The Way, The Truth, The Life

The Way, Truth and Life

John 14:6

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be one of the disciples and hear the final words of Christ? After having witnessed Jesus walk on water, heal the sick and bring the dead back to life the disciples were unlikely ready to hear what Jesus was about to do next! On His way to Jerusalem Jesus told the disciples that he was about to be delivered to the chief priests and teachers of the law who would condemn and hand Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged and crucified on a cross (Matthew 20:17-19). After the Lord’s Supper Jesus told the disciples that once He was raised from the dead He would remain with them but a short time and would then return to the right hand of God the Father in heaven (John 14:1-4). Peter’s response to Jesus’ predicted departure, wanting to die to return with Him or Philip’s response of wanting to see God the Father immediately; are responses we can understand and even emphasize with. However, it is Thomas’ response “we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way (14:5)?” has puzzled humanity for generations! In today’s sermon we are going to explore what Jesus meant when He told Thomas: “I am the way, truth and life (14:6)!”

Created by God

Before one can fully understand Jesus’ response to Thomas one must first understand the origins of humanity. As diamonds can contain much value in a small space so do human beings. When David considered the heavens, moon and stars of this vast universe he could not help but wonder why God would declare that humanity was created a little lower than the angels (Psalms 8:2). While it is true that having two arms, legs, eyes, and between 30 and 40 trillion cells and bacteria is impressive, what are we in comparison to this vast universe that is billions of light years in diameter? The answer to this question is found in Scripture that says our value comes from having been fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalms 139:14) in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). He whom all the world is His (Psalms 50:12) did not create humanity because He needed us (Acts 17:25) but out of love. We were made in the likeness of God so that we might have a relationship with Him. In the Garden of Eden God entered a covenant with humanity in which had we not disobeyed God we would have remained there until this very day!

The Great Fall

Instead of remaining faithful to God and enjoying paradise, humanity chose to sin against God. Even in the Garden where we walked and talked with Him (Genesis 3:8), we did not trust that God would provide us with the absolute best life to live. So, we cheated on God and gave into our evil desire (James 1:14) to become a divine being, knowing both good and evil (Genesis 3:4). While Satan was correct when he said “our eyes would be opened,” he neglected to tell us that we would be cut off from God (Genesis 3:24) and enslaved to our sin (Romans 6:20). He also neglected to tell us that we would love evil far more than good! Instead of repenting and obtaining mercy we chose to continue to cheat on God by using wood (Jeremiah 10:8), silver and gold (Psalms 115:4) to make and worship creation rather than our Creator (Romans 1:25). With the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16) firmly entrenched in our desires, we refused to believe it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so we traded in His image to become gossipers, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful people (Romans 1:28-32). Even though we felt temporary pleasure from gratifying the fleeting sinful pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11:25), being separated from God left our souls dead (Romans 3:23) and constantly searching for the inexpressible joy that can only be found in the embrace of our Creator (1 Peter 1:8-9)!

Futile Attempts to Reach God

We tried to talk with God but our attempts to reach Him were futile for our love and entanglement of sin (Hebrews 12:1) were way too strong. Even though we knew what we must do to be holy (Romans 7:12), we were not able to be righteous (Romans 3:9-20) for whom amongst us could ever stop sinning (1 John 1:9-10)? Even if we could top sinning, which one of us could ever atone for the sins that we have already done? While God wishes that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), His everlasting mercy cannot give way to His avenging justice; the wages of sin can be nothing less than death (Romans 6:23)! Let me tell you a quick story of from my childhood.