Jesus Is The Truth

Jesus is the truth - John 14:6 Millgrove United Church, April 6 2003

John 14:1-6

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God ; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. 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.

This is a pretty radical thing that Jesus is saying “I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

What he is saying is that there is no other way to get back to God, he is the only way! He is the TRUTH!

Is what Jesus says true?

Is Christianity really believable?

Jesus said some other really amazing things

I AM...

The Bread of Life (John 6:35)

The Light of the World (John 8:12)

The Resurrection and the life (John 11:25-6)

He also said... Come to me (Mat 11:28-9)

Follow Me (Mark 1:17)

If you welcome me, you welcome God (Mark 9:37)

If you’ve seen me - you’ve seen God (Jn 14:9)

He says that he wants all our love (Mat 10:37)

and that he can Forgive our sins . . . and only God can do that

(Mark 2:5-7)

He claimed to be:

The Messiah (God’s anointed one) (Mark 14:61-62)

The Son of God (Mark 14:61-62, Jn 8:58)

These are amazing claims! But just because someone said them doesn’t mean that they have to be true - I could tell you that I’m a little teapot as many times as I like, but it doesn’t make me a teapot.

Since he said these things, he can’t be just a good teacher, or a nice guy. . .

C. S. Lewis says “A Man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic, on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman, or something worse … but let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Which was Jesus? A Mad Man? An Evil Man? Or… The God-Man

I believe he is who he says he is!

Evidence

His teaching - (e.g the sermon on the mount) Matthew 5, 6&7

His deeds (John 10:37-38 Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.")

His Character - tempted in every way, but without sin

His fulfillment of Old Testament Prophecy Luke 24:44 - every part of his life fulfils prophecy - it’s hard to organize your death, but impossible to organize you birth!

His Resurrection

The resurrection is a pivotal point in our Christian faith - it is what we are celebrating in a few weekends - it is the reason that most Christians meet to worship on Sundays - to celebrate the resurrection!

Paul says in 1 Corinthians that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we might as well all go home, because our faith is meaningless. In fact, without the resurrection, life is pretty meaningless, so we might as well live selfish lives because we’re just going to die anyway.

But Jesus did rise from the dead.

There are a few ways people try to explain the Resurrection away.

He didn’t actually die (he only fainted on the cross, woke up in the tomb, and came out)

- he had been whipped almost to death, could barely walk to the crucifixion site, he was crucified for 6 hours - the executions didn’t break his legs because he was already dead, they stuck him in the side and blood and water came out - the blood had separated - he was dead

But even if he had only fainted, could a man that was brought to the edge of death move the stone away that was lodged against the tomb? And his grave clothes were left behind - you think that the guards would have noticed a half dead naked man trying to sneak past them.