Luke 13:24-27 “ ‘Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and won’t be able once the homeowner gets up and shuts the door. Then you will stand outside and knock on the door saying, ‘Lord, open up for us!’ He will answer you, ‘I don’t know you or where you’re from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I don’t know you or where you’re from. Get away from me, all you evildoers!’”

Like us all, the people to whom Jesus was speaking had the door open to them so long as they were alive. But after death, the door is shut. It is no longer possible to go through in faith and find salvation with God. Twice the Lord says to them, “I don’t know you or where you’re from.”

That would be especially painful for a Jewish person to hear. They were God’s chosen people. He had singled them out from all the nations to receive his word, to be the people of the promise, to be the family of the world’s Savior. Now the God who has all the hairs on every head numbered, who knows every sparrow that falls to the ground, couldn’t recall who any of these people were. They were proud to be from Israel, the land of promise, as proud as anyone who wears one of these t-shirts with an outline of your home state and the word “home” inside it. But the Lord tells them, “I don’t know where you are from.” They were utterly, completely disowned. They wanted nothing to do with Jesus in life. He would be just as happy to have nothing to do with them for eternity.

The Jews are no longer God’s chosen people, at least not as an entire nation or race. We are. Peter says to Christians in his first letter, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God…” Don’t take that privilege for granted! We have it only so long as we have faith.

You may know that American Christians have been abandoning Christianity in record numbers. Half the Presbyterians are gone. Vanished! Half the Methodists have disappeared as well. It is estimated that there are 3.7 million evangelical Christians between the age of 18 and 29. About 2.6 million of them will leave the church by their 29^th birthday. Over 1.7 million of them will never return. These are the people who attend the big mega-churches that look so successful. Trends in my own church body suggest that we could be half to one-third our current size by 2060.

Not everyone makes a conscious choice to reject Bible teaching and cut Jesus out of their lives. Some are slowly distracted away from him by all the other things competing for their attention–education, careers, families, hobbies, health. They feel less need, less attraction, until Jesus is just a memory. Don’t let it happen to you! Take care of your own spiritual business. Feed your faith. Hear his word, because in this world your soul and mine are still in spiritual danger.