The Only Way to God

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There’s just mass confusion. There’s confusion about what marriage is. There’s confusion about where life begins.

There’s confusion about everything that has to do with right and wrong. And we can trace that confusion back to man’s rejection of God. Man’s confusion about right and wrong began in the Garden of Eden, when Satan began to inject an element of doubt into the brains of Adam and Eve, and saying, did God really say that?

And Satan knew perfectly well what God had said. Adam and Eve knew perfectly well what God had said. What Satan was doing when he says, has God said, was not to say, did God actually say that?

He was questioning God’s authority in what God had said. And ever since that day, ever since that day, man has been confused. Yes, we know what God’s word says.

We know what right and wrong are. You may be sitting there this morning saying, I’m not confused. Oh, but at times don’t we get confused?

Doesn’t temptation come and whisper in our ear and we sort of lose our minds for a moment? And we get confused because in that moment we know what God’s Word says, but I’m really confused because God’s Word says this and yet I want to do this and it’s all so confusing. See, our confusion always stems, our confusion always stems from turning our backs on what God has said.

And one of the areas where there’s a lot of confusion in our world today is over how we have a relationship with God in the first place. How we find peace with God. I was reading a book this week talking about apologetics, talking about communicating the gospel with younger generations who their language is not always the same as ours.

And the framework for understanding the world is not always the same as ours. I say that and some of you are thinking, but you’re the younger generation. I am.

I guess I’m technically a millennial, although I’ve never really thought like one. But there are people coming up even behind me, just 10 years behind me now, who are coming out of college. And I’m not sure we are always speaking the same language.

And so I read and study how do we communicate the gospel with people who think differently than we do. How do we communicate the gospel with people who speak differently than we do? And one of the things that this writer was saying, I can’t remember the name of the writer.

It was a Christian apologist. But one of the things that he was saying was that we tend to think that because younger generations are out of church, they don’t come to church in droves like the older generations, that they’re not interested in spiritual things. That’s not true. that there’s a tremendous interest in spirituality in our world.

It’s just people are looking in a lot more places than they used to. They don’t automatically come to the church to find their spiritual answers. They don’t automatically go to the Bible to find their spiritual answers.

But people are people. And people are still looking for the answers to life’s great questions as they always have. And so when we can’t communicate the gospel to people, when we don’t see them come to Christ, It’s not because they’re not looking, maybe because we’re not communicating the gospel in a way that they can understand.

By the way, none of this is about changing the message of the gospel. But if I’m going to communicate the gospel to someone in China, I’m going to have to learn to communicate in Chinese, probably, unless they speak English. We have to learn how to communicate with other people.

But I thought that was interesting, that people are seeing there’s still a spiritual hunger out there. There are still people who recognize in our world that there’s something missing from my life. There’s something that’s wrong here.

There’s something that’s not there that’s supposed to be, and maybe there’s something there that isn’t supposed to be. And so they’re looking for answers. They’re looking for a way to connect to God.

And maybe they don’t even understand God the same way that we do. Some people want to connect with the universe. they’re looking for a higher power.

And you can find no shortage of people and groups who will tell you, here’s a way to connect to God, here’s a way to connect to the universe, here’s a way to connect to a higher power, here’s a way to resolve these spiritual issues within yourself, here’s a way to find spiritual peace. And in that environment where anything goes, the only thing you can’t say is, here’s the way. The only thing you’re not supposed to say is here’s the way to spiritual peace.

Here’s the way to fill your spiritual hunger. Here’s the way to find a connection to God. And so unfortunately, a lot of churches, I won’t say most, but a lot of churches, any church is too many, but a lot of churches have capitulated to the culture on it.

They’ve surrendered and said, you know what, there are many paths to God. If you’re going to say there’s many paths to God, what is the point of even having a church? If we’re not going to base what we believe on what God says, why even have a church, why even go to church, why even have the doors open, is my philosophy on it.

But many churches have gone down that road of saying, you know what, there are many ways, and it’s for us to help you find your way. I don’t want to find my way to God, because according to God’s word, my way, there’s a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. And Jesus says, broad is the road, and wide is the gate that leads to destruction.

I don’t want to find my way to God. I don’t want to come to God on my own terms because even my good works, the Bible says, are as filthy rags. I have nothing good to offer to God.

We live in a world that says any way to God is fine. We live in a world where unfortunately many of the churches have even said, you know what, there are many roads, we’ll help you pick one. And there may be pressure at some point for us to go along with that as well.

But as I’ve said throughout this whole series, our job is not to go along with the culture. It’s to swim against the current of the culture when God’s word is at stake. When God’s word says, no, you go upstream, we don’t get to go downstream just because it’s easier.

And it doesn’t matter how many forces in the culture say, no, no, many ways to God. How dare you say, yours is the only one. If God’s word says there’s one way, that’s what we need to stick with.

That’s what we have to stick with. And so I want to look this morning at what Jesus said about how to find this connection to God, about how to have a relationship with him, how to have peace with him, how to have eternal life with him. Jesus says there’s one way, and we’re going to look at that.

And by the way, if you haven’t turned with me yet to John chapter 14, I’d like you to do so this morning. John chapter 14, we’re going to look at verses 1 through 7. While you turn there, I want to make it very clear.

I’m not talking about a Baptist way to heaven. I’m not saying that there’s a Baptist way to have a relationship with God, and you do what we say, and you follow our program, and that’s the only way. Any Baptist church that would say that or lead you to believe that is not really a Baptist church.

I don’t know what they are, but that’s not what we believe. We believe there’s one way to God, and it’s not through the Baptist church. It’s not through the Methodist church.

It’s not through any particular church or any particular program, but it’s through the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And let’s look here and see what Jesus has to say about it in John chapter 14. He says, let not your heart be troubled. Verse 1, let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. What’s happening here when he says, let not your heart be troubled? He says that because he knows there’s something that their hearts are troubled about.

And if you look back at chapter 13, you’ll see that Jesus is beginning to prepare them for the fact that he’s not going to be there in just a short amount of time. Not too long after this, we’re going to go right into the arrest and the trial and the crucifixion and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. There was going to come a time when he wasn’t there with them in physical form anymore.

And yes, after the resurrection, they’re going to see him again, but he’s going to be there for 40 days, and then he’s going to be gone again. He’s going to be with the Father. Now, that doesn’t mean that he leaves us all alone.

He does talk in these coming chapters of John about sending the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who indwells us. but they were not excited about change. And maybe they were Baptists after all.

They were not excited about change. They had gotten used to the fact that they had had God with them. They had had the physical presence of God with them for three years, and now suddenly they’ve seen incredible things happen, and he’s done incredible things in their midst, and he’s been changing them, and they’re about to lose that.

suddenly God says, I’m going to go away soon. I think we’d be pretty nervous too. So he’s been trying to prepare them for this, and he knows that they’re worried, they’re upset, they’re nervous, and so he says in verse 1, let not your heart be troubled.

And now Jesus is not just saying this, don’t worry about it. It’ll all work itself out. Don’t you hate that when you’ve got a problem and you’re worried about it and some well-meaning person says, just don’t worry about it.

Oh, gee, thanks. I didn’t realize it was that simple. I didn’t realize I could just not worry about it and everything just goes away and it’s fine.

Why didn’t I think of that earlier? Okay, that’s not what Jesus is saying. Just don’t worry about it.

No, he gives him a reason. I feel so much better when somebody says, you know what, don’t worry about this because here’s how this is going to work out. Here’s why this is going to be okay.

So much better. And that’s exactly what Jesus does here. He says, let not your heart be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me. Believe also in me. Now there’s all sorts of confusion among the commentator.

I shouldn’t say confusion. Disagreements about exactly what he meant here and exactly what he was saying. So I went and looked at the Greek words and the Greek grammar and the verb tenses and all that to see exactly what this meant.

And you know what it means? You believe in God, believe also in me. Exactly what it says.

He makes a statement that you do have faith in God. You believe in God. Not just that he exists, but they have faith in God.

And he says, as a command, believe also in me. Now, they knew Jesus was God. And so this is not that incredible of a thing for him to ask.

But it points to us. It tells us exactly the kind of understanding we’re supposed to have about Jesus and God. He says, the same kind of faith that you have in God, have in me also.

Wow, somebody who says that either better be God or they’re a lunatic. You can’t just look at this and say, Jesus was a great moral teacher. He was one of the ways to go.

No, he says, as much as you believe in God, you need to believe in me that same amount. You need to have that same kind of faith in me. He is either God or he’s a liar or he’s a lunatic.

Something, but I lean toward God, obviously. I don’t lean toward God. I believe he is God.

He says, you believe in God, believe also in me. So why should they not let their hearts be troubled? Because if you believe in God and you believe in Jesus Christ, then you’ve got to know he has a plan.

You’ve got to know that this is all worked out, this is all taken care of. He’s got this all well in hand. I love, I’ve used this example before, but there have been a couple times that I’ve talked to Brother Tim, our director of missions, talked to Brother Tim about something going on in my life, in my ministry, in somebody else’s life, you know, some situation, and he has said to me many times, you know, God didn’t wake up this morning and say, oops, I didn’t see that coming.

If you think about that, these problems that catch us off guard, God never wants. We say, oops, I didn’t see that coming. God never once has said or thought that.

God knew it was coming, and he’s had it in hand long before it ever happened. And so is saying, trust me. Not just don’t worry about it.

Don’t worry about it because you can trust me. I’ve got a plan here. So he says in verse 2, in my father’s house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. In my father’s house, there are many mansions. And again, there’s some disagreement here on exactly what he’s talking about.

I grew up thinking he’s talking about many mansions, meaning God’s got a giant house with other giant houses in it, and we all get a mansion. I think that’s sort of the traditional interpretation. That’s why we sing that song, or I don’t know if we’ve sang it here, but I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.

That sounds like a pretty sweet deal. I’ve got a mansion in heaven. When I was in Arkansas, I heard somebody talking about this verse, and referring to another verse, I think in 1 Corinthians, where he talks about, compares the body to a building, and talks about the new habitation we have in heaven, and it made me wonder, okay, maybe he’s talking about the body, that there’s room for all of our bodies. And you know, when you get right down to it, I don’t care whether I’ve got a mansion, whether I’ve got an actual individual mansion, if that’s what that means, or if it means not this mansion, not this old tent that I live in now, but the new mansion, the new glorified body he’s going to give me, whether that mansion gets to live in his big house, in his presence or not.

I don’t care whether I have a big palatial estate in heaven, or if that just means I get to be in his presence. It sounds like a pretty good deal either way. But he says, in my father’s house there are many mansions.

And again, whether that means glorified bodies or whether that means actual mansions, the principle is that in God’s presence there’s room for all of us. There’s room for all of us. So he’s saying, in the Father’s presence, don’t worry about this, believe in me, because in the Father’s presence there’s room for all of you.

If it weren’t so, I would have told you. If this was all there was, if this life, if this physical world around us was all there was, he said, I would have already told you that. I would have started there.

I told you this is all there is, just to try to do your best while you’re here, because when you’re gone, you’re gone. If there weren’t some place prepared for you, I would have told you. He says, and I go to prepare a place for you.

They were upset because he was leaving, but he says, I go to prepare a place for you. Now again, I was raised to think that that means he, after the ascension, he went up to heaven and he’s now building mansions. Jesus is Jimmy Carter with Habitat for Humanity up in heaven.

But you know what? It could also mean that his going, in the sense of him dying, was to prepare that place for us, to open the doors to heaven for us. Either way, again, either way, the point is, it’s Jesus who opens the door, it’s Jesus who purchases our way into heaven.

He says, I go to prepare a place for you. Verse 3, and if I go and prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Now this if is not speculative.

He’s just making an argument here. Because he’s already said he goes to prepare a place for us. But he says, if I go prepare a place for you, which I’ve already said I’m going to, then I will come back again.

Because what point is there to preparing a place for you and then not bringing you to it? He says, if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back again and receive you to myself. I will bring you that where I am, there you may be also.

so that you can be in my presence, so that you can spend eternity with me, I will bring you there. Jesus does all the work necessary for us to spend eternity with him and in the presence of God. And where I go, you know, and the way you know.

Jesus says, the way, the way, where I go, you know, you know where I’m going, and you know how to get there. And then Thomas. I love Thomas.

Thomas has a bad reputation as being a doubter, but I think sometimes Thomas asks the things that I probably would have asked. Just like Peter has a bad reputation for shooting his mouth off, but I think sometimes he says the things that I might have said. Thomas asked him, verse 5, Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?

Jesus just said, you know where I’m going, and you know the way. And the next thing’s out of Thomas’ mouth. We don’t know where you’re going, and how can we know how to get there if we don’t know where you’re going?

I love Thomas. And I read this, and I think, you’re overthinking this. You’re overthinking this.

And again, I would do the same thing. I either overthink or underthink. There’s no in-between for me.

Thomas is obviously under the impression that Jesus is talking about going to some other place in Judea, Samaria, in his ministry, that he’s going to prepare. Maybe Thomas is still under the impression that Jesus is about to set up his earthly kingdom and that’s the place he goes to prepare. And Thomas says, did I miss something here?

Did you tell us what town you’re going to? Because I don’t know what town you’re going to and if I don’t know where I’m going, how do I know how to get there? So for the people who are a little bit dense, like me and Thomas, Jesus goes on to explain in verse 6.

He says, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father except through me. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. And from now on you know him and have seen him.

So he talks about coming into the Father’s presence. He talks about knowing the Father, seeing the Father, having a relationship with the Father. And what he’s doing is telling Thomas, that’s the place I’m talking about.

I don’t think Jesus took him by the shoulders and shook him like we would have been tempted to do. I think Jesus was very gentle in his response. But he points out, I’m talking about going to the Father.

Not talking about going to some other town, continuing my ministry there, going to some other town, staging a rebellion, and setting up my kingdom. No, I’m talking about going to the Father’s presence. So Thomas says, I don’t know where you’re going.

Yeah, you do, to the Father’s presence. I don’t know how to get there. Yes, you do.

I don’t know the way. Yes, you do. I am the way.

I am the way. And I’m the truth. And I’m the life.

All the things that we need to bring us to the Father, Jesus is. He is the path that leads to the Father. He’s the one that prepared the way for us through his shed blood on the cross.

He’s the truth. He’s the fulfillment of God’s law, and he’s the embodiment of all the things that God promised. And he’s life.

He’s the source of our spiritual life. He gives us everything that we need in order to have a relationship with the Father. Now, I have heard, I refer to this verse all the time when I hear preachers, which is especially irritating to me, but other Christians too, saying, oh, you know, there might be many ways to God.

There might be many paths. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now, some people have said that that wasn’t intended to be exclusive.

But speaking to the disciples, yeah, he was the way and the truth and the life. But not for everybody. They say that was never meant to be exclusive.

The, first of all, sounds pretty exclusive to me. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto the Father.

If you’re in doubt about what he meant by, I am the way, the truth, and the life, he tags a little something important there on the end of that statement. No man comes to the Father except through me. Is that clear enough?

I will never understand how or why there are churches out there telling people, why there are people who claim the name of Christ out there misleading people and telling people, you know what, you can find God in any number of ways. There are many paths to go. When Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes unto the Father except through me.

And I’m not, folks, I’m not telling you this because I’m the cranky old preacher who says it’s my way or the highway. This isn’t my way. And sometimes we as Christians will get accused of that.

We’re just so exclusive. It’s our way or no way. This is not my way.

I didn’t think this up the Bible’s been around a lot longer than I have alright here lately I’ve been preaching out of one of these modern translations the new King James Version 1981 it was translated and it said I am the way, the truth, and the life no man comes unto the Father except through me I wasn’t born until four years later I didn’t make this up this is not my way, this is what Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life no man comes unto the Father except through me And sometimes others will say, you know, that’s so narrow-minded. The truth can be narrow-minded. It’s part of it.

It’s so exclusive to say that there’s only one way. Why would a loving God make only one way? Folks, why would a holy God make even one way at all, is my question.

The incredible thing about all this is not that God only made one way to salvation. The incredible thing about all of this is that God made a way at all. when you realize that God is infinitely holy, infinitely just, infinitely sinless.

I mean, he’s the embodiment of every perfection that you can imagine and in perfect balance. I mean, you’ve got things like his justice and his love that are important characteristics, and he not only has them perfectly, but they’re in perfect balance. I’m just with my kids, and I’m loving with my kids, but I’m not always a perfect balance of both.

He’s perfect in every way. I mean, Mary Poppins only thought she was practically perfect in every way. God is.

And you and I are not. We are sinners. You might think, what’s the big deal about our sin?

The big deal about our sin is, first of all, it falls short of God’s standards. We all fall short of God’s standards because his standard of what is acceptable is absolute sinless perfection, and none of us even come close to that. But you look at our sin and realize that sin at its root is rebellion against God.

So just like Adam and Eve looked at all that God had prepared for them and said, you know what? Forget what God says. God, I don’t care what you say.

I’m going to do what I want to do instead. And that’s what you and I do every day. I know you love God.

Many of you in this room are thinking, but I love God. Yet we have those moments where we couldn’t care less about what God says Because the sin nature comes calling, and we’re only too glad to answer. And so what God is, we’ve got a holy God who’s looking at these creatures, us, who fall short of his standard of absolute sinless perfection every day, but on top of that, we’re looking at him and saying, I don’t care what you want.

No, the incredible thing is not that God only provided one way to heaven, that God only provided one way for peace with him. And the incredible thing is that God provided any way for us to be saved. The incredible thing is that God loved us enough to provide even the one way, which is through Jesus Christ. And Jesus said, I am the way.

I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes unto the Father except through me.

And why is that? Because we have that sin. That sin that means we fall short of God’s standards.

It’s like going to a theme park and there’s the sign there that says, you must be this tall to ride. God has a sign that says, you must be this holy to come in. And we’re all ants down here on the ground in terms of our holiness.

We have none. And we can’t do anything to get rid of our sin. We can’t do anything to cleanse our own sin, to purge our own sin.

We can try really hard to live a perfect, sinless life from here on out. We can try to do all the things that God’s law says. we can try to do all the things that God’s law requires.

First of all, we won’t be able to do it. But even those good things that we do, that’s just doing what God’s law requires. We don’t get extra credit for that.

As I’ve said many times before, if I were to stand in Ralph’s courtroom having killed somebody and he says, what do you have to say for yourself? I can’t look at him and say, well, Your Honor, look at all the other people I haven’t killed. Don’t get extra credit for that, for just doing what the law says.

So you and I are stuck with this sin that we can’t get rid of, with this sin that we can do nothing to cleanse ourselves from. And we can look through all the supposed paths to God. And there’s not one of them that proposes a way to cleanse our sin.

A lot of them come down to just do the best you can and hope the good outweighs the bad. But none of them share a way to get rid of the bad. Some of them try to deal with the problem by just pretending that the bad isn’t a problem in the first place.

It’s sin’s an illusion or sin’s a made-up construct. Folks, sin is not an illusion or a made-up construct. It’s anything that we do that falls short of the holiness of God.

There’s only one plan. There’s only one path that offers any solution to the problem of our sin. There’s only one path that says here’s the way to cleanse the sin and get rid of the bad.

See, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on human flesh, to become human just like us, but without a sin nature. And so you had God the Son in human flesh come and live a perfect sinless life. He had no sin of His own.

If He had ever sinned, then everything He had done, everything He would go on to do would just be to pay for His own sin. But He had no sin of His own. He lived a perfect sinless life so that when he was nailed to the cross and when he shed his blood there, he wasn’t taking responsibility, bearing responsibility for his sins.

He was taking responsibility for ours. And our sin was nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ. And his blood that was shed cleanses us from sin. When he died there on the cross, it was as a sacrifice for sin.

He took all the punishment that we deserved. He bore the full weight of the wrath of God on sin. He took all the judgment that we deserved.

He paid all the penalty that we owed. He paid for it in full. Not as an accident, not as an afterthought, but it was God’s plan throughout the ages that Jesus Christ would come and pay for our sins because you and I could not.

He shed his blood for us and he died. And now God makes the offer that those who quit hanging on to their sin, quit trying to hang on to their good works and work their way to heaven, quit looking for all these other paths and instead trust in Jesus Christ. Trust in the way, the truth, and the life. Trust in Jesus Christ as our one and only Savior.

Put our full hope, our full trust, our full confidence in Him, believing that He died to pay for our sins in full. God offers forgiveness to us now because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Folks, the world says there are many ways to God.

Jesus says there’s only one. I’m much more inclined to trust what Jesus said than people who are just guessing or basing it on their feelings or their emotions or what they think should be. Jesus said this is the way it is.

This is the way it actually is. And you know when the world says that all these roads lead to God in one sense they’re right. In one sense they’re right.

Now I’ve already explained to you there’s only one way to salvation and that’s through Jesus Christ. But in one sense, the world is right that all roads lead to God. We are all on a path that ultimately leads to a meeting with God. And it doesn’t matter what religious road you walk down.

It doesn’t even matter what skeptical road you walk down. All of our paths are headed toward an eventual meeting with God. And in that meeting, we can either stand there in our own righteousness or stand there in our sin, stand there continuing to reject God’s mercy, And just trust that he’ll bring us into fellowship with him because we tried hard enough or because we were sincere.

But for much of the world, for all of the world that rejects God’s mercy, the road to that meeting with him leads to the judgment throne, the judgment seat. The only path that leads to God and his mercy is through Jesus Christ. All the other ways lead to God and His judgment. Only through Jesus Christ do we find a road to God and His mercy.

So this morning, if you’re wondering, how do I deal with this spiritual hunger? I know that I’m searching for something. I know that something is missing in my life.

I know that something’s incomplete. I know there’s something I need. I’m looking for a way to connect with God.

I’d like to have a relationship with Him, but I’m not sure how. Just trying to find the right road. Let me tell you.

Not because Jared said it. Not because Trinity Baptist Church said it. But because Jesus said it.

There’s one way to have a relationship with the Father. To have peace with the Father. And to have eternal life with the Father.

And that’s through Jesus Christ.