How many of you have trouble with driving around Pittsburgh? I have been here for eight years and I have not quite figured out the way to get around Pittsburgh. It is very tough. I remember I was here a few months and we were trying to find a mall and I got lost. Being a man, we don’t like to ask for directions so I finally decided I needed to ask directions. I went into a gas station or something. I said I am trying to get to this place over here. He said you can’t get there from here. I thought that he was just teasing me because I was driving Debbie’s car at the time and she had Ohio license plates on and a Brown’s sticker in the window. But it really is true. I guess there are some places you just can’t get to in Pittsburgh from where you are located. I find that to be a reality. One night I was going down to night court of all places in Pittsburgh. It is the jailhouse basically and it was late at night. I am driving down and I could see the building. I had never been there, but I could see it. I knew I was in the vicinity of it, but I couldn’t get to it because it was a one-way street. I wanted to go south and the one-way street went north. So it was over there and I could only go this way. I was thinking I can deal with that. I will just go up to the next street and then I will be able to make a left. No, it is the same direction. I did what any normal Pittsburgher would do. I broke the law and went ahead down the one-way street and made it there.
Even though it is difficult to drive in Pittsburgh, as we see today if you open up the book of John 14 there is only one way to heaven. Of course it is the Jesus way. The even better news is, unlike Pittsburgh, you can get there from here. If you have your Bibles, please open up to John 14:1. We have obviously been in the book of John for quite some time. Where we are is Jesus’ last week of ministry. Really, we are at the point where Jesus is having these heavy discussions with his disciples, giving them last-minute instructions before he leaves earth. We started this a few weeks ago in John 13. We started at the Last Supper. Really this discussion goes on almost four chapters. This discussion with the disciples. Back in chapter 13 you may recall it started out pretty nice and very informal. Jesus is having a dinner with his disciples. Then out of the blue he decides to take a towel and wash basin and begin to wash the disciples feet, which is an act of humble service but really it was a picture of the complete washing that would take place on the cross that was to come. It started off nice but things got a little dark pretty quickly. Jesus, out of the blue, says that one of the disciples was going to betray him. The disciple John says which one is it? Jesus says the one that takes the bread after I dip it in the broth and I give it to him. The one who takes the bread is the person who is going to betray me. What Jesus did was dip that bread in the broth and gives it to Judas. The second that Judas took that bread it says that Satan entered his heart and he went out the door and then it says it was night. So things were getting dark around that dinner table. Just when we think it couldn’t get any worse, we find out something about Peter. Jesus starts to talk about how he is going to go away and Peter being the loyal one says where are you going? I am going to follow you. I would follow you anywhere. I would follow you to the death. Jesus says really is that so? Would you really follow me to the death? He says I’ll tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will deny not once, not twice, but three times. So we have a very somber mood there. Jesus is probably sensing that the disciples are feeling a little bit troubled about the situation. That is where we pick it up in John 14:1-14 where Jesus says (scripture read here).
There is a lot of passage here and we can’t really focus on the last part, but we will save that for next week when we start looking at the coming of the Holy Spirit. Today, we just want to look at the first seven chapters. Again the setting here is the Last Supper. The situation is where things are getting kind of tense. The mood is getting dark in the room. You have a group of disciples that are starting to be suspicious of each other, starting to be fearful of each other, and starting to be a little confused, and starting to be afraid. And then we see Jesus mouthing these words when he says “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust in me also.” As a side note, the word heart here is a Greek word cardio. It is where we get the word cardiac which obviously has to do with the heart. He is not talking about the physical heart there. He is really talking about in this case the affections or desires or motivating factor in your life. Really he is talking about your will. What is it that is driving you forward? In this case it is the faith. It should be by now. It should be the faith of the disciples that is keeping them pressing on. What Jesus is saying is don’t let your faith be affected. Don’t be wavering in your faith. Don’t allow this current situation, as bad as it looks, don’t allow it to get you off track. Get a grip on yourself and keep looking forward. Trust in God and trust in me also. Really what he is saying is that it is not even just the word trust. Some of you have the translation where it actually says believe in me, believe in God also. In other words, don’t let your belief be affected by this situation. Then for some reason he decides to go back and begin talking about where he is going to. He said he was going away before all this stuff with Peter happened. He said he was going away and Peter said he would follow him. Now he starts to talk about where he is going. He paints this picture very nice and very tranquil. It is actually a picture of a mansion up on a hill where he says “In my father’s house are many rooms. If that were not so, I would have told you.” Then he goes on to say that I am going there to prepare a place for you. The disciples would have had this image of a mansion up on a hill. They would have had maybe a picture of King Herod or somebody’s palace in Jerusalem with many rooms; a palatial image. Then Jesus says I am going to go there and I am going to get the place ready for you. I am going to change the linens. I am going to take care of some things. I am going to repair what needs to be repaired. That sort of imagery. We don’t know obviously what Jesus was doing when he was going to go away and prepare a place, but it might not have been too much like it is here. The bottom line is what is going on here is Jesus is saying no matter how bad things get on this earth, you have a heavenly home. You have a big house out there with plenty of rooms. You always have this place of safety and refuge that you can go to. That is what he is saying. There is a song from 1993. Does anybody remember the song Big House? In the first hour we sang it. That is a very tranquil image and comforting image that Jesus is trying to paint. Isn’t the idea of home really comforting? I know some of you don’t come from the best home situations but for those who do when you have been away for a while, maybe away for college or maybe away in the military or maybe just away and you are struggling and having some challenges going on, and you say I just want to go home. You call mom and dad and say I am going to come home. Mom and dad get the laundry ready. They change the sheets. They get a lot of food. They make sure they have the DVD player working. They are creating a nice, little tranquil image. That is what Jesus is doing here. Jesus is saying I am going to go away and I am going to get this house ready for you. This nice, palatial house with many rooms and a big yard and all that kind of stuff. I am going to get that ready for you. Then I am going to come back and get you so you better have your bags packed and ready to go. Then he is saying by the way, you already know how to get there. You already know how to get to this place.
That is when Thomas decides to pipe up. Thomas as we know is sometimes very practical. Thomas is thinking in earthly realms. He is probably thinking get out the map. He goes on to say “Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” At that point, Jesus speaks probably one of the most famous lines in the book of John. He says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is a good verse. If you are going to memorize a verse that is a very good one because it speaks of the truth that there aren’t a bunch of ways to get to God. There aren’t a bunch of options out there. The world would say there are many ways to get to God. You Christians are just too exclusive. The reason we are exclusive is because Jesus was. Jesus said it first. We are just repeating what Jesus said. He is the way. No one come so the Father except through him. As we see in other passages, we see that Jesus is not just the way. He is what we refer to as a new and living way. You may recall if you know your Old Testament about the tabernacle. In the old days, they had to go and present sacrifices in the temple or in the tabernacle. There would be three main sections. You would have the outer court. You would have the interior or the holy place where only priests could go in and make preparations. Then you would have the most holy place where the arc of the covenant would be there and one person could go there one time a year and sometimes they didn’t make it out alive because just by going into this one place where the arc of the covenant was they were entering into the presence of God. They were just overwhelmed by it. They were just blown away by it.
What the writer of Hebrews says is because of the blood of Christ, now the wall that had separated the holy from the most holy, the veil, the curtain has been torn down and we can enter into that place. It says in Hebrew 10:19 “We have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain.” You may recall that on the day of the crucifixion when he was crucified they say that they could hear the curtain being torn; a 3-foot-thick curtain just ripping from top to bottom. That is what was happening there. It became open to us. The presence of God, the holy of holies became accessible to us only by the blood of Christ. We sang a song earlier about heavens gates. It said “He opened up heavens gates, now we can enter in.” I picked that song on purpose because that is what happened because of the blood of Christ. Heaven’s gates are now wide open. We can enter right in. That is awesome imagery. That is amazing. This imagery of Jesus as the way was so powerful that the first century Christians were referred to as the Way. In fact, the apostle Paul, before he was called Paul, what was his name? Saul. Saul was a murderer. Saul was a good Jew, but he hated the Christians because the Christians were about to uproot the whole Jewish system. So he would go around and threaten them. He probably killed some. He sent some to jail. He was around pursuing the Way, trying to get them arrested, and trying to kill them. We see that in the early part of Acts where it says “Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples; so that if he found any there who belonged to The Way, whether man or woman, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.” He was out there to get them. He was out to get this brand new movement. They weren’t called Christians. They were called the Way. I love that name because actually there is a church out in California named the Way. It is just a nice name for a church. I really like that. He was out there pursuing the Way. About 15 chapters later, we know that he had a conversion experience so to speak and now he was not pursuing them, he was not attacking them, he was actually one of them. We see in chapter 24 of Acts that now he is standing in front of Felix, which is the governor of Caesarea at the time facing his own trial and basically says I am part of that group now. I am one of the Way. He goes on to say “I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.” A sect is an offshoot of Judaism. He went from being a pursuer of the Way to becoming one of the Way. How could you do that without having that real life conversion experience which he had on the road to Damascus. If you haven’t read that story, read Acts 9. It is a phenomenal story of a complete turnaround.
We have Jesus saying that I am the way and although that is a nice passage that we should tuck in our memory banks so that when we are talking to somebody and they say there are many ways to God, we can quote it and say Jesus said he is the only way. No one goes to the Father but through me, but I don’t think that is what Jesus was thinking about. To be honest, back then, Jesus was not thinking I better give those Christians in 2000 years a nice little verse that they can tuck in their memory so when they are on the bus in Pittsburgh they can give it to somebody that says there are many ways to God. It is a nice passage, but what is happening is we have to be careful that when we read everything that we read it totally in the right context. That we read it in the proper setting. The proper situation. What is going on is that the mood once again is of despair. We have a mood of discouragement. We have a mood of depression. Potentially a mood of grief. When you have that situation, you have a group of people that might say I am out of here. I don’t like this anymore. I don’t think I want to stick around because it is getting ugly. You have some betrayal going on. Possibly some deception and denial going on. I am about to just leave. This is just getting too heavy for me. It kind of reminds you of back in John 6 where Jesus is giving the bread of life discourse. You might recall he is out there. He just fed the 5,000. You have all these followers coming after him. Then he starts talking really weird. He says if you are going to follow me, then you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, which was a spiritual thing he was saying. People were saying this is getting a little too gross. I am out of here. I don’t want to follow Jesus. He was filtering the curious from the committed. What is going on here is that people are thinking about going away. Going back to their own lifestyle. They need to hear that Jesus is the way. They need to hear those words from Jesus. Today, we have a lot of people here, but we have a lot of people missing. Why are they missing? There are people that are missing for good reasons. They are out of town. They are visiting relatives. Maybe they got sick kids, possibly overslept. Frankly, a lot of people are missing because they lost the way. Life got a little hard. Started dealing with some problems. Maybe had some family issues. Maybe had some financial issues. Maybe they had some things going on and it was a little too tough for them. They say Christianity didn’t do anything for me, so I am going to go to a different way. I am going to try a different option out there. I am going to maybe go back to my old way of living because Christianity didn’t work. Jesus reminds us there is only one way. The Jesus way. He gives it to let them know you have to keep your focus on the way. The one who says he is not a way; he is the Way. Not only does he say that he is the way, he goes on and says that he is the truth. It is interesting to say that he is the truth because only God the Father was considered truth. It is a little bit arrogant for Jesus to say I am the truth unless he knows that he himself is divine. He is the one true God. When God is truth, what we mean by that, without getting into a lot of detail, he is saying that God has the ability to shed accurate light on a situation. He also has the ability to shed accurate light on people. Most of all, he has an ability to shed an accurate light on himself so that people can really know God in a unique way. He wanted us to know so much that he decided not just to say he is the truth but to allow that truth to take on flesh and to come down and begin to make his dwelling amongst us. You might recall in the very first book of John, John 1:1, it says “In the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” We are talking about the word Jesus was with God and he was God. That is Christian theology 101. They were together. They were one. In John 1:14 he goes on and says that word that was above decided to come down and make his dwelling amongst us. He says “The word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Father, who came down from him, made himself known; he is full of grace and full of truth.” That truth became manifested in Christ. That is why Christ can stand there and say I am not only the way; I am the truth. I am not a trivial truth. I am not the truth you might find on Jeopardy. I am the source of truth. I hold the whole meaning of life within me. Why did he say it to the disciples at this time? Because they were about to enter into falsehood. They were about to enter into Satan’s domain of lies. We said before that Satan is referred to as the father of lies. These guys, within the next 24 hours, were going to get into the situation where Jesus was going to get arrested. There were going to be all these false accusations going. There were going to be all these lies about Jesus. There were going to be all these lies about the disciples. Within a matter of hours, they are not going to know up from down. They are not going to get what is going on. They are going to be so confused they won’t know the truth. Jesus is saying you better keep your eyes on me. I am the way. I am the truth. The Jesus way is the way of truth. That is what he is saying. Right now what you have to do is continue to keep your eyes on me.
You might be thinking why didn’t Jesus just tell the disciples exactly what was going to happen? Quit beating around the bush with all these stories of palaces and that sort of stuff. Just tell them. Very clear. From the very beginning I was with God. This is what happened in the Old Testament. I came. I did this. I did that. The resurrection came and I am going off and then I am going to come back and all the way down to Revelation. He could have spelled it all out. He knew it all. He didn’t tell them because they couldn’t handle the truth. Has anybody seen that movie A Few Good Men? One of the best scenes. Jack Nicholson is on the witness stand. Tom Cruise is an attorney and he is trying to get Jack Nicholson to tell the truth. He goes “I want the truth” and the Jack Nicholson says “You can’t handle the truth!” That is what is going on here. They want the truth so badly. Jesus is saying you know what I would love to give it to you but if I gave it to you all at once your mind would explode. Your minds are just too little to be able to comprehend the revelation that I put on my one finger let alone my full revelation. The reality is you have enough of that truth already. In fact, that truth is staring you in the face. All you need to know is I am the truth. Focus on me. Continue to walk through this dark night of the soul. Keep your eyes on the truth because the Jesus way is the way of truth.
I know there are some people here that might be living in a little bit of lies or at least starting to get into some areas of stinking thinking because maybe you are getting a little confused about things. Maybe you have a situation going on at work. Maybe you have a situation going on at home. Maybe you have a situation with your neighbors, your family, whatever. You are starting to get confused about things. You are starting to question yourself. You are starting to question God. What you are doing, whether you know it or not, is you are entering Satan’s turf. You are lurking around in Satan’s turf because he is the father of lies and when you start entertaining those lies, you have entered into Satan’s territory. He likes it when you get into there because he is going to take advantage of you. He is going to start sending out those lies to you. Telling you you’re no good. You are a loser. You will never amount to anything. You will never get through this situation. You will never work it out. There is no answer here. You might as well just leave. You might as well just run away. You are sitting there saying I need to know the truth. Jesus is standing there like Jack Nicholson saying you can’t handle the truth. You have been a Christian so long; you tell me you don’t have enough truth to get through this little thing in life? What is the problem here? I have given you the truth. I have given you everything you need to get through any circumstance in life. Any one. Just keep your eyes on me because the Jesus way is the way of truth.
Not only does he say that he is the way and the truth, but he goes on to say that he is the life. He says I am the way, the truth, and the life. This should be fairly easy for the disciples to get because they should understand this. Several chapters ago, I think it was chapter 11 or so that we saw the raising of Lazarus from the dead. They saw it. They were there. They saw that Jesus was able to give life. They were there when he approached Martha and Mary and they said I want my brother to live. Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life. They were there. They saw Jesus give life. You say why did they need to hear it again? It is the same reason that we need to hear it again after we hear all these miracles. All these answered prayers from our family, our friends, and our church members. We hear about kids coming out of comas. We hear about finances being restored. About marriages that were on the brink of splitting up getting back together. What is the difference? What makes the difference is when it is our situation. We can believe it when it is somebody else. That is a great thing. An answer to a pray. Now it is applying to our life so we need to hear that over and over again when Jesus says I am the life. We need to hear that. We have to know that he truly is the life. No matter how bad the situation is, there is life. We are going to get through that dark night. We are going to get through that valley of the shadow of death and on the other side is Jesus standing there saying I am the life. There are people out there that say I am struggling with near death situations. It might be a health issue. It could be the near death of a career. A job change. A transition or something like that. It could be the potential death of a relationship. It could have looked like it was going to die off. Jesus is standing there on the other side saying I am the life. There is something that is going to come out of this. My life will be the light that you need to get through this time. 1 John 1:4 Jesus came to give life and that life was the light of men. The life of Christ was meant to be the light that would shine us through the darkness to get us completely through the other side. We know that even if we die physical, even if the marriage fails, even if the finances fail, because we follow Christ who is the life, there is going to be resurrection life immediately and eternally. The Christian, no matter what dies in their life, a relationship, finances, physical death, there is a resurrection right around the corner. That is what Jesus is saying. Don’t look at your circumstance. Look at the one who says I am the life. The way of Jesus is the way of life. He is standing there saying don’t look at that. Anticipate the redemption that is just around the corner because this is temporary. Those disciples, within 72 hours, they would be telling the whole world about Jesus. He is saying hold on. Take it in that I am the way. You don’t have to turn away. You don’t have to go another way. I am the truth. No matter how bad it is, no matter what lies people are telling you or the enemy is telling you in your brain or wherever it is coming from, I am the truth. I am the life. I am not someone just standing here saying I am the life. I am the very source of life. I have the ability to give life. I have the ability to take life. If you stick with me, you will get life one way or the other. Maybe not in this world, but you are going to get it in the world to come.
That is really all I have. Other than thinking about driving in Pittsburgh. Driving in Pittsburgh, it gets kind of crazy out there. You have all these different roads and all these different ways you can go to get there. There are like four ways to get to the mall from here, which drives me crazy. They all seem to take about the same amount of time. Why is that? I don’t get it. As I began with, the good news is that there is only one way to heaven. Just one way. The better news is that you can get there from here. It is very clear. Jesus goes on to say to Thomas “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” What is he saying here? If you really knew me, in other words if you knew me in a very personal, intimate fellowship like we talk about when somebody becomes a new believer and they begin to develop that personal relationship with Jesus they begin to really know him on an intimate level, well you would know the Father too. We are twins. We are identical. The verse in John 1:18 says “No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only, who was at the Father’s side, has made him known.” In other words, Jesus makes the Father known. If you knew me, you would know the Father. If you know the Father, if you are that close to the Father, you can be pretty much guaranteed that you have stepped beyond the curtain. You have stepped into the holy of holies. You have stepped into the presence of God. As you stepped into the presence of God, it comes back to the house. You are in the Father’s house. You are in a place of safety. You are in a place of security. You are in a place of rest. You are in a place of enjoyment. It is a big house. You are in the Father’s house. Jesus says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Let us pray.
