Sermon Notes, March 10, 2013
Who Says There’s Only One Way to God? —John 14:1-9
For the next couple of weeks we’re going to look at this very relevant topic: Who says
there’s only one way to God? Or the derivative statement: Who says there’s only one
way to heaven?
We get into today's message with a quote from Jesus. This is recorded in John 14:6.
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through Me.'"
This may be His most controversial statement, at least to people living in our day. Many
people have concerns like these:
 "Isn't it arrogant to say your religion is right & other people's religions are wrong?"
 "Doesn't that lead to intolerance at best, and violence that we all are horrified by at
worst?"
 Or, "If you're honestly telling me that because we have different religious beliefs you're
going to heaven & I'm going to hell, I don't know how to even have a relationship with
you."
So there are very important questions and concerns around this idea that Jesus is the way.
Just by way of confession it’s important to say that religious or spiritual arrogance,
intolerance, contempt for the other has been a rife in our day and is an enormous problem
in our world. Too often people charged to lead religious or spiritual communities have not
named it or spoken clearly enough against it, and it is tragic. This is true for Christianity.
Much of what drew people to Jesus was His humility where He would get down and
wash the feet of His followers, and yet it is this humble, serving Jesus who said one day, "I
am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." Those
words don't sound like humble words to us.
So in this message as clearly and openly as we can do it, I'd like for us to look at one
statement that Jesus is the only way to heaven. To be clear, I will not take all the
controversy out of Jesus' statement at all, but at least it can be controversial for the
right reasons and not for the wrong reasons. This morning we’re going to look at the
derivative question, “Who says there only one way to get to heaven?” We’ll start at the end
of this question with this word heaven. Really important word. Most people believe there is
an afterlife…that life goes on beyond death. Most people assume they know what heaven
means but have never given serious adult thought to it.
Most people, I think, have a cartoon picture of heaven, and that's why they're kind
of ambivalent about it. They think heaven is a really good thing. They want to go there
when they die, but they're in no particular hurry to go there. Media folks will interview
religious leaders. Often the first question is like, "Who is going to heaven, or who is not?"
But rarely is it, "What's heaven like?" People have this cartoon idea that heaven will be
filled with whatever you like. It will be the eternal pleasure factory.
Here's the clearest thing you need to know about heaven: heaven is life with God.
Heaven is life with God…uninterrupted life with God. If I had to pick one single
theme that runs all the way through the Bible, it would be the Bible is about life with
God. God created human beings so they could know community with Him.
 God would walk with the man & the woman in the Garden in the cool of the day.
That's a picture of life with God.
 That gets interrupted, and so the temple comes. That's a picture of life with God.
 Then Jesus comes, and He is called Immanuel, God with us.
All the way through to the end we have this picture of what the afterlife, heaven, will be
like. It's described as a city because it's a picture of community. John says in Rev. 21,
"Now the dwelling of God is with people, and He will live with them." He is hitting us over
the head with this. "They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be
their God." Heaven is the with-God life.
The phrase “eternal life”…really important phrase. In the Bible, it's defined one time by
Jesus. This is how He defines it. He is praying to His Father. He says, "Now this is eternal
life: that they (His followers, you & me, people) may know You, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom You have sent."
This is eternal life…not the pleasure factory…that people might know You, God. Not
just know about You…know You, the way that a climber knows Mt. Everest. The way
that a baseball player knows the game of baseball. The way that somebody who is in
love knows the one they love. To be immersed completely, fully, every pore of my being
in the experience of God in the presence of God & the God kind of life. This is eternal life.
See, heaven does not contain God; God contains heaven.
When you think about heaven, you need not to think of it as this great big community and
somewhere in it are like corporate headquarters, and you can track God down there if you
want to find Him. Something else John says in Revelation 21. He says, "I did not see a
temple because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb (Jesus) are its temple."
What does that mean? Well that means God is omnipresent. Heaven is the with-God
life. If you don't want to be around God, heaven is not the kind of place you would really
enjoy. In heaven, there is no place where God is not. In heaven, once you're there, there is
no place to hide. If you want to gossip or hoard or judge or self-promote or be cynical or
be sarcastic or exclude somebody or get all puffed up or be selfish or be jealous, where are
you going to go? God is there everywhere. Heaven is the with-God life that nothing, not
even death, can interrupt.
So what we need is not a way to be allowed inside heaven. We need a way to become
the kind of people for whom heaven would be the fitting, appropriate, right, welcome place.
There is an old song. I’d venture everybody in this room is going to know this song.
It's called "Rock of Ages." There's a fabulous line in it that says, "Be of sin the double
cure, save from wrath and make me pure." Fabulous thought in this. Sin needs a double
cure. Save me from wrath.
If God is any kind of a God, He is going to be angry at sin because it messed up His
world, His creation. We mess up each other. We need to be saved from that wrath. God is
so willing to do that, to save us from wrath, that Jesus went to the cross so He could
experience ultimate spiritual death. All the wrath of God upon sin that ought to fall on you
and me fell on Him. He was expressing God's willingness to forgive us and love us there.
The hard part of saving is the making-me-pure part. We’re not sure we want that. See,
if I do not want God and His kind of life now, if it would be kind of oppressive to me
now, why in the world would I think I would want it when I could never, ever get away
from it for a second just because I've died?
People sometimes put it like this: "Do you mean to tell me I will go to hell because I'm
not a Christian?" No. You will go to hell because you're a sinner, and I am too. The last
thing in the world a sinner would want is an eternity in this ceaseless presence of a holy,
holy, holy God where the possibility of any sinful action or thought, no matter how
desirable or how useful, is forever cut off.
Now when people have the wrong idea of heaven as pleasure factory where everybody
wants in, then the logical question is…
 Who is going to make the cut?
 How little can you believe?
 How much can you disagree with it?
 How far can you get off track and still make the cut?
 How mean is God going to be about who makes the cut?
When they're asking that, although they don't use the words, the question they're really
asking is…What are the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you
die?
Now when it comes to deciding the eternal fate of every human being, that day will
come, and it will be God's job, not mine, to decide the eternal fate of every human being.
That's the best answer I can give to anybody who wants to know. Our faith is that this God
that Jesus talked about will do the right thing by every person. He will not do anything
unfair. Abraham said a long time ago, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?"
He will not do anything unloving. Nobody wants everybody to be with Him more than
God.
Peter says, "God is not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to
repentance." Now we’re told that God is love. But if you read the Bible, if you read about
Jesus, you will notice He says some very hard things—warnings about subjects like
judgment, the afterlife, heaven and hell, and the need for repentance. You can't come to
know Jesus without taking that stuff seriously. A lot of people in our day would like to. We
cannot overestimate God's justice. We cannot overestimate God's love, but there is a
great danger that I can underestimate my sin.
We all kind of want to do judgment by comparison. Truth is sobering for non-Christians.
Truth is sobering for Christians. You know, just because somebody puts him or herself in
the Christian religious category or goes to a church or says they affirm right Christian
beliefs or says they had a conversation experience somewhere does not mean they are
assured of getting in. In fact, one of the things Jesus said is, "Not everyone who calls
Me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven" because the truth is that we can
deceive ourselves in so many ways.
Jesus did not say a religion called Christianity would be the way. He said He was the
way. You see, every religious founder of every other major religion says, ‘I’m a prophet
who has come to show you the way to find God.’ But of all the major religions of the world,
only Christianity has the audacity to say, ‘I am God, and I have come to find you.’ Do
you realize how different that is? This captures the essence of the problem. We will go on to
look at this in greater depth next week. Make sure you come.