John 14:6 I am the Way Elderly Care Ministry
John 14:6 - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
To help us unpack this verse, let’s start by just taking each word Jesus uses to describe himself. First, “the way” – Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ll show you the way.” He says, “I am the way.” The way to where? Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” So he is the way to the Father, to God himself.
I think many of us have had our own ideas of the way to God. For me, this question of the way to God didn’t used to be so important because I thought I already had it figured out. As long as I didn’t drink or do drugs, kill people, do anything really heinous or awful, that I’d be fine. I thought that God would surely accept me given the overall decent life I’d lived. That was my understanding of “the way to God.”
But that was a way to God on my own terms where I said – “God, I’ve lived an overall decent life, I haven’t killed anyone or done anything majorly harmful. You should accept me, right?” – but unfortunately that was an understanding of the way to God on my own terms … and the problem was that it wasn’t God’s terms. Jesus says that the only way to the Father is through himself.
Then Jesus describes himself as “the truth.” He does not merely speak the truth; he IS truth. He is the embodiment of truth – the truth about who God is and about who we are. He is God in the flesh, He is God who came to us in the form of a baby, a human being, so that we would understand that God is a God who really is near to us, who has walked in our shoes, who has understood life from our perspective by living it himself.
[Point to the wooden cross prop during this section] Through Jesus we can also see the truth of who we are. He ultimately came to earth to suffer and die, to take the place for the punishment for our sin. Our sin of rejecting our Creator and the whole host of immoralities that result from that – lust, deception, greed, envy – all the sins in our lives as a result of rejecting God’s good standards and living according to our standards. God said that our sin is so wicked, so permanent, that we couldn’t be fixed with just some instruction from God, just Him telling us to live this way and not that way, or, “It’s OK, just do better next time.” No, Jesus as the truth means that when we look at the cross and the kind of gory, awful death that he died, the truth is that we deserved that punishment, the truth is that’s what God thinks of our sin. Our sins can’t just be swept under the rug; God in his justice said that we need to pay, we need to be punished … but he gave that punishment to Jesus instead of us.
For me, I thought the truth of who I am was determined by what I did on the outside. So, like I said earlier, I didn’t do anything particularly heinous and awful – I hadn’t killed anyone, I didn’t drink or do drugs, I was nice to those I knew – and I thought that what I did externally was the truth of who I am, that overall I was a nice and decent person. But Jesus showed me the truth of who I am from God’s perspective, that God sees not only the external but the internal as well. God sees all my deception before people to look better than who I actually am; the ways I manipulated people in order to get what I wanted; the envy in my heart that motivated me even in what should’ve been my closest relationships; the lust in my heart; the entitlement and demand that everyone treat me just the way I want or leave me alone.
When Jesus showed me that all this was in my heart, that’s when I understood the truth, his truth – that before God, I am a sinner, and I deserve that punishment on the cross.
Finally, Jesus describes himself as “the life.” He is life itself. When I came out and agreed with God’s truth and said, “Yes, God, I am a sinner. I have made such a mess of my life living the way I wanted, and my heart is so corrupt that there is nothing good in me,” when I agreed God’s assessment of my life and felt the weight of the guilt that I deserved, I received Jesus’ life. Because on that cross, Jesus took the punishment for my sins and said, “I forgive you.” I received forgiveness from Jesus, I felt the weight of my sin and guilt lifted from me for the first time, and I received that new life through Jesus.
And so Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” There is no other way, no other truth, no other life. Here is our God, in human form in Jesus, hanging on the cross. Do we reject him, saying, “No, Jesus, you are not the way, the truth, and the life. I determine those things for myself”? With such a response, we are choosing death, because we are forfeiting the forgiveness and new life that Jesus has already secured for us through the cross. Do we look at the cross of Jesus and say, “Oh, that’s nice, that’s nice that you believe that,” but keep a cool distance from this whole Christianity thing, so that we don't let Jesus affect us? No, we need to hear Jesus when he says he is the way, the truth, and the life, we need to personally respond to Him who suffered and died a gruesome death for the sake of our sins, so that we can have life!
If there are any of you here who would like to respond to Jesus today, you can do that by simply agreeing with God as I did – “Yes, God, I am a sinner. I have made such a mess of my life living the way I wanted, and my heart is so corrupt that there is nothing good in me, and I need your forgiveness and new life” – you can do that today. You can raise your hand and one of us can come and pray with you, or you can follow along with me in prayer to make that decision today.