Featured Sermon: One Way to Heaven

Pastor Ryan Jorgenson, the senior pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel Des Moines, preached this sermon entitled “One Way to Heaven” on November 13, 2016. This was part of his series on the Gospel of John.

Big Idea: “There is only one way to eternal life in heaven. It is to believe in and to surrender your life to Jesus Christ.”

Scripture text: John 14:1-11

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. (English Standard Version)

Notes:

1. The best part of heaven is that Jesus is there Himself. (v.1-3)
   • The ultimate reward is Jesus Himself.
   • We need to long for heaven which is Jesus forever.
2. You can know the way to heaven. (v.4-5)
   • This is a big deal because of the philosophies of this world. Some question whether we can know anything at all.
   • Good news is that we can know some things. We can know that we need a savior and how we can get to know that savior and get to heaven.
   • Revelational epistemology: One can know truth and respond accurately when God causes them to do so.
     • General revelation – all of creation. It screams that there is a designer. We are without excuse.
     • Special revelation – The Bible, God has spoken to us through His word.
     • Personal revelation – Takes the special revelation and personally shows up at the door of our heart and takes the scales off of our eyes so we can believe in Him.
   • God has preserved His word so that we can be saved.
   • “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness,'” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19, ESV).
   • Those who deceive themselves need to humble themselves before their Creator and give Him their life.
   • Those who are innocently asking, like Thomas (v.5) there is a way.
   • Jesus provided the means through His death, burial and resurrection.
3. We obtain heaven through Jesus Christ only. (v.6)
   • Jesus is both the means and the end.
   • The way is Jesus. Every person is on a journey whether they know it or not whether they like it or not.
   • The truth is Jesus. Jesus is claiming their is absolute truth to be known. True or false, no gray area, nothing in the middle.  Jesus is the true way and everything else is false.
   • The life is Jesus. He is implying that every human being is going to live somewhere forever. There is only two options: life in heaven or life in hell. He also implies this because he is the creator and author of life if you come to Him he will give you life because of His very essence and His very being.
4. Jesus is God. (v.8-10)
   • Jesus said that he and the faith are one.
   • He claimed a unity that can only be found in the Trinity.
   • Jesus claimed to be God and did this constantly throughout the Gospel messages.
   • This is an extremely important fact about Jesus that we need to know in order to be saved.
   • “I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins,” (John 8:24, ESV).
   • Jesus was not just a great moral teacher, a prophet or a spawned child of God, but He is God.
5. We can we believe Jesus miracles as evidence. (v.11)
   • He is saying if his words are not enough look at the miracles that He performed.
   • His ultimate miracle was His resurrection. Eight reasons we can trust in His resurrection happened:
     • All four Gospels record it. Four different people agreed on this fact and wrote it down for us.
     • Disciples preached it in Jerusalem. It would have been easy to disprove if Jesus’ body was still in the tomb. If you wanted to make up a story it would be better to go far away.
     • Jesus’ enemies didn’t display His body.
     • Women are mentioned as the first witnesses in the Gospel accounts. If you were making up a story in those days you would not have made women the witnesses as they were viewed at the time as inferior.
     • The burial linens were still there. If thieves came to steal the body why would they leave the linens? Why would they leave the only thing that was worth any sort of money?
     • The thieves never brought the body out – we could get some big money out of the Jewish leaders.
     • Jesus appeared to over 500 people in one sitting.
     • Most of the disciples were martyred for this claim. Why would they die for a lie?
   • We can trust Him that we can know how to get to heaven.

If you want to be set free, if you want heaven, run to Jesus.