people were going to respond that way when they saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom, and they were not allowed to go in. It is because the false assumption here is that we are entitled to heaven. That we are entitled to it.
Well, he should let me in. Because I did this, or because I am so-and-so, He should let me in. That was their idea. Jesus’ audience here was enraged at the suggestion that they did not belong in the kingdom.
I mean, how could these heroes, these people who were their culture, their heritage, their covenant, these people they thought they were going to be with for eternity—Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets—how could they belong in the kingdom while we deserve to be thrown out? That contradicted everything they had ever been taught. That contradicted everything they’d ever believed. And here they are being told, you are going to be thrown out, and there will be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
But see, what they did not understand, what we have the benefit of hindsight, looking back to be able to see, is that what qualified these Old Testament heroes for heaven, for their presence in the kingdom, was not their blood, their lineage, not their religious activities. What qualified them for the kingdom was faith. For example, Abraham’s faith that God himself would provide a sacrifice, which 2,000 years later he did. He provided the sacrifice that would allow Abraham into the kingdom.
It was faith. It was trusting God. It was trusting that He would send a Messiah. It was their faith that qualified them, and these people who were listening to Jesus could not claim to have that same kind of faith when the Messiah was standing right in front of them and they were rejecting Him.
These patriarchs and prophets in the Old Testament had only the promise of God that He would send the Messiah. All they had was that they heard He was going to, and they believed. And here, for these people, the fulfillment is right in front of their eyes, and they still do not believe. They thought they were entitled to heaven because of who they were and where they came from.
They thought they would be entitled to enter, but they would be cast out. And that is a reminder to us that none of us is entitled to heaven because of who we are or where we come from or what we’ve done or even who we know unless it is Jesus. My kids do not get a free pass into heaven just because their father’s a pastor. I do not get a free pass into heaven just because I was raised in church.
I do not get in automatically because I am a fifth generation Southern Baptist. Well, that is got to count for something. Nothing. Nothing before the throne of God.
But I have given money to missions. It does not matter. Don’t get me wrong. All of those are good things.
I am not telling you do not give to missions, do not go to church. ### Coming to God on His Terms What I am telling you is that those are not what get us into heaven. There is one way in, and it is through Jesus Christ and faith in Him alone. What He tells us in verses 29 and 30 is that salvation is available to anyone who comes to God on His terms. Jesus said these Israelites would not enter the kingdom if they did not come the right way.
But notice what He says in verse 29. They will come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and they will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. What He is telling them there is that the Gentiles will be able to get in. These are people they looked at as so dirty and so sinful.
They came from the wrong places. They were not like us. They were not descended from Abraham. Why would God let them in?
Jesus says they will be welcomed in. They will come from every direction, from all over creation, and they will recline at the table like invited guests. Has God changed His mind and suddenly He does not care about the Jews and only loves the Gentiles? That is not it.
He’s saying even the Gentiles can come in if they’ll come the right way. And the implication to them was the same. You can come in too if you’ll come the right way. But standing outside and waiting because you think you have all this time in the world to get right with God, and thinking you are going to get in on your own merits, will leave you stuck outside banging on the door.
No amount of banging on the door is going to let you in. If we come to God on His terms, anybody can come into the kingdom. He says some of those who were first would be last, and those who were last would be first. That means some of those who were first to know about God, the Jewish people there, would be last to find Him, and some of these Gentiles who were last to know about Him would be the first to find Him.
It is not about where we start out. It is about our relationship with Jesus Christ. That is because, if we go back to verse 24, Jesus is the narrow door. He is the one way.
He is God’s terms for us coming into the kingdom. That was the whole reason why Jesus, in verse 22, was on His way to Jerusalem. He was there to go and be crucified on our behalf because you and I, in our sin, were separated from God, and we could not come into His presence with that sin. ### The One Door Is Christ That sin had to be punished. It had to be paid for.
It had to be judged. Not because God is mean and harsh and cruel, but because God is just and God is holy. And if he suddenly said, your sin is fine, he wouldn’t be a holy and just God. So that sin had to be punished.
God the Father to uphold his righteousness said that sin has got to be punished. And God the Son said, I will bear the punishment. And he came to earth and he lived a perfect sinless life. And he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and died.
And he took all the punishment we deserved. He paid all the penalty. He bore the full weight of the wrath of God against our sin. He took everything that we deserved so that we could go free, so that we could be restored to fellowship with God, and three days later, he rose again from the dead to prove it.
Anyone else who wants to find any other way, He says, surely there is got to be a second way. Tell me and explain to me and make it make sense what it is that we think we are going to be able to accomplish that Jesus Christ could not accomplish for us on the cross. There is one way. There is one way for us to be made right with God.
There is one way for us to be made right with God today. The best news of all is that it is 100 percent effective. When we trust Christ as our Savior, we do not have to worry and wonder, “Is He going to forgive me? Have I sinned too much?
Am I sure this is going to work?” Jesus paid for our sin in full. Just like we sang about earlier, completely known and completely loved, God is pleased. I am robed in white, and God is pleased to see His Son when He looks on me because of the sacrifice Jesus made. We are clothed not in our sin and our rags and our shame, but in the righteousness of Christ. That is how God sees us, and in that righteousness we are guaranteed: we are fit for the kingdom.
