Jesus answered, “I am THE WAY and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 14:6
In the Roman Empire there was a saying that was “all roads lead to Rome”. To a Roman citizen, Rome was a picture of peace, security, power and safety. Throughout His life, Jesus spent a lot of his time travelling along these roads built by the Romans and He understood the importance of Rome to its citizens. So it is no surprise that when Jesus calls Himself ‘the way’ he uses the Greek word ‘hodos’, for ‘way’, which can mean a road or a journey. When Jesus called Himself the Way to the Father, he meant that He is the road upon which you walk on to know God and to experience His presence – life in all its fullness.
The key thing here is that Jesus says that He is the only way. Experiencing unmerited favour and to live as a child of God cannot be done through any other means than the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is through him and him only that you experience life in its fullness. What a relief to know it doesn’t depend on you! Like the roads that led to Rome, journeying on this road with Jesus leads to the Father and all that he has for you - peace, security, safety, power and provision.
Church, one of the great revelations is that the way of Jesus is not simply a ticket to heaven. It is much more than that. The finished work of Jesus has secured your salvation, so that you can experience all the blessings of heaven. You are now called a ‘new creation’ and you can encounter the person of Jesus on a daily basis. Acts 4:12 says that ‘Salvation is found in no one else’. Salvation – soteria (wholeness, to be saved, healing, prosperity), means that through Jesus you have access to all of these things. Believing in the name of Jesus you have access through faith to eternal life, but also the blessings in your earthly life.
Sometimes we can be like the disciple Thomas, who said to Jesus ‘Lord we don’t know the way’. We can be uncertain about what God is doing or where he is going. When you don’t see the fulfilment of a promise, or the breakthrough we were believing for, we try to go our own way. Like Abraham who tried to speed up the process, we are tempted to manufacture the blessing for ourselves. In our confusion about what Jesus is doing we can be frustrated, and wonder where our breakthrough will come from. In these moments we start to question ourselves and think we’ve not worked hard enough for God to show up in our life. We become the modern day ‘doubting Thomas’, wondering if we are righteous.
Notice when Thomas says this Jesus does not condemn him. He simply states that He is the way. In your doubting and in your questioning Jesus does not condemn you, but reminds you He is the way to God. He reminds you that He is salvation, because of His finished work, not because you didn’t doubt. Hold fast to the truth that as you journey with Jesus, He will not leave you or forsake you. He has not forgotten you, and from beginning to end as you walk in His way, you will experience life in its fullness.
The word ‘hodos’ also implies the way we think, do, and act. Along this road of life, by believing in the name of Jesus He transforms you from the inside out. He transforms the doubting into dreaming, the questioning into assurance, fear into faith. The Jesus way is the way of Caleb and Joshua; they weren’t phased by the giants they saw in front of them, they were grounded in what God had promised them, knowing the land was theirs to possess. The Jesus way is the Way of David, who stood against Goliath, not fearing the worst for himself and Israel but living out of his anointing and declaring ‘The battle is the Lord’s’. The Jesus way doesn’t lead to Rome – it leads to the real peace and security; the real power and safety: God himself.
Walking with Jesus in your life brings this promise: ‘you will keep in perfect peace he whose mind is set on you’.
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Who Do You Say I Am Series – Exchange Church Belfast 2020