The Truth About Jesus Series

Introduction:

A. The story is told of a father who sat in his recliner trying to read his magazine, but he kept being interrupted by his little daughter.

1. Finally, in desperation, he tore a page out of his magazine, on which was printed the map of the world.

2. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to his daughter and said, “Go into the other room and put this map of the world together, when you finish it I’ll put my magazine aside and we can do whatever you want to do.”

3. After just a few minutes, the little girl returned and handed him the map correctly fitted together.

4. The father was very surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly.

5. “Oh,” the man’s young daughter said, “on the other side of the picture of the world is a picture of Jesus. When I got Jesus in His place, then the world came out all right.”

6. I wholeheartedly believe that to be true – When we properly understand Jesus and give Him His proper place, then everything in the world and in our lives falls into place.

B. English author Charles Lamb was once involved in a discussion about the greatest literary figures of all time when the names of William Shakespeare and Jesus Christ were mentioned.

1. Lamb said, “The major difference between these two is that if Shakespeare came into this room we would all stand in honor and respect. But if Jesus Christ entered, we would all humbly bow and worship him.”

2. That’s a good summary of the infinite difference between Jesus and every other person who has ever lived.

3. Do you know the truth about Jesus?

4. Do you accept and believe the truth about Jesus?

5. Are you willing to live and die for the truth about Jesus?

B. One of Satan’s favorite strategies over the centuries has been introducing false ideas about Jesus.

1. Satan knows he cannot erase Jesus from history, so he seeks to distort the truth about Jesus.

2. Here are just a few of the fallacies many have proposed concerning Jesus: Some have said…

a. Jesus did not come in the flesh, but was just a ghost.

b. Jesus is not really God, but just a god, with a little “g”.

c. Jesus was great man, and a great teacher, but he was just another man of God.

d. Jesus is a way to reach God, but there are many ways to reach God other than through Jesus.

3. J. Oswald Sanders expressed it well in when he wrote, “If Jesus is not God, then there is no Christianity, and we who worship him are nothing more than idolaters. Conversely, if he is God, those who say he was merely a good man, or even the best of men, are blasphemers. More serious still, if he is not God, then he is a blasphemer in the fullest sense of the word. If he is not God, he is not even good.”

C. So, the most important question of all time remains, “Who Is Jesus?”

1. Can you grasp the significance of the question, and the positive and negative ramifications of the possible answers?

2. We live in a world and a time that declares that any answer to the question, “who is Jesus?” is an acceptable one.

3. People say, “If you believe that Jesus is God, well good for you, but don’t make others agree with you.”

4. People say, “If you don’t believe that Jesus is God, then that’s okay, because you can believe whatever makes you happy.”

5. But what is the truth? Who is Jesus? What is the truth about Jesus?

D. Let’s look in the Bible and see what it says about him.

1. In John 14:6, Jesus says very clearly who he is. There he said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

2. In that declaration, Jesus took on the most pressing problems that are faced by humans: sin, ignorance and mortality.

3. Let’s spend the rest of our time trying to grasp what it means for Jesus to be the way and the truth and the life.

Jesus is the Way

A. Prior to Jesus, there was another way to the Father, it was through the Old Covenant, but when Jesus came, he fulfilled that covenant, and replaced it with the New Covenant.

1. The New Covenant continues to be the only covenant in place to bring mankind to God.

2. It is the only way to the Father.

3. Other ways we might try to get to the Father will not work.

a. We cannot make it to God through any form of legalism.