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Welcome to the Bridge Church VB Podcast, your weekly source for uplifting and transformative Sunday messages! Each episode features insightful, practical teachings rooted in Scripture, designed to inspire and guide you on your spiritual journey. Led by our passionate Lead Pastors, Archie and Tangie Callahan, we strive to create a welcoming environment that encourages individuals from all walks of life to connect with the person, power, and purpose of Jesus Christ.
In this podcast, we delve into relevant themes and timeless biblical truths that speak to the challenges and joys of everyday living. Whether you’re commuting, exercising, or simply seeking encouragement, our messages aim to empower you to grow in faith and discover your unique purpose.
Join our vibrant community of believers as we explore how to apply God’s Word in practical ways, fostering a deeper connection with Him and one another. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enrich your life through these dynamic teachings. Connect with us and find out more at www.bridgechurch.tv!
Take out your Bibles.
Turn with me to Matthew.
We're still in the Sermon on the Mount.
This is the last sermon in this series.
Next week will be a standalone.
The following week after that, we're going to kick off a series that will last four weeks called Last Days.
We're going to talk about the end times.
We're going to look at apocalyptic literature.
Apocalyptic means end times, what happens in the end.
I think a lot of people are curious.
Every time there's a war in the Middle East, somebody wants to know what's going on.
We're going to try to fill you in a little bit.
We're not going to predict when Jesus is going to come back because somebody in 1988 tried that.
They got it wrong and then they went to 89 and got it wrong again.
We do not know the day or the hour, but we can sense the season in which Jesus is coming back.
And the fact is, he might come back for you today.
Got quiet in here, didn't it?
He could come back for you today.
The whole point about the book of Revelation is not a revelation of the Antichrist.
It's a revelation of the Christ.
And the whole theme of the book of Revelation is that you are a faithful witness in the face of an Antichrist spirit and the face of empires that want to dominate your life.
You continue to be faithful to the end.
So as we look at today's message called the narrow way, we're called to be faithful witnesses.
I remember growing up, man, I had an uncle that lived outside of DC who did a lot of work in DC.
He was a contractor.
He did steel erection and he worked on the Pentagon.
He worked at the Capitol putting up beams, steel beams in a lot of those buildings.
And some of that work had to be at night.
Because some of those beams were so big they had to truck them in on multiple trucks and put them with cranes and lower them even into underground tunnels that are in D.C.
He did a lot of work, but he owned a place on the Santee Cooper River down in South Carolina.
It's part of a lake.
They call it a river, but it looks like a lake.
And he owned a house there.
And for about three, four, five summers, I would go on vacation with he and his family.
And he had a son, which was my first cousin, Scott.
We were the same age and still are the same age.
And we're still both alive.
Amen.
I didn't think we would make it after some of the shenanigans we did growing up.
But he would come by, his dad would come by, pick me up, take me to the Santee Cooper River when I was 14, 15.
But one year, his son, we both had our license, he came by and he was driving a Pontiac Fiero, which was a little sports car.
He picked me up and we drove down to the Santee Cooper River.
I was still working at that time, so I would have to drive back on a Wednesday, work all day, and then drive back that night.
So Wednesday came, I drove his Fiero back to my hometown, which was about three and a half hours away.
I worked all day, and that night I went back home, packed up, and headed back toward the vacation spot.
It's about nine o'clock at night during that time, and I got on a road called 381.
It was an old country road, and while I was driving down this old country road, the lights on that Fiero began to dim.
I was like, what is going on?
See, I'm not a mechanic.
I don't know nothing about a car.
I just know how to turn it on.
And if it goes, great.
If it doesn't, get another car.
But I was driving and the lights were dimming.
And all of a sudden, all the lights went out in the dash.
It went for about another quarter of a mile and just died on a country road.
Now, it was a country road and it was country dark.
I don't know if you've ever been on a country road at night with no moonlight, no stars, no nothing.
It was country dark, country night.
And I'm in a black car.
You can't see nothing.
But when I got out of the car, that's before cell phones, young people.
There was a time we didn't have cell phones.
That was before GPS.
Your map was not MapQuest.
It was not your phone.
Siri was not telling you where to go.
You had to break out a literal map and write it out how to get there.
Anybody remember that?
I'm telling my age.
There are some people from the ancient world in this place.
So we had to do that.
But off in the distance when I got out of that car, I could see just a glimmer of light.
I mean, you know, that puts some hope in you.
And so I walk about a half a mile and I get to this little country house and it has a front porch light on.
I walk up to the door and knock and a gentleman, an elderly gentleman opens the door.
He said, how can I help you, sir?
I said, man, I just broke down about a half a mile down the road.
He said, wow, it's dark.
I said, it is.
Can I use your phone?
I mean, you know, he didn't hand me a cell phone and stand out.
He said, you got to come in because my phone's attached to the wall like everybody else's phone was during those days.
It was attached to the wall.
I called home and told my mom I'd broke down and she sent somebody to get me and pick me up.
And I had to leave that car there.
381.
You might be asking, why were you on 381?
I was on 381 because that road led me to the destination I was trying to get to.
Every road has a destination.
In our culture today, many people believe that all gods and all faiths lead to the same place.
Somebody who popularized that understanding in our culture back in the late 80s and into the 90s and the 2000s was Oprah Winfrey.
She believes that all faiths and all gods lead to the same place.
From a theological position, that is called pluralism.
Pluralism believes that all faiths, all gods, lead to the same heaven and they're of equal importance.
They equally have the same truth and you can get to the same place.
Just follow the religious order that you want to follow.
It's called pluralism.
But when Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount...
Jesus doesn't go toward a pluralistic society's way.
Jesus is teaching Galileans near the Sea of Galilee.
There were many gods because Greek culture and Roman culture collided.
There was paganism, the belief in many gods.
And Jesus stands up in the middle of that saying,
After teaching the Sermon on the Mount, the Sermon on the Mount has been called the Magna Carta of the Kingdom, the Constitution of the Kingdom, the Charter of Christian Living.
If you want to live your best life, get into the Sermon on the Mount and begin to apply it.
Begin to apply it to your everyday life.
And Jesus is teaching.
And from that teaching in verse 13 and 14, he turns the whole teaching toward a decision.
He says, it's not enough just to hear me teach, but there has to be a decision on your part.
Now, Jesus understood the religious climate of his day.
He understood the religious temperature of his day.
He understood by saying what he was going to say in these two little verses that it was going to create a spiritual avalanche or earthquake in society.
And these two verses are still quaking in our society today.
These two verses still will get you hate mail.
These two verses will still get religious people uptight.
These two verses will get you called names.
They will get you called bigot.
They will get you called close-minded.
They will get you called a narrow-minded.
But Jesus is the one who said these words.
These are not Pastor Archie's words.
Jesus steps into a very pluralistic society, a very pluralistic world.
And begins to teach something that is so radical in his day.
Very radical.
See, when you look at Jesus, you've got to understand Jesus is very inclusive.
We know that through John 3.16.
He said, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have what?
Everlasting what?
Life.
So he's inclusive.
For God so loved who?
The world.
That whosoever believes, that whosoever is anybody in the world...
They'll have everlasting life.
Now, Jesus is very inclusive, while at the same time, he is exclusive.
John 14, 6, Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
If anyone wants to get to the Father, he's got to go through me.
So did Jesus believe that all roads led to the same place?
Did he believe that all religions end up at the same destination?
Did he believe that all gods carry you to the same place?
No, Jesus did not teach that.
Pluralism says all roads lead to the same destination.
Jesus said, I am the way.
Now, for us, our response is this.
Respect all people, but hold fast to the truth of Jesus.
Now, not only is there pluralism, there is another word that I believe has taken on a lot of synergy and power in our society.
We might not know the word, but we understand the concept.
It's called syncretism.
syncretism is different than pluralism.
Syncretism says this, from a theological standpoint, I can take a little bit from Muhammad, I can take a little bit from Buddha, I can take a little bit from Mormonism, I can take a little bit from Jehovah Witnesses, and I can take a little bit of Jesus, mix them all together, and voila, that's what I believe.
It's syncretism.
It's adding things to the gospel for your salvation.
Paul warns the church at Colossae not to do that in Colossians chapter 2.
He said, don't mix philosophy and rituals and the worship of angels together with Christ.
That's what he was fighting.
He was fighting syncretism even in the first century church because they had come out of the pagan world and so they were going to take a little bit of everything and mix it all together and create this thing that they loved.
Moses in Exodus chapter 32 goes up on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from God.
And Aaron, his sidekick, has a bright idea.
Let's get all the ladies, their silver, their gold, special their gold.
Let's melt it down and build a calf.
A golden cow.
I don't know about you, but I know there was millions of people.
There were probably a million ladies.
That is a lot of gold.
And I know he made some women mad that day.
Nobody wanted to give up their hoops.
For a golden calf.
But he comes in and he creates this golden calf.
Where did he get that from?
He got it from pagan worship that he saw in Egypt and from the Canaanites.
And he melts this thing down and they begin to worship the next day.
And look what he says in Exodus 32.
It was the gods that brought us out of Egypt.
Not the God.
That fast he forgot that there was only one God.
He says the gods brought us out of Egyptian bondage.
What is that?
That's syncretism.
That's the mixing of many religions with God or with Christ.
So Jesus comes into this world that's pluralistic, that practices syncretism, and look what he says in verse number 13 of chapter 7.
He said, enter through the narrow gate.
It must have meant that Jesus was narrow-minded.
For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to what?
Destruction.
And many, underline that word,
Underline it.
If you got a Bible, you need to bring a Bible to church.
If it's on your phone, that's cool.
Highlight it.
Many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to what?
Life.
And only a what?
Few find it.
Only a few...
Find it.
Can I ask you a question?
Have you found the narrow road?
Do you believe in pluralism that all faiths, all gods, all beliefs go to the same destination?
Do you practice syncretism?
Are you adding things to the message of Jesus that is not Jesus?
Say, man, I want to go to California and I'm going to get on Interstate 95.
Interstate 95 was named in 1957.
It was totally completed in 2018.
You can get from Miami, Florida all the way to the Canadian border up in Maine on Interstate 95.
I have traveled that road and it is true.
I've been as far as Bangor, Maine on 95 and as far down as Miami.
And both of those two different places are worlds apart.
Miami feels like another nation.
Bangor, Maine, cold and backwoods.
Wilderness.
You freeze up there.
But I can assure you, you cannot get on Interstate 95, go north or south and make it to California.
You might get to Miami and go off into the ocean and you might get to the Canadian border and you will be stopped.
But if you're going to California, you better not get on that road because all roads don't lead to your desired destination.
So in this, our culture says every road leads to the same place.
Jesus says they don't.
But the first thing he says, enter through the narrow gate.
Enter it.
Enter through the narrow gate.
Jesus had been teaching for two and a half chapters.
And now he's bringing the listeners, the hearers of those people.
Those are people that are listening to him.
He's bringing them to a critical point where they will have to make a decision.
Will you let go of the gods and the idols of this world and follow me?
Or will you stay on the broad road?
Because what you see here is two gates open.
two roads, two crowds, two destinations.
That's what you see.
I know we're called to love everybody and we do.
And one way we love people is to tell them the truth, whether they receive it or not.
Paul says in Ephesians 4, 15a, speak the truth in love.
So today I want you to hear me
not as some rambling preacher, not as some harsh preacher, but I want to warn you today, if you're practicing pluralism and if you're practicing syncretism, I want to warn you today that Jesus says there is a way that seems right to a man, Solomon said, but the end is a way of destruction.
And Jesus said, enter the narrow gate.
Sometimes when I go shopping with my wife, we go grocery shopping and we like to eat and we buy a lot of groceries, especially when the kids were small.
I would load up from the car because I didn't want to make 15 trips and I would have so much groceries in my arms that I couldn't get through the gate of my house this way.
Sometimes I would have to put some groceries down, unlock the door and walk in like this.
That's what Jesus is saying.
He is saying if you're going to get to the place of life, if you're going to get to heaven, you've got to go through a narrow gate, a small gate.
Sometimes you're going to have to unload some things following Jesus.
If you're going to come to Jesus and walk through the gate, you're going to have to let go of your pride.
You're going to have to let go of your anger.
You're going to have to let go of your bitterness because that cannot enter into the gate.
You got to let go of your hatred.
You got to let go of your superiority.
You got to let go of hating people just because of the color of their skin.
You got to let all that go because narrow is the gate.
I know it is because it's God's word.
It's not my opinion.
I didn't come to give you just two points and a poem and go out so we can go to the night dinette and smoke a cigarette.
No, I came so that you could hear the gospel.
That's why I'm here.
That you need to hear that there is only one way.
Even when the world is telling you different.
Let me tell you something about the broad gate, man.
There's a lot of people in the broad gate.
There's a lot of people running down the broad gate.
There's a lot of people and friends.
Your friends are running in the broad gate, man.
At narrow gate, Jesus says, enter it.
Jesus says, you got to make a decision.
Man, it's late.
I ain't got my first point out.
You got to make a decision.
Ronald Reagan, when he was a kid,
His mom said, I'm going to have you some shoes made.
They go to a shoemaker.
The shoemaker asked young Ronnie, he said, do you want pointed shoes or round-toed shoes?
He said, I don't know.
He said, well, you got time.
I'll ask you later.
A few days later, the shoemaker was in town and saw Ronnie walking up and down the sidewalk.
He said, Ronnie, do you want pointed shoes or round-toed shoes?
He said, well, come to my shop in a couple of days and you can pick up your shoes.
He said, I'll be there.
He said, but I don't know what kind of shoe I want.
Pointy or round.
And Ronnie showed up two days later with his aunt and they put the shoes on the counter and one shoe was pointy and one shoe had a round on it.
Ronnie looked at him.
He said, young man, I want you to know in life, you got to learn to make decisions.
And to not to make a decision is to make a decision.
It's almost like, you know, I remember my kids, I could take them into a candy shop and I would say, just pick out two pieces of candy and four hours later.
It was like candy overload.
Their mind could not grasp how much sugar was in that shop.
And so they could not make a decision.
And I would have to make a decision for them.
Grab it.
We're out of here.
And then we'll go to the dentist next week.
So you've got to make this decision.
Enter the narrow gate.
And then he says, walk it.
He says, small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life.
You got to walk on the road.
The first one, when you enter into the gate, that's salvation.
Walk it is discipleship.
A lot of people want to enter into the gate and they want to stand at the gate and marvel at the gate and peer at the gate and get happy at the gate, but they never walk it.
They never become a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
Jesus didn't just say, come make a decision.
What he's saying to that crowd, make a decision, but follow it up with discipleship.
Get in a small group.
Open your Bible, not just on Sunday.
Open your Bible every day.
Read the word of God.
Allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate it.
Allow the Holy Spirit to teach you.
He said, you walk it.
You got to walk in it.
Man, I love going to my mom's house, especially if it's our turn to be at her house during Thanksgiving because nobody can cook like mama.
My goodness.
Lord, turkey, ham, dressing.
Come on, collards.
Oh yeah, turnips.
I just felt the anointing on that, didn't you?
Woo, sweet tea so thick like motor oil.
Man.
That's the banana pudding that'll make you slap your mama.
But I have to leave here.
I have to drive through the country, get on 168 bypass, get on 64, go down, get on 58 west, get on 95 south, head straight down 95 for three hours, get on 74 west.
Stay on 74 West, which is a four-lane highway, beautiful road.
But guess what?
I can't get to Mama's house if I stay on 74.
It is a broad road.
I have to get off on 79, which is a narrow road.
And then I have to get on Walker Street, which is a more narrow road.
narrow road.
Some of you are just on this broad road and you have to take an exit today and get on the narrow road that will lead to life.
If I want to eat at my mama's table, I got to get on the narrow road and get to her house.
If you want to eat at the table, the supper of the lamb, you're going to have to get off the broad road and get on the narrow road.
And the Bible says only a few find it.
Only a few.
What would be a few out of the hundreds that are in here today?
In this one service.
I don't know.
I didn't look it up in the Greek.
But it's less than the majority.
It's less.
What road are you on, folks?
Luke 13 tells this story this way, the same story.
Look here.
It says, make every effort, verse 24 of chapter 13 of Luke, make every effort to enter through the narrow door.
He says, make every effort because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
Why?
I ponder that.
Why can't they enter the narrow door?
Because they're not willing to give up their old life.
Jesus is not an add-on to your perverted life.
He doesn't want to be that.
He doesn't want to just be, hey, this is just something we do on Sunday if the kids don't have sports.
This is just something we do if our marriage is not doing well.
We'll pull out Jesus out of the bottle and we'll shine it and he'll come out and help our marriage.
Jesus doesn't want to be your add-on.
He doesn't want to be your sugar daddy.
He doesn't want to be your magician.
He wants to be the Lord of your life.
He says, find it.
Look what he says.
He says, make every effort.
One translation says, strive to enter in to the narrow gate.
Say, pastor, you're talking works.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I'm talking about you making a decision.
And the grace of God working with you to push you into that decision and to help you walk out this Christian life.
Dallas Willard once said, grace is not opposed to effort.
It's opposed to earning.
I can't earn salvation, but when I do get saved, I need to make an effort and discipline my life to become all that God has called me to become.
God's not going to open the book for you.
You've got to open it up.
You've got to read it.
We work.
We partner with God.
I want you to stand.
Now, if I had 30 more minutes, we would roll.
But I'm already behind.
I don't want any children's workers getting mad at me today.
It's Pastor's Appreciation Sunday.
I want to be nice to them and I want them to be nice to me.
But I can tell you one thing.
There are people here, you're on a road that is as broad as 95.
There's no resistance to your life.
There's no pressure on your life.
It's an easy way.
It's a broad way.
It's a way that's comfortable.
You need to check what road you're on.
If there's no resistance to your life, there's no pressure in your life.
If everybody's going the same direction you're going, you're probably on the wrong road.
And today you might need to take an exit and find that narrow path that Jesus was talking about.
I love my pluralism.
I love my syncretism.
I love my life.
Well, if you love your life more than Jesus, he'll give it to you.
He'll let you have your life.
Jesus will never deliver you from something you've befriended.
As long as you see your addiction as a friend, as long as you see your perversion as friendly, as long as you see pornography as your friend, as long as you see your drug abuse as a friend, as long as you see your attitude as your friend, as long as you see your anger as your friend, God can never deliver you from what you have befriended.
You've got to hate your sin and you've got to walk away from it.
You've got to walk away from it.
You've got to walk away from it.
Let's bow our heads.
But I just thank you.
Lord, that every person in here has heard the gospel.
This gospel is a narrow gate.
His name is Jesus.
Today, Lord, we need to repent.
We need to repent, Lord.
We need to lose some baggage so that we can enter into the narrow gate, walk down the narrow path.
That leads to abundant life.
Eternal life.
If you're in here today, you know you're on a broad road, man.
You know you would split hell wide open.
There's two gates, two roads, two crowds, two destinations.
Heaven or hell.
You don't know where you're going to spend eternity.
But if you're on a broad road today, I can tell you where it leads.
It leads to hell.
But you don't have to go there.
You're breathing today.
He's called you to a decision.
I can't preach it any clearer than I've preached it.
You can stay on that road.
You can stay with all the people.
They don't mind.
Or you can walk away and get on the narrow gate, narrow path.
People that are experiencing life on their way to heaven.