THIS IS THE WAY

Week 1: Jesus Is the Way  |  John 14:6-7; Acts 9:1-2; Matthew 5:1-2

INTRODUCTION

What did we do before our iPhone maps or Google maps that are built into our cars?

There are moments in most of our lives when we realize that information alone isn't enough. You can have every fact, every map, every app on your phone — and still be completely, utterly lost. What you need in that moment isn't more data. You need someone who actually knows the way.

That's where I want to begin today.

Before followers of Jesus were ever called "Christians" — before there were denominations or doctrines or church buildings — they were known by a single phrase. In the book of Acts…

Acts 9:2 NIV

“…and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.

We read that Saul of Tarsus, who would later become the Apostle Paul, was hunting down men and women who belonged to "the Way." Not "the religion." Not "the church." The Way.

That word carries everything. A way is not just a belief — it's a path you walk.

It's a direction your whole life moves.

And from the very beginning, following Jesus was understood not as subscribing to a set of religious ideas, but as choosing to walk a specific road with a specific person.

Here's my concern — and the reason we are talking about this in this season: somewhere along the way, we lost the plot.

We've traded the Way for a religion.

We've traded the person of Jesus for a set of cultural expectations.

We've domesticated the most radical, world-upending figure in human history into something comfortable and manageable and, frankly, a little boring.

Over the next six weeks, we're going back. Back to Jesus. Back to the Way. And we're going to ask the most important question any of us can ask: what does it actually mean to follow Him?

Let me pray, and then let's dig in.

[PRAYER]

I. THE WAY HAS A NAME: JESUS

Jesus Claimed Exclusive Access to the Father (John 14:6)

Turn with me to John, Chapter 14. Jesus is in the upper room. It's the night before His crucifixion. His disciples are confused and anxious — they can feel something heavy coming, and they don't know what to do with it. Thomas speaks up and says, essentially, "Lord, we don't even know where you're going — how can we know the way?"

And Jesus says this:

John 14:6–7 NIV

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.”

Now, we need to sit with that statement for a moment, because it is one of the most remarkable claims ever made in human history.

He does not say, "I will show you the way."

He says, "I AM the way."

There's a world of difference between a guide and the road itself. A guide can leave you. A guide can get distracted or mislead you. But if Jesus IS the way — not pointing to the destination, but embodying it — then to know Him is to already be on the path.

And He goes further: "the truth, and the life."

Truth isn't a doctrine.

Life isn't a program.

Both are bound up in a person — this person, Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking. This sounds exclusive. It sounds narrow. Because — it is.

But I want to gently challenge the assumption that exclusive means arrogant. Jesus isn't saying "I'm for some people and not others." He's saying the opposite. He's saying there is a way to the Father, and I am opening that door for everyone. That is an invitation, not a restriction.

For those of you who are still exploring faith today, please hear me: this is not a threat. It's an offer. Jesus is not guarding a door to keep you out. He IS the door — and it's open.

Jesus Is Personal, Not Philosophical (John 14:7)

What strikes me about this exchange in John 14 is what Jesus doesn't do. He doesn't hand Thomas a theological treatise. He doesn't say, "Let me explain the five principles of the kingdom." He says, effectively: know me. Follow me. That's the answer.

Biblical scholar Merrill Tenney put it this way:

"Jesus' solution to perplexity is not a recipe; it is a relationship with him." Merrill Tenney

This gets at something central to who we are as a church. Our deepest purpose — what we mean when we talk about being "Deeply Rooted" — begins with this: being WITH Jesus. Not performing for Jesus. Not managing your behavior to Jesus. Not even serving Jesus. Being WITH Him.

Everything else flows from that. The doing. The becoming. The bearing fruit. It all starts in the simple, daily, sometimes mundane choice to be with Him.

When we lose that — when Christianity becomes a cultural identity rather than a living relationship — we lose everything that makes it actually work.

II. THE WAY REQUIRES CONFESSION

Proverbs 28:13 NIV

Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

We Must Acknowledge the Church's Failures

I want to do something that might feel uncomfortable right now. I want to acknowledge, openly and honestly, that the church has not always looked like Jesus. In fact, sometimes it has looked like the exact opposite.

The Crusades.

Slavery.

Colonialism.

The sexual abuse scandals that have scarred thousands of survivors and shaken millions of believers.

These are not footnotes — they are chapters in the story of the church, and we do not get to skip them.

Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most transformational leaders of the twentieth century, once said:

"I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Mahatma Gandhi

That quote stings.

It's supposed to.

Because for many people in our city, in our world, that's exactly where they are.

They haven't rejected Jesus — they've rejected what they've seen done in His name. And honestly? I understand that.

For those of you who are not yet followers of Jesus — who are here today maybe for the first time, or out of curiosity, or because someone dragged you along — I want to be clear: Jesus is not responsible for what has been done in His name any more than a general is responsible for crimes committed by soldiers who went rogue. You deserve to see Jesus as He actually is, not through the lens of His worst representatives.

And for those of us who do follow Jesus — the question we have to sit with is harder: Where have WE failed to reflect Him? Not the church in the abstract. Not Christians throughout history. Us. You and me. Where have our lives, our words, our politics, our prejudices made someone say, "If that's what Christianity is, I want nothing to do with it"?

That's a confession worth making.

We Must Distinguish Jesus from Cultural Christianity

Here's a warning I want to offer from Scripture and from history: Christianity has a persistent tendency to get hijacked.

Have you ever been to a Build-A-Bear Workshop? You walk in, choose your animal, choose its stuffing, choose its outfit, add a little heart with a wish — and you walk out with something custom-made to your liking. It's adorable. It's also a pretty good picture of what we sometimes do with Jesus.

We take the Jesus of the New Testament — the one who touched lepers, ate with traitors, forgave prostitutes, rebuked religious leaders, and died between criminals — and we dress Him up to look like us. We give Him our politics. Our cultural preferences. Our comfort levels. Our blind spots. And we end up with a Jesus who is, conveniently, always on our side about everything.

That Jesus is a stuffed animal. He is not the Son of God.

N.T. Wright, one of the most important New Testament scholars of our time, wrote something that I find both thrilling and haunting:

"Jesus — the Jesus we might discover if we really looked! — is larger, more disturbing, more urgent than we — than the church! — had ever imagined.

We have successfully managed to hide behind other questions and to avoid the huge, world-shaking challenge of Jesus's central claim and achievement.

We have reduced the kingdom of God to private piety, the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience, and Easter itself to a happy, escapist ending after a sad, dark tale.

Piety, conscience, and ultimate happiness are important, but not nearly as important as Jesus himself."

N.T. Wright

Let me say that first portion again. "Larger. More disturbing. More urgent." That's the Jesus of the Gospels.

Not safe.

Not manageable.

Not a mascot for our preferred political party or our preferred lifestyle.

One of the great strengths of Christianity — something genuinely beautiful about our faith — is that it has no single geography, no required culture, no default ethnicity or nationality. It meets people where they are. It crosses every border.

But that strength comes with a vulnerability: when the church roots itself too deeply in a particular culture, it can start to look more like that culture than like Christ. Christianity becomes militaristic, or hyper-political, or legalistic, or just indistinguishable from the surrounding world. And when that happens, we've lost the plot.

The Way is not American Christianity. The Way is not progressive Christianity or conservative Christianity. The Way is Jesus — and our only job is to follow Him closely enough that our lives start to look like His.

III. THE WAY IS A LIFESTYLE, NOT JUST A BELIEF

Following Involves Imitation

Let's look at one more passage. Matthew 5, verses 1 and 2:

Matthew 5:1–2 NIV

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.

Two small details in these verses matter enormously.

First: Jesus "went up on a mountainside." This is not accidental. Matthew wants his Jewish readers to hear the echo of Moses going up Sinai. Moses received the Law. Jesus is about to give a new kind of teaching — not a replacement for the Law, but a fulfillment of it. A deeper, more demanding, more beautiful picture of what life in God's kingdom looks like.

Second: He "sat down." That was the posture of a Jewish rabbi delivering authoritative teaching. When a rabbi sat to speak, it meant: listen carefully. What comes next is important. This isn't casual conversation — this is the shape of the Way.

And then for the next several chapters, Jesus describes life in His kingdom — the Beatitudes, the ethics of the kingdom, the way we treat enemies and money and neighbors and God. It's radical. It challenges both the religious establishment of His day AND the secular assumptions of ours.

Here's what I want us to understand: the Sermon on the Mount is not a list of rules for earning God's favor. It's a description of what people look like when they're actually following Jesus. It's the shape of a life shaped by the Way.

Following Jesus means imitating Jesus.

Not perfectly.

Not immediately.

But intentionally, progressively, over the course of a whole lifetime.

Following Requires Community

Notice who's present in that scene on the mountain. Jesus goes up — and His disciples follow. They come to Him. This is not a solo expedition.

From its very beginning, the Way was communal.

You cannot find a single example in the New Testament of a follower of Jesus who was living in complete isolation from other believers. The earliest disciples traveled together, ate together, suffered together, served together. The church in Acts shared everything — meals, homes, resources, grief, joy.

We live in a culture that has decided personal spirituality is the highest form of spirituality. "I'm spiritual but not religious." "I can connect with God on my own — I don't need church." I understand the sentiment. The church has sometimes given people good reasons to feel that way.

But that's not the Way. The Way requires community. Not because church is the price you pay for being a Christian. But because you cannot become who Jesus is calling you to be in isolation. You need people who will speak truth when you can't hear it yourself. You need people who will carry you when you can't walk. You need people who will let you carry them, because giving is part of the Way too.

Community is one of the deep roots of our life together as a church. And it's not optional equipment. It's load-bearing.

CONCLUSION

We've covered a lot of ground this morning. Let me bring it home.

Two thousand years ago, before there were denominations, before there were creeds and councils and catechisms — before there were church buildings and programs and Sunday school curricula — there were people who were simply known as followers of the Way.

They followed a person.

They imitated His life.

They carried His mission.

They loved each other.

And they turned the ancient world upside down.

That's what we're being called back to.

Not a more efficient religious program.

Not a better-curated spiritual experience.

Not a brand of Christianity that makes us more comfortable or more culturally acceptable.

We're being called to follow Jesus. To let Him be the Way, the Truth, and the Life — not just in what we say we believe, but in how we actually live.

So let me close with two questions. I'm going to ask you to sit with one of them honestly this week.

The first is for those of you who are still exploring. Maybe you've been burned by the church. Maybe Jesus has always seemed too exclusive, or too demanding, or too tied up with things that put you off.

Would you be willing, over the next few weeks, to look past the failures of Christians and actually look at Jesus?

Not Christianity as a cultural product — but Jesus of Nazareth, as He appears in the Gospels.

Would you be willing to consider that He might actually be who He claimed to be?

The second question is for those of us who already call ourselves followers of Jesus. And it's the harder question:

Have you settled for Christianity without Christ? Have you inherited a religion but drifted from a relationship? Have you built your faith around the right vocabulary and the right behavior and the right tribe — but somewhere along the way, lost sight of the person you're actually supposed to be following?

If the answer is yes — to any part of that — this series is for you. Because the invitation is still open. He is still the Way. And it's never too late to come back to it.

Let's pray.