I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - Week 8
Notes
Transcript
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Countdown Video
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Scripture Reading by Lady Pepper
Scripture Reading by Lady Pepper
(Show Slide)
(Show Slide)
Thank you Lady Pepper for the announcements and the reading of God’s Word.
Welcome! to everyone especially those who are joining us for the first time. My name is Pastor Doc, and I will be sharing the Word of God with you today.
Have your Bibles Ready and take notes
Show Video
Show Video
Title of the series
What’s In a Name?
What’s In a Name?
Title of the message this Morning
I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - Week 8
I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - Week 8
Big Idea:
This sermon could be titled, “Stop Asking the Wrong Questions!”
Through a series of wrong questions posed by Jesus’ disciples, he clarifies and crystallizes the answer to who he is and why he has come.
Prayer:
“Father, we thank you today that you chose people just like us to which to entrust your message.
Forgive our slowness to understand, our reluctance to let go of old categories that you were never interested in, and our tendency to behave just like your first followers.
Thank you for choosing them anyway.
Thank you for choosing us today.”
Scripture: John 14:1-7 (read here)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You believe in God; believe also in me.
My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
You know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
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.”
Introduction
Introduction
We’re coming to the end of our series, What’s in a Name, where we’ve been looking at the “I Am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John.
There are seven of them, and each one tells us a little more about Jesus’ understanding of himself.
But perhaps even more important is beginning each one with the phrase, “I Am.”
This was the ancient name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, “Yahweh,” which is a form of the verb “to be.”
So here was Jesus, seven times, identifying himself with God.
The Disciples had a knack for asking the wrong questions.
But Jesus had a knack for answering the questions they should have been asking.
Which may explain why he ended so many teaching sessions with the phrase, “The one who has ears to hear, let them hear.”
He seemed to know that many would not understand what he was saying.
When we keep asking the wrong questions, we risk missing—or misunderstanding—the whole meaning of Jesus’ life and teaching.
Example:
Jesus’ life and teaching are not primarily about how to go to heaven when you die.
They are about how to live a heavenly kind of life here on earth, what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.
The good news: sometimes the duh-ciples’ wrong questions led to some of Jesus’ most memorable and important answers.
And that is certainly true of the “I Am” statement we’re looking at today.
Main Teaching
Main Teaching
This is part of the lengthy section that records Jesus’ conversation with the Duh-ciples in the Upper Room.
In 13:21 Jesus tells them one of them is going to betray him.
The disciples are stunned and dismayed.
Who could it be?
Jesus reveals it is Judas Iscariot by, of all things, sharing communion with him…Judas storms out.
Next, in v. 33,
Jesus tells them he will be with them only a little while longer.
And where he is going they can’t follow.
This had to be disturbing for these men who had left everything to follow him.
It was their whole identity.
But now Jesus says they can’t come with him?
But here’s what they can do, he says: keep loving one another.
This is how everyone will know they are truly followers of Jesus.
Then comes the first of three wrong questions from the Disciples, this first one from Peter, of course
Then comes the first of three wrong questions from the Disciples, this first one from Peter, of course
“Where are you going?” (John 13:36)
Jesus responds, “Where I am going you can’t follow now, but you will follow later.”
This echoes what Jesus had said to James and John earlier,
(Matt. 20:20) when their mother asked that they be allowed to sit at Jesus’ right and left in his kingdom.
On that occasion, Jesus asked, “Can you drink the cup that I will drink?”, referring to his suffering and death.
“We can!” they answered arrogantly.
“You will drink from it, but not now,”Jesus answered. “Now it is time for me to do this alone, as the fulfillment of my unique calling.”
Peter brags, “Why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!” (v. 37)
And Jesus responds, “Will you really? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times!” (v. 38)
This sequence of events is the background for what happens next.
This is what caused the disciples to be deeply troubled.
It led directly to Judas’ betrayal, followed by Jesus’ announcement that he is going away and they can’t follow.
Also, Jesus’ prediction that Peter will also betray him.
This is why chapter 14 opens with Jesus’ words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.”
They had to be deeply troubled by everything that had just happened!
Wouldn’t you be?
We need to give the disciples some slack for being human, just like you and me.
Thomas’ turn: another wrong question
Thomas’ turn: another wrong question
Jesus continues, “My Father’s house has many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And then I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” (14:2-4)
The word translated “rooms” here is monai, from meno, which means “to stay.”
So the idea is not of specific rooms, but places to stay, or abiding places.
(Spoiler alert: Jesus will say more about this in next week’s “I Am” statement, “I am the true vine,” and then tells us to “abide” in him.)
For now, understand that Jesus is probably not talking about heaven.
Rather, he is talking about a place of intimacy with the Father; the Father’s family, or the Father’s house.
And Jesus coming back to take them there with him is probably not referring to what we call The Second Coming.
He is talking about his resurrection, something much more imminent.
We know this from Jesus’ comments later in this chapter; “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you…Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (14:18;20;23)
Jesus is referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit after his ascension, who will be the means by which Father and Son make their home in us.
Thomas’ response: “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
He, like Peter, just didn’t Understand.
So he wants to come back to Peter’s question, which Jesus didn’t answer because it’s the wrong question.
But Thomas can’t leave it alone.
You can hear the frustration in his voice.
This is not a request for information; it’s an expression of confusion.
He doesn’t even know what to ask!
And Jesus’ response is not an explanation or answer; it’s simply reassurance.
He has just said, “Don’t be troubled. Trust God. Trust me.” (v. 1)
Let me Pause:
This may be the essence of the entire Gospel message.
Instead of having to explain, or define, or argue, or prove anything, maybe all God wants is our trust.
Jesus said it here: “Trust God; trust me.”
Now he repeats the reassurance:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know the Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (v. 6-7)
It’s like Jesus is saying, “Listen, you don’t need to understand all this.
You simply need to trust me.
Don’t look for a ‘way’ apart from me.
Don’t look for a route or destination—some concept or technique or system of thought that is separate from me.
I’m not going to give you information or instructions so you no longer need me and can instead depend on the information or instructions.
No! - just trust me.
Everything you need is in me.
I will bring you to my Father’s abiding place.
‘The way’ or ‘the truth’ or ‘the life’ aren’t things separate from me.
I am these things, so you’ll find them in me!
Whether or not you know what I’ve been talking about,
if you know me, you know the Father, you know the way, you know the truth, you know the life.”
Jesus’ response is also a play on the word “know.”
Thomas is asking, “How can we have intellectual clarity on where you’re going and the route to get there?” for us today, it would be GPS coordinates
But Jesus replies, “You don’t need intellectual clarity; you need personal knowledge.
It’s not a matter of ‘knowing about,’ but rather ‘knowing.’
He comes back to this idea in chapter 17, when Jesus says, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (17:3)
Thomas a Kempis (Campus)
(c.15) 1379–1471). Monk, author, and theologian.
“Without the Way there is no going, without the Truth there is no knowing, without the Life there is no living.”
Now the “non-get-it” factor continues with Philip
Now the “non-get-it” factor continues with Philip
Notice again the theme of “knowing.”
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.” (14:8-11)
The dynamic core of this whole conversation is right there in verse 9:
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
This is why Jesus seems almost baffled by their not getting it.
When Thomas says, “Show us the way to the Father,” Jesus says, “I am the way…”
Now Philip says, “Ok, just show us the Father.”
And Jesus says, “Do you still not know me? I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
If Jesus and the Father are one—“I in him and him in me”—then of course there is no other way to the Father.
No one can come to the Father apart from Jesus because the two are inseparable in this relationship of mutuality and love.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Doesn’t it seem ironic to you that the conventional approach to John 14:6—giving us information about who will be in heaven and who won’t—is perfectly in synch with the general cluelessness of the Disciples?
We show ourselves to be the Disciples descendents—wanting clarity, technique, intellectual knowledge, apart from personal confidence in Christ.
We want to know with clarity exactly who’s “in” and who’s “out.”
We want to be the gatekeepers… We talked about that a couple weeks ago.
But Jesus gives us not the in-and-out information we may want, but what we actually need:
he reassures us that we don’t have to understand everything as long as we trust him, and the vision of the Father we have seen in him.
If we trust him, we will have what we need, even though we may not have all the answers.
That includes conclusive answers to our persistent curiosity about who is in and who is out.
If we keep asking the wrong questions, we may receive the same answer Jesus gives to Peter in the last scene recorded in John’s gospel.
After the resurrection, Jesus and Peter are walking alone on the beach.
Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him.
And three times Peter says he does, to which Jesus responds simply, “Feed my sheep.”
This is perhaps Jesus’ way of restoring Peter’s shattered spirit after denying Jesus three times.
But Peter turns and sees John walking a little ways behind them, and says, “What about him?” (21:21)
Jesus responded, “What is that to you?
You must follow me!” (21:22)
In other words, “Stop asking the wrong questions!”
Let’s pray together.
Let’s pray together.
Salvation:
Salvation:
The Word of God says in:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you’d would like to receive Jesus today, please pray this prayer with all of us:
Lord I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died On the cross for my sins and His resurrection from the dead gives me eternal life. I ask forgiveness of my sins, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.
Pastor Doc@FaithVision.org
Church Office: 909-922-8090
And I will send you a Bible & a Free Book on how to begin your first 21 steps with Jesus (show the book)
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Lady Pepper Please Join Me
Lady Pepper Please Join Me
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This is Pastor Doc & Lady Pepper with:
Faith Vision Christian Ministries
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Benediction
Benediction
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you…On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you…Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”
(John 14:18,20,23)
Have a Great Week! Goodbye!