I am the Way, the Truth and the Life

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Alfred Burns
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1 I am the Way, the Truth and the Life John 13:31-14:6 How am I smelling? Peter Speckhard concluded his sermon entitled Who made me? with the following challenge: will to power. Some say I am DNA. Some say I am a product of society. Some say I am merely a smart animal, a mass of brainwaves, or a calculating The evolutionary biologist, the psychologist, the environmentalist, the biochemist, the sociologist, the economist, the Ivy-League ethicist, they all call me something. But you in the Church, who do you say I am? Embracing Grace by Scot McKnight p. 22 Who are you and who am I? The bible says that we are human beings made in the image of God. The bible says that that image was cracked broken and distorted by man s rebellion and disobedience The bible brings us the good news that we matter, that we are loved by God, that we are infinitely precious to him The bible brings us the good news of a God who embraces us in spite of who we are and what we have done; The bible tells us that God s embrace enables us to embrace God back and to embrace others, and that this double embrace is intended for the good of others and the world. The bible tells us that this grace, the absolute and unrelenting goodness of God towards humans, comes to us in Jesus Christ, in his death and resurrection, and in the gift of the Holy Spirit. And today we are focusing on this profound and astonishing proclamation of Jesus: What is the context of this saying? I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus has said that he is going to be betrayed and Judas has left into the night. Jesus tells them that he is going to leave them where he s going, they don t know. Jesus has told Peter that he has overestimated his own strength and courage and that he will deny him. These 11 disciples of Jesus are troubled, and they want to know the Way And Jesus answers them saying: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.

2 Eugene Peterson writes: Jesus as the Way is the most frequently evaded metaphor among the Christians with whom I have worked for 50 years as a North American Pastor. THE WAY comes first. We cannot skip THE WAY in order to get to THE TRUTH. The WAY of Jesus is how we understand THE TRUTH of Jesus. Devotional commentary in The Message. When Jesus tells them that he will be leaving them, he gives them a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Just as there is love in the community of God (Father, Son and Spirit), and God is love, so You are to be the community of love of God in the world says Jesus. This love will be the identifying mark of the new community. This love is what will lead people to look at the cross of Jesus and to find there the source of life. Bultmann says, It is not the effect that it has on the world that legitimizes the Christian faith, but it s strangeness within it. Odd vs same Someone said, You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd. Whoever made that statement understood what it means to be a follower of Christ. Followers of Christ are odd. Oddness is important because it is the quality that adds colour, texture, variety, beauty to the human condition. Christ doesn t make us the same. What he does is affirm our differences. Sameness is a virus that infects members of industrialized nations and causes an allergic reaction to anyone who is different sameness is the cemetery where our distinctiveness dies. In a sea of sameness, no one has an identity. But Christians do have an identity aliens! We are the odd ones, the strange ones, the misfits, the outsiders, the incompatibles. Oddness is a gift of God and sits dormant until God s Spirit gives it life and shape. Oddness is the consequence of following the One who made us unique, different and in his image! For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in him will, from that point on, be considered weird by the rest of the world, which means the Church should be more like a zoo than a tomb of identical mummies! Taken from Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli p. 87,8. We are made in his image: Beginning JESUS End Let us make man in our image Now the dwelling of God in our likeness is with men, and he will live with them. For God so loved the world that he sent JESUS to be THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE.

3 The way of Jesus is characterized by the love of Jesus. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. The love of Jesus is characterized by self-giving / forgiveness / compassion / mercy & grace. The good news of our Christian message is that through the cross of Jesus we, who were made in the image of God, but an image that is cracked and distorted, can be restored. Through Jesus, the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE we can know the embrace of God, so that we can embrace God and others, for the good of others and the world. When we take an objective look at society, what is the biggest obstacle to this gospel of embracing grace? What is it that wrecks that message? It is INDIVIDUALISM. Individualism says, I can make it on my own! Individualism makes God and others into commodities we choose to further our own ends. Individualism diminishes who we are made to be, because it backs away from commitment and community. If humans are made to relate to God and others, individualism attacks our very essence. Individualism is an intentional march away from Eden, away from God and away from others [and when the gospel is packaged as attractive to individuals instead of community, the problem is only compounded]. From Embracing Grace by Scot McKnight pp.23, 35, 66. At CMCC we have put COMMUNITY at the heart of our church CMCC! INDIVIDUALISM is the scourge of Western societies. Every man for himself is eroding the very bedrock of society let s be careful that the spirit of individualism does not infect the church, our commitment to God and to others! The church is God s new community. For his purpose, conceived in a past eternity, being worked out in history, and to be perfected in a future eternity, is not just to save isolated individuals and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build his church, that is, to call out of the world a people for his own glory. The Living Church by John Stott p. 19 I often advise people new to Chiang Mai to build your own community join a small group, cell group, neighbourhood group, work-related group, school group a place of BELONGING, RELATIONSHIP and for THE WAY to be lived. The response of those who have discovered the embrace of God through faith in Jesus, is to embrace God and others, for the good of others and the world the prisoners, the hungry, the naked, the orphan, the dying, your neighbour. Jesus said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Walking the WAY of Jesus, through knowing the TRUTH of Jesus,

4 shows itself in living the LIFE of Jesus. o And this LIFE of Jesus has a recognizable smell We are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. A Real Head Turner by Chuck Colson One Atheist Who Gets It January 21, 2009 AFRICA. Recently, the faithful witness of some Christians in Malawi turned the head of a British journalist and atheist who traveled to Africa before Christmas. Writing in The Times of London online, Matthew Parris said that these Christians not only proved to him that Africa needs God, but also have challenged his atheistic convictions. After visiting a charity that provides water pumps to rural communities, Parris noticed that many of the organization s African leaders were strong Christians who gently demonstrated their faith in quiet conversation and action. They reminded him of the Christians he knew when he was a young boy living in Africa with his family. These Christians, he recalls, were a different kind of people whose faith seemed to give them what he describes as a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world, [and] a directness in their dealings with others. If this isn t a winsome demonstration of faith, I don t know what is! The Christian missionaries Parris met when he returned to Africa in his twenties had a similar impact on him. Wherever missionaries lived, he wrote, something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to. They had broken through what he calls crushing tribal groupthink. They see themselves as individuals who stand in direct relationship to God not as subservient subordinates who must kowtow to tyrants like Robert Mugabe. Parris is sure that Christian faith has something to do with this. And of course he s right! He says he has, become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone won't do it. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa, he writes, Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. And the rebirth is real. The change is good. Parris says that what he s observed among Christians in Africa confounds [his] ideological beliefs and has embarrassed [his] growing belief that there is no God. He had this to say about the Christians he met who were providing water pumps: Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught. Here is an atheist who gets it: Worldview matters! How you see the world, what you believe about where we come from and where we are going, will affect how you live. When you understand that every human being is made in God s image, and that God Himself died

5 on a cross for sinners, people will see you ministering to prisoners. They will see you feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Or, like Matthew Parris, they may even witness you bringing water pumps to rural villages in Africa. They will see Christ before their eyes. *< MONGOLIA Ulan Bator's most conspicuous symbol of the atheist socialism Mongolia inherited from Soviet Russia stands on a hill above the city. It represents the Marxist-Leninist manifesto, which rejected religion and promised to build heaven on earth. It so seduced Mongolia, that the collapse of communism, created moral as well as economic turmoil. It was a vacuum Christianity was ready to fill One of the members of one of some 400 churches is Puje Chinggis. A confident and calm young man, Puje is now head of Mongolia's only internationally accredited Bible College, in a neighbourhood of Ulan Bator crowded with long wooden barracks, once occupied by Soviet troops Before a ruthless communist purge in the 1920s, half the male population were Buddhist monks. But Puje Chinggis claims the future is Christian. The people have been told they must suffer well and earn a better future life. He said Mongolians, crushed by economic and social chaos, preferred the Christian acceptance of their inherent badness. Puje insists that hope is the ingredient in greatest demand in Mongolia. Christianity, practical and adaptable as it has proved to be, may be one way of providing it. From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 31 January, 2009 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4 What does hope smell like? What does practical help smell like? What does a Two way link between the individual and God smell like? What does The Christian difference smell like? What does heart change smell like? I don t know, but the testimonies of these two people, one in Africa and the other in Mongolia, confirm that they do have a recognizable distinctive and fragrant smell! Jesus said: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. As we walk the way of Jesus through knowing the truth of Jesus, then we live the life of Jesus and that will be the aroma of Christ, the fragrance of the knowledge of him.

6 Do you smell it? Is your life a fragrant and pleasing aroma to God?

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