According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Well, it's time once again for According to the Scriptures online at accordingtothescriptures.com. Welcome to the program. We're in the middle of our series on the Seven I AM Statements of Jesus found here in John's gospel.

In John 14 and verse 6, Jesus declares four wonderful things about himself: that he is the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Sounds rather exclusive or narrow, doesn't it? Well, as we get started, consider for a moment the few areas where we tolerate and even expect narrowness. Here's Pastor Damian Kyle.

Damian Kyle: Allow me to offer a couple of examples from life where we not only tolerate narrowness but we expect it, and more than expect it, we demand it. We tend to like our pharmacists narrow-minded, don't we? So they don't get a prescription we hand to them, and then we pick it up and they say, "Listen, your doctor ordered 25 of these pills and it seems so narrow-minded to me to just have one color, one-shape pill. So we added a handful of some blue ones, and some pink ones, and a few of those orange ones, too."

Well, if you survived his or her broad-mindedness, you'd probably sue the living daylights out of them for their broad-mindedness. We tend to like our air traffic controllers and our pilots to be narrow-minded. If a pilot's instructed to land on runway number 17 and we were sitting up in first class and the door was open and we began to hear the pilot argue with the control tower and declare, "That's awfully narrow-minded of you, telling me I can only land on runway 17, and so I'm going to be broad-minded and I'm going to land wherever I want."

Well, if you were in that first-class section, you might be tempted to jump from your seat, run into the cockpit area, and encourage the pilot to be a little more narrow-minded than he is being. And why? Because there are situations in life where narrow-mindedness is not only right, but it is necessary, and broad-mindedness is wrong.

We tend to like our surgeons to be narrow-minded, don't we? You go in and you're going to have them remove an appendix, you come out from under it in recovery, you say, "Doc, how'd it go? Did you get that appendix? Everything go well?" "Oh, went more than well. I mean, while we were in there, we got your appendix out and we noticed you had two of lots of things, so we took out a lung and a kidney, took out your right eye, and narrow-mindedness is required in every area of life or the result would be terrible destruction and loss of life."

All day every day, in the world that we live, and thus we come to realize that the real issue, the critical issue in life, has absolutely nothing to do with broad or narrow per se, but whether something is right or wrong, or it's true or false. And nowhere is that more important than concerning our salvation and our eternities. And here Jesus declares that the way, the truth, and the life, access to a relationship with God, is something that only he can provide to us and has provided to mankind.

Now, concerning Jesus, I am not contending here in terms of broad and narrow and so forth. I'm not contending for credulity here or overtrustfulness here. We certainly would not give any serious consideration to just anyone who just jumped up anywhere and declared themselves to be the way, the truth, and the life, and then to take them seriously. But Jesus isn't just someone that is jumping up in human history and making this declaration concerning himself.

The exclusivity of his claims were not made in a vacuum. They were tied to the exclusivity of his person, tied to his unique qualifications in human history to declare himself to be the way, the truth, and the life and to bring us into a relationship with God. And why is he the only way? The reason that our forgiveness and salvation and entrance into heaven as a sinful descendant of Adam and Eve can only occur through faith in Jesus is because he alone is uniquely qualified to provide it to us.

Only his perfect sinless life as the very Son of God, given for us on the cross, could pay the price for sin that a holy God demands. And only faith in Jesus for salvation allows God to remain just in justifying sinful man. Only Jesus, only of Jesus, does God the Father declare himself to be... he declared of Jesus' entire life and teaching, as he did at Jesus' water baptism and he declared Matthew chapter 3, "And suddenly a voice came from heaven," the record is, and the Father declared of the Son, "This is my beloved Son, in whom very exclusively, very singular, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

In one moment after our death, all that's going to matter concerning the salvation that I have chosen to put my trust in for the forgiveness of sins is going to be not what did I think of it, what did the world think of it, all that is going to matter is what does God think of it? And God has made his pleasure very well known in terms of the salvation that was provided by Jesus' beloved Son. If he can look at his Son and be fully pleased, then we can as well.

At the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father declared of Jesus there, "This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." And so not only declaring concerning him that I'm pleased with him, but listen to what he is saying to you on my behalf. Jesus is the only way in the light of the perfect match that he is to what the Bible calls the more sure word of prophecy. Literally hundreds of prophecies given in the Old Testament as a prophetic portrait of the Messiah, the Savior that God would send into the world in order that when the Messiah came into human history, we would be able to recognize him for who he is.

God told us hundreds of years before Jesus was born in the city of Bethlehem that Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Told us through Isaiah how he would die, how he would rise from the dead. In the Psalms, that he would be betrayed, he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. And on and on and on it goes, this portrait of him that is painted for us in the scriptures in order that when Jesus came on the scene in human history, we would immediately recognize him for who and what he was, the Savior that God had promised.

And Jesus has always been the way. He didn't become the way in the New Testament. He didn't become the way when he was born into human history. He's always been the way. You consider the spiritual vocabulary that Jesus introduced into human history, and not just the vocabulary that he introduced into human history, but the astonishing realities that are represented by this vocabulary. The forgiveness of sins, as the hymn puts it, not in part but the whole.

Colossians chapter 1, verse 14, "In whom," that is Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." And then there's the vocabulary representing spiritual realities including the incarnation, a virgin birth, even as the Old Testament prophecies declared. And the angel when he came to Mary, she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." That's who was born into human history.

Then there's the vocabulary of propitiation, which means satisfying payment. John the Apostle wrote, "My little children, these things I write to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins," the satisfying payment for them, "and not only for ours, but also for the whole world." And then there is justification, being seen just in the eyes of God because of our faith in Christ.

Romans chapter 4, speaking of Jesus who was delivered up because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. And then reconciliation, Romans chapter 5, "And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." Then redemption, Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7, "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the richness of his grace."

The gospel was introduced into human history through him, the good news of his death, his burial, and his resurrection. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also was received and in which you stand." Mediator, as Paul wrote to Timothy and I quoted earlier, "For there is one God and one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time."

Atonement now reaching the heights of its definition. Substitution reaching the heights of its full meaning in Christ. First Peter chapter 2, verse 24, "Who himself," speaking of Jesus, bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sin might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed." Imputed righteousness, righteousness, "for he," that is the Father, "made him who knew no sin to be sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him." Access to God, and the wonder of that spiritual term and reality, "for through him," Paul wrote to the Ephesians, that is Jesus, "we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

Satisfaction as a religious term, a spiritual term as Isaiah declared of the Father looking upon the Son one day and the sacrifice that he would make 740 years before he ever did it. Isaiah chapter 53, verse 11, "He," that is the Father, "shall see the labor of his," that is Jesus', "soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." And then you add to all of that his miracles, his love, his compassion, his teaching, the life that he lived, and you see the utterly unique person that he was in human history.

It's like we get so familiar with them, certainly as Christians, but even in not being a Christian yet, and it's like we put all other human beings to one test in terms of what it would take for them to wow us, and then we put Jesus in another category. And so for them to wow us over here, all they need to know is a good card trick. And you look at the uniqueness of Jesus' life in human history, the supernaturalness of it, what he accomplished, what he said, what he did. No one in human history, not everyone put together, can approach who he was.

He is utterly unique in human history. Of course he's going to make unique declarations concerning himself. Of course there are things that are going to be uniquely true about him. And you look at his life and the utter meakness of his life in human history, and then tell me with a straight face that I am to reject him in the name of the gods of our age: tolerance and broad-mindedness, as opposed to being humbled by all of it and wondering at all of it with gratitude that such a one would care anything about me, would know anything about me, and care enough to tell me the truth about salvation and then to die on the cross, be buried, rise again on the third day in order to personally provide that salvation to me and to us.

Many years ago, a gentleman by the name of C.S. Lewis, he was a then a professor at Cambridge University in England, he was once an agnostic before he became a Christian, and he wrote famously of Jesus in this regard and he put it so well that he left every other person in human history only able to quote what he said. No improving it and putting it in our own words. We're forced to quote him verbatim, and here's what he says in the vein of what we're looking at here this morning.

He said, "I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him, that is Jesus. 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. 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 the level of a man who says he's a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse."

And Jesus' declarations concerning himself here in verse 6 forces every person to come to one of three conclusions about him: that he is either a liar or he's a lunatic or he is the Lord that he claims to be. If what he says in verse 6 is not true and he knows it's not true, then he's a liar and he should not be followed. If that statement in verse 6 is not true but Jesus thinks it to be true, then he's a madman and he shouldn't be followed. But if that statement is true, then every single man, woman, boy, and girl should make him the Savior and the Lord of our lives.

And Jesus' deliberate declaration here in verse 6 deliberately forces us to come to only one of those three conclusions about him. There's no in-between, he doesn't allow it. He purposely refuses to be put into the category that so many people want to put him in, and that is as a great teacher, a great man, a great moral example. If what he has said is false here, then he is not a great anything. But if what he says here is true, then all of those other categorizations of great man, great teacher, great moral teacher and example, all of those things if this is true of Jesus in verse 6, all of those other categorizations of him are an insult.

And it is to damn him with faint praise. And Jesus declares to each of us that he is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through him. And he calls upon each of us to put our faith in him, the uniqueness of his life that he lived, the uniqueness of his death, his burial, his resurrection, his deity, on and on and on. Put our faith in him for everlasting life in a relationship with God and a future in heaven out of the uniqueness of his life.

You know, there's a few verses like this in the Bible, verse 6 and several others, that people look at Jesus' teaching and they think to themselves, "Jesus, if you only hadn't said those things. If you only hadn't insisted on declaring yourself to be divine, the Son of God. You would have had the religious establishment of the Jews in your day in the palm of your hand. The whole world would be happy to gather around you and declare you to be the greatest moral teacher and example in the history of the world."

And yet he makes statements like this that cost him that kind of popularity because he's not interested in popularity. He's interested in truth, and he's interested in the salvation of your soul and that you would know the way, and know the way in this life and then be in the way forever and ever, even on into the glory of heaven. And that's his offer to you this morning if you're unsaved. And please heed it and receive it this morning and receive him this morning as the way, the truth, and the life. Come to the Father today through him.

Maybe you sit here this morning and you say, "You know, okay, I'm tracking with you, but I don't know enough about him yet to make that decision." Well, come forward and get a Bible from us and some literature to help you begin in the gospels. Begin to familiarize yourself with the life of Jesus and see if his uniqueness doesn't warrant the uniqueness of his claims concerning himself.

It's important to realize that in terms of the way to heaven, the way to know God, though the way is exclusive and the way is narrow and it is but one way, no one is excluded. No one is excluded that wants to walk through that gate and into this relationship with God. For those of us who are saved here this morning, just a wonderful reminder concerning the life that we get to live as Christians: that we're on the way to heaven, we're living a life that is based upon truth.

How wonderful is that in this life where lies are used as such a weapon today on every level? And we're living the greatest life a person can live, and our lives are proof of the truthfulness of Jesus' claim and our lives have become a witness to the veracity, to the truth of what it is that he declared here. What a privilege it is.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Damian Kyle on According to the Scriptures and his message, Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You can hear it again at accordingtothescriptures.com, 1place.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For resource requests like today's message on CD, give us a call at 209-545-5530. That's 209-545-5530. We also have a church app where you can listen to Damian. Simply search for Calvary Chapel Modesto in the App Store or Google Play. If you'd like to partner with us through a financial gift, you can do that through our website at accordingtothescriptures.com.

And thank you very much. And let me also give you our mailing address: According to the Scriptures, 4300 American Avenue, that's here in Modesto, California. The zip code is 95356. Don't miss the next study when Pastor Damian Kyle will again open the word, helping us live our lives according to the scriptures. This program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Modesto.