Jesus is the Only Way to God
Notes
Transcript
ME
ME
Years ago my parents had season basketball tickets to see the cats play in Rupp, they were in the nosebleeds, but they were mid court… like one seat was on one side and the other seat was on the other side… great way to watch the games. I don’t know about you but I always hated parking in that big lot outside… sure part of the problem was the money.. back then I think itw as 15 a game and we didnt go to a lot, but we didn’t want to always pay that, and then to top it off when you did pay that after the game unless you left early or sat around and listened to the coaches show you were stuck in the parking lot trying to get out for at least an hour… and that was not the kind of fun I was looking to have on most days…
So when we worked at UK we kind of got familiar with that area of town and we found a place just across the street from the paid lot, a little bit of a walk, but if you got there a little early you could just park on the street and not have to pay anything. So we would always do that… and go and eat in the civic center area before hand.. but there was some traffic sometimes getting out of there too… well… unless you decided that you could pretend you didnt know a street was a one way street and go down it and get out way before everyone else… and kids I don’t promote this type of behavior know that I really know Jesus, but let me tell you that was a way that got us out of that area in under 5 minutes… it was great, and once We went down that street there would be two or three people that would follow… Im sure they were thinking… this dude is smart… I can blame all this on him…
Anyway there was one night we were leaving the game and I thought about going that way but for some reason I didn’t… we had been going that way for the few games we had went to that season and there was one person already down there going the wrong way, so I just said I don’t feel right about it… and a car behind me ducks down that way… and almost immediately I see these police lights going after the guy… I guess they had seen the antics and were tired of it and waiting for people to go that way so they could stop them..
WE
WE
And there are some of you here this morning and you like the justice of that… you hate that I got away with it because its wrong to go the wrong way down a one way street, and you would identifiably say that is a one way…and have no problem with it at all…
but as a society we have a lot of problems with that kind of language… we can’t say there is only one way to something… its too exclusive for us to speak that kind of language so we have to make sure we include people… and so we live in a world where when we look at Jesus words this morning there are a lot of issues…
You will get so many questions from people.. like if God is love how could he allow anyone to go to Hell… if God is a loving God how could he let bad things happen to good people… if God only provides one way to him then he isn’t loving at all and I want nothing to do with him…
And I am sure you have heard those arguments and heard people lambasting all of these things… but the truth of the matter is we shouldn’t be asking the question why does God only allow one way to be saved… but a better question really should be why does God give us a way out at all?
EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
IF you remember last week Jesus has told the disciples he is going to a place they cannot go, and he will prepare a place for them
and he starts this week with a great statement…
4 And you know the way to where I am going.”
He’s saying I done told you how to get there, you just have to follow me and what I have said and everything will work itself out… dont worry about the other stuff just follow me… Follow my teaching… and its interesting because this is scentral to our theme today… its all about THE WAY…
And some scholars think he phrased it in this weird manner to get them to ask him another question, to make them want to know more… and Thomas is like I am on it…
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
And I have said it before, Thomas gets all the hate for just a moment in his life when he doubted Jesus and he gets called out on that for eternity, but Thomas loved Jesus and this is pretty much the same question Peter has asked him in chapter 13:36.. think about it for a moment…
Jesus has just said I am going to prepare you a place in my fathers house and make you this room… and it isn’t that Thomas is in anyway doubting here.. what Thomas is showing clearly is he plans to follow Jesus wherever he goes, and he wants to be sure he knows the way to get there… Jesus has been talking and he has made what he is doing and what he is saying about as clear as mud to these people who don’t have the hindsight we do 2000 years later…
And I think what we can learn from all of this, is even when we walk with Jesus we can often find his words confusing… we can find his commands confusing and be unsure of exactly what it is he wants us to do…
And we find this in the church today we have been talking about having the great peace in doing what God wants, and not always understanding his plan, and I think we can understand how important it is here to have people we can turn to a voice of reason that points us back to our faith and the promises God has made to us… it shows us we don’t always have to know the reason behind, we just have to know the One who guides
And so Thomas has thrown this question out there, and now we are going to see what Jesus has to say in response to all of this:
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
And peter will later confirm this in Acts 4:12
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
But look in John, This is what we would call one of the great I am statements…
And we have seen over and over again in the gospel of John him using the Divine I am and here we see it again… and we have to think about Jesus revealing himself here to his disciples for who he really is he doesn’t want them to miss it… think Moses and the burning bush, and Moses removes his shoes because the place was holy… it was that big of a deal and it should be that big of a deal to us when we hear it as well … when Jesus calls us and speaks of who he is, when we hear his name it should invoke this feeling inside of us, because there is nothing greater than Jesus… there is no
And look at the order in which Jesus laid out this verse…
John 14:6 (ESV)
6 Jesus said to him, “I am 1. the way, and 2. the truth, and 3. the life.
And in these first few verses Jesus has proclaimed in the first few verses over and over again that its all about him being the way, its all about him and Thomas has posed this question… how do we get there… and Jesus is telling them HE is the way… and he is almost giving them the pathway to our salvation… of course as they sit there they are not understanding a word he is saying… because they are still thinking about a physical place they could go, but its almost as if Jesus has shown them the way to salvation that would help them to reunite with him…
He is saying first we start with him… he is the way… we begin our faith by coming to the way he has shown us to live… and when we press into him and begin our faith in him, the next thing we do is we start to follow his truth, and He IS the truth… and when we press in and follow him we receive the life that only he can give us… and this is a beautiful truth in this message in the way he has laid it out for us to be able to see this way to the life here…
I love the way that RC Sproul talks about this verse, he says when we read it we should add some emphasis and we should read it this way
John 14:6 (ESV)
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way BECAUSE I am the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Sproul says that is the truth that Jesus is conveying, he is the way to salvation because he is the truth we must follow and the life we must imitate.
But there is some deep truth happening here in this verse… it opens up some truth when we think back to the Garden
Remember all the things that had happened in the garden…and really the entirety of the Bible is pointing to this place where we will be able to live out the life God intended us to live with him… this moment where we can walk and talk can commune with him… but Adam and Eve were able to walk and converse and commune with God, but they were given this imperative… they were told and given some imperatives… you may eat of any tree in the garden except this oen… and immediately the enemy comes in and he says… “Did God Really say?” and this has been the question that the enemy asks us all the time… this is the same way many of us go down the wrong road becasue the enemy comes in and says did God really say…. to us and we question… surely God didn’t mean for me not to do… because he wants me to be happy.. he loves me so much he wants my happiness and this is the way many of us fall… we’re not hurting anyone so it cant be too bad… and we go down a bad road… and sometimes when we listen to that lie from the enemy we find ourselves in the same situation as Adam and Eve we found ourselves apart and separated from God…
But in this moment Jesus is telling us and he is telling them that he is the way of reconciliation… or maybe in our vernacular we would say the path… or the road… or the route… He is saying the way to god is by following me… and this is part of the gospel if we really look at it, because what we know is that through the sin of adam and eve we were separated from God, and there was no path for us to him… and when Jesus came he restored that path to himself and it was the way we could get back to God
And maybe you are here this morning and you have found yourself slipping away from God.. or maybe as you listen to me talk this morning you realize you have never had a moment where you proclaimed God as your personal Lord and Savior… and this could be the way… God came and he made a way… a way exclusivity.. there is only one way… Jesus says no one knows the father but through me… and he has given you and he has given me a way back to him… And all you have to do is come to him and give him your life and proclaim him as your lord and savior and confess and repent of your sins and we can baptize you this morning… because he has provided a way for you to be made right with him…
OR perhaps this morning you are a christian.. but your relationship with him isnt as close as it used to be..
Can you imagine a world where we taught and beleived this is true.. where even in the places where people hated us and said we weren’t being inclusive, we said this was the only way….. could you omagine what would happen if more people heard the truth of the Gospel.
