The Way The Truth The Life

Introduction

Illustration: Have you ever done one of those word puzzles, where there’s a secret message but all of the letters are replaced with numbers? These puzzles usually give you a key in order to solve them. Depending on the difficulty letter they may spell out exactly what letters correspond to what numbers, or they may only give you a few and leave you to deduce the rest.

Sometimes The Bible can be a little like one of these puzzles. You read a passage and you get something out of it, but then you come to a key passage. A verse or few verses that seem to unlock the deeper meaning of the passage for you. I would argue that our passage for this morning is one of those such passages. Remember we are making our way through John’s Gospel together, slowly, asking what John has to teach us about how to be better disciples who make disciples. This morning we are looking at John 13:21-14:7. Remember that the chapter and verse breaks are not original to John’s gospel, so sometimes the same though continues past a chapter break. So in my study I decided that the first seven verses of chapter 14 belonged with the end of chapter 13. Let’s read together.

John 13:21–14:7 CSB

When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in his spirit and testified, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples started looking at one another—uncertain which one he was speaking about. One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was reclining close beside Jesus. Simon Peter motioned to him to find out who it was he was talking about. So he leaned back against Jesus and asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus replied, “He’s the one I give the piece of bread to after I have dipped it.” When he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son. After Judas ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him, “What you’re doing, do quickly.” None of those reclining at the table knew why he said this to him. Since Judas kept the money-bag, some thought that Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival,” or that he should give something to the poor. After receiving the piece of bread, he immediately left. And it was night. When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so now I tell you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” “Lord,” Simon Peter said to him, “where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.” “Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, a rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times. “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. You know the way to where I am going.” “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

So by this point you may be wondering: Josh, what’s the key verse that unlocks this passage? Well you may be able to guess the verse. It’s the most famous one that comes out of this section, John 14:6

John 14:6 CSB

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I believe that if we take a close look at the surrounding verses we can see how they fit into these three identities of Jesus. Jesus is the way, knowing Him is how you know the Father and how you live in paradise forever, in the rooms He is preparing for us. Jesus is the Truth, and He will always expose the truth even if it makes us uncomfortable and causes us pain like it did with the disciples in this passage. Finally Jesus is the Life, and eternal life of paradise is found in Him, and we get a foretaste of that life in the present when we show love to one another.

And so our structure this morning is simple: The Way. The Truth. The Life.

Let’s start with the first.

The Way

Illustration: Be honest, how many of you would be in big trouble if google maps stopped working tomorrow? Anyone here still know how to use a map and compass? I don’t. I mean, I think maybe I could figure it out but I am far from confident. I do pride myself on one thing though, once I drive somewhere I can almost always drive back. Once you know the way, it’s a lot easier to get where you’re going.

I mean think about this, have you ever been behind a car on the road and they suddenly slow down, and you start to get a little frustrated before it occurs to you, “oh, they might be looking for a house.” When you’re unsure of the way you move more slowly and cautiously. However, once you’ve been to a place a thousand times you’re almost too confident. That’s maybe why a lot of car accidents happen close to home.

A lot of people are searching for a way out there in a much more philosophical sense. Not the way to a particular place like a house or a store, but a way to inner peace. A way to eternal spiritual life. That sort of thing. When you don’t know the way, it’s a lot of cautious exploration and lack of confidence. Yet things are different when you do know the way. Consider these verses at the end of our passage this morning.

John 14:4–7 CSB

You know the way to where I am going.” “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

I tell you something, I think Thomas gets an unfair reputation. The guy did a lot of great things and yet we all remember him as “doubting Thomas.” To his credit, he was honest with Jesus. Haven’t we all pretended to understand something we didn’t really understand out of pride? Thomas had the humility to tell Jesus that He didn’t get it. And it makes sense that He didn’t. Jesus hasn’t really explained it yet. They don’t know what the way is.

But hold up, didn’t Jesus just say that they knew the way? He did, and He was right. So how can Jesus be telling the truth when He says they know the way but also I’m telling the truth when I say they didn’t know what the way is? That’s because Jesus is the way. They know Jesus, so they know the way. Even if they don’t know yet that He is the way, they know Him.

Knowing Jesus means that we know the Way to the Father. He is the path that guides us to inner peace, eternal life, all those things we have been searching for, for all of human history. Notice Jesus doesn’t say, ‘I know the way,’ or even, ‘I’ll show you the way.’ He says, ‘I am the way.’ Not a way—the way. There’s no path to the Father apart from Him. This is an exclusive claim in a world that doesn’t like exclusive truths. Yet how can a person be the way? Shouldn’t we have expected the way to be a path, a certain method of living, or steps towards God, or something like that?

But Jesus is not those things. Jesus is a person. He is God, and He is man, but primarily He’s a person. That’s because coming to the Father isn’t about living life right. It isn’t about being Holy enough. It isn’t about keeping the law well enough. It isn’t about following ritual precisely. It’s about knowing Jesus.

This is because the way He saves us is not by making us good enough, but by being good enough and paying the penalty for our bad. When we come to Jesus, when we are born again, we are covered by His blood. The Bible says we are “clothed” with Christ, a metaphor for His righteousness covering us completely. Galatians 3:27 “For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” When the Father looks at us, He doesn’t see a sinner. He sees His son, the sacrifice that Jesus paid. And that is the way to Him.

So my friends let us remember that as Christians we are not keepers of a secret path. We don’t have just the right rituals. We don’t have just the right rules. We don’t have just the right method. We have Jesus. Only Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He is the way. So then to reach the Father, you need to know Him, and by know Him I mean really know Him not just know of Him. That’s the way. He is the way. So the question we need to ask ourselves this morning isn’t just ‘do I know about Jesus?’ but ‘do I know Him?’ Because if you know Him—you know the way.

The Truth

Illustration: Watching TV drama can be really frustrating for me. This is because I feel like 90% of the problems could be solved by people just telling the truth to other people. How much time could be saved if people were just honest on these shows? Yet that’s pretty easy to say from the couch, isn’t it? Honesty can be a lot more difficult when you’re facing real people with relationships you care about.

That’s because sometimes honesty hurts. It’s a good hurt, like the pain of medical treatment, but it’s still hurt. It can be tempting to avoid the smaller hurt, but then lies tend to snowball into much bigger hurt down the line. Jesus doesn’t mess around with lies. He is the truth. This means that He is always honest, even when it comes to uncomfortable things. This is clear in the things that He reveals in our passage this morning. Let’s look at verses 21-27 of chapter 13.

John 13:21–27 CSB

When Jesus had said this, he was troubled in his spirit and testified, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples started looking at one another—uncertain which one he was speaking about. One of his disciples, the one Jesus loved, was reclining close beside Jesus. Simon Peter motioned to him to find out who it was he was talking about. So he leaned back against Jesus and asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus replied, “He’s the one I give the piece of bread to after I have dipped it.” When he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot’s son. After Judas ate the piece of bread, Satan entered him. So Jesus told him, “What you’re doing, do quickly.”

Jesus is exposing a painful truth here. Judas is not a sincere believer. In fact, he is a traitor who is about to turn Jesus over to the authorities. I’m sure no one at the table was happy to hear that one of them couldn’t be trusted. I mean, how would we feel if Jesus told us one of the people in our church was going to betray us? It would hurt. But Jesus doesn’t avoid truth because it hurts.

And Judas isn’t the only one to get some uncomfortable truth in this passage. Peter is also on the receiving end later, in John 13:37-38

John 13:37–38 CSB

“Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, a rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times.

How Peter’s heart must have broken at these words. Yet they are the truth, aren’t they? We’ll read later on about Peter doing this very thing, and Judas certainly lived up to Jesus’ words about betrayal. Jesus is the piercing light that exposes the deeds we do in darkness. Remember we’ve talked a few times about this being the reason many people rejected Him. They didn’t want the truth. They wanted to keep their lies. They were afraid of the small hurt so they kept the bigger one, trading temporary discomfort for eternal punishment.

If we want to follow Jesus and live the lives that He has for us than we need to be prepared for Him to expose us. That’s one of the painful parts of discipleship. I remember at summer camp we had a skit about Jesus using a chisel to take away the broken parts of our lives, and the person playing the guy getting chiseled was of course feeling pain. That’s the good pain though, the pain that makes us more like Jesus. We need to have the heart of David when he prayed in Psalm 139:23-24

Psalm 139:23–24 CSB

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.

We should not only welcome Jesus’ truth, but seek it. Knowing that we might not like what He finds there. And then we need to face it and change. This is what it means to follow Jesus, the one who is in His very nature truth. So we should reflect and ask ourselves, is there something Jesus is exposing in us even now? Is there a part of ourselves that we are trying in vain to keep hidden from Him? And if the answer is yes than we need to let Jesus shine a light on it and confess it to Him so that He can make us new and help us grow.

The Life

Illustration: Now to be clear, I just want to say that I love my job and have no intention of going anywhere, but have you ever seen one of those articles about how you can work as a “custodian” on a private island? They will pay you to live on a tropical island. That’s pretty cool. That’s the kind of thing you’d say “That’s the life,” about.

Or how many of you have seen a post on social media saying “would you live in this cabin in the woods completely alone and off the grid for a million dollars” and thought, “I’d do it for much less?” Maybe that’s more of your “that’s the life” kind of moment.

Maybe it’s just the whole “grass is greener on the other side” thing turned up to eleven, but it can be easy to fantasize about a better life. I wonder if it’s part of our design to long for what we’re missing. Consider that God created mankind for a perfect world. Before the fall Adam and Eve lived in paradise. Maybe now we all live with that ache to return to paradise. Now that truly is “the life,” and there’s only one way to get there. Let’s take alook at the end of chapter 13 and beginning of 14.

John 13:31–14:3 CSB

When he had left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so now I tell you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” “Lord,” Simon Peter said to him, “where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later.” “Lord,” Peter asked, “why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly I tell you, a rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times. “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.

Take a moment to mditate on that last paragraph. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.

That’s the life. It sort of casts a different light on Jesus saying in our key verse this morning that He is the life. We get life in Him, eternal life. And not just any eternal life. Many stories have been written about how terrible it would be to live forever in the world as it is, and I agree with that premise. The eternal life that Jesus offers is in the New Earth, a paradise beyond compare.

Just imagine nothing else changes except that no one ever does anything wrong. Living a life of being able to safely trust literally everyone. Never needing to worry about theft, violence, or deceit ever again. That alone sounds amazing. But then add in that there won’t even be natural disasters. There will be no death or suffering of any kind. An eternal bliss in perfect immortal bodies surrounded by other perfect people in the presence of a perfect God. That’s a lot of ‘perfects’—but that’s what Jesus promises: perfection in every direction.

Isn’t that something to look forward to? Here’s the thing though, Jesus isn’t just life in the future. He doesn’t just exist as a reward after death. We don’t have to wait until the end of days to start living “the life.” In the here and now we can access a foretaste of paradise and bliss. How? By following Jesus’ new command here.

Loving one another. Every time we love one another the way Jesus loves us we create a little bit of paradise on earth. We access “the life” that Jesus wants for us, both in the fulfilling feeling of showing love to others and in the warmth and happiness of receiving love for others. I know we all long for this, even though we may struggle at times to really live up to it. I do.

But if living the Christian life was just about getting into paradise than God would take us the moment we’re converted. Why wait, if that was the case? But instead we continue living to show love. And through that love we not only enjoy a foretaste of paradise with one another, we also give a preview of that life to everyone around us. That’s why Jesus says that they will know we are His followers by our love for one another. We should love each other so well that others look on thinking, “I want that. I want to be part of that community.

So are we living “the life” of Jesus today, FCC? Even if we are doing a lot to show love to one another, we can always improve. So if the world is watching—and they are—what will they see in us? Will they see a people marked by ordinary niceness, or extraordinary love? Love that makes people hungry to be a part of it? Let’s make a pledge this morning to know Jesus so well that His love rubs off on us. That we can learn from Him how to love one another well, and move His promise of life from a future reality to an “already but not yet reality,” one we experience now but long to experience fully in the future.

Conclusion

So then I think I’ve made my case about John 14:6 being the key to understanding the rest of this passage. Although there are a few different angles you could look at this passage from, it seems to me that there is a clear theme that knowing Jesus is the only way to know God, that there is no other path method or system of beliefs that can get us there. It also seems clear that Jesus is the truth, and He exposes the truth even when it might be uncomfortable or even painful in order to bring us into the light. Finally we see that He is the life, that His eternal life in paradise is waiting for us, but that we can have a foretaste of it even now if we love one another the way that He has called us to.

Really the overarching theme of these three I am statements together with all the other I am statements of John that we’ve already looked at, is that Jesus is the key to everything we need and want. Even the things that we don’t realize we need, or never thought we wanted. For all the philosphical questions, the thinking and the striving, the searching and the desperation, He is the answer. So if I could give one summary application that tops the rest it would be this: Know Jesus. Beyond all the things we’re supposed to do and believe there is a relationship at the heart of Christianity with our Saviour. That’s the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Let us pray.