The Way
Notes
Transcript
Last week we opened this 3 part series based out of John 14:6-7 with Priscilla. She dove into The Truth. That to know Jesus is to know THE TRUTH. There are several things this world wants to pass off as truths when in reality they are not.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Some years back Oprah, in a heated discussion with the audience, proclaimed “there are many paths to God.” What a statement right. But that is something that many believe. As if God was a Reese’s Cup, “No wrong way to eat a Reese’s.” There are even some that say you just have to be a good enough person. Though, I do ask, How good is good enough? Something I want us to think about is this thought: To know Jesus is to know the way.
How Many Ways?
How Many Ways?
Like I had mentioned earlier, Oprah had said that there are many ways to God. That the several religions in this world lead you to the one and the same God, they just look different. That God of the Bible is one and the same as the other God’s and the prophets and teachers from the others have the same god in mind. But when we read scripture we see that there is only one true and living God, and there is only one mediator, Jesus Christ. The way is Jesus.
This is a steadfast truth today. In a time when truth has become a subjective reality, we have this objective truth from the Truth. This is our hope. As sure as God is unchanging, this truth is unchanging. To know Jesus is to know the Way.
In Genesis 3 after the fall we read God not just declaring punishment for the breaking of the first covenant, but He pronounces the coming of someone who will restore communion.
In Romans 3:21 we read that Jesus was testified to by the law and the prophets. In psalm 72 we read about the truly righteous king who is to come, who will rule rightly and with great compassion.
In Isaiah 53 we read of the messiah who will be like the sheep, led to slaughter. That He is a suffering servant.
In Micah 5 we read of the offshoot of Jessy, a son of David, who will reconcile a kingdom to Himself.
The Old Testament is full of references to Jesus, and this is something that Jesus Himself taught the disciples. The road, or the way, to Emmaus.
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
God declared of ONE, not many, who will come and reconcile the world to Himself, This is Jesus.
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
There is only one way. There is only one way. Jesus, and faith in His Life, death and resurrection. NOt faith in other gods, not faith in the universe or nature, not in Zodiac signs, much less faith in yourself and your works.
You Just Have to be A Good Person.
You Just Have to be A Good Person.
This something I hear often. This is something I hear from Christians and non-Christians alike. It is a philosophy that permeates our country and our churches here in the states. You just have to be good enough, you just have to work hard enough. Be generous, kind, loving, enough of a good person in the eyes of those around you that God will accept you on the basis of your merit.
In Romans 3:11-18, Paul compiles 5 Psalms, a proverb and a bit from Isaiah to substantiate this point, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23.
He spends chapter 2 and the first chunk of chapter 3 building to this point.
He says that in nature we see the glory of God in His creation and that preaches of a creator who is powerful and righteous, that we have what is right and what is wrong instilled on hearts, so as to be condemned by what we see and what we know. Paul continues on to teach that the Jew to the same extent has the law and the prophets that tell him explicitly about God and His power and glory and goodness. And both the unlearned, unbelieving and the Jew are held to the same law.
The Ten Commandments show us whats expected of us. The ultimate rule is perfection, Not being good enough.
For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”
Paul is saying that if we were to rely on being good enough, then we will be cursed by our short comings. We are to live by faith and not by our works, though as a believer our works speak of the one in whom we have faith, our salvation does not rely on them.
But, as condemning and as scary as this might seem, there is hope here!
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
We are brought to God by Jesus. It is His perfect sacrifice that has made a way for us to be adopted by God the Father.
Jesus is not a way, but the Way. Our good works cannot save us. What is something that is said often? “I am only Human.” or “to error is human.” If these statements are true, how could we ever be good enough. If this were true than the law would’ve been just fine. But it is not! Jesus life, death and resurrection were necessary to be made acceptable before God.
Gardner C. Taylor
When Jesus died between a sorrowing heaven and a sinning earth and stayed there until it was over, that tree became the tree of our salvation.
Our Hope
Our Hope
This is our hope, that by knowing Jesus, we know the way. That by faith in Christ we can rest from the working, that He is our Sabbath here and today. That He is the one that calls the broken hearted, needy, utterly incapable to Himself and never lets us go. We have a hope in Jesus Christ. Not just a hope, The Hope; not just a way, but the Way. He calls the weary to himself and gives us rest. We are free in Christ.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil,
where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.
Now what?
Now what?
Unbeliever, The call is here, believe in The one and only way, the only one who died for your sins and make you acceptable before the Father, the one who lived for you, the one who resurrected to give you eternal life. He is the one and only way to the father.
Believer, remember your God as He sustains you and carries you to glory. That through Jesus we have the one and only way.
Take the world, but give me Jesus,
All its joys are but a name;
But His love abideth ever,
Through eternal years the same
Take the world, but give me Jesus,
Sweetest comfort of my soul;
With my Savior watching over me,
I can sing though billows roll