Sermon nuggets Weds Sept 10
Theme: Preparing for Parting
Verses: John 14:5-6 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (NIV)
Jesus Presents Path for Us.
Coming from Michigan reminds me of one of the great bureaucratic errors in a small town there. They built a public facility in the town, $1 million was federally funded for a community center to use for senior citizen use and township fire department and other things. But for a
long time it remained vacant. There were no roads connecting the building with the community. The Federal grant did not allow for a road. The county did not feel it had the money to spend to build a road. Someone got the money but the building was a waste since it wasn’t used. One of the development representatives said, "When we approved the project we must have assumed there was a road there." Why have something that no one can get to.
Jesus prepares for us a home in the eternal heavens. He is also that road for us to get there.
My Father worked for the Rail Road for some 38 years before he died. One of the benefits our family enjoyed was free train passes. We'd make use of them every now and again. I remember one trip we took to Chicago. I was small and overwhelmed by the large train depots. I was dwarfed by the enormous engines and car after car of the people in my childhood that road the trains, unlike today. I remember reading the huge wall sized schedule in Chicago and it was confusing. I didn't understand all the confusion of the train numbers, the time of departure, finding the track number, the car, the booths, the seats and the places of transfer. I couldn't understand any of that. But my dad did and he would take me by the hand and I would walk with him and we'd eventually end up at our destination. My Dad became the way for me to get to where we were going. In just that real way Jesus is the road and the way for us to the Father.
John 3:16 tell us that God's love was so great that He gave to us his only son Jesus, that if we believe on Him we will have eternal life. It is an old story one that we have heard many times, but there is newness to it. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He paid the penalty that we deserved. By putting your faith in Him and what he did we are on our way to heaven. The way to heaven is not by being member of church, being baptized, giving money away, helping others or praying as worthy and important as those might be, it is trusting in Jesus as the only way to the Father. Putting your hand in his and letting him lead you. You don't have to understand it all, just to trust him.
Not everyone who dies goes to heaven. Only those who have accepted Jesus offer for salvation, only the ones who have desired to put their lives in Jesus control. He is the way out of our sin through his death that gives us forgiveness and pardon. He is the way through the problem and difficulties that face us by giving us his abiding presence. He is the way into heaven
Pastor Dale
