5/18/25 John 14:1-7 “Well Done My Faithful Servant!”

14 May 5/18/25 John 14:1-7 “Well Done My Faithful Servant!”

5/18/25     John 14:1-7          “Well Done My Faithful Servant!”

I think that the only way this spring could have been better is if we had had a little more rain or maybe if it wasn’t so cold or maybe if we didn’t have so many problems or maybe the list goes on and on.  Maybe it hasn’t been such a great spring.  However, there are many confirmation students and there are many graduates this spring.  Our children seem to be growing and the most important thing is that they are growing in the Lord.  For this I give all the credit to the parents.  I can only guide them a little.  I remember once we had a potluck dinner to honor our graduates, two baccalaureate services for our seniors and a baptism for one of our beautiful babies.  All on one Sunday.  So maybe that spring had been pretty good after all.  It was days like that that makes it really worthwhile to be a pastor.  I guess if I really analyzed it, most days are really worthwhile being a pastor.  Today, we are going to look at a very well-known passage from John.  Often you hear the first part of this at funerals.  I include it because it is part of a larger story.  Let’s see if we can make this a message for our children and ourselves as we look at the way of salvation.

I ran across this story a while back and it made me chuckle.  A woman was at the airport and she had to wait for her delayed flight.  So she bought a Kit Kat bar.  Then she found a bench.  She set her luggage and bags on a bench along with her coat and other things.  Then she sat down.  She began to look for her candy bar.  She saw that the man on the other end of the bench was eating it.  She was furious but said nothing.  Instead she reached over and broke off one of the bars and ate it.  The man looked shocked and had another bar.  Then the woman ate the last bar.  Well, the man got up all indignant and he bought another Kit Kat bar.  These two did the same thing again and no one said a word.  Finally, the woman’s plane was called and she got up to leave.  As she was going through her purse to find her ticket, she found her Kit Kat bar.  She felt about 2” tall.  It was one of those days when things just went wrong for her.  We have all been there.  To the casual reader of the Bible, it might seem like Jesus was having a bad day as He knew this was His last night to be with the disciples before He would be executed.  Jesus knew what was ahead and of course many of us know that this had to happen.  But the disciples didn’t.

The first few verses of our reading are pure comfort.  Jesus tells us that if we trust God then we can trust Him.  This should be just basic to our life styles.  This is what I preach every Sunday.  Trust Jesus.  He has promised to be with us all the time.  Any time there is trouble, Jesus is there to help.

We really have to be careful here because Jesus might not give us what we want.  That is not His promise.  His promise is to be with us through thick or thin.  I don’t know how many times I have heard people say that Jesus didn’t give them this or that.  They have to realize that Jesus isn’t a wish granter.  Jesus is the great comforter.  That is what He does.  If you think that Jesus should have answered you is a certain way and didn’t, think about this.  Everything you do, everything you say is to be for the glory of God.  We forget this all the time.  I might even go so far as to ask, “When was the last time you did something for the glory of God?”  It helps to remember also that Jesus sees everything.  There is nothing He doesn’t see.  We, on the other hand, can only see the things that are in our little corner of the world.  We can’t see how something in Jamestown will affect us but Jesus can.  And He will guide us in our actions for His glory.

Then Jesus tells us that He has gone ahead to prepare a place for us in heaven.  Each one of us will have a mansion in glory and this will be big!  This will be the place where we can be forever, and we don’t have to work for this.  We don’t have to kill so many people to get there like in some religions.  We don’t have to do so many good works to get there.  We don’t even have to witness to so many people every year.  All we have to do is confess our sins to Jesus, repent of our ways and ask Jesus to be Lord and Savior of our lives.  That’s it.  It is so easy that a young child can do it and many have.  If you haven’t yet done this, then I ask you, I beg you do this today.  This is the first step to a free life.  This will be the first time you will have ever been free.  I know this for a fact as it happened to me.

I would like to move now to verse 6 which says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Last week I mentioned how the heretic group called the ‘Jesus Seminar’ had omitted this verse because it was too exclusive and people might be offended.  I don’t think that we have the right to take anything out of the Bible just because our society has changed.  I also think that the Bible is offensive to those who don’t believe in Jesus or God.  What I mean by this is that we are all sinners.  Many of us here have come to terms with this by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  However, if you don’t believe or kind of believe, then the Bible is full of conviction.  It may tell you that you and/or your lifestyle are the wrong way to live.  If you don’t believe, then you will be offended because you won’t consider yourself to be that bad a sinner.

The Bible discusses sin.  It tells us what behavior is sin.  There is really no reason not to know what sin is after reading the Bible.  The Bible convicts us of our sin.  Those of us who know Jesus know that when we get convicted, it is time to get on our knees before the Lord.  There may be people here today that don’t know Jesus and are tired of living in conviction, tired of being guilty.  This, by the way, is a result of the work of the Holy Spirit.  As I said, maybe it is time to confess your sins to Jesus and ask Jesus to be Lord and Savior of your life.  These verses are an invitation to a better life in Jesus.  It is a better life that you can get at no other place in the world.

But if you don’t believe in Jesus, this conviction may make your heart harder than before as you continue to turn away from Him.  This is when they come up with these outlandish ideas that this passage today shouldn’t be in the Bible.  This passage not only should be in the Bible but it is one of the basic tenets of Christianity.

Now let’s pick this apart a little bit.  Jesus tells us that He is the way.  He says He is the only way to God.  There are no other ways to salvation except through Jesus Christ.  We can be assured of this because of what Jesus did on the cross.  He died but death could not keep Him and there are many witnesses to this fact.  He is the way, the only way to salvation.  All other ways are false.

I want to say this in terms for that are easier to understand.  Suppose you want to go to Minneapolis.  There are many ways to get there.  If you are in a hurry you can fly.  You can take the bus, the train or you can drive.  So you make the first decision and you want to drive there.  Now you have to figure out a route.  There are many roads that lead to Minneapolis.  You have to make more decisions.  It all depends on how much time you have and what you want to do.  Do you want to be in north Minneapolis or south Minneapolis?  Do you begin to understand all the different decisions you have to make just to get to Minneapolis?  Usually we have to be making several of these types of decisions on a daily basis as we decide how to get to work, where to buy groceries, or how to get to the field that we will be working.  So this isn’t such a simple task.

Now the worldview is no help here.  They will tell you that there are many different ways to heaven.  They generally don’t talk about salvation because that would mean they would have to admit to being a sinner.  All other religions are all works based, every one!  You have to earn you way to heaven and there are many paths to take but everyone has a chance to earn their way.  Or here’s one that is even better.  Everyone will get to heaven period.  If this were so, do you want to spend eternity with an unrepentant serial killer?  Of course not!

Heaven is an exclusive place.  Not everyone will get there.  As a matter of fact and I say fact, the Bible tells us that most people won’t get there.  The road is wide that leads to hell.  Remember how much Jesus loves us.  Jesus made it so that you can have a very easy way to heaven if you choose.  As a matter of fact, the only way to heaven is very, very easy.  Just confess and ask Jesus to be your Savior.  That’s all there is to it.  Jesus took all the decisions out of it for us.  It’s not like going to Minneapolis or anything else where there are many decisions to make.  The only decision for us is to accept or reject.  That’s it!  This is yet another demonstration of the love that God has for us.  He has made it simple, quite simple.

I could spend all hour talking about Jesus being the way but we have to move ahead.  Jesus also says He is the truth.  We have to remember that this is the last time that Jesus will be with the disciples.  Jesus knows that He will die tomorrow.  I think that He is trying to cement ideas in the disciples as to exactly who He is.  Jesus Christ is the truth.

I also talked about this a little last week when I said that there have been mistakes made in the Bible over the centuries but they have been mistakes of translation.  Nothing of substance was ever altered–until today.  Today we print Bibles to be non-offensive.  We can’t say he or she.  This whole passage gets left out because it is too exclusive but it has to be exclusive.  If heaven weren’t exclusive, then every person in the world gets to heaven.  Then we would have to ask, ‘why have heaven?’  It would be just like our world today with all its problems.  We have been promised a place in heaven where there is no more tears and no more death.  This is a promise.  This is the truth.  This is heaven!

Generally speaking, there is no such thing as your truth and my truth when it comes to spiritual matters.  There can only be one truth and Jesus is it.  By definition, there cannot be more than one truth about anything because if there is, then the other side cannot be the truth.  Therefore when people tell you they have their truth and you have your truth, someone is lying by definition.  I don’t suggest you say it like this but it is the truth.

We live in a society where everybody has to be right therefore we have lots of problems with the truth.  What we need is a way to find that one truth and then accept it.  Once again Jesus makes this easy for us.  We don’t have to keep messing around in the world trying to find the truth.  Because there can only be one truth, Jesus made Himself it so that we don’t have to waste our lives looking for truth.  Jesus is truth.  The Scriptures are truth.  God is truth.  The Holy Spirit is truth.  It is so simple!

This leads us to the last part of this statement.  Jesus says, “I am the life.”  At this point none of the disciples get it.  But they will remember this after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  At this point they are probably thinking in small, finite human terms of life.  Boy, were they going to be in for a surprise!

And so are many if not most people of the modern world and unfortunately it won’t be a pleasant surprise.  However, there is some great news while we are still in this life.  If you need to have science back you up then look this up.  Christians, true Christians that is, have longer, happier and more productive lives than non-Christians.  By accepting Jesus as your Savior, you can have all the benefits for this life.

And that isn’t all!  You can also have all the benefits for eternity!  You can have no more sorrow!  You can have no more pain!  You can have no more of any of the bad things of this world!  This is the stuff to get excited about.  This is the good life with the Good News that we should be shouting from the mountain tops.  I will tell you one thing today and that is I can hardly wait until I can wake up without any pain.  Amen!

But let’s concentrate on getting through this world first.  In this world we have all the problems of this world.  Christians have the same problems as everyone else.  The difference is that we don’t have to have the hopelessness because Jesus has promised to be with us through all the trials.  If you follow Jesus, He will help you with the truth so that you can find the way which leads to life eternal.  To me, this sounds like the best deal in town.

Then Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  This is the crux of our belief.  This is why non-believers say we are so exclusive.  They cannot begin to understand that by being exclusive we are trying to be as inclusive as possible.  We are inclusive in our exclusiveness.  You see, this Good News is for everyone.  It is for every person in the whole wide world.   This is far more inclusive than any other religion in the world.  And it is far, far better because Jesus is the real deal!

Today, we have looked at one of the very basic statements of our faith.  Hopefully I have been able to open this enough for you to see that this is all about the love that Jesus has for you.  It is a love that goes out to every person in the world.  So the next time you have doubts about your life or when things are going really wrong or when things are really right, think about what Jesus says.  “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  When you begin to think like this all the time, Jesus will much more likely look at you and say, “Well done my faithful servant.”  When this happens you will get a warm feeling of good will inside of you.  You will experience the great satisfaction of being a loved child of God.  Jesus loves you, this I know.  Thank you Jesus for first loving us!  Let’s pray.