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You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indie. This summer, we're going through the Gospels, learning about how understanding the tougher sayings of Christ can lead to a deeper connection with Him. Now here's the teaching.

Continuing in our series of hard sayings of a kind Savior, please hear this verse from John chapter 14. Listen, Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is the word of the Lord. What a blessing to be here this morning with all of you and worship the Lord and celebrate baptisms. And we've heard three wonderful testimonies and I've decided to repeat mine this morning.

If you don't mind, it was in the spring of 1975, in my second year in seminary. Am I coming through okay? I can't tell. Are we all right? It's okay down here at least.

Okay, thank you. My second year in seminary, 1975, my home church, Central Baptist Church, a little white church by the lake out in the country near Augusta, Kansas was celebrating her 75th anniversary. The original building was built in 1900 and my grandfather, 13 years old, helped the Baptists build their church.

He was a Methodist. His family was Methodist, but they lived close by and they helped out the Baptists. Fifty years later, my parents moved back to that area to live where my mother's grandfather farm was and I attended that church down the road, Central Baptist Church, from infancy.

Twelve years after that, in 1962, I professed my faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized in a more modern church building built in 1960. It's showing its age now. It was there, along with my wonderful parents, in all of those formative years of life that I was discipled and it was there in 1970, when I was 19 years old, that that church acknowledged my sense of call, as undefined as it was, my sense of call to pastoral ministry and they gave me a thing called a ministerial license.

It really was just their endorsement, which means so much to me. So, 1975, we spring forward. I left my pregnant wife in Waukegan, Illinois, and took the Amtrak to Wichita for that 75th anniversary, mindful of the amazing impact of this church on my life.

It was a wonderful celebration, but it was also there during that visit that my decision was somewhat confirmed, a significant part of my decision, to leave the denomination of my childhood, leading a year later, after graduation, to placement in the Evangelical Free Church of America, my first pastorate in Nebraska. Now, how could that happen? Why would I make such a decision? Why leave the denomination of my childhood that I expected to serve in? Well, it's called doctrinal slippage. It's called losing the center.

Even before that trip back home, I saw it in the denominational magazine. One denominational leader wrote about following the way of Christ, but was careful to note open-mindedly that there are other ways to God. What concerned me was not just what she wrote, her denial of Christ as the only way to God, but that no one else in the organization was concerned enough about it to do anything about it, to remove leaders who had denied the faith.

They weren't concerned about heresy in the camp and willing to confront it. So I realized it was not just one rotten apple, but a barrel full, and yet also a massive number of true believers to this day in that mix. But see, this denominational leader was denying the clear words of Jesus, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. She was more broad-minded. She wasn't so narrow.

There are many things about which we can disagree, tons of them. But the core, the center, the heart of the gospel we must hold to, or we have no reason to be a church. We can just be a civic club.

How many ways are there to God? Well, of course, our stories will differ, just as Marlene's background story is quite different from Charlotte's and Sophia's and mine that I just shared going back to the Dark Ages compared to them. It's actually quite similar to Charlotte's and Sophia's. At the core, though, all of these testimonies we've heard today, those three and mine added to it are identical, coming to God the Father through the one and only way of faith in Jesus Christ.

We continue our summer series, Hard Sayings of a Kind Savior, with our theme, Exclusive Truth in an Inclusive World, from the words of Jesus in John 14.6. We've had a variety of hard sayings over the summer. I'm glad I got this one. Some things are hard to understand that Jesus said.

Some things are hard to accept. But in what we have today, I don't think it's hard to understand. You may not like it, but we know what Jesus said.

It's not ambiguous, is it? It's pretty clear. No, we need to unpack some of the details. I am the way, the truth, and the life, which we'll do a little of that this morning, too.

But the main thrust is inescapable. Jesus said, no one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus claims to be the way, the only way, the exclusive way to God.

That's the consistent message of the New Testament and the preaching of the early church. Peter's message to the religious elites enacts foreigns with this. There is salvation in no one else.

There's no other name. Under heaven, given among all people, by which we must be saved. So whether you like it or not, what Jesus said is clear, and what the early church preached is clear.

But getting a little ahead of ourselves, there are several reasons why our text qualifies as a hard saying. I want to unpack this in two very uneven sections. My first point, if you like to write down points, so you know it's not a pointless sermon.

Number one, the exclusive claims of Jesus. That's number one. We're barely going to touch on that.

I've already kind of unpacked that. I'm not going to unpack all the problems and challenges of inclusiveness that we have in our world today, but rather put the main focus on our second main point. You can write it down, the identity of Jesus that backs up his exclusive claim to being the only way.

So we start briefly with his exclusive claims. In our modern world, the times in which we live, we've seen what is seen as the problem of exclusivity in a radically inclusive world. Perhaps the most offensive thing Jesus ever said, that's what puts this in the hard saying category.

Maybe it's the most offensive thing Jesus said for the modern critic, that he's the only way. Now, we see this worked out in today's cultural moment because no one has the right to claim they know or have the truth about anything unless you appeal to science, the trump card. So everyone is arguing it's science when it's not science, when it's junk science that leaves the lab and goes down the hall to the gender studies program.

You have your truth, I have my truth. Our truths are all equal, even if they contradict each other. Is that a problem? The law of non-contradiction is a stubborn fellow, isn't it? The Indiana Fever of Sophie Cunningham, the famous pointing finger of Sophie Cunningham, one of the greatest moments in sports.

She's not exactly a cultural crusader for truth and righteousness, but her simple common sense remark creates an uproar, competing demonstrations in every WNBA city and daily reporting in the press. There were at least five stories about it today when I looked at the digital form of the Indianapolis Star. I guess nothing else is going on in the world except Sophie Cunningham.

I'm not going to dwell on this, though. It's just our reality today that any claim to truth, if you claim you have the truth and don't acknowledge everybody else's truth as equal, it's offensive to our culture. We just have to accept that.

That's reality. But the Bible is clear. Jesus claimed to be the exclusive way to God, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

My shortest first point in 50 years of preaching, and you are witnesses of it. But, in Jesus' time on earth, what made this a hard saying was very different, not so much our cultural problem of exclusivity as we see it today, because it was also a culture of great exclusivity, but the problem here, then, with this statement, our text, is the problem of his claiming divinity. What makes the statement precious to me, and I hope to you, I am the way, the truth, and the life, is what the religious leaders wanted him to die, be dead for, blasphemy, maybe even something like the unpardonable sin that Jesus claims to be the way, the truth, and the life.

So we're going to jump right into our second point and carry it to the end, the identity of Jesus that backs up his exclusive claims. The more important part of that statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life, is where it begins. I am.

You ever hear a sermon on I am? You're about to hear one. In John's gospel, this is the sixth of Jesus' seven famous I am statements. Five of the seven are metaphorical.

I am the bread of life, chapter six. I am the light of the world, chapter eight. I am the door or the gate of the sheep, chapter 10.

I am the good shepherd, chapter 10, and then the seventh on the list, I am the true vine, chapter 15. Those are all metaphorical, but packed with meaning in terms of the richness of who Jesus is. The other two are quite literal.

I am the resurrection and the life, John chapter 11, the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and then ours today, I am the way and the truth and the life. Now, there are plenty of I am statements in the Bible that don't carry any connotation of deity. I am is found 88 times in John's gospel.

It doesn't mean it's always referring to deity when anybody says I am. How many times have you said I am today already? You have no idea, but you've probably said it countless times. How are you? I am fine.

It simply means hi and hi. That's all it means. Sometimes you dig a little more and get more of an answer to it, but that's what it is.

It's a common way of speaking, and there's all kinds of other I am statements just about life and viewpoints and whatever else. But Jesus used it in a way that was beyond the common use, in which it was unmistakable to friends and enemies alike that he was claiming deity, that he was claiming divinity. He was unambiguously claiming to be God.

I want to give one example. There's so, so many throughout the gospel of John. In fact, his purpose is to declare that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that he's divine.

But let's go to John 8. You have a Bible in front of you on your phone or in your hands? John 8. It's a discussion of Jesus with the scribes and Pharisees. It's an amazing, amazing chapter, but near the end of it, Jesus keeps making what seems to be radical claims about himself that set off quite an argument in which they claimed he had a demon. So this is not a friendly conversation.

John 8, let's dip in at verse 51. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. What? And that's what the Jews said.

What? You're crazy. In fact, they went further and they said, now we know that you have a demon, that you would make such an outrageous statement. And they give evidence.

Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who died and the prophets died? Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me of whom you say he is our God, but you've not known him.

I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. Jesus is very diplomatic, isn't he? No, he cuts right to the chase.

I'd be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.

Now when did this get said? Just a few years A.D., 30 years, 30 A.D., something like that. When did Abraham live? 800 to 2000 B.C. So how do you figure that one out? They said to him, you're not yet 50 years old, have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to him, I got slightly lost, let me come back to that. You are not yet 50 years old and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. Now what happened here? What is Jesus saying? Why did it so enrage them? Because in saying before Abraham was born, I am, he was saying, and they knew he was saying something that seemed outrageous to them, it's a huge claim, Jesus claims to be not only before Abraham and not just older than Abraham, but eternally existent as God. He claims to be the one revealed to Moses out of the burning bush.

When Moses wanted to know God's name so he could report who this God is that has called him to lead the people out of Egypt, when the people asked what's his name, what shall I tell them? Exodus 3.14, God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say to this people of Israel, I am, has sent me to you. Now that's a strange name, isn't it? That's a very strange name.

What does it mean? Several implications. I am who I am, or for us, he is who he is, as we think of God. Several implications, I can't cover them all, it's way beyond me to cover them all.

But at least it includes this, God is eternal in his existence. God is self-existent and independent, not dependent as we are. You are so dependent, unless God gives you another breath, you're going to die right here.

God is independent, we're dependent. God is the creator and sustainer of everything. God is unchangeable, he's immutable and fully reliable, and so this is God.

I am who I am, I was who I was, I will be who I will be. This is timeless, this is not tense, limited. He who is eternally past and future, same language is used a number of times in the revelation of John, grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and who is to come, Revelation 1.4. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, Revelation 1.8. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

Jesus claimed to be I am, the God revealed in the Old Testament, and now is God incarnate, God in the flesh in the New Testament, that's why they picked up stones to throw at him. He claimed to be God. That's blasphemy, unless it's true.

If you go around saying I'm God, you're committing blasphemy. Jesus claims to be God, and that's blasphemy unless he really is God. That's why you can't get off with saying that Jesus was just a really good guy, a prophet, in line with Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, a great moral teacher, may you throw in Muhammad, Buddha, Baha'u'llah.

Noah, as C.S. Lewis put it in Mere Christianity, a man who was merely a man, and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher, he'd either be a lunatic, I won't read all the rest of that, you can read about the poached egg in the middle of that paragraph when you read Mere Christianity, but he'd either be a lunatic or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice, either this man was and is the Son of God, or a madman or something worse, and Lewis has already shown that you just cannot come to the conclusion that he's a madman, he doesn't have any indication of being a madman, he's saying the only thing left is he is who he said he is, he is who he said he was, the Son of God. But back to John 14.6, John 14.6 isn't that contentious context of chapter 8, Jesus isn't arguing now with the Pharisees, he's with his troubled disciples, wondering what's going to happen, I mean this is the night before he was arrested in the overnight, 24 hours later he was crucified, it's hard to tell how much they understood at this point, they know he's not just the average man, they saw him calm the storm and said who is this that even the wind and the waves obey him, they saw him feed the multitudes, they saw him touch and heal large numbers of people, they saw him cast out demons, restore maniacs to a sound mind, they saw him even raise the dead, they heard, they were both amazed and sometimes puzzled by his teaching, they can't make sense of his vision, his strategy, his tactics that were going to go die in Jerusalem, that's what's going to happen to him, that makes no sense at all, he's the Messiah, he's to take over, not die before his enemies, what a way to lead a revolution, he's gradually nurturing them, discipling them, he's talking to them in their troubled state about the future and he says, let not your hearts be troubled, I go to prepare a place for you, he says you know the way to where I'm going, then Thomas speaks up, verse 5, I love Thomas, great name, that's the first thing I like about him, his courage, his vulnerability, his doubts, his desire for certainty, his demand for evidence, he's not sure what Jesus means, he says Lord we don't know where you're going, how can we know the way, and Jesus doesn't go back to answer that question in any detail, there's still ambiguity in their minds about what Jesus meant, not just the previous verses but all along the way as Jesus talks about dying when they're all about winning, Thomas still has plenty of confusion in his mind, he didn't get it all, that's okay, but Jesus gives him what is most essential for him to know, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, Thomas that's what you need to know, all of you put your name in there, that's what you need to know, what can we say about the way and the truth and the life, they're separate concepts but fit perfectly together, I just reading two pages of D.A. Carson's commentary on John on this section, focused on these verses made me so happy, let me share some of the fruit with quotes and paraphrases through the fingers on the keyboard of Dr. Carson, he writes, Jesus did not come to blaze a trail commanding others to take the way that he himself takes, he's not saying here's a good road to take, no he's saying I am the way, he is the way, only because he is the truth and the life can Jesus be the way for others to come to God, the way for his disciples to attain the many dwelling places of the Father's house and the answer to Thomas' question, Jesus is the way to God because he is the truth of God, Jesus is the truth because he embodies the supreme revelation of God, he is God's gracious self-disclosure, his word made flesh, the one who has life in himself, the resurrection and the life, the true God in eternal life, 1 John 5.20, and you recognize those others from John 1.14 and John 11.25, this is just repeating, this is really a summary of the gospel of John right here, John 14.6, repeating themes we saw throughout this gospel account from its very first words, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, he was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, without him was not anything, made that was made in him was life, the life was the light of man, John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glorious as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth, the way, the truth, the life, the Australian New Testament scholar Leon Morris adds this vital context, he said we should not overlook the faith involved both in the utterance and the acceptance of those words spoken as they were on the eve of the crucifixion, when you're reading the Bible, know where it is in the flow of the activity, in the flow of the story, John 14.17 leads right up to Gethsemane, they crossed over the valley to Gethsemane and the rest would come later that night or early morning, so I am the way, said one, who would shortly hang impotent on a cross, I am the truth, he says, when the lies of men were about to enjoy spectacular triumph over him, crucifying him, I am the life, he said, when within a few hours his corpse would be laid in a tomb, after all that happened, how can you believe what Jesus said to be true? Well, there's a little thing called the resurrection, it's not a little thing, it's the biggest and most important event in human history, that verified everything to be true, indeed he is the way and the truth and the life, and Carson adds this devotional selection in his commentary on this verse from the 14th and 15th century German-Dutch Catholic reformer Thomas Akimpas, who wrote a piece called The Imitation of Christ, and included this, a reflection of Jesus' words, there's a song written about this about 50 years ago that came to mind as well, but here's what Thomas Akimpas says, follow thou me, I am the way, the truth, and the life, without the way there's no going, without the truth there's no knowing, without the life there's no going.

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