God's Self-Revelation

"God's Self-Revelation -- I AM the Way the Truth and the Life"

Text: John 14:1-11 - Date: January 9, 2005

Prayer for illumination: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight; 0 Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. AMEN
   This morning we pick up where we left off before Advent. This will be the fourth sermon in our series of five with the theme, “God’s Self-Revelation: The I AM passages in the Gospel of John. Today we consider Jesus’ statement, I AM the Way the Truth and the Life. Jesus begins this text, saying, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me (14:1)." In a very short time life for the disciples was going to fall in. Their world was going to collapse in chaos around them. Jesus is giving the disciples what they will need to face their uncertain days -- those days when Jesus is arrested, crucified and dead. He is giving them hope for a future that, frankly, the disciples have no earthly ideas about. But, Jesus knows. And so, he says to them, “trust in God; trust also in me.”
   Then Jesus goes on to teach them about the coming Kingdom and the place that is being prepared for them -- and their ancestors as well as their descendants in the faith. In this passage, we learn of Jesus’ honesty. “If it were not so, I would have told you.” Do you think that this close to Jesus’ suffering and death, he is going to resort to “pulling the disciples legs” about things that matter? Absolutely not! Jesus is speaking very plainly to his followers of what is coming to them; he taught them clearly that to be a disciple may mean saying good-bye to the comforts of this world. He told them of the persecution, the hatred -- even the penalties that they would have to bear. He told them of the cross which they must carry. He was not a leader who tried to bribe people with promises of an easy way; his method was to honestly challenge them into greatness.
   This text also teaches us something about the function of Jesus. Jesus said, "I am going to prepare a place for you." One of the great thoughts of the New Testament is that Jesus goes on in front for us to follow. He opens up a way so that we may follow in his steps. Jesus Christ is our "point man." I don't know if they used this term to describe "the man out front" but they did in Viet Nam. Viet Nam veterans certainly know the role of the "point man" for the point man lead the way for the rest of the troops to follow. The point man had his life on the line as it were for the others who would follow. When Jesus says, "I am going to prepare a place for you", Jesus is our point man.
   This text also tells us of the ultimate triumph of Jesus. Jesus say, “I am going to prepare a place for you . I will come back and take you with me so you may also be where I am. I am coming again.” Here Jesus speaks of his second coming. The first being his birth and the second, on the last day when he comes back to welcome all who trust in him to join the other saints gone before us to live and dwell with God, forever. While I have just “scratched slightly beneath the surface’ of these three little verses, you can see they are full of insight of our life to come.
   And then He says, “You know the way to the place where I am going.” You see, the disciples still missed it. They still did not yet understand. He had told them that he was going to the Father who had sent him, and with Whom he was One, but the did not understand what he was saying to them. Even less did they understand the way by which Jesus was going, for that way was the way of the cross. The disciples were in fact a bewildered lot! There stood among the disciples, one man who would never say that he understood what he did not understand, and that was Thomas -- the one we know as ‘Doubting Thomas.” He was far to honest to be satisfied with any vague pious expressions. Thomas had to be sure. So he expressed his doubts and his failure to understand, and the wonderful thing is that it was the question of a doubting man which provoked one the greatest things Jesus ever said. Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (Pause) Friends, no one ever need be ashamed of his or her doubts, for it is amazingly and blessedly true that the one who seeks will in the end find.
   It is at this point -- in the midst of confusion and doubt -- that Jesus said, "I AM the way, the Truth, and the Life." This is a great saying for us to hear; it would be still greater to a Jew who heard it for the first time. In it Jesus took three of the great basic conceptions of Jewish religion, and made an incredible claim that in him all three found their full realization; Jesus IS the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
   Jesus said, "I AM the Way". The Jews talked much about the way in which a person must walk and the ways of God. Remember the words Moses spoke to Israel after he had received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Horeb, "So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you. (Deut 5:33)" Or, recall David's words of Psalm 27, "Teach me your way, O Lord; lead me in a straight path." The Jews knew much about the way to God in which a person must walk. And Jesus said, "I AM the way." Walk with Christ, for He is THE Way to God. He is the way to the place the He has been prepared for us.
   Jesus also said, "I AM the Truth". Again, the Psalms are full of verses where the people are called to walk in the truth or to live in the truth. Many people have told us the truth, but no one has embodied it. There is one all imnportant thing about moral truth. A person’s character does not really affect his teaching of geometry or astromomy of Latin verbs. But, if a person proposes to teach moral truth, his character makes all the differance in the world. An adulterer who teaches the necessity of purity, a miserly person who teaches the value of generosity, an embittered person who teaches the beauty of love, is bound to be ineffective. Moral truth cannot be conveyed solely in words; it must be conveyed in example. And that is precisely where the greatest human teacher must fall down. No one teacher has ever embodied the truth he taught -- except Jesus. Many a person could say, “I have taught you the truth.” Only Jesus could say, "I AM the Truth."
   Jesus also said, "I AM the Life". There is a sense in which all the other "I AM" statements that we have considered have shed significant light on this pronouncement. "I AM the bread of life" -- I offer you what you need to sustain life; "I AM the light of the world" -- I Am the One who shines light into the darkness; the One who makes sense out of your life; "I AM the Good Shepherd;" -- the one who will lay down his life that we might gain ours, both eternally and abundantly; "I AM the Resurrection and the life;" -- I AM Resurrection life and power -- for you. Resurrection from death into life, but also the resurrection of shattered dreams. Aren't these the things in life that we are really searching for? Our search is not only for knowledge but what will make life worth living? That is what Jesus does for us. He makes life worth living. Even when we mess it up or circumstances mess it up or other situations in life mess it up; Jesus makes life worth living.
   Jesus says, "I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Does this statement sound brash to you? Christianity is an exclusivistic religion. Jesus alone is the way to God. In him alone we see what God is like, and he alone can lead people into God’s presence without fear and without shame. This is not something that the religious scholars have added to Christianity. These are the words of Jesus. It is Jesus Christ that sets Christianity apart from all other religions, not what we do with it.   Does this sound harsh to you? I’m not saying this, Jesus is! Some people say, “I can’t imagine a God who would say such a thing! It sounds so, exclusivistic! (pause). Friends, that is exactly what Jesus said. If it sounds harsh, maybe it’s because it is. Jesus says to us in Matthew 7, 21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”
   There was the man that approached Jesus in Matthew 19 and asked him, what he must do to get eternal life, and the man was unwilling to “pay the price” and the text says the man went away sad. When Jesus said to follow, the man could not. Is that unfair?
   Peter says in Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” The original apostles had this understanding. Is that unfair?
   To be sure, Christianity is demanding. It is not for wimps. The cost of discipleship is high. And yet, while Christianity is demanding, it also remains open. John 3:16-18 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.”
   Christianity is an exclusive religion, but all that will come to Jesus Christ are invited to be full partakers in God's Kingdom. He does not discriminate based on skin color or education or world experience or prestige and power or sexual orientation or any other list that you may come up with. Our relationship with God is based solely and entirely upon our relationship with Jesus Christ. Period. End of paragraph (PAUSE).
   Jesus in his encounter with the woman at the well had a discussion about "water" and "thirst," life and living water. Among other things, Jesus says to her, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (Jn 4:13)"
   In the last chapter of the last book in the Bible, John records Jesus saying, "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say 'Come!' Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Rev. 22:17)"
   Jesus offers us living water and if we drink it, we will never thirst again. Indeed, Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life.
   May all glory, honor and praise be to God and to Jesus Christ, the One who is the Way the Truth and the Life. AMEN.
   Let us pray....