Focal Point

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Jesus was facing the end of his life here. He's talking at the Last Supper about his own upcoming death, but he's not afraid. He knows where he's going. As a matter of fact, he wants us to know where we're going, and he needs to make sure that you're sure that you're standing in the right lane and you're going to end up in the right place so that you can face your own demise with courage.

Guest (Male): Which path are you on? Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez examines Jesus's bold claim, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." In a world of competing voices and popular options, we'll unpack why following Christ means stepping into the unpopular line and how his promise of eternal pleasures makes every sacrifice worth it.

Remember, if you ever miss part of our program, just go online to focalpointradio.org to catch up. Now here's Pastor Mike with his message, "The Only Path to the Good Life and Making Sure You're on It."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Picking the correct lane. There's a little strategy to that as you drive up the I-5. I assume you've got to pick the best lane, particularly when it's rush hour. That's important. But there is some pressure to that. It seems to me there's a lot more pressure for me when I step up to the checkout lanes at the grocery store.

We have to pick very carefully. You not only need to count how many people are in each line, but there may be fewer people in this line, but you've got to do the math on what's in their cart. How much is in their cart? If you're me, you've got to spend some time analyzing all the checkers. Which ones look like they're just phoning it in today? Which ones look experienced? Which ones look fast? I don't want any chit-chat up there. I need all-business checkers up there.

Then, of course, I've got to look at the line I'm walking toward, thinking this is the right lane to be in. I've got to see if there's anybody in this line who looks like they're going to dig into their purse and pull out coupons because that's not the lane you want to be in. Half of them are expired or whatever. There's always trouble with coupons.

A lot of pressure in gambling to pick the right lane at the supermarket or on the freeway, but there's one line you don't want to gamble on, and that is which line you're walking in in life. You need to be clear about that. As Jesus said, there are really only two lines: there's the right line and the wrong line.

You're either in the right lane that when you check out, you're going to check out into, as we might put it in Jesus's teaching, the eternal good life, or we're going to check out into something that is eternal loss. Nothing could be more fundamental to the Christian life. If we have any reflection of the biblical message, it's that there's just one of two destinies that we're all going to end up in, and it's all about which line you're in.

Who are you following? If we're following the Good Shepherd, then we know that at checkout, we've got a good future. Some people think it's really hard to pick, but it's really not that complicated. We make it harder than it is, and so much is at stake. You better be sure that you are in the correct lane.

To do that, I want us to look at a passage this morning that makes it as clear as it can be. Jesus is going to appeal to you. If you're in the popular line, maybe it's time for you to get in the right line, and it's all here in John chapter 14. These are familiar words if you've grown up in church or even just been exposed to Christian culture.

It ends with probably the most famous statement here that you'll know in this text. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." That's where we're headed in this passage. That's what causes so much trouble for us Christians because we go around parroting what our leader said, and he says he's the only way. No way to get where you want to go unless you're going with him.

Just know that we didn't make this up. Preachers didn't make this up. We didn't just vote on this. This is something Jesus said, and it's important that we understand what he's saying because it really has to do with eternity. Let's take a look at verse one. We'll read verses one through six.

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going."

Thomas, thank God for Thomas, says to him, "Lord, we don't know anything about what you're talking about. Lord, we don't know where you're going, and how in the world could we know the way if we don't know what you're talking about?" Jesus said, "Good question, Thomas, but here's the answer. I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no one's going to come to the Father except through me."

These three things that Jesus calls himself here are very important if we're going to just reevaluate where we stand with the Creator and as we think about a Christ who says, "I'm going in a particular way." If you read the context of this, this is the Upper Room where they've all had their last supper and Judas is ditching out to go betray Jesus. This goes on, chapter 14, 15, 16. We have all of this discussion about what's happening here in the Upper Room, and they all know this is the end. Jesus is going to give his life on a cross and be crucified.

He's saying things like, "Well, I'm going to go, but then I'm going to come back." Therein is our allusion in this passage, verse three, to the fact that he has to be a resurrected Christ. He can't be a leader of a movement and say, "I'm going to go prepare some kind of place for you into some kind of house, some kind of eternal dwelling place," but die tomorrow. That's not how this worked.

He said, "I am going to die tomorrow, but on Sunday, I'm going to rise from the dead and I am going to come back one day." This is an eschatological end-of-time one day. We've been waiting now for 2,000 years for this to take place. One day, he says, "I'm going to come back and take you to be with myself, that where I am, you may be also."

Let's try and unravel these three things: I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Let's look at those one at a time this morning and just think this through as it relates to all that Jesus is saying. Let's start with verse two. "In my Father's house are many rooms." You might have heard, if you grew up with an old translation, the word "mansions," and all that means is a place to live, the place where you're going to dwell.

In my Father's house, when you think about that, you might think about heaven. If you thought about heaven, you might be right in terms of where he lives now, but one day, the dwelling place of God is going to be among men, Revelation chapter 21 says. He has a place for us that he is going to put us. It is called often in the Gospels his kingdom.

He's got a kingdom that is going to be a perfect place. You're going to have to be done with this life, just like he's about to be done with his life on the next day of saying this. We're going to cross from this life into the next life, which is not our permanent home. It's going to be with God if we are Christians standing in the right line. Then he's going to come and have us dwell on Earth.

A new Earth, as Second Peter chapter 3 says, where righteousness dwells. An Earth where God is reigning and everything is copacetic, everything is the way it ought to be, everything is going to be peaceful. More than that, I just want to bait you with this: it's going to be better than you can ever imagine. Jot this down if you're a note-taker: Psalm chapter 16, verse 11.

It says, "In his presence," speaking of God, of course, "is fullness of joy." Have you had any joy in your life? Well, it's only been partial and it's always been fleeting. If you read the book of Ecclesiastes, it always seems to disappoint. It never reaches the full peak of what we would hope. It's just always got some edge that's corroding. But in the joy that we're going to experience in his presence, there's fullness of joy.

Then I love this: "At his right hand," here comes, "are pleasures forevermore." One of the problems of you getting in the line to follow Christ that checks out into the Father's house is that you may think, "Those are the people that are telling me I can't do all the stuff I want to do. They're going to start limiting my pleasures. They're all about self-denial and saying no to sin," and the sin seems pretty enticing and pretty pleasurable. I don't want to get in that line. That's the number one reason that people tell me they don't want to become Christians.

I don't want to have to stand in that line and say no to the things I want to do. All I need to tell you here is that everything you really want, everything you really desire, the things that you're trying to experience that you hope will somehow be what you really want, this is the reason Jesus isn't really condemning your desires for pleasure and fulfillment and reputation and real estate and riches.

He's all about that, but he says, "Don't store it up here, because here it's never going to satisfy." As Ecclesiastes 5 says, if you start loving the stuff here, you'll never have enough and you will realize this is like drinking salt water; you're never going to be satisfied. He says what you really want are the things I'm going to provide for you.

When there's no sin, there's no trouble, there's only my unmitigated blessing. If you get past this life and you're willing to believe in something that our kids don't much believe in anymore, and that is delayed gratification, and you can stand in line and say no to the things that God says that we should say no to, and we say yes to following Jesus who says, "I'm the Good Shepherd, follow me; I'm going to lead you to the right place."

As a matter of fact, here he says, "I'm going to lead you to my Father's house, and it's going to be good." He's taught all about the goodness of this all and pleasure and joy and all that you really want. C.S. Lewis rightly said, I guess in the spirit of Ecclesiastes and King Solomon of the Old Testament, he rightly said a generation ago, "There are desires in us that we realize are never going to be fulfilled in this life."

That must mean that God created us for another world. Of course he did. The world that God is holding out for us is getting queued up in this line, and we need to make sure we're in it. When you are, you know this: that though it's not the permanent home, the moment you pass from this life into the next, Jesus promised you're going to be just fine.

As a matter of fact, you're going to be in a place that, as Paul put it in Philippians chapter 1, is far better than anything you could ever experience in this life. "For me to live is Christ," Paul said. I'll be all about him. I'll follow him. I'll do what he says. I'll stand in his line. I'll deprive myself of whatever he says I should and I'll do whatever he tells me. But to die? Gain. So much better.

That gives you courage to face the end of this life. Jesus was facing the end of his life here. He's talking at the Last Supper about his own upcoming death, but he's not afraid. He knows where he's going. As a matter of fact, he wants us to know where we're going, and he needs to make sure that you're sure that you're standing in the right lane and you're going to end up in the right place so that you can face your own demise with courage.

I know we love youth in our culture. Growing old is a bad thing, but here's the deal: when we grow another year older, we're one step closer to what God says he's going to give us that's far better than anything you've ever experienced here. Number one on your outline, if you're taking notes, he calls himself in verse six "the way." Verse one tells us we need to trust in God, trust also in him, and he is the way.

Trust the way, that's Jesus, number one, for courage in death. I want you to never fear death if you're standing in the right line. You ought to fear death if you're standing in the popular line because the popular line, with all kinds of variations as to what you might want to do or what you might like or what preference you might have, it's always beckoning you to go to the place that's popular, where the culture's going to say everything's good over here.

You need to say, "Am I really queued up for a place where God says I will give you all the unmitigated blessings that you have been really made to enjoy?" A lot of that is found in God, even though that may be hard for us to stretch our imagination to think, "I can't imagine that God would be the fulfillment of what I really want." Well, it's not only God; it's all of his gifts.

He's not going to create for us a gigantic choir loft where everyone's going to sit in there and sing in their choir robes for eternity. This is a new Earth where everything that your heart truly desires, without any of the corruption of those desires, is going to find its fulfillment in the presence of God. In his presence, there's fullness of joy and at his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore.

That's as true as it's ever been as our culture continues to deteriorate. We must think, "Wow, there's got to be something better than this." Oh, and there is. You need to trust Jesus to get there because here's what the Bible says about you and I getting there on our own: we can't do it. This is fundamental. We all cannot get there on our own.

Some of us think somehow God's just going to put us up in front of him when we die, and he's going to say, "Well, you seem better than most people; I guess I'll let you in." That's not how this works. We can never earn this place. We can never say, "I've been good enough to go to this place." We can never qualify for this place.

Jesus has to come and do it himself. I need to turn you to a passage. I know it's an Old Testament text and it's steeped in some Old Testament history, but please go with me to the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Let me show you why Jesus came and he's the way and why he says in verse six he's the only way. Isaiah chapter 59.

Let's go to the middle of this chapter and show you the dilemma that God sees as he looks at this Earth, and even the best among us are not good enough to ever do anything to save our culture or save the people of humanity. We just can't. Isaiah chapter 59, take a look at verse 14 and see if this doesn't read like your newsfeed on your computer.

"Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away." We'd like more justice. We'd like real justice. We'd like real righteousness. Truth, that would be good. "For truth has stumbled in the public squares." It doesn't stand up there; it's getting knocked down left and right. "And uprightness cannot enter." It's like it's barred. You can't do righteous things here; you'll be mocked for it.

Truth is lacking, verse 15, and "he who departs from evil makes himself a prey." Just ponder that phrase. He who departs from evil, if you say, "I'm out of this line that says just do whatever you feel, do whatever feels good, just do what you want, be who you want," if you get out of that line and you say, "I'm going to forsake that evil that God says is evil and I'm going to stand in the right line," you make yourself a prey.

That works in the Old Testament times where you see a lot of animals eating other animals, unless you still watch Animal Kingdom or National Geographic. Maybe this is better: it certainly puts a target on your back. How's that for updating the idiom? Jesus said in Luke 6, "If you choose to stand with him and follow the Good Shepherd, here's what you're going to get: insults, exclusion."

People are going to say things about you that aren't true at work, in your family, in your neighborhood. You will be an outcast if you follow me. Jesus said, "If they hated me, they're going to hate you." He says that in the Gospel of John, and we need to believe the fact that there's a price to pay to stand with him.

But just know that if you are maligned for doing what's right, middle of verse 15, the Lord sees it and he's displeased with it. He's displeased that in our culture, we don't really applaud real justice. He saw, verse 16, that there was no man and he wondered if there was no one to intercede. Where is the person who can stand up and fix this problem?

This is the point of half of the Bible: you can't solve this problem. There is no one that you can follow. Do you ever notice that in the Bible, the heroes of the Bible are always seen as having feet of clay? You would never find that in Assyrian history. You won't find that in Babylonian history. You won't find that in Egyptian history.

In biblical history, in Israeli history, you find these people like David and you start to put your hand on your face going, "I can't believe it." He's a peeping Tom. I can't believe it. He's not only an adulterer; he's going to kill this gal's husband by a ruse. This is terrible. Or Noah, blameless in his generation, except for he's getting drunk and doing some weird things that we can't even quite understand, but it's not good and it's perverse after the flood incident.

Job, he's blameless in his generation, but still, we can't get through the book of Job without reading how he's suicidal and cursing the day of his birth and he's so angry at everybody. These are our heroes. Solomon, at the peak of Israel's wealth and its prominence, is there bowing down to other gods because he's built a harem that's leading his heart astray into idolatry.

There's only one hero in the Bible ultimately. Even though we can aspire to reflect the good traits of all the biblical heroes, they're heroes in quotations. The real hero is the one that's never done anything wrong. There's only one who can say, "I'm the way," because you can't be the way. Keep reading. There was no man in the middle of verse 16.

"Then his own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him." This is a theme throughout Isaiah. The only way that God is going to provide salvation is for him to do it himself. He sends his own Son in the weird complexity of the triune God that the Bible reveals that is. This God who was and is and is to come, this triunity of persons who exists in one essence, sends the second person of the Godhead to perform what no man can perform.

There's nobody to intercede for human beings. We can't do it ourselves. We need a way to get to God. We need a way to be accepted by God. We need a way for my life to be seen as acceptable to get a ticket into this house of God, get a place there. How do I get a place there? I can't get a place there. The best person in our generation can't get a place there. The best person in our church can't get a place there.

But God says, "I'll have to do this myself. And I'll put on righteousness and I'll uphold it." Verse 17, "He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself in zeal like a cloak." This is a weird juxtaposition of comments. You mean to tell me you're going to be salvation and righteousness for one group of people, and you're going to be vengeance and zealous vindication and punishment for the rest?

Yes, that's exactly right. There's only two lines. There's one that's going to incur God's judgment and there's one that's going to incur God's salvation. That's it. That's the bifurcation that we have in Scripture. You're either the sheep or the goats. You're either his children or you're not. You're either in the right line, the narrow road, the small gate, the small checkout, or you're in the broad road, the popular one, the one that's easy to get on, and the broad gate that leads to destruction.

That's the way the Bible posits all of this. I love the way this ends. Verse 18, "According to their deeds, he will repay them, wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render repayment. So everyone, even in judgment, are going to fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun."

I just love that. Even the concept of worship from the east and judgment to the west. We're not talking about the West Coast, by the way. Just so you know, that was a light moment there. I thought it was cute since we're living here on the West Coast. It's my sixth sermon here in the last couple days, so no telling what you're going to hear.

This is a serious passage for me to be saying all that. "For he will come like a rushing stream that the wind of the Lord drives." Everything Jesus said is all this stuff that's going to happen about taking care of the sheep and the goats, dealing with the popular line or the small line over here. It's all going to happen in a moment.

In a moment, it's going to begin in a moment when Christ comes back, as he says in our passage in John chapter 14. He's going to come back and receive us to be with him, that where he is, we'll be with him. To the rest of the world, if you read the book of Revelation from chapter 6 all the way to chapter 19, here comes the wrath of judgment, the vengeance, the payment, all that stuff that's talked about in verse 18.

But for us, a redeemer, verse 20, will come to Zion and to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, declares the Lord. I hope today you might consider getting in a different line than you're in if you find yourself in the popular line and not the unpopular one, that you turn from transgression. Now, I understand what's true about you up there in verse 15 will be true: you'll make yourself a prey. You'll put a target on your back.

But you'll have a redeemer that'll come to you. Someone who will pay the price for you. The way that Jesus is going, by the way, is the way to the cross. That's where he's headed: to be crucified. "As for me," verse 21, "this is my covenant, my promise," that's what covenant means, "with them," says the Lord. "My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring," says the Lord, "from this time forth and forevermore."

God has always had a remnant of people standing in the small line. The line that no one wants to get in. And I just love this picture of their having children that are following in the line, having grandchildren that are rising up and following in that line. It's an amazing, wonderful covenant promise of God. I'll be your redeemer. And the only way to redeem these people is for the strong arm of the Lord to do it himself.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Today's message is called "The Only Path to the Good Life and Making Sure You're on It." We'll continue with part two next time. Remember, you can always revisit or share these Bible lessons online at focalpointradio.org.

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Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zaandam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City.

We'll gather for devotional times in God's word, followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey. Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Well, that's all our time. Join us tomorrow when Pastor Mike continues his message, "The Only Path to the Good Life and Making Sure You're on It." That's Wednesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. I pray today's message will help you live out your faith with truth and love. After all, that's the kind of biblical faith that changes lives and transforms a crooked culture. But if you haven't truly surrendered your life to Christ, then I'd like to invite you to get in touch. We'd love to pray with you and help you discover God's plan of salvation. Visit focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Shared values, sound truth. Find us at focalpointradio.org.