Way Truth Life Notes

33“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.” 34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 36Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” (John 13:33-36)

37Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” 38Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” (John 13:37-38)

1“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14:1-4)

5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5)

6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

How can Jesus say this? Isn’t it a little boastful? John Stott wrote:

One of the most extraordinary things Jesus did in his teaching (and did it so unobtrusively that many people read the Gospels without even noticing it) was to set himself apart from everybody else. For example, by claiming to be the good shepherd who went out into the desert to seek his lost sheep, he was implying that the world was lost, that he wasn’t, and that he could seek and save it.

In other words, he put himself in a moral category in which he was alone. Everybody else was in darkness; he was the light of the world. Everybody else was hungry; he was the bread of life. Everybody else was thirsty; he could quench their thirst. Everybody else was sinful; he could forgive their sins. Indeed, on two separate occasions he did so, and both times observers were scandalized. They asked, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7; Luke 7:48-49).

If Jesus claimed authority to forgive the penitent, he also claimed authority to judge the impenitent. Several of his parables implied that he expected to return at the end of history. On that day, he said, he would sit on his glorious throne. All nations would stand before him, and he would separate them from one another as a shepherd separates his sheep from his goats. In other words, he would settle their eternal destiny. Thus he made himself the central figure on the day of judgment.

Jesus tells the disciples and the world:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

I came across a song this week that I wasn’t familiar with. It’s an old song recorded in the late 60s by Peggy Lee called “Is that All There Is?” I say it’s a song, but she only sings the chorus while she speaks the verses. Peggy Lee didn’t write the song, but this is briefly what the song says.

When she was a little girl their house burn down and after it had burned she wondered, “Is that all there is to a fire?” She went to a circus, the greatest show on earth and when it was over she thought, “Is that all there is to a circus?” She fell in love but he left her and she asks, “Is that all there is to love?” And she's sure that at the end of her life and she faces death in the face she’ll again ask, “Is that all there is?”

So she sings in the chorus:

Is that all there is, is that all there is

If that’s all there is my friends, then let's keep dancing

Let's break out the booze and have a ball

If that's all there is

I think this is the most hopeless and depressing song I’ve ever heard. But the truth is without Jesus there is no hope beyond the grave. Without Jesus this is all there is. You better enjoy it now because it just doesn’t get any better. There is no hop.

But in Jesus we have hope. In Jesus we have a way to God. In Jesus we can know the truth. In Jesus we can have life.