I Beleieve - Jesus, Son of the Living God...Cana

I Believe

One Lord, Jesus Christ

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship on this day that the Lord has made! Well, the cold front didn’t last… I heard this was called False Fall… But, at least it gave us a taste of what is to come.

We are in our second week of our series considering our Catechism… our statement of beliefs as a church. I am calling this 3-week series that launches our Wednesday Bible Study, “I Believe”, because we are looking at our statements of faith, specifically portions of the Nicene Creed that we read just a moment ago… a statement of faith that goes back to 381 AD. Last week, we looked at God the Father Almighty.

Today, we are looking at Jesus, that

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the father, through Him all things were made.

<Prayer>

Sermon Slide

I could think of no better verse to start with than Jesus own words. There is more to Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus than just John 3:16. Personally, I never like ending with just verse 16, because verse 17 reminds us that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that through him, the World might be saved.

So, I guess the big question is, Who is Jesus Christ? That is one of the questions of the Catechism, but it is also a question that we have been pondering for some 2000 years.

According to CS Lewis and others, Jesus is either who he says he is, or he is a lunatic, or he is a liar. There is no other option. The claims Jesus makes are so profound, so drastic, so amazing… or crazy… that there is no other option in viewing Jesus.

So people say Jesus was a great teacher.

Jesus was a great moral leader.

They say that he was the founder of a movement.

But nothing more.

Well, Jesus own words contradict these statements.

Yes, Jesus was a great teacher. Read Matthew 5 – 7 and the Sermon on the Mount.

That passage passes as a great moral lesson too.

But, then we get to passages like John 3:16… and make no mistake, read the entire discourse and there is no misunderstanding it… Jesus is claiming to be God incarnate, the Son of God, The Savior of the World to be lifted up on a tree.

In John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.”

Then, He claims more than that… Flip over to John chapter 14.

John 14:1-7

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My 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? And 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. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

These are not things that a mere human can claim unless they are a lunatic or a liar. So, we are left with a decision… is Jesus who he said he was… Lord and Savior, or is he a lunatic or liar? I believe he is our Lord! I also believe he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that is where we begin.

Jesus is the Way…

The way to where? The Father.

When I was in Seminary, a student was debating with me that Jesus never claimed to be the only way to heaven or to God. She went on to say that there are many ways that lead to God…

I quoted this passage to her as proof of Jesus' own words… And her response,

“Well, yes, he said he is the way to the Father, not God.”

I started to respond but then realized that Oxygen is too valuable to waste in a debate when we couldn’t even agree on the foundational beliefs of the faith. I think we clearly established last week as we looked at God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all things, seen and unseen… that God is the Father… that Jesus referenced God as Father, even using the term of endearment, Abba, Daddy. Jesus clearly claimed that he is THE WAY to God the Father… who resides where? In heaven. Then we get to the truth…

Jesus is the Truth…

What truth?

When Jesus stood before Pilate, about to be crucified, He told Pilate that he came to testify to the truth. But Pilate’s question revealed as much as Jesus’s statement. Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

The irony of the question is that Pilate was staring at Truth incarnate… He was in the very presence of God in the flesh… Jesus was the very truth he was asking about.

And here’s the thing… I know it’s cool to argue that truth is relative to the individual and that there is no foundational truth other than what we have constructed.

That’s a part of the Post-Modern deconstructivism that we live in today…

But think of it this way…

To kill someone is wrong. But then the relativist will bring in self-defense, or war as just killing. Let’s talk to our Law Enforcement personnel who have had to use lethal force. Let’s talk to our soldiers who came back from combat having numerous ‘just’ kills.

Actually, don’t talk to them about it unless you have the proper training, or they open up and offer to share with you. Why? Because of the guilt and the pain that they feel having taken a life. Just or not… life is precious.

And for those of you in here today that are still dealing with that reality, know that you are loved… God does not see you as you think you are… shame and guilt are not of God, they have tarnished your own view of yourself… God doesn’t look at you and see what you did, God looks at you and sees who you are, His child, a child that Jesus came to redeem.

Jesus came to replace that shame and guilt with love, his love.

That is truth!

We can relativize the truth all we want, but in the end, there are certain truths that stand regardless of our relativity.

The fact is, Jesus is truth incarnate and he has impacted more lives than any other person to ever have lived… and yes, he lived, there is too much evidence to say otherwise.

Not only is Jesus true, he claimed to be the ultimate truth.

So, Jesus is the Way, Jesus is the Truth, and

Jesus is the life

John 14 is clear, Jesus says, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life… Not a way, and a truth, and a life. Jesus is life. Not only is he life, John 10:10 reminds us that Jesus came that we may have life, abundant life, full life, a complete life that we were created for!

But wait, there’s more!

Turn back to John 1. I tried to pick a verse, but decided I would just read the entire prologue of John.

John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

I’m not going into the exegesis of the Greek here, and I ask you to trust me when I say, John is using a literary technique here to teach against the onslaught of Gnostic thought and defend the faith… in that defense, he uses the Logos – the Word – as Jesus. And, in verse 3-4 he tells us that the Word was present at creation and life itself exists in Him. You don’t believe John, Let’s hear what Paul had to say about it:

Colossians 1:16-17

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Jesus, God the Son, was present at creation and it is through Jesus Christ that all things were created. Our very existence is dependent upon Jesus!

OK, that’s just part of our understanding of Jesus. That is just scratching the surface of Jesus being The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

Sermon Slide

Do you want to get into the story of his birth?

A virgin birth…

Miraculous in every way…

You do know that there is a place you can go, where people have been gathering for 2000 years to remember the miraculous birth of Jesus. It is in Bethlehem. The faithful built a church over it some 1800 years ago. It is the longest-lasting continuously meeting church in the world. The original church was built over the cave in 339 AD and then rebuilt in around 1500.

We can go to the place of Jesus' Birth… We can go to the place where Jesus taught on the hills of Galilee and the steps of the Temple… we can go to the seashore where Jesus met privately with Peter… we can go to the hometown… to see the ruins of Mary’s home… to see the ruins of Cana of Galilee and see where Jesus turned water into wine…

We can go to the places of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection…

Jesus lived and Jesus died. There is no disputing that… Oh, you can dispute it I guess, but to do so would mean that you are willing to ignore the facts. There are numerous people who have set out to disprove the existence of Jesus and the reality of his miraculous birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection.

C. S. Lewis, James Dobson, Lee Stroble are just a few who have set out through different techniques: Journalistic approaches, Legal approaches, and intellectual pursuits. Do you know what happened to all three of those atheists and many others? They realize, not only could they NOT disprove the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, they actually came to believe for themselves. They became apologetics of the faith and evangelists, leading others to the faith.

And that is where we are going to land this plane. There is so much more that could and should be said about Jesus. As John put it at the end of his story of the life of Jesus,

John 21:25

Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.

So, all that is left is for you to decide what you believe. Are you going to follow the facts that lead to faith, or follow your own relativized version of truth that leaves you looking for the truth… the truth that is right in front of you the entire time?

Sermon Slide

Jesus came that you might have life, a beautiful full life, a life you were created for. A life given by God, redeemed by Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection, and a life filled and sustained through the Holy Spirit…. Well, the Holy spirit is a story for another week, next week.

But today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to accept the free gift Jesus offered on the Cross. The gift of the life you were created for…

Would you pray with me?