The Way, The Truth, and The Life John 14:1-6

-It is impossible to have eternal life apart from Jesus Christ

Daniel Gilbert (a psychologist at Harvard), citing a recent (2009) Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, said "that Americans are smiling less and worrying more than they were a year ago, that happiness is down and sadness is up, that we are getting less sleep and smoking more cigarettes, that depression is on the rise."

The real problem is not financial, he said. It’s not that people don’t have enough money. It’s that people don’t know what’s going to happen. Will I have a job next week? What’s ahead in the future for me?

The future seems ominous, or at the very least uncertain, and that uncertainty puts people on edge. Professor Gilbert referred to a Dutch experiment where researchers told one group of people that they would receive 20 strong shocks. The researchers then told a second group that they would receive only three strong shocks along with 17 mild ones, but they wouldn’t know when the strong shocks would come. The results? Subjects in the second group sweated more and experienced faster heart rates. It was the uncertainty that caused their discomfort, not the intensity of the shocks.

Another study showed that colostomy patients who knew that their colostomies would be permanent were happier six months after their procedures than those who were told there might be a chance of reversing their colostomies. Once again, uncertainty caused the unhappiness.

Daniel Gilbert concluded, "An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait...Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty."

I. Jesus is Worthy of our Trust v. 1

In our passage this morning, Jesus is speaking to His disciples during a moment of serious unrest:

He is already told them that He will be crucified

Judas has left to betray Him to the Jewish authorities

Jesus has told Peter that his faith will fail and he will deny Jesus completely

It is a shocking, disheartening, disturbing moment in the life of the disciples of Jesus. What will Jesus have to say to them?

His answer is clear: Do not let your hearts be troubled

On the one hand, this seems impossible, in light of all that is taking place

However, Jesus speaks to their fears with authority

When I tell someone not to be afraid, I do it with a very limited authority over the situation

Jesus speaks as one who has authority over everything they can possibly be afraid of:

Death will be defeated

Our sins are forgiven

Suffering is temporary and purposeful

When Jesus tells us to not be afraid, He does it as someone with all of the authority of God; We can trust in Him

-Never be afraid to trust un an unknown future to a known God.

-Corrie Ten Boom

Romans 8:31–39

[31] What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? [32] He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? [33] Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. [34] Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. [35] Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? [36] As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

[37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. [38] For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, [39] nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (ESV)

II. Jesus is Preparing Us a Place vv. 2-4

On the surface, all of this sounds good, but I think that most of us are wrestling with reality: not everything in this life seems to turn out as it ought to.

While our hope in Christ has a present reality, we cannot sell short its everlasting fulfillment

The best of what Christ has to offer us is not here and now, but is yet to come; you cannot be satisfied here, because you were not made for this life, but the next.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, New York, Macmillan, 1960, p. 119.

2. What will everlasting life look like for us?

Jesus refers to it as His “Father’s House”. This tells us that is owned and under the complete authority over God; there is no stain of sin or death present anymore

Jesus tells us that it has many dwelling places. This is a place for people to share life together with the Father

Jesus is preparing that place for us. He has a plan to bring us there and it is built with us in mind

Jesus is uniting us together with each other as one people with Him as our Lord

3. We have something to look forward to. No matter our circumstance in life, this is our certainty as His people!

"The life of Christianity consists of possessive pronouns" says Martin Luther. It is one thing to say, "Christ is a Saviour"; it is quite another thing to say, "He is my Saviour and my Lord." The devil can say the first; the true Christian alone can say the second. Can you say that and look forward to all that He is preparing?

III. Jesus is the Way to the Father vv. 5-6

Thomas, speaking on behalf of the disciples, still doesn’t get it

Jesus tells them that they know the way to the Father’s house

Thomas makes it clear that he neither knows where that is, nor how to get there!

How are we to get to the Father’s House? We must follow Jesus!

He is the way:

He makes it possible for us to experience life with God because He died for the forgiveness of our sins, reconciling us to God

Further, we have a new life that we gain through His resurrection that we share for all eternity that can never be extinguished

He is the truth:

He fulfills the promises and precepts of the Old Testament and reveals the truth of God to us

Every other teacher or prophet who represents God in any other way is a liar; you can trust Jesus completely

He is the life:

Jesus does not just extend life or point us to life; He has life in Himself and He shares it with us

It is impossible to be in Christ and be dead; death has no claim on Him

There is one very important point that we must not miss in this: He is the only way, the only truth, and the only life

If we are seeking some other way, some other truth, or some other life, it will never take us to the Father’s house

A marshal in Napoleon's army -- a man who was devotedly and enthusiastically attached to him -- was mortally wounded in battle. As the last struggle drew near and he lay dying in his tent, he sent for his chief. Napoleon came. The poor man thought his emperor could do anything. Perhaps he even sought to put him in the place of God. So he earnestly pleaded with his leader to save his life. The emperor sadly shook his head and turned away. But as the dying man felt the cold, merciless hand of death drawing him irresistibly behind the curtain of the unseen world, he was still heard to shriek out, "Save me, Napoleon! Save me!" In the hour of death, that soldier discovered that even the powerful Napoleon could not give him physical life.

Are you ready to stop pursuing all of the other ways and are you ready to follow Jesus?

How do I do that?

By admitting your lostness and repenting of sin and self

By believing in Jesus as your Savior

By committing your life to Him as Lord