One Way

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. I want to thank you for all loving people in your neighborhood, both anonymously and just in person, regardless of what they believe, what they think, what they're doing. We need to be the glue in this community. Like Jesus said, we're the salt of the earth. You don't eat salt straight, okay? You put it in everything and everywhere to make everything else better, right? It both preserves food in that day and age, and it also makes everything better. I think we are to be the people in our community that bless people and then disciple them so that everything is better, really better, okay? So we've been talking about the way, this series, and we're looking at this passage now that it really kind of comes from today. But before we do that, let's pray, okay? Both thank God for what he's doing and also praise God and ask him to be here with us today. Lord God, we thank you. I thank you for this fellowship and for the love and care that I receive here and how people can come here, and hopefully everybody does, Lord, and know immediately they belong and that they have people who are going to love them and be with them no matter what. We pray, Lord, that you would use us in this community as yesterday, in many other ways, each one of us, to show your way, your way of love, your way of truth, your way of life, to show your way to others, to be that way, that they come to know you. We lift up, Lord, many churches in our area. We thank you for all of them that are sharing your gospel today. We pray your word gets its way with us. Jesus, be present here in a way that, well, is really tangible, that we encounter you today personally, each one of us, that you speak to us, Lord, through your word today, deeply and profoundly, and that we would respond to all that you have to say with lives that are aligned to your goodness and truth. All this we pray in Jesus your name. Amen. So our passage today is from John chapter 14, and we're going to read it again. It was used as our introduction to the service, but this is what Jesus said. Now, last week we were in John 13, and chapters 13 through 17 is this long time in the gospel of John that Jesus is just with a few of his disciples in the upper room from what we gather. He is praying with them. He is praying to the Father. He is speaking to them. This is his last time to be personally with them before his crucifixion, death, and then resurrection. And even after the resurrection, he kind of has these little moments with them. He appears here, and he appears there, and slowly over a 40-day period, the appearances are less and less until he ascends and says, I am with you always, but I will not be visible with you, physically present in this form anymore, but I am going to be with you always to the very end of the age. So this is his last full teaching to his disciples. And you can—I can't imagine, really. Actually, I've tried to imagine what it would have been like to have been with Jesus for three years, come to this point, and still, from what we can tell, be a little confused about what was really going on. The disciples were—I don't know if they were bright people or not bright people, but basically, I'm glad they weren't that bright because I probably—then I fit in, okay? So we'll see one of them, Thomas, who doesn't quite get it and how Jesus responds to him today, but let's read this. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 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. And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. I find these words comforting, but at the same time, I don't know if you realize it, these words are pretty outrageous. It's huge. Jesus is claiming something here that's ginormous, expansive, unique, and a bit offensive. He says, I am the way, not just a way. And wow, you know, I'd like to have a lot of ways, you know, I want to keep my options open and I want to do it my way. But Jesus is basically saying, I am the way, the truth and the life. Wow. Ouch. I'm not sure. It doesn't come across real well to us today. So we're going to look at this and what that all means, because it is a very unique claim. But I think there's some real gospel to it. So we're going to look at two different things. First of all, the uniqueness that Jesus claimed here. And then secondly, the good news of this claim. But first of all, we have to kind of deal with this kind of offensive to our 21st century minds, uniqueness of Jesus claims. Now, there are a lot of things. If you ask people, a lot of people like Jesus. Jesus is, you know, wonderful....