How Do I Know Jesus Is the Way?

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. Today we're concluding our How Do I Know series, where Pastor Robert helps us find answers to questions about faith, the Bible, and God. This final message tackles the question of how we can know Jesus is the way to heaven. I'll tell you what, this message is full to the brim with incredible stuff.

So let's tune into Pastor Robert now. All right, well, we are in a series, as I said, entitled How Do I Know? And I've gone over three topics.

This will be the last one in that series. We talked about how do I know there is a God? How do I know God loves me? How do I know the Bible is true? Last weekend and this weekend, how do I know Jesus is the way? And so we're going to talk about that. And that word, the, hangs some people up sometimes.

It's like it's exclusive. When you say Jesus is the way, well, let me show you a couple of scriptures and then we talk about is Christianity exclusive or inclusive? John 14, verse 6, Jesus said to them, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Acts 4 12, there is no other name under heaven given among me and by which we must be saved. So Jesus is the way. Now I'm going to talk about exclusivity and inclusivity, but let me just say something. Don't get hung up on the fact that there's only one way, rejoice that there is a way.

There is a way and God reveals Jesus to all of us. But if you think about it, every group, every group and every religion is exclusive. And if you'll just study the other religions, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, even this is going to shock you, atheism and we talked about that and agnosticism are exclusive. I mean, you can't say you believe in God and be an atheist, right?

So there's exclusivity. Let me tell you something about Christianity. Christianity is the most inclusive group, religion in the world.

And here's why. All through the Bible, you will see these words, whoever will. Old King James, whosoever will. I even did a message on whosoever will using the old King James word there. Whoever will, just anybody, anyone can come. Christianity is the least complex and the most inclusive of any religion in the world.

If you think about it, here's the reason. You don't have to do anything to be a Christian. All you have to do is believe in the one who's already done everything. Now that's a good statement, by the way.

You don't have to do anything. You just have to believe in the one who's already done everything. So I want to talk about that. What about people who've never heard of Jesus? What about people who lived before Jesus?

What about those people? So in order, though, to understand this, you have to understand God, the nature of God and the character of God. So there are three attributes about God that I want to talk with you about to be able to understand how Jesus is the way and how it is fair and just that God sent his son Jesus to die for our sins that if we believe, we go to heaven.

So here's the first attribute I want to talk about. God is good. God is good. Psalm 119 verse 68, you are good and do good. Psalm 86 verse 5, for you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you. I just want you to notice again the inclusivity of that verse. You are ready to forgive, abundant in mercy to all, not just a few, who call on you.

So God is ready to forgive everyone who calls on him. Now, I'm sure you all remember the game when we were kids, hide and seek. So I want to talk about these words, hide and seek, because I want to show you that it could be actually opposite of what you might be thinking. You might be thinking that God hides from us and we got to really seek him to find him.

I want to take you back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve fell. Who hid? Did God hide from Adam and Eve when they fell or did Adam and Eve hide from God? Obviously, Adam and Eve hid from God. And what did God do?

Hide and seek. It says God went looking. He was seeking for Adam and Eve. So actually, God's not hiding.

He's actually seeking. We show you Scripture, Luke 19 verse 10, for the Son of Man, that's Jesus, has come to seek, there's the word, seek, and to save that which was lost. And because of the goodness of God, we're talking that God is good, he actually reveals himself to every person. What about people who've never heard of Jesus? He reveals himself to them.

What about people who lived before Jesus? He revealed himself to them. We show you some Scriptures. 1 Samuel 2 27, then a man of God came to Eli and said to him, Thus says the Lord, Did I not clearly reveal myself? Did I not clearly, this is God talking, reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in Pharaoh's house? I want you to remember, he not only revealed himself to Israel, the nation of Israel, he revealed himself to the Egyptians as well.

And he clearly revealed himself. Psalm 98 verse 2, The Lord has made known his salvation, his righteousness, he has revealed in the sight of the nations. Um, Cordeus, in the Bible, a Gentile, Acts chapter 10, seeks God, and God sends Peter to him to share the gospel.

There's a book that you can get called Persian Springs. It's about four Iranians that God revealed himself to, Jesus revealed himself to them, and they all accepted Christ. It is all through, right now we have testimonies all over the world of people of God revealing himself to them. I talked to you a moment ago about Dr. Zacharias Ravi that's gone to be with the Lord. And Ravi shared this with me that someone shared with him.

He was in a nation speaking in a school and a student came up to him and this student was raised in a country 99% Muslim. And he told Ravi, I was trained in the army to do two things. One, to kill people without feeling.

It was very important without feeling, to kill people without feeling. Secondly, he was trained to make fake passports. So those are the two things the army trained him to do. He had a dream every night, he told Ravi this, every night for seven years. Every night, seven years, he has a dream about Jesus. He hasn't converted, he just has a dream about Jesus. So he tells his mother and his mother says, you better get out of the country. One of his brothers, all of his brothers are in the army, one's a general. She said, you better leave the country because if your brothers find out you're dreaming about Jesus, they'll kill you and they'll kill you without feeling.

That's what they've been trained to do. And so he flees the country, he goes to another country, he meets a businessman who shares Christ with him and he accepts Christ. When he talked with Ravi, he was in seminary training for the ministry and he said to Ravi, God has told me I'm to go back to my country to share Jesus with people. And Ravi said, that's incredible. And then Ravi said, I don't know why I said this, I just had this thought. He said, I said to him, well, how are you going to get back in? And he said, Ravi, I make fake passports.

That's what I was trained to do. So God knows how to take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good because God is a good God and he reveals himself to every person on the face of the earth. So God is good. Here's number two, God is just. Psalm seven verse 11, God is a just judge.

He's a just judge. Okay, so we talked about the game hide and seek. Well, let me tell you a new, not game, but method that God came up with. Seek and find. You remember it in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said, ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find, then knock and it'll be open to you.

But seek and you will find. So God has set up the rules that anyone who seeks him will find him. Let me read you some scriptures. Now this first scripture is a scripture that probably all of you have heard at some point. Jeremiah 29 11, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. Well, that right there tells us God is good.

He has good thoughts toward us. Now look at the next few verses, verse 12. Then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord. Deuteronomy 4 29, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. And Proverbs 8 17, I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently will find me. Here's what God said. You seek me, you will find me.

Okay, listen carefully. God would not be a just God if he didn't give every person a chance to be saved. He wouldn't be just. But because he is a just God, he reveals himself to every person and he gives every person a chance to be saved.

Please hear me. You will choose where you spend eternity. If you die in a car wreck this week, you have chosen where you spend eternity. Every person will choose where he spends eternity.

Let me say it another way. No person, no person can ever say God is rejecting me. But God can say to every person who rejects him, you're rejecting me.

You can't truly say God's rejecting you, but God can truly say that a person's rejecting him because it wouldn't be just, it wouldn't be fair, that's another word for just, it wouldn't be fair for God to give you a free will and then violate your free will. Let me tell you about a young prince, lived in the late 1800s, named Prince Kabu of the Kru tribe, K-R-U tribe in Liberia. When he was 14 years old, another tribe invaded their tribe and he was taken prisoner. And he, the people, the tribe that took him prisoner would allow the chief of the tribe who, remember, he was Prince Kabu, was the son of the chief of the Kru tribe. The prince, the tribe that took him prisoner would allow his father to come see him once a month if he brought gifts. Well, after a while, he was too poor to bring more gifts and so the gifts ran out.

And so they begin to beat this young 14-year-old boy daily, every day, Prince Kabu. And finally, one day, he just cried out to God, if you're real, will you help me? And he said, a bright light shone from heaven and a voice said to him, run. And he looked down and his ropes had fallen off.

They were off. It reminds me of Acts 16, Paul and Silas worshiping and their chains fell off. So he looks down, they're off, and he just runs into the jungle. And he runs and runs and runs. And he lives in the jungle for several weeks and he survives on snails and mango. Now, it wasn't escargot and fruit, okay?

It was snails and mango. And he finds a coffee plantation owned by a former slave. And the former slave, he goes to work there for him, and the former slave shares Christ with him.

And Prince Kabu accepts Christ. And then he says, I want to learn more about Christ. And so they told him, well, the way we learned about Christ was a man from New York came and shared Christ with us.

And they told him the man's name. So he goes down to the docks and he finds a ship going to New York. And he goes up to the captain and says, I'd like to be higher on as your crew.

I want to go to New York. And the captain said, we're full. I don't need any more crew. And right while he was saying that, two of his crew came up and quit.

And so he said, you're hired. So he took this young boy on the ship with him. He gets to New York City. Think about this.

That's late 1800, but still it's New York City. And he finds the man that had led the man to Christ that led him to Christ. And he begins to win people to Christ. As a matter of fact, this man, when he finds him, has a prayer meeting and he tells this young prince to wait. And when he comes out of the prayer meeting, this Prince Kabu has already won 20 men to Christ, right there on the street, 20 men to Christ. He keeps winning many, many people to Christ.

They said hundreds to Christ. So when he gets 18, they raise funds for him to go to Taylor University in Indiana. He takes the American name Samuel Morris. He goes to the university. All these university students there and other universities are inspired to go to Africa to be missionaries. Prince Kabu, though, and again, he took the name Samuel Morris, died two years later of pneumonia at age 20. But they say there's no telling how many hundreds of missionaries went to Africa because of him.

And if you go there to this day, there is a dormitory called Samuel Morris Hall, and it was built from the proceeds from a biography written about his life called The Spirit-Filled Life. This young man cried out to God, and God set him free, revealed Jesus to him, and saved him. God is a just God. He's a good God. He's a just God.

Here's point number three. God is love. He's love. John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever, inclusive, whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

C.S. Lewis says there are two kinds of people in the world. The person that bows his knee to God and says your will be done, and the person who will not bow his knee to God, and God says your will be done.

I want to say that one more time. Two types of people in the world, the person who bows his knee to God and says God, your will be done, are the person who will not bow his knee to God, and God says your will be done. But God is a loving God, and he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to fulfill the law, to live the life we couldn't live, to die on a cross for our sins, and to die the death we couldn't die so that whoever believes would have everlasting eternal life. That's a good God.

That's a God of love. It's as fair as it can be. Now, I want to give you an analogy, and it's a language analogy, a linguistics analogy. It's about how we use words. And at the first part of this, you might have a tendency to doze a little. So don't doze on me.

Just stay with me, okay? So I want to talk to you just a moment about how we use words because I want to talk about the word good about God and the word love, okay? So when we speak, we actually use words three different ways.

You may never have heard this before. Univocally, equivocally, and analogically. Now, I told you, you've got a little tendency to doze right now.

Get you some coffee or something, don't doze, okay? Univocally, equivocally, and analogically. All words are used these three ways. Let me just explain the definition quickly, okay? Univocally, let me break the word down.

Look at the word uni, like a unicycle, so it means one. And then see in the middle the word vocal, univocal. So it's one, if you're speaking and you mean the word one way. In other words, there are words that have only one definition, okay?

That's speaking univocally. Equivocally, let me break that down again, equal, equal, vocal. It means the words are equal in their spelling.

They're spelled the same way, but they have two different meanings. And then we speak analogically, which would be like an analogy. You're giving an analogy, using a word to help me understand something else, okay?

So everyone understands. So you speak some words, it only has one meaning. Some words have two meanings, even though they're spelled the same.

So let me tell you what I mean by that, okay? So I told you God is good. Well, the word good pronounced the same, spelled the same, but there are different levels of good. When I say God is good, even though I'm speaking equivocally, that the words are the same, they have two different meanings, I'm really speaking analogically. I'm just trying to give you an analogy of how good God is, because God is so much better, so better, so gooder. I don't know how to say it. So good, our goodness doesn't even compare.

God's good. All right, let me take the word love. If I say to you, I love you, and Debbie loves you, those words are the same, and they mean the same. I love you and Debbie loves you.

We love you, and we do. But if I say to you, I love you, and I love Debbie, okay? I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but I don't love you the way I love Debbie. I love you, but I love Debbie. And I love, I love, I love Debbie.

Are you getting it? I love Debbie. Of course, some of you are thinking right now, I'm glad, Pastor Robert, you don't love me the way you love Debbie.

I understand that. Okay, but I love Debbie. I love you, but I love Debbie. It's two different depths of love. When I say God loves you, it's a completely different depth than anything that we have on this earth.

And I'll give you one analogy. If I love you, and you reject my love, I'm sad because I've lost something. Let me say that again. If I love you, and you reject my love, I'm sad, but I'm sad because I've lost something. When God loves you, and you reject His love, He's sad, but He's sad because you've lost something.

It's a completely different level than we have on this earth. And let me prove it to you. Only twice in the New Testament do we have recorded that Jesus wept. One is the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11, 35. I remember telling God just led the Lord, you need to memorize scripture. So He memorized John 11, 35, Jesus wept. I said, you need to memorize a different one.

Okay. But it's when Lazarus died, but Jesus wasn't weeping because He lost something. Think about it. He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He was going to spend eternity with Lazarus.

He didn't lose anything. He wept when he saw that Martha and Mary were sad because they have lost something. He wept because they lost something, not because he lost something. The other time he wept was the last time he entered Jerusalem, he wept. And he tells us why he wept. He said, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.

He talks about how they killed the prophets and all the things they did, but here's what he said. You missed your day of visitation. The Messiah you've been waiting for all these years was right here, and you missed Him.

He wept because they lost something. Please hear me. God loves you. He is just, and He is good.

He reveals Himself to every person, and He gives every person a chance. You will choose where you spend eternity. You cannot truly state, no person can truly state, God is rejecting me. But God can truly state that a person is rejecting Him. You cannot say, by the way, any more. After this message, you can never say, I haven't heard, and I didn't know.

Because today you heard, and now you know. God loves you. All you have to do is accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your Savior. We want you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you want to connect with us or check out some of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com. And if you haven't already, go follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter so we can be a part of your community. Well, that's it for our How Do I Know series. We hope you've enjoyed it and learned a lot. I know I have. Next time, Pastor Robert will be starting a new series of great messages. And until then, we pray that you have a blessed one.