Hope in the only Way, Truth & Life
We continue in our series on Hope found Here and this month we are considering Hope in Christ.
This evening I want to remind you that when we place our faith and trust in Jesus we are placing our hope in the only one who can save us from our sins.
Throughout the Bible, there are many passages that can encourage us, comfort us and fill us with Hope,
certain hope, blessed assurance.
The Bible is God’s Word to us, His people. Parts of the Bible are simple to understand, other parts are more complex.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 reminds us, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip His people to do every good work.”
Our Bible contains 66 books or letters, the Old Testament with 39 and the New Testament with 27 Books or letters.
Our modern Bibles are divided into 1,189 chapters, the chapters are split up into 31,102 verses.
Each of us will have specific verses, chapters or books that we know well. There are verses that stick in our minds, there are verses that we quote, promises we cling to, words that bring us comfort and hope.
This evening I want us to focus on a specific verse, a verse that is perhaps one of the most important in the whole Bible.
In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
Our certain hope of sins forgiven, our certain hope of salvation, our certain hope of relationship with God is found here.
Listen to the verse in context, Jesus speaking to His disciples in John 14:1-6 says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”
“No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
Jesus is speaking to His disciples about Heaven, words of assurance, words of certain hope, there is room enough for them, room enough for you and I, room enough for all who repent and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Then Thomas, old doubtful Thomas, speaks and asks an important question, ‘How can we know the way to Heaven?’ How can we get there?
Then Jesus affirms the truth when He says, He is the only way to Heaven.
The cornerstone of the Christian message is Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, trust in Him and Him alone is the only way we can be saved.
Acts 4:12 says “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
This is an unchangeable truth.
Jesus stepped out of eternity and was incarnated into human form.
He lived a perfect, spotless life, suffered a cruel death on a cross to pay the price for your sin and mine, then He was resurrected from the grave on the third day.
Jesus conquered death, conquered the power of sin.
Christ’s death was sufficient to ensure that all of our sins, past, present and future can be forgiven and our relationship with God restored.
If, and only if, we repent and turn to Jesus.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
The reality of the need to know Jesus, the need to trust in Him alone is here in John 14:6.
There are other verses and passages in the Bible that can enhance and strengthen our walk with Jesus, but this verse is at the core of our faith.
The foundation, the solid ground, the bedrock of why we need to know and follow Christ is found here.
As a Christian, have you ever been asked questions from non-Christians about your faith?
Some people might be interested in learning about what you believe, some people might be seeking to discover more about Jesus.
Others may be antagonistic about Christianity, some might think you are misguided in your faith, others may think you are stupid because you believe in God.
A while ago Atheists in the UK ran a series of adverts in the press and on the side of buses that proudly stated ‘there is probably no God so enjoy yourself.’ Probably? Even atheists are not 100% certain that God does not exist.
We live in a multi-cultural world, and sadly many people think that Christianity is only a variation on a basic theme running through all religions.
Some people are unwilling to accept that Christianity is the only true way in the ‘enlightened’ 21st Century.
Some people wonder how anyone could accept that Jesus Christ is the only way to God when the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews all worship their own god or god.
The Bible is clear that Jesus is the only way to God and that apart from Him there is no salvation. Christians worship the true and living triune God. We believe in One God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God is our creator, He made us in His image, He wants to be in a relationship with us, He loves and cares for us and blesses us in so many different ways.
Some people would like to stop here... Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so... but there is so much more we need to understand about God.
God is Holy, He is absolutely pure and He is separate from everything that is impure.
God is righteous and just. He is like a judge that must uphold justice to the full.
And there is a problem. Romans 3:23 tells us that All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
and Romans 6:23 is clear the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God loves us.
The Bible tells us God gave His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth to rescue us, to be our truth and life.
We have all turned away from God’s way. We all fall short, we deserve punishment, but God has given us the way to be rescued, we need a Saviour and Christ has come to save us.
Jesus died in our place and He rose again.
In His resurrection He cancels the power of Sin, because He died in our place our sins are forgiven.
Isaiah 53:5, “He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.”
1 Peter 2:24 “Jesus personally carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By His wounds you are healed.”
We have Hope in Christ because He has paid the penalty for our sin.
Our Hope is not based on us struggling toward God, our blessed assurance is based on God reaching down to us; reaching out to save us.
We are not saved by our works, we could never be saved by anything we do in our own righteousness.
We are forgiven when we repent of our sin and turn to Jesus.
Jesus gives us new life, He rescues us, He saves us from the punishment we deserve for our Sins.
He took the punishment you and I deserved.
God loves you with an unmerited and unearned love.
True Christianity brings assurance, acceptance, joy and contentment.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
Lets dig a little deeper into these words because in the Greek language there is a even more depth to the words Jesus used.
In modern English we might use the term I am in a number of different ways, I am hungry, I am thirsty,
I am tired, I am happy, you get the idea.
In Greek, the use of the words we translate here as I am, Ego eimi (??? e?µ?) is significant and profound.
Ego is I, a first-person pronoun, eimi is I am, or I exist, this basic Greek verb expresses being,
When the two words Ego eimi are used together
in Greek they emphasis a time-inclusive or “omnitemporal” or eternal existance,
What we read simply as “I am”, would be more accurately transliterated as “I myself, and only I, was, is and will be eternally the way, the truth, and the life.”
WOW!
Jesus made it perfectly clear to His disciples exactly who He was!
Jesus knew He was the only option, the only way to approach God and get to Heaven.
The Way, in Greek Hod-os (?d??), meaning way, road, journey, path.
Jesus knew He was the only one who could save people from their sins, the only one who could lead them to Heaven.
The Truth, in Greek al-ay’-thi-a (????e?a), was synonymous for fact, for “reality” al-ay’-thi-a is the opposite of illusion.
Al-ay’-thi-a is truth, but not just truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforward facts.
Again Jesus is distinguishing Himself as the Only truth.
Jesus is not just a truth, He is the whole truth.
The Life, again in Greek, zóé (dzo-ay’) (???), speaks of life, both of present physical life and of future spiritual existence.
Jesus had told His disciples He would lay down his life, then take it back again with the authority granted by the Father.
Jesus is the life because He has authority over life and death.
Death is no match for our Saviour.
“I myself, and only I, was, is and will eternally be the only way, road, journey or path to Heaven, the only real, sincere, factual, moral and divine truth, and the only present physical and future spiritual life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
Except Through Me. Jesus declares who He is, then He adds a final statement of hope.
When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit of The Tree of Good and Evil, sin and death came into this world. Our relationship with God the Father was broken.
Jesus is the solution to the problem of sin.
Faith in Jesus is the solution to our reconciliation with God the Father.
Jesus came, He lived, He died for your sins and mine, He rose from the grave, He ascended into Heaven, and one day He will return.
Jesus is alive He offers the forgiveness of sin and eternal life to all who repent and trust in Him as Lord and Saviour.
Have you made that commitment?
Have you asked Jesus to be your Lord and Saviour?
Jesus came to save you.
Acts 4:12 “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”
Trusting in Jesus is the only way to be saved.
Tonight, will you ask Jesus into your life?
Will you turn from your sin and confess Jesus is Lord?
I will close with this, there is hope found here:
Jesus assures us of who He is.
Jesus was and is the promised Messiah.
He is the Christ, He is the Saviour, He is Lord.
Jesus is the only way back to the Father.
He was and is and is to come.
Jesus is Saviour, Healer, Baptiser in the Holy Spirit, and Coming King.
Jesus is the Holy One.
Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life, and we are saved only through faith in Him as Lord and Saviour.
Tonight, hope is found here in Christ, certain hope, blessed assurance, now and forever.
Amen
