“THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE”

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Amazing claim as Jesus said to His disciples, “I AM THE WAY, AND THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME.”   John 14:6

Christ here again in this “I AM” centers all thing in Himself.  No one else would dare make such a complete claim but the Son of God.  The fact of the matter is that our very hope depends upon Christ being these three:  the Way, the Truth and the Life.

CHRIST IS THE WAY…The way to what, you may ask?  Why the way to God.  Mankind must have a way of entering into the presence of God.  Through the Old Testament prophets, the law, the tabernacle, and sacrifices; these were all shadows of the real way to come. Christ came but to the disciples, it looked as if the cross had brought them to a dead end street. But, the resurrection opened the way unto God. Christ provides the way though His teachings, His example, His sacrifice and His resurrection.

CHRIST IS THE TRUTH…Truth is a person.  John 1:14 “The word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.  We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
We are to listen to Jesus.  God gave all authority to His Son to reveal Himself to mankind.
When Jesus left this earth and went back to heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles to guide them in divine truth.   That truth has been recorded for us in the Bible. Christ prayed that the world would believe on Him through the words of the Apostles. Jesus prayed: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”      John 17;20   We are without excuse because through the Scriptures of the Bible, we can know the truth, Jesus.

CHRIST IS THE LIFE…Jesus came to give life, abundant life and eternal life with God to all who will trust in Him. Christ promises eternal life with God in the place that He has gone to prepare for prepared people (Christians).  No more meaningful promises could be given then when Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you.  I am going to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”  John 14:1-4

“Without the Way, there can be no going.  Without the Truth, there can be no knowing.  Without the Life, there can be no growing.
Since Christ is the Way, we aught to walk in Him.  Since Christ is the Truth, we aught to trust in Him.  Since Christ is the Life, we aught to live in Him.
Thou who are the Way, lead us. Thou who art the Truth, teach us. Thou who art the Life, continue to live in us and love us.”    By Samuel Porter

THE VINE

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Jesus said, “I AM THE TRUE VINE…”   John 15:1-8

Jesus said this about Himself before the disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.  Jesus and the disciples had just shared in drinking the fruit of the vine.  Soon they will be leaving the city and going to the Garden of Gethsemane.  Perhaps, they passed the beautiful temple building. Over the door, exquisitely carved and covered with gold leaf was the great vine.  This vine is the symbol of all Israel stemming back from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  The Psalmist sang of God’s action concerning Israel, “You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land.”  Psalm 80:8-9

Jesus statement, “I am the true vine” is a deliberate contrast between Israel and Himself.  Israel had believed that they were the chosen vine and they were for a time.  God had chosen them to be His servants through whom He would bring the Messiah.  God spared a remnant through whom came the Christ.  Now this  is exactly what Jesus is claiming that He is that Messiah, who was to come. When He calls Himself, the true vine, He is saying, I am the real, genuine vine from God. Christ is the vine that God has planted.  “In the fullness of time, God sent forth His son.”

Then, Jesus points away from Himself to all who follow Him, of them He declares, “YOU ARE THE BRANCHES.”
Not the nation of Israel, nor organizations but individual Christians.  There is some confusion in the religious world by people thinking that churches, congregations, denominations are the branches.  Not so.  Obedient believers in Jesus are the branches.  The branches must be united to the vine. Jesus said, “Abide in Me and I in you.”  There has to be a connection between the branch and the vine or there can be no life in the branch.  We must remain in Him.
This continual contact with Jesus, (the Vine), will produce fruit in the life of the (branches).  Jesus is talking about spiritual growth, growing into His likeness.  That is the fruit we produce by staying connected to Jesus.

God is disappointed when He sees no fruit.  Salvation is a process of becoming what God would have us to be.
Fruitless branches are of no value.  God works with us disciplining us through His word.  We are made clean by the Word. Separated from Christ there can be no spiritual life.

The test of being a Christian is to “bear fruit.” This is accomplished only through “abiding in Christ” THE VINE.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Jesus said, “I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.”  He saw people burdened down with the traditions, customs and rituals of the Jewish religion.  Their religion gave them no lift, brought them no joy.  They were a people misinformed and misled.  They were scattered and driven about without care for their basic needs.  No one cared for their soul.  How tragic.
How much all of this sounds like humanity today.  We are compared with sheep, which is no compliment. Sheep are a helpless and defenseless animal. They need help.  There is within sheep a natural instinct to follow a leader.  They must have the right leader.

We must admit that we are like sheep.  We have lost our way.  We praise the gods of metal and plastics.  We are caught up in the accumulation of things.  Materialism rules us.  The gods made by hands do not satisfy.  God knew that “man would be restless until he rests in Him” so, He sent the Good Shepherd.  Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly (to the full).”  Through Jesus, we find access to God.  He leads us to worth while living.

Jesus declares boldly that He is the Good Shepherd.  We know that He is the Good Shepherd because He willingly went to the Cross to purchase our salvation.  He had compassion for us and took mercy on us by giving His life for us.  Even when Jesus left this world of flesh, He sent back the Spirit that is holy to dwell within us, to lead and guide us through His Word.
How beautifully put by Isaiah 40:11,  “He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in His arms, he will carry them in His bosom, and gently lead them that are with young.”

Remember, the incident of the orator who made the presentation of the 23rd Psalm with eloquence and power. His diction, tone control, all were excellent.  Burst of applause for his rendition for he had done a masterful job.
Then, an elderly man came forward and began reciting the 23rd Psalm.  He did not do it smoothly like the orator. Rather, he stumbled through it. But, when he concluded there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd.  People were moved to tears.
Afterwards, the orator asked the old man, “What made the difference? When I said the 23rd Psalm, people applauded but when you said it, they cried.”  The elderly gentleman replied, “Sir, you know the 23rd Psalm, I know the Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm.”

Do you know the Good Shepherd?  We cannot be one of God’s flock without following the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.  We must know the Good Shepherd, listen to His voice and obey Him from the heart.  Will you from the heart declare, THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD.

 

LIGHT OF THE WORLD

This chorus speaks of our need:  “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

Jesus said, “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.”  What an enormous claim.
Amid the darkness of greed, hypocrisy, hate, exceeding sinfulness and gross wickedness, there came  the Light that the darkness was not able to over come. “In Him was life and the life was the light of man.”  John 1:4

Two main trues that Jesus lights up for humanity to unmistakably see.
First, the Love of God…  Jesus came to make visible to the world the love of God.  In all that He did and said, Jesus was giving added meaning to the golden text of the Bible, “For God so loved the world.”  Jesus’ teaching through the story of the Prodigal Son is a prime example of this truth.  The heart of the message is not the wayward young man who finally come to his senses and returns home.  Rather, the real truth of the matter is a loving Father who waits and welcomes the sinful man home.  The kiss of forgiveness, the rejoicing of the Father’s heart over a son who was lost and is now found, who was dead but now is alive, is the message of this story.  Jesus is saying through the story, ‘this is what my Father is like.’  God so loved us that He gave His only begotten Son to save us.

Second thing, is that Jesus enlightens for man, man’s sinfulness…  I have them in the right order for only in the light of perfect love could man be made to realize his exceeding sinfulness.  For basically, all sin is sin against love.  When we sin, we sin against God, against the great heart of love.  Sin against love is the worse sin there is.  Sin is rupture of a love affair.  No person can escape the cringe of conscience, the pain of guilt, the realization that he is a mistake maker when he permits the light of Jesus “to radiate the love of God to him.  There is no escape from the penetrating light of Jesus Christ.  The truth of Scripture is the experience of our lives, “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  It is the love of God that breaks our hearts and causes us to turn to Him.  Only the love of God is sufficient motive to cause us to surrender our lives to Him and allow Him to fashion us into the likeness of His dear Son.

Just as drastic and perhaps even more startling to us is that Jesus not only said, “I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD” but He also said, “YOU ARE THE LIGHTS OF THE WORLD.”  Jesus is pointing to all who would follow Him. There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship or the discipleship destroys the secrecy.  A person’s Christianity should be perfectly visible to all men.  What kind of lights are we Christians?  We are reflected lights.  Jesus does not asks us to produce our own light.  He merely asks us to be a reflection of His light.  Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men.”

“THE BREAD OF LIFE”

 

We sing a chorus which goes:  “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

I want to try to help us SEE JESUS as we move toward the cross and His resurrection.  To do this, I want to use some of the “I AM’S OF JESUS.”  The first one being, “I am the Bread of Life.”  The scripture is John 6: 32-35:
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.  For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and give life to the world,”  “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread,”  Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never thirsty.”      

What did Jesus mean, pointing to Himself, as the Bread of Life?  Jesus is speaking of bread that came down from heaven and offers life not death. There is a contrast between perishable and spiritual food. Jesus invites people to eat of spiritual bread. That bread is His flesh which He sacrificed on Calvary.  Jesus said, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourself.  Jesus flesh is true food and His blood is true drink.”  Jesus dogmatically stated: “he who eats this bread shall live forever.”

Difficult to understand?  Many of the early followers of Jesus found it so and they left Him. Jesus  disappointed and hurt turned to the disciples who remained and asked, “Would you go away too?”  Peter relieves the painful tension by saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go, you have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.”  We call bread ‘the staff of life’.  We know that we must have physical bread to survive. Jesus does not deny the need for physical food but He is stressing the requirement for spiritual food. The life of which He speaks is a new relationship with God. Only through the Son can we experience the Father.  Only Jesus can give meaningful, purposeful, eternal life.  We must feed on Christ, eat Him, receive Him into our very being. There is only one way to know if what Jesus said is true and that is “taste and see.”

In ancient animal sacrifices, the animal was seldom burned completely.  But, the whole animal was offered to god. It was believed that god entered into the animal being sacrificed.  So, later when the people ate the leftover meat, they literally believed they were eating their god.  They were taking their god into their inner being nourishing and strengthening them.  When people rose from the feast, they went out, as they  believed, god-filled.

Be God filled as you take Jesus into your life. Remain healthy spiritually by continuing to feast upon Christ through His Word.