Riverside Community Church

Good morning church! I think the switch from Norm speaking for two weeks in a row to me speaking this week probably gives some people whiplash, because your necks are just getting used to the speed of Norm getting up here when BAM, you have to track me on my way up here and your neck muscles just aren’t used to it. Although I think I have been getting better on slowing down when speaking, so your ear muscles should be okay.

Last week Norm spoke on Jesus being the Truth, the al-ay-thia. Paul Pierce was once called “The Truth” by Shaquille O’Neal, but given his takes on the modern NBA, he is definitely not the truth now. Jesus is The Truth, he has been true, he is true, he will be true forever. Today I’m going to speak on Jesus being the Way. Bet you didn’t see that one coming. I think George switched up the order of the very famous John 14:6 just to keep everybody on their toes. So I am going to read John 14:1-7, then we will dive right in.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2In 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?3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” So a little bit of context, Jesus has just talked about going back to the Father. And he comforts the disciples saying “do not be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me”. And he tells them that he is going to go to prepare a place for them. And that they know the way to where he is going. And Thomas says “Uh… Jesus, no we don’t. We don’t even know the

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address, how can we know the route”? That’s the EPV, or Eli Paraphrasing Version, of the text. So Jesus tells him, very explicitly, what the route is. Only through him. But what does this route actually look like, practically? Well, the Greek word for way is Hodos, which is a travelled way, a journey. It’s used in the Bible as a literal journeyed way, such as Matthew saying that the Magi departed to their own country by “another way, another hodos”. It can also be used as a metaphor for a code of conduct, a way of thinking and behaving, such as the usage in Hebrews 3:10, where the author quotes Psalm 95:10, saying “they always go astray in their heart, they have not known my ways”. Now just because there are normally two avenues of interpretation, it does not mean that both meanings of the word are correct in every circumstance. When the Magi departed another way, Matthew is not saying they departed and had a different outlook on life, he is literally saying they travelled in a different direction and on different roads than when they had arrived. And this is why context matters. Jesus here is not using metaphor. He is not saying that he is the code of conduct to get to the father, just be like Jesus and that’s the route to the father. He is talking with his disciples about a literal, travelling route. He says he goes to prepare a place, they say they don’t know the way, he says that he is the way. That’s pretty clear that he is saying the actual path to the father is through him. But, again, what does that mean?

Well we’re going to jump the tracks just a little bit and look at Matthew 7, but this all ties into the same idea so stick with me. Matthew 7:13-14 says “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Now I don’t know if anybody has read the Pilgrim’s Progress, but that book informed my understanding of this passage for far too long, so I need to set the record straight. In this

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picture you can see the Narrow Road as I have often understood it. A very tight, feet next to each other road, where one misstep and you fall off, you’re eaten by the lions. But, I’m going to give you a different, and hopefully more comforting, understanding of the narrow way. This is a gate in Morocco, called the Bab Bou Jeloud. It was built in 1913, which means Norm probably got to read about it in the papers, and is approximately 15m in total width-wise, which I have highlighted with this (hopefully) helpful line across. Now, do you notice the wide gate in the middle? It’s designed to help flow of traffic, thousands of people go through that every day, you can easily become just another face in the crowd. It’s like floating on a lake in an inflatable: if you just hung around long enough, eventually you would get pushed through the gate. This gate is comparatively small to what some gates were like 2000 years ago. The Ishtar gate in Babylon, built in the 6th century BC, was 14m wide, just the main archway, which could accommodate 4-5 carriages drawn side-by-side. Just the archway is almost as large as the entire gate system in Morocco. This is what Jesus means by the gate being wide and the way being easy that leads to destruction. There’s this big gate, you just go with the flow, and you will end up on the main road, which you can kinda just follow. But did you notice these two little side gates? Do you know what those are? Also part of the main gate. Mostly designed so people on foot go through those, while the vehicles go through the big one in the middle. That’s still part of the wide gate. Now, how many of you noticed this little doorway? This is a very narrow way compared to the rest. It’s meant for approved personnel, so they aren’t caught up in the flow of traffic and can go where they need to. They’re also there to let emissaries in without needing to open the large gates and let the enemy flood in in times of siege. This is the way Jesus is talking about. Often we think of the way that is this narrow beam of light, one slip and we fall out of Jesus’ good graces. But that is not what

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he is saying. The gate is narrow, those who find it are few. The path is hard that leads to life, but once you’re on, you’re on. If you are in that crowd, and you see Jesus and decide to run to him, you’ve found that gate, Jesus will welcome you in. But this is a one-person gate, no

baggage allowed. In this picture, the gate is approximately 70cm across. Lexie and I measured our shoulders just for this message, and my shoulders are about 54cm wide, combined we are 95ishcm wide. I realize I’m wider than most, but 70cm is how wide this gate is from wall to wall, which means if you’re 69cm combined you will be scraping everything off this wall. Two people side-by-side will not fit through. One person at a time, and you can’t bring anything with you. You enter this gate with no person around to help you. Except Jesus. He waits at this gate, you show up, and he starts leading you through the maze of corridors. The way is difficult, you have to leave everything behind, you have to say goodbye to everybody you know and walk this with Jesus. And the reward? Eternal life. You won’t be caught up with the crowd as they all blithely march to their own destruction, you will get to be with Jesus as you get to the end, your final destination.

That’s one thing that I find really interesting about us as people. We have this huge temptation to be relevant, even those of us that say we don’t. We want to do something with our lives, make an impact on the world. Yet in trying so hard to stand out, we become just another face in the crowd, we blend in. Jesus is the only one who stands apart, and he welcomes us freely, all we have to do is leave behind our own desires and come to him.

Alright so Jesus is saying he is the way, and that way is hard to find, difficult to traverse. Nobody comes to the Father except through Jesus. Peter, when talking before the people that took Jesus’ life, said “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” in Acts 4:12.

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Jesus is the only path to salvation, as he himself says. No one comes to the Father except through him, through the narrow gate. Jesus offers us salvation, love, rest in him. But how do we attain that? What does Jesus being the way to salvation really mean in our lives?

Well, John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Whoever believes in him. That’s it? Believe he existed? Well no, it goes a little bit deeper than that. Romans 10:9 says “If you confess with

your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Confess, believe in your heart. If you want to be saved and you go about it from a purely intellectual standpoint you will be caught up with the crowd, thinking your own knowledge is sufficient. James says that even the demons believe―and shudder! There was not one demon on the earth during the time of Jesus’ ministry that didn’t immediately recognize and fear him. The demons had a better head knowledge of Jesus than the Scribes and Pharisees, who were men who spent their whole lives studying the word: yet the demons intrinsically knew who Jesus was. If just understanding the aspects of God revealed to us was how to achieve salvation, Satan would be saved! He has a greater understanding of God than any of us, that’s why he hates him, and wants to tempt as many people away from him as possible. Satan stands inside that big gate, promising food, opportunities to make money, warm beds. All we have to do is let the crowd sweep us away. Satan doesn’t care about any of the people he pretends to care about. When he tempted Eve to eat the apple he wasn’t genuinely concerned for her wellbeing; he wanted her to fall. Because if he’s going down, he might as well go down swinging. But here’s a little bit of comfort: Revelation 12 tells us that Satan couldn’t even beat Michael; what hope does he have of beating God? If we put our trust in God, walk through that narrow gate, leave those

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things behind, we cannot be snatched away. Ephesians 1:13-14 says “In Jesus you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory”. The Holy Spirit seals us when we accept the free gift of salvation. When we choose to walk on that narrow way, we enter into true relationship with Christ.

This does not, however, mean that we just get to do whatever we want. Paul very clearly address this is Romans 6: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Paul is directly addressing a false teaching at this time: there were people saying “If God has forgiven my sin, I am going to do whatever I want because he is going to forgive”. Paul says “nope, wrong. Strive for righteousness”. If you truly want to keep on sinning and don’t want to recognize it in yourself, Paul argues that you are not actually saved, but following the desires of the world. If your heart has truly been changed by Jesus, you will want to become more like him. You will stumble, you will still sin, but that is being human, that is part of our sin condition. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. But your heart posture will naturally become a greater desire for God’s righteousness, and a lesser desire for your own. God is the root, righteousness is the fruit. The entire book of James is basically summed up as “The evidence of you being saved will be your desire to do good works”.

I really like C.S. Lewis’ perspective on this issue: Christians have often disputed as to whether what leads the Christian home is good

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actions, or Faith in Christ. I have no right really to speak on such a difficult question, but it does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary. A serious moral effort is the only thing that will bring you to the point where you throw up the sponge. Faith in Christ is the only thing to save you from despair at that point: and out of that Faith in Him good actions must inevitably come…

The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”—which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, “For it is God who worketh in you”—which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. I am afraid that is the sort of thing we come up against in Christianity. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised. You see, we are now trying to understand, and to separate into water-tight compartments, what exactly God does and what man does when God and man are working together. And, of course, we begin by thinking it is like two men working together, so that you could say, “He did this bit and I did that.” But this way of thinking breaks down. God is not like that. He is inside you as well as outside: even if we could understand who did what, I do not think human language could properly express it. In the attempt to express it different Churches say different things. But you will find that even those who insist most strongly on the importance of good actions tell you you need Faith; and even those who insist most strongly on Faith tell you to do good actions.

Paul, in Ephesians 2:8-10, says clearly that we are saved by faith, not by works. Yet he goes on to say that we are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works”. For Paul, works follow faith as day follows night, and their source is the indwelling Holy Spirit working in the depths of our hearts. Good works are the inevitable fruit and visible evidence of a living faith in Jesus Christ and are the hallmark of

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all true believers. So when you walk through that narrow, hard to find door, your desire should be to show the heart of Christ, the heart that he has given you, the heart desires to save all people.

But I am going to tell you something; there are many who claim to have the way to that door but don’t. Remember those two side gates, a little smaller than the main one? People will stand at those gates and claim that that is the narrow way. It’s not where the main flow of people is going, so it must be the narrow way, right? And they will say things that sound really good. “God wants you to be wealthy.” “God wants you to be healthy.” “Your political party is the Chistian one.” Now understand this, God does want you to be healthy and have a good life, but we will not attain that on this sin-ridden world, so Jesus says “the way is hard” but it “leads to life”. God will give you a good life and no sickness, pain, disease, or death: but not on this earth; that’s why he's making the new one. But these false teachers tell you you can have all that now, they will keep you in the mindset of “Oh I’m doing alright. God loves me just as I am”. And make no mistake: God does love you just as you are. But he doesn’t want you to stay there.

Let’s say you have a toddler. You love that child. But then they dump porridge on their head. You still love them while they have the porridge on their head, but you want to clean the porridge off of them. Our sin is the porridge. God loves us while we have the porridge on us, but he doesn’t want that porridge to stay on us forever. Because if, as a parent, you see a kid dump porridge on themselves and you say “Aw, I love you too much to clean the porridge off of you”, I would argue you actually don’t love them. Yet the false teachers, who we are warned about from Moses to Ezekiel to Jeremiah to Jesus to Paul to Peter, will say “No, you’re fine with all that porridge on you. Because God wants that for you”. And we believe them, because we like our sticky situation

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and don’t want to have to place our faith in somebody who can clean the porridge off of us.

Paul when writing to Timothy says “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” When we go and stand before God on the day of judgement, if we have believed his word and believed in Jesus as our salvation, we will be justified by Christ’s sacrifice for us. We will stand before God, and Jesus will say “I have paid for them”. Jesus is the only way to this. I want to play a short video that I think illustrates this really well. I do disagree with the sentiment that Jesus is “good enough”, because he is perfect, but you get the picture. The gate is narrow, but going through places us in the loving arms of the God of the universe. The way, the only way, to stand before God blameless and to be welcomed into his kingdom as his child, is to place our faith wholeheartedly in Jesus, trust him with our entire being. Because his way is number 1, what he wants for our life will be. The main question is will we be dragged kicking and screaming to accomplish his goals, or will we walk with him? You will serve his kingdom and his goals, but would you rather serve like Judas or like John? Place that trust in him, confess with your mouth, believe with your heart. Because salvation is right there, just off that beaten path. And Jesus stands waiting to greet us with open arms, and to love us with a love that we can’t comprehend.