Jesus the one and only way

  • Sam Ford
  • Mar 9, 2008
  • Series: Gospel According to John

John 14.1-14   One Way Jesus

March 9, 2008

Sam Ford


One Hula Dancing Boy

The other day, my oldest son Fischer came home with a special flyer from this school.  Apparently, a local group was offering Hula Dancing Lessons to boys and girls.  For $120, my son, my one day going to be a man son, could experience 8 weeks of grass skirt hip gyrating exercise that would be the envy of manly Dad's everywhere.  Not Karate or Kung Fun, not hammering nails or building forts, not skateboards or video games...no, hula dancing.  It took me all of three seconds to decide that my son would not be doing it, although Caylin had said he was really excited about it.  So I had to tell him...

  • "Fischer, you will not be doing hula lessons."
  • "Ohhhh...why?"
  • "Hula dancing, well, it's, um, it's for girls. You've already mastered the art of twisting and shaking your bottom. Go put some grass clippings in your pocket and there you have it."
  • "Well Dad, it was originally just for boys."
  • "So you say."
  • "Yeah..." And Fischer proceeded to give me a detailed explanation as to the history fo hula dancing.

 

I did a little research of my own.  Hula dancing basically began as a religious ritual rather than entertainment.  There were a number of rules about how to do it, when, etc.  It had been around for thousands of years until the Christians showed us as missionaries in the 1800s.  They believed the dance was of the devil, against God, and it almost disappeared as a result.  Eventually, a king made sure it didn't all but disappear and revived the art underground. 

 

Now, there are some of you probably thinking, what does this have to do with the gospel of John AND what kind of freakish Dad thinks his son will be damaged by gyrating around in a grass skirt.  Did you listen to what you just said?  Your talking to a Dad whose took his boys for some man-therapy the other night by going to Joe's and looking at punching bags, knives, and guns to feel normal again.  Sorry, I want my boys to be manly and grass skirts appear to be a step in the wrong direction.

 

So what does this have to do with John or Christianity---everything!  See, I realize that a lot of people will view me as some man-o-maniac who is trying to make their son some sort of Chuck-Norris He-man hybrid.  But, I have a plan for what I want to teach my son and it's not to be a hula dancer.  There is nothing wrong with hula dancing in itself, but it feels like today's world refuses to draw any lines on anything.  Perhaps they would understand if Fischer had requested to starting using a purse or wearing a dress.  At some point the answer is simply NO...you're a boy.  They are hesitant for fear of what people say to declare I believe this, this is right, and/or this is wrong. All in the name of tolerance.


What happens when this extends into Jesus and Christianity?  There has to be some lines drawn from Scripture about who Jesus is, who we are, and how we are supposed to live.   All too often, people have started to declare who Jesus is or what the faith in him looks like without any basis in Scripture.  In fact, most of them have abandoned Scripture all together.  It seems like EVERYTHING is up for grabs these days.  If you start changing Jesus, say, he's not born of a virgin, it will never stop there.  Suddenly, you're not certain if Hell is a real place and whether homosexuality is in fact a sin.  That is exactly what Satan did in the beginning when he showed up and started having an innocent conversation with our first parents Adam and Eve asking, "Did God really say that?"  There is nothing wrong with questions-BUT WHERE ARE THE ANSWERS COMING FROM?  At some point, if you haven't taken a stand, even on the SMALL THINGS, you've changed something enough that he's NO LONGER Jesus of the Bible, it's no longer Christianity!

 

In today's passage, Jesus will draw some lines that make many people SO UNCOMFORTABLE, even offended, that they will ignore what He has said completely.  It just can't be that...it must mean something else...it doesn't. 

 

READ JOHN 14.1-11

 

 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
Be still

At this last supper, in the upper room, Jesus just dropped several bombs that have left the disciples reeling in disbelief-literally.  He begins the meal by showing them how prideful they were and washes their feet.  If that's not bad enough, he then tells them that one of YOU will betray me.  Then, he tells them that he is going to die soon and that his hour has come just before revealing that their leader, Peter, will in fact deny Jesus three times in the next 6 hours.  Understandably, they're a little upset.

 

Regardless that he himself is in a bit of turmoil, Jesus takes a moment to comfort them.  He tells them, "Don't worry...trust me."  It's easy to trust someone when life is smooth sailing.  But when the waters get rough, and it feels like Jesus is sleeping in the cabin below, we have a tendency to scream and wail and swear and all bit freak out.

 

One thing in common- believers and non-believers

You don't even have to experience hardship in your own life in order to feel like freaking out a bit.  This is one thing that we all share in, the brokenness of the world.  Whether you believe or not, we all see the world falling apart around us.  It's as if we're under some sort of terrible curse...we are...GENESIS 3 records our first parents disobeying God and the immediate consequences:

  • Broken Relationship with the Self: Shame because of their nakedness and hid themselves
  • Broke Relationship with Each Other: "The woman made me do it." (abuse/role confusion)
  • Broken Relationship with God:  "that...you gave me!" (disobedience)
  • Broken Relationship with Nature: "Curse the ground" (natural disasters)
  • Broken Relationship with Work:  "Work will be hard" (I want to quit)
  • Broken Relationship with Life:  We die  (Bodies break down)

 

 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

 

There is more beyond this...

This is not all there is.  Jesus comforts these guys by reminding him, that this is not all there is, this is not our home.  He tells us this to give us perspective and hope.  We gain perspective because we realize that the world around us, and all the stuff that it offers, is passing.

 

Hebrews 13.14

14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

 

Dad is waiting for us at home.

Dad is waiting at his house.  His house has many rooms, in other translations, they are called "mansions."  I like how the ESV has translated it because, knowing how good we are with money, we start thinking about these huge white marble mansions God is preparing for us.  It's not getting home to live in God's Street of Dreams; it's the place where the Father and Jesus live.

 

Nothing pleases me more than when I open the door and hear my children yell Daddy! I was watching my daughter yesterday...thinking about how much I love her, what I would be willing to do for her...and to imagine that God feels even stronger than that about me. 

 

4 And you know the way to where I am going."  5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" 6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

 

How do we get home?

Thomas, the loyal disciple with a lot of questions that we all want to ask, wants to know how we get home.  Being at home with God is being in relationship with God.  How can we sinful, dirty, broken, people, guilty of breaking God's commands and sentenced to die make peace with a holy God whose presence I can't enter?

 

Jesus is the ONLY Way home.

Answer:  Jesus.  Jesus says, I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, and THE LIFE.  Jesus is the way. Not only does Jesus die to satisfy the justice of God by taking his wrath, he ALSO lives a perfect life and GIVES IT TO YOU...freely.    

 

The answer to the question, "Do all roads lead to God?" is NO.  In fact, ALL ROADS, minus one, lead to one place...eternal hell, away from the presence of God.   They lead away from God as the PRETEND to be the truth and try and CONVINCE you that they can give life!  Both Proverbs 14.12, 16.25 say: There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

 

One way deserves another and another and another....

The proverbs speaks of a "WAY" men know because everyone in the world recognizes that the world is not the way it's supposed to be, that it needs a savior, a hero, someone or something to FIX US.  So people develop all kinds of SPIRITUAL WAYS options available as if it is some sort of salvation-super market where you can buy what suits your diet most.  And that is basically what happens.  People don't search for objective TRUTH as much as they search for THE WAY that will validate what they already believe. 

 

HOW THEY CHANGE THE WAY....they change Jesus .

2Corinthians 11.4

4 For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

 

They begin by changing Jesus into an image of someone who works better in their lives and in their culture.  Typically, this means jettisoning some aspects of Jesus that are offensive or inconvenient AND gravitating towards those that make them feel warm and fuzzy.

1.      Prosperity Jesus - You want a Jesus to affirm your greed

2.      Diversity Jesus - You want a Jesus to affirm you're pride  

3.      Conservative Jesus - You want a Jesus that will affirm your legalism

4.      Revolution Jesus - You want Jesus to affirm your politics 

5.      Tolerant Jesus - You want a Jesus that will affirm your "alternative" lifestyle

6.      Buddy Jesus - You want a Jesus to affirm your fluffy faith

7.      Hyper Manly Jesus - You want a Jesus to affirm your insecurity

8.      Orthodox Jesus - You want Jesus to affirm your traditions

9.      Hip Jesus - You want Jesus to affirm your rebellion to tradition

 

Of course, sometimes if CHANGING the your savior doesn't work, they abandon him all together and replace him with something else that will serve as your functional savior and their God.  Instead of Jesus giving them purpose, meaning, joy, and direction, Instead of Jesus saving them from the fires of Hell, they'll find meaning in creation and  salvation from their own PERSONAL HELL...the thing they can't imagine being without.  They use: Work, relationships, money, sex, education, or any number of things..  And you'll know they are worshipping this thing because they SACRIFICE for it and visit its temple often, whether it's the office, the bedroom, or the shopping mall.  

 

HOW THEY CHANGE THE TRUTH...they change the gospel

If they don't change who Jesus is, then they'll change the REASON FOR THE SAVIOR.  In essence, they we'll change the TRUTH of God to suit their own passions..  Romans 1.25 says this happens, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.  When people come up against a truth that doesn't rest with them emotionally or experientially, they begin to ask the same questions that Satan asked, "Did God really say that?" And the conversation continues...

  1. God isn't really like that...Change Who God is - Either Loving or Wrathful, can't be both
  2. You can be like God - Change who Man is, not broken, divine, born good
  3. You don't need God - Change solution  fix own prob., work harder or think differently

 

The True Gospel says:

  1. God describes himself in Exodus 34 as, "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty."
  2. Man is sinful and guilty of disobeying a holy and loving God. 
  3. Man cannot fix their problem.  We must die.  We cannot fix ourselves We cannot work our way to God.  We cannot think differently about our situation.   We need a Savior who will do it all for us, to the extent of opening our eyes to see that we might believe.   

 

There are a lot of "new gospels" that change the situation we're in, therefore, change the solution to the apparent problem.  They either believe that they can fix the problem themselves if they just work harder or ignore the problem all together.  One results in either pride or despair, and the other results in complete delusion.  Both end in death. 

 

HOW THEY CHANGE THE SOURCE OF LIFE from God to Man

When the savior is abandoned and the truth of who we are and what we need is changed, we die in our sins.  Our source of life changes from something that is outside of us, to something is inside of us.  Our entire worldview becomes centered in man as opposed to centered on God.  Hope becomes sourced in man's ability to overcome his problems, to free himself from the obvious brokenness of this world through working harder or thinking differently. 

 

  • Islam: purpose of life is to live in a way that is pleasing to Allah so that one may gain Paradise.
  • Hindu: the chief aim in Hinduism is to gain release from the cycle of reincarnation caused by karma--the consequences of past actions, in this or in previous lives!
  • Buddhist: Buddhist salvation is reaching Nirvana where you are completely free of all desire-the cause of suffering.. Nirvana is a transcendental, blissful, spiritual state of nothingness--you become a Buddha by following a 8 fold path of good works.

 

There are new gospels showing up all the time.  For example, recently Oprah "Anti Christ" Jesus is currently perpetuating a teaching called A Course in Miracles.  The long and short of it is that in 1965 a Jewish atheistic psychologist from Columbia University began to channel messages from a spirit she believed to be Jesus. She ultimately produced, or she says Jesus revealed to her, well over a thousand pages of revelation during the next seven years. Some of the revelations included:

  • No need to feel guilty because you've done nothing wrong.  There is no such thing as sin, sin does not exist. Those feelings you have are simply a misunderstanding.
  • Man is separated from God, but this separation is not real, it is an illusion created by a failure to recognize we're partly divine. 
  • No punishment for sins and, therefore, no need for a cross.
  • The solution to the problem is to change how we think.  1John 4.1-3 (test the spirits)

 

Man's problem is something he cannot fix himself.  No matter of different, positive, or constructive thinking will change anything.  You must put your trust and faith in Jesus alone to fix you.

 

7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." 8 Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father'?

 

Just show us God and that will be enough

  • How many of us sound like Philip?  Asking God to give us what he already has!
  • How many of us are so focused on what might go wrong that we miss the grace of God at work right in front of our faces?  
  • How many of us cry out to God, "If you would just show up, come down in a beam of light, I'd believe!"  If I could just hear you talk...he gave us 66 books!
  • How many of you have been "with Jesus" for more at least three years and are still wondering, ‘Who are you?"  How much time have you spent with him? (Not at church)
  • How many of you sit wondering, "What is God like?" when he came to earth and died on a cross for your sin to show you what he was like.

 

10 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 authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

 

Believe that I AM

Jesus says quite plainly, three reasons to believe, his WORDS are God's words, his CHARACTER is God's character, and his WORKS are God's Works.  Messing with anyone of those things, changes Jesus, changes the gospel, and changes the source of life.  These are things that we must not compromise on.  You can criticize the church, you can denounce its mistakes and hypocrisy, you can mock the Christians you know that don't live out what they preach, but don't mess with Jesus of the Bible. 

  • Denying the a word of Jesus means denying all of Jesus -may as well be a hula dancer
  • Questioning the Character of Jesus is worse than attacking my bride - I know him
  • Ignoring the works of Jesus is to ignore the GRACE that is all around us. 

 

Believing in Jesus not just Accepting Jesus

Jesus tells you to believe him.  Don't just accept him as the WAY to accomplish your personal end.

  • Don't just accept him as Sin forgiver to be free from guilt
  • Don't just accept him as Rescuer from hell because you don't want to burn
  • Don't accept him as Healer because you want to be disease free.
  • Don't accept him as Protector because you want to be safe
  • Don't accept him as Prosperity giver because you love money

                                                                                                   

Believe in him not as the WAY to get something, but to get HIM

We celebrate communion because God made the WAY.  The moment Jesus died, the curtain that had separated the holiest of places in the temple from the people, the place where the presence of God dwelt, was torn in two.  God didn't break his son and ordained his blood to be shed, that he might show us the way to our true home with Dad. That's is the truth of God. 

 

1John 5.11-12

10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

 

Damascus Podcast