Communication is one of the most important tools that we have for relationships. However, it’s important in relationships, it’s important in everything we do. From our marriages to our jobs, to our parenting, to our Gospel conversations, communication is one of the foundation instruments that you will use everywhere. However, it’s also a tool that always needs to be sharpened often. I don’t think it’s possible to ever get to the point where your communication skills are perfect in all aspects of your life. Sharpening your communication skills is going to be a life long pursuit. One of the aspects of communication that hopefully everyone learned at an early age is that communication is a two way street for it’s not just talking at someone, it’s having a back and forth discussion. However, it’s even more than just a back and forth discussion. In order for true communication to take place, there has to be an understanding of what the person is saying. Understanding is a place we all probably need to work on when it comes to our communication skills. I’m sure we have all had conversations with someone that at some point we asked ourselves “What in the world are they talking about?”, only to realize that both of you weren’t on the same page and sometimes not even in the same book. You will see this a lot when you are having a Gospel conversation with someone. You will find that often you are using the same words, but you don’t mean the same thing at all. You might even think you believe the same things, but in actuality your beliefs couldn’t be more different. I’ve learned a good way to sharpen your communication skills when having a Gospel conversation is to constantly ask them, “What do you mean by that?”, and have them define the terms they are using. Not only does it help you understand where they are coming from but it also helps them think deeper about what they are saying. There is one thing I hear a lot during Gospel conversations that I have yet to get a good answer to in person. I have yet to have someone satisfactorily define exactly what they mean when they say they are “religious” or “spiritual”. However, I did find a good answer to this question in the strangest of places. I found it in a 20 year old quote from the media mogul Ted Turner of all people. Listen to what he said in an interview from the early 2000’s — “I’m not a religious person. I believe this life is all we have. I’m not doing what I’m doing to be rewarded in heaven or punished in hell. I’m doing it because I feel it’s the right thing to do. Almost every religion talks about a savior coming. When you look in the mirror in the morning, when you’re putting on your lipstick or shaving, you’re looking at the savior. Nobody else is going to save you but yourself.” It’s quite ironic that his first statement was “I’m not a religious person” and goes on to describe what it means to be “religious” perfectly. A “religious” or “spiritual” person is someone who thinks they can save themselves. Muslims are religious people because they believe they can save themselves by submission and their righteous works. Hindus believe their knowledge, devotion, and karma will save them. Buddhism seeks salvation through the four noble truths and following the eightfold path. This list can go on and on because all other religions have the same promise, you can be accepted by God or find salvation because of what you do. This is all religiousness and it’s all a lie. However, you then have the Gospel! The Gospel is not about what we can do for God, it’s about what God did for us. We have been seeing this truth week after week in our sermon series as we have looked at the 7 “I AM” saying of Jesus. We have seen that He is the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the Gate for the Sheep, the Resurrection & the Life, and the Good Shepherd. Today we are going to look at one more saying that sums up all of the previous “I AM” statements into one. So if you have your Bibles let’s look at John 14:6.
John 14:6
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
This statement came as Jesus was talking to His disciples one last time before He would be betrayed. He was answering a question that Thomas had asked because there was some confusion about what Jesus was about to do. This morning I want to look briefly at each of these three statements that would have been powerful enough if they were spoken separately, but are even that much more poignant when they are combined. Remember I said this was a statement that summed up all of the “I AM” statements we have seen. So instead of rehashing our last few sermons I want to look at each of these statements a little differently to help us understand why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is not like any other religious system in the world.
I Am the Way
Jesus begins this “I AM” statement by telling the disciples once again that He is the gate to the sheep. He is the only way into the fold of God. This exclusivity is a very important part of the Gospel message so much so that Jesus reiterates it in His last sentence in this verse. We spoke about this in depth a few weeks ago, so I want us to think about “the Way” being a distance that must be traversed. It is the distance between sinful humans and a Thrice Holy God. Let’s look at all of our starting points, our sinfulness. The Bible uses many different images to convey the absolute ruin sin brings to us. We can start off in Romans 3:23 where we see that we have all sinned and have fallen short of God’s glory. It shows us that sin causes us to miss the mark in life that God has set for everyone. However, sin is more than just falling a little short. In Deuteronomy 9:7 God is speaking to the Israelites through Moses and He says, “Remember and never forget how angry you made the Lord your God out in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until now, you have been constantly rebelling against him.” Sin is rebellion or literally in the Hebrew, it’s bitterness toward God and His way. 1 John 3:4 tells us that “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.” When we sin we are breaking the law of God and we are practicing lawlessness. We are stepping over a line and onto forbidden and deadly ground every time we sin. Sin is also described many other ways in Scripture: it’s a lack of faith in God (Romans 14:23), it’s doing evil (Romans 7:21–24), it’s suppressing the truth or speaking falsely about God (Hosea 7:13 & Romans 1:18), it’s disobedience (Ephesians 5:5–6), and it’s straying from God’s way & turning to our own (Isaiah 53:6). As you can see, as sinners we are in a horrid and wretched state. This is not a state we can stay in because this sinful state leads us to death just like we are told in James 1:13-15, “And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.” Yes, the wages of our sinfulness is death (Romans 6:23)! Our sinfulness is the absolute antithesis of the Holiness of God. God is perfect in everything. He is perfectly righteous in all of His plans, deeds, and judgments. He is perfectly Holy in His character and He is perfect in His sinlessness (Deuteronomy 32:4). When a sinful man comes into contact with the absolute Holiness of God we see how these two things can not coexist. We see this in Isaiah 6:1-5, “It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!” Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke. Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.” We see it again when John meets the resurrected Savior in Revelation Chapter 1. The man who had been with Jesus for three years as He ministered had seen Jesus crucified, seen Him buried, and had seen Him raised to life again. He fell down at His feet as if he was dead when His sinful nature had an encounter with the holiness of Jesus. I don’t think we will ever know the depth of our sinfulness nor will we ever understand the holiness of God at least on this side of eternity. The only thing we really need to understand is there is a great chasm between us and God because of our sin. When Jesus is saying He is the way, He is saying He is the only way to traverse this gulf that is our sin and bring us into the holy presence of God. Hebrews 10:19-20 tells us “And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.” This is the Gospel. We are sinners and Jesus came and died for us. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved by His grace. This idea of Jesus being the way (the only way) was so important to first century believers that before they were called Christians, they were called followers of the way (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 22:4, 24:14, 24:22). He was the only way to the Father for His first followers and He is still the only way to the Father some 2000 years later.
I Am the Truth
In John’s Gospel we are told about a conversation that Jesus had with Pilate before His crucifixion which ends with Pilate asking Him the question, “What is truth?”. This question was answered by Jesus the day before this was even asked, because the truth is a person. As we have seen many times throughout this sermon series, Jesus is the personification of the idea of truth, He is the truth. He was declaring Himself to be the standard by which everything else is judged. He is the benchmark for what is truth. Because of Jesus we have absolute truth in our lives. I wish we could physically hear how Pilate asked this question. I’d love to hear the tone of his voice and his inflections. I say this because I have a feeling that this question was more sarcastic than honest because of an ideology that was present in the culture then that is still present today. It’s the idea of moral relativism and it was as rampant then as it is today. Moral relativism is the idea that everyone has their own “Truth” that they can live and as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else then whatever they do and whatever they say is the truth. This belief tends to confuse opinion with truth. Yes, we can all have an opinion on things like “what’s the best flavor of ice cream” or “what’s the best movie ever made”. However, when it comes to more important things in life, we don’t get an opinion because the truth has already been established by God. Let me give you an example. God has given us the ability to do science and observe His truth at work in nature. If you were to drop a ball out of a tower, it will be pulled down to the earth and it will accelerate due to the gravity of earth at 9.8 m/s2 until it either reaches terminal velocity or it hits the ground. That is the truth. However, let’s say you decide that’s not “your truth”. So you go home and knock something off of your table and guess what’s going to happen? It’s going to fall to the ground instead of rise up to the ceiling. It doesn’t matter how sincere you are in your belief that gravity doesn’t exist, or what your “truth” is, the truth is gravity does exist. When Jesus says He is the truth, He is saying that He is the absolute standard and origin of all truth we experience. Truth is offensive by nature because it excludes every other idea. Truth does not care about nor does it value your opinion. As harsh as this is, that’s also where the beauty of truth lies. Truth by nature cannot be all inclusive. When we have the truth when we have Jesus, it's the truth that sets us free (John 8:32). Jesus is the only way to know the ultimate truth. He is the only way to be set free from the chains of sin, and He is the only way to be set free from the penalty of our sins. This is the Gospel — Jesus is the Way and the Truth.
I Am the Life
I left out one major point when describing the sinfulness of man and I did so because we need to talk about it here. We are more than wretched sinners, separated from God, for we are dead in our sins and trespasses. Dead men have no hope. Dead men have no dreams. Nor do dead men have no future, but that’s where Jesus comes in. He is the life that brings us from death into eternal life and brings us an abundant life now. In John 5:24, Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” That life is available to us by the grace of God alone because it’s not something we deserve in our sinful state. However, the moment we put our faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have the blessed assurance of a future with Him forever, and an abundant life that starts now as we start our walk with Jesus our Good Shepherd. This is the beauty of the Gospel. We were dead in our sins and there is nothing a dead man can do, but Jesus did by telling us the truth of His Gospel. Telling us He is the only way, and that He is the only one who can bring us life. To know Jesus and place your faith in Him is to experience that He is indeed the way, the truth, and the life.
When we look at other religions or religious people, we might think that Jesus is being harsh because these people seem sincere and are usually rather nice. However, Jesus understood that religion is a problem so He made it crystal clear. There is only one way and that is Jesus. It's not a harsh act, but it’s an act of truth and love. This is why we say that Christianity is not a religion but it’s a relationship. It’s a relationship with Jesus. Without a relationship with Jesus, you cannot traverse the chasm that is your own sin, without Jesus you cannot know the truth about your sinful state and where that will ultimately lead. However you also won’t know the Gospel that Jesus came and died for you so that He could give you life. This is why I never say I’m religious, I just tell people that I’m a follower of Jesus. Only He is the way, the truth, and the life.
