The Way, the Truth, and the Life

We all long for Home

What defines HOME?

Where you would want to be buried?

Where you grew up?

Where you live right now?

Where you spent most of your time?

The Music we listen to may be helpful:

In 1982, Bruce Springsteen recorded a song called “My Father’s House”

It is a slow, melodic song about searching for his Father’s House.

At a concert in 1990, Springsteen introduced the song saying that for years here got in the habit of regularly driving through his old neighborhoods, by the houses he grew up in.

It is quite a depressing song.

OTHERS

For Lynard Skynard is it “that sweet state west of Georgia”

For Ozzy it is where “mama is…” (Mama I’m coming home)

For John Denver it is that “Mountain Momma in West Virginia down those long country roads.”

For Miranda Lambert it is “the house that built her…”

For John Mellencamp it is that “small town where he grew up…”

For Motley Crew it is that place just down that “long and winding road…they are on there way”

For Bon Jovi it is “the only place where they call you their own” and “who says you can’t go home” right?

For Shania Twain it is her escape in from a hard day at work where her honey evidently is quite a guy…

Maybe our friends from Audio Adrenaline had it right, maybe it is a BIG BIG HOUSE WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF ROOMS…?

It is a slow, melodic song about searching for his Father’s House.

At a concert in 1990, Springsteen introduced the song saying that for years here got in the habit of regularly driving through his old neighborhoods, by the houses he grew up in.

It's a big big house With lots and lots a room A big big table With lots and lots of food A big big yard Where we can play football A big big house Its my Father's house

“

“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” (Mere Christianity, 138).

“Something bad happened and you're going back thinking that you can make it right again. Something went wrong and you keep going back to see if you can fix it, and somehow make it right.”

“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” (Mere Christianity, 138).

Maybe our friends from Audio Adrenaline had it right, maybe it is a BIG BIG HOUSE WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF ROOMS…?

“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).

We are products of our DESTINATION.

We all long for HOME

You are a product of your DESTINATION.

However you define HOME determines how you live your life.

The values you live by, the principles you use to make decisions, and reason you live are determined by a vision (clear or not) of what you believe to be “HOME” or “HEAVEN”

If HOME is success, then work, money, power, prestige, accolades…define the pursuits of your life.

If HOME is love, then romance, acceptance, gratification from another…define the pursuits of your life.

If HOME is comfort and entertainment, then houses, toys, experiences, and the joys of life define the pursuits of your life.

Regardless you are on a treadmill continually working to get HOME but going no where.

Jesus in verse 1-4 is resetting our destination.

Your heart is longing for HOME, the HOME He is making for you.

Thomas is not a bad dude, he just asks the questions and says the things everyone else is thinking. “Jesus, what are you talking about? We don’t know the way because we don’t even know the destination.”

So Jesus reintroduces them to HIMSELF.

Jesus is the WAY HOME.

Thomas you can’t get HOME by being a good fisherman or carpenter

Only through Jesus are we able to get HOME.

The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel according to John 3. Jesus as the Way to the Father (14:5–14)

He is himself the Saviour (4:42), the Lamb of God (1:29, 34), the one who so speaks that those who are in the graves hear his voice and come forth (5:28–29). He so mediates God’s truth and God’s life that he is the very way to God (cf. de la Potterie, p. 938), the one who alone can say, No-one comes to the Father except through me.

You can’t get HOME by following all the rules and

Belief in Jesus is the ONLY way to God

This rubs us wrong often because we want some skin in the game

I did this or didn’t do this so yes Jesus is the WAY, but only because I did something.

The goes against the idea that Jesus is one of many ways.

There are multiple ways to the summit of Everest, but the mountain is always the same.

Jesus is the ONLY way HOME

Jesus is the STANDARD of TRUTH.

He is the light of the World that shines light into darkness.

Only in Jesus can we see things for what the REALLY are.

The purpose of life, the reality of brokenness, the definition of satisfaction and love,

In him there is nothing false, nothing misleading, and nothing fake or uncertain. 

Each of us are capable of knowing truth, but none of us can claim to actually be truth. 

There are too many things we don’t know, and too many things we get wrong throughout our lives.

Each of us are striving to find truth or to define truth for ourselves, and it leads to radical individualism

Matt Chandler shares about Trans-Humans (people becoming robots. Cy-borgs)

If we say they are crazy the we become bigots.

Jesus is the SOURCE and CENTER of LIFE.

This life is not our ultimate goal and does not encompass the entirety of who we are. 

This life is a mere drop in the ocean of eternity and serves as the starting block on the marathon that leads us to our goal of eternal life. 

We can slow it down, we can spend time money and energy working to fight against it, but we can’t stop it from marching forward. 

Jesus is teaching us that what we are to really be concerned with is not this life, but with eternal life.  The Scriptures speak often of the life to come after our life on this earth, and as we follow the voice of our shepherd, we can grasp what that eternal life is in the here and now. We can live this life in such a way that we are not chasing things that don’t last but chasing the things that do last and have eternal significance.

Jesus is teaching us that what we are to really be concerned with is not this life, but with eternal life. 

The Scriptures speak often of the life to come after our life on this earth, and as we follow the voice of our shepherd, we can grasp what that eternal life is in the here and now.

We can live this life in such a way that we are not chasing things that don’t last but chasing the things that do last and have eternal significance.

“Without the way, there is no going. Without the truth, there is no knowing. Without the life, there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow, the truth which thou must believe, the life for which thou must hope.” Thomas à Kempis

Do not be TROUBLED, you KNOW the WAY.

John 14:1 ESV

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

The exclusivity of Christ is a stumbling block to the world.

Millions and millions of people are affected if Jesus truly is the ONLY WAY.

We frame these words as an proclamation of judgment, but they are an invitation HOME.

Luke 14:12–24 ESV

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” 15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’ ”

Jesus begins our passage by comforting his followers.

Jesus begins this discourse by comforting his followers.

Jesus begins this discourse by comforting his followers.

Jesus knows what the next days will bring His friends, so He brings words of comfort.

Even though the disciples missed the meaning until after the resurrection, let the words of Jesus bring comfort to your heart.

Our troubled spirit is in response to our longing to be home.

Your destination is either wrong or unreachable using the means you have chosen to get there.

Jesus is the Way Home, He is the True Home, and He is the “best life”.

He is not calling you to a life of cold, joyless obedience and conformity.

He is INVITING you to embrace the true rest of HOME, Home with your creator.

Freedom from the pursuits of this sin-stained world that have left us broken and lost.

There is deep and abiding comfort in knowing that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Do not let your hearts be troubled:

We will beg, barrow, steal...buy, sell, trade...we will work harder and give more to find Home, but Jesus is home...

We will beg, barrow, steal, buy, sell, trade...we will work harders and give more to find Home, but Jesus is home...

John 14:11 ESV

11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

jn 14

Embrace a new reality and the glory of the kingdom of God

We can expect greater things as we follow Jesus and share a closeness that leads to confident prayers.

jn 14 11

We can expect greater things as we follow Jesus and share a closeness that leads to confident prayers.

John 14:12 ESV

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

We can expect greater things as we follow Jesus and share a closeness that leads to confident prayers.

John 14:13–14 ESV

13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Oh that we might embrace the incredible blessings we have received in Christ Jesus.

If you are restless and weary today the words of Jesus should be sweet to your ears.

He is inviting you HOME

He is inviting you to find rest in His finished work

He is inviting you to freedom from striving to prove yourself worthy.

He is the way, not your good deeds, not you hard work, not your religious actions, not your pursuits of pleasure or self-gratification.

He is the truth, not the theories and sales pitches we hear all day long.

He is the life, not the dreams you made as a little girl or little boy, or the ideas you get from them movies.

Come to Jesus, He is the way HOME.