Alright, I’m glad there are a few people in the auditorium this morning because I have some questions for you. Feel free to holler out if you know the answer. We have some fine prizes for the winner. Very exciting. Okay, first question is, what is 364 divided by 19? Anybody? No cheating. The answer is one billion. One billion. That was a tricky one, I know. Okay, next question. What do you get when you mix the color green with the color red? Anyone? You get Christmas, obviously. The right answer is Christmas. Next question: what is the difference between a fiddle and a violin? The right answer is a violin has twelve strings and the fiddle only has six. 12 and 6 is the correct answer. Just a couple more. Here we go. What was John Wayne’s horse’s name? For some of you that may be before your time. His horse’s name was Fluffy. I know, surprised me too. One more for the big prize. Last question. How many ways are there to Heaven? Be careful now. Don’t cheat. The correct answer is 14.25. Yes, 14.25 is the answer I was looking for. I’m sorry. No one wins the grand prize. Too bad. Maybe next time. Thanks for playing.
How did you like that game? Was it fun? Want to play again? No? Why not? Surely you didn’t have a problem with me just making up my answers, did you? I know some of you John Wayne fans out there are about to lose your voice screaming at your computer. But, yes, I made all those answers up. No truth to any of it. But how do you know? How do you know what is truth in this day when someone can say they self-identify as a woman even though God clearly made them a man? How do you know what is truth when there are so many religions out there and some of them sound a lot better or easier than Christianity? How do you know what is truth? Is there any truth that is constant anymore? Is there such a thing as absolute truth; truth that is true for you and for me for all time? Is there any real difference in all these religions? Is Oprah correct when she confidently claims that we are all on our journey to Heaven and there are many ways to get there? How about these questions? Is something true just because somebody says it’s true? And does believing that something is true because it’s easier to believe it’s true make it true? Does that make sense? If x is hard to believe, but y is easier to believe, does that make y truth? I sure hope not.
We are neck deep in our sermon series on apologetics which is just the study of what we believe and why we believe it. So far, we have looked at what we believe about creation and about what made and makes Jesus so controversial. Today we want to look at the claim of Jesus to be the only way to Heaven. If being controversial means that people disagree with you then this is probably the most controversial thing Jesus ever said. It is also the most important question people have to ask themselves. Is belief in Jesus the only way to Heaven?
Well let’s look at what Jesus said and we will study that question more in depth. Let’s turn to a short but powerful passage in the Gospel of John where Jesus makes a bold statement. In John 14:6 we see a hinge; a hinge on which turns the eternity of every human being and the most important decision of your life depends on the truth of it. At this point in the Gospel, it is a bad time for the disciples. Jesus has just announced that one of them will betray Him, then told Peter, their leader, that Peter will deny Him three times. That would all be shocking to hear but then Jesus said that He was going to leave them and they didn’t understand what was going on. Everything was about to be very different and they weren’t ready for it and they were scared. Maybe you can relate to that kind of anxiety lately.
As usual, Jesus said enough in a few sentences to keep preachers busy for thousands of years. You know, if this passage was the sum total of scripture, it would be enough and more than enough for us to study and ponder for the rest of our lives. Let’s read John 14:1-6 to keep it in context but we are going to focus on just verse 6. Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going." 5Thomas said to him, "LORD, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
That’s big talk, isn’t it? Have you ever heard somebody talk big and not be able to back it up? How do you feel about them? As a kid, I remember watching the boxer Muhammed Ali fight. Well, actually, what I remember most was watching Muhammed Ali brag about fighting before AND after he fought. He was so fun to watch. He would say he was the greatest and he would back it up every time…until one day he didn’t. I don’t remember who he was fighting but I remember watching him lose and it was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters lose or something. I was crushed. I felt like I had been lied to. So, you can imagine when I hear Jesus say He is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Life, I’m skeptical. We should be. Lots of folks down through the years have said there are any number of ways to get to Heaven and I’ll be honest, this is hard to believe. It’s hard to believe because, as we all know, there’s no free lunch, right? You have to work to have anything nice. If you are good then good things come to you. It just makes sense. You have to be good enough to get to Heaven.
But Jesus says nothing here about being good enough. He doesn’t say anything about working hard or being good or selling enough magazines or making sure your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds or walking little old ladies across the street. None of that. Other scriptures say we are saved by grace and through faith. Nowhere does the Bible say you have to be good enough or you have to earn it. And that’s a problem. That’s a problem because being good enough, while being difficult, makes sense to me. I think it does for everybody. So, why should I believe something so hard to believe; something that goes against the very grain of who we are and what we have all been taught all our lives?
Well, there are any number of arguments for and against Jesus being the only way to Heaven, but I will start with what I believe to be the most persuasive, that is, His resurrection. I have not studied Muhammed like I have Jesus but do you know what happened after Muhammed died? Nothing. Nothing ever happened with him again. He’s dead and always will be. Same for Allah, Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, Charlie Manson and everybody else that has ever been worshipped. If they ever lived then they died and stayed dead. Jesus died on the cross and rose again in three days and lives today so we can have a relationship with God, the Father through Jesus, God the Son.
Oh, I hear ya! Prove it, right? Well how is anything like that proven? How do we know that George Washington really lived? We didn’t see him with our own eyes and Troy’s not here to ask so we read about it in reliable historical sources. Well, I’m here to tell you that the four Gospels all say that Jesus was resurrected and they are, in fact, historical documents but there are other, non-biblical sources as well. The historian Josephus was well-respected in his day and still is as a historian and he wrote, “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, (9) those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (10) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
Josephus was convinced and he was a Pharisee. So, since Jesus is the only man to have ever raised Himself from the dead, it seems to me He has to be God and if He says He is the way to the Father, I believe Him. But like I said, in this day of people saying they self-identify as members of the opposite sex or I’ve seen people claim to identify as another species even, how do we know what is truth?
I’m reminded of Jesus standing before Pilate at His mock trial just before His execution and Pilate asked Jesus if He was a king and Jesus said it was truth and Pilate retorted, “What is truth?” He was standing there face to face with the very embodiment of truth and couldn’t figure it out. Now, I’ll give this to Pilate, sometimes the truth is hard to find. I get it. I understand. What makes it hard to find truth is that truth is not proven by how we feel and yet, we want to prove things that way. We want truth to be defined by what we think and how we feel but just because you believe it and that thought brings you comfort doesn’t make something truth.
Chuck Colson wrote about a woman he knew named Sheila. She said, “I believe in God. I can't remember the last time I went to church. But my faith has carried me a long way. It's 'Sheila-ism.' Just my own little voice and that brings me great peace.” St. Augustine said, “When regard for truth has been broken down or even slightly weakened, all things will remain doubtful.” I’m doubtful of “Sheila-ism” even though it brings Sheila comfort. I’m doubtful because I am quite sure that even Sheila would agree that Sheila has made mistakes. Sheila can’t say she never sinned. Sheila doesn’t claim to be God. She doesn’t claim to be perfect. She doesn’t claim to be the way to God and she never rose from the dead or did any miracles on her own! But Jesus did all those things and my faith IN HIM brings me peace because He has proven Himself to me. I’m glad that “Todd-ism” is not the way to God because I have proven that I will mess it up. How about you? How is life working out for you following “you-ism”? I bet if you are honest you would say it’s not worked out too well.
So, why doesn’t everybody believe in Jesus? Well, there are several answers. We talked last week about how faith in Jesus is going to mean you have to change your life and start to look and act more like Jesus and lots of people don’t want to do that. I get it. The Christian life is not easy. I will tell you this though: when I was a young Christian, Christianity seemed to me to be a long list of “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that” and all I saw was the rules. I saw everybody else having fun and living how they wanted to live and I was jealous.
As I have gotten older, though, I realize that most of those people are really NOT happy. There is no peace, no lasting joy and what do you do when a crisis hits? Where do you turn? Again, how’s that working out for ya so far? Since I have allowed God to be in total control of my life, I have never had such freedom. I’ve never had such peace and joy even in the difficult times. I have never had such wisdom or feelings of forgiveness. So, while truth is not proven by feelings, it is corroborated by those feelings. Those feelings come when you find truth.
The problem with truth is that it will always be controversial. People will always disagree with you. It may hurt some feelings. It may make people mad or upset. They will ask you how you can be so narrow-minded. They will call you a bigot or unfair or any number of things.
I want you to picture this. You are sailing along on the big and beautiful ocean liner, the Titanic. The band is playing. The food is great. The weather is a little chilly but nice and everybody is dressed to the nines having such a good time when all of the sudden the ship jolts and you hear a loud noise. The band keeps playing but you are concerned so you go to the captain. The captain knows the ship just hit an iceberg but he doesn’t want to be controversial. He doesn’t want to scare people. Everybody is having such a good time and so he tells you not to worry about it. Go back to doing what you were doing. Everything will be okay. Go play some shuffleboard and relax. And the next thing you know…glug, glug, glug. What do you think about that captain?
Or picture this maybe, if you can. The whole world is being threatened by an unseen virus that is spreading like wildfire through countries all over the world and people are panicking. They are scared. They don’t have the answers they want and everybody blames everybody else and the world just seems to be in chaos. Stores are shutting down. People are losing their jobs and their minds and they just need something or someone to help them.
But you don’t want to be controversial. You don’t want to scare people with the truth. You don’t want people to have to change their lifestyles and besides that, what in the world would you tell them?
Let me read truth to you one more time. It’s written in red in my Bible so I can find it easy. Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. That’s what you tell them. Tell them the truth that Jesus told His disciples when their world was in chaos. Tell them the truth that God loves them and is in control; even in control of some unseen virus and if God is in control and He loves us, what in this world do we have to worry about?
What in this world do we have to worry about and how do we get to the next world? Jesus said all we have to do is believe. You don’t have to be good enough. You don’t have to feel peace about making the decision to follow Jesus. Believe that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and the feelings will follow and your morals will improve later. Believe that nobody gets to Heaven except through Jesus and be assured of your place in Heaven as co-heirs with Jesus to all the good things God has to offer. But don’t just take my word for it. Believe the One that John said is the Word and the Word is God. (John 1:1)
Let me close with something Abraham Lincoln once said. Once, when a stubborn disputer seemed unconvinced, Lincoln said, "Well, let's see, how many legs has a cow?" "Four, of course," came the reply disgustedly. "That's right," agreed Lincoln. "Now suppose you call the cow's tail a leg; how many legs would the cow have?" "Why, five, of course," was the confident reply. "Now, that's where you're wrong," said Lincoln. "Calling a cow's tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." (Bits and Pieces, July, 1991)
Just saying something is true doesn’t make it true. Just because something feels right doesn’t make it right. And just because something is hard to believe doesn’t make it wrong. But ultimately we have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus by God’s grace and our faith in Him, not on our good works or anything else. We can’t prove much of any of it when it comes to spiritual things but we come to God through faith. It’s not a blind faith. I can tell you my story of how God has made Himself known to me since I was a kid. But I’m just grateful that, as Ephesians 2 says, “We are saved by grace and through faith.” Thank you, Lord.
Today, if you don’t have that relationship with Jesus that I have been talking about, now is the time. What are you waiting for? We aren’t guaranteed another breath. Ask God to forgive you of your sins. Confess those sins and repent of them. Turn away from that lifestyle and allow God’s Spirit to come into your life and start to change you. All you have to do is believe. Do it right now as the music plays.
For those of you watching via Facebook or some other way, please let me know if you have questions or if there is something I or our church can do for you, whether that need is mental, physical or spiritual. I love you all! See you next week.
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