John
14:1-6
“Do not let
your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2
In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so,
I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you
also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 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.”
The
Christian Life is a UNIQUE JOURNEY
You have a UNIQUE
JOURNEY
We have a UNIQUE
JOURNEY
Jesus has THE UNIQUE
JOURNEY
Notice what is not unique in those
statements – the theme itself – UNIQUE JOURNEY! But something else was the same
– each statement is present tense. You HAVE a… We have a… Jesus HAS the…
Journey
implies past present and future and we will absolutely look at journeys past
present and future, but I don’t want us to miss the point that the only reason
to look back or forward is to make this present moment in our journey the very
best. Someone asks, “When was the best day of your life?” I say – “Today; because
if it weren’t for today I could not rejoice in my yesterdays or look forward to
my future.” Even though this moment may not be the most monumental,
I choose to see it as the most important day yet on my unique
journey with Jesus Christ! And I will wake, and do it again tomorrow.
Do
you ever feel like you are living the same day over and over – that nothing
ever changes very much? The only way to
make today really unique is for you to make it that way…like Bill Murray in
Ground Hog day. MOVIE TRAILER
When
we start our journey as a baby, everything about us changes drastically every day.
One day we only move, the next we crawl and the next we walk and talk.
Somewhere along the line we settle for things staying the same. Until 60-70
years pass then things really begin to change again and usually not for the
better – we stop walking and crawling and moving. It seems that the Christian journey for many
parallels the physical journey – we are reborn babies and grow and crawl and
walk then plateau and for some even decline.
This should not be! The Christian
journey should always be on an upward trajectory.
I am
blown away when a children’s director or youth director or adult ministry
director seeks volunteers to teach a Sunday school class or Bible study and
people who have been in SS classes and Bible studies for 50+ years say; “Well, I could never teach!” “WHAT?”
Could
you imagine a grandmother who has cooked her entire life – and her granddaughter
comes to her and says, “Grandma, could you teach me to cook?”
Grandma says, “Oh no, I could never do that!” Where is the difference? The difference is
that cooking only matters for the next meal – feeding the word of God lasts for
eternity. In its simplest form, teaching
is just passing on information that you have to those who don’t.
You have a UNIQUE
JOURNEY that no one else has and you can share that with others.
Where
has your journey with Christ been? – Where is it now? – And where is it
going? NO ONE ELSE has the same journey
as you. Your journey is unique. Though
external forces affect our journey, only we can determine where we are going
and how we are getting there. You cannot
rely on your parents or pastor or friends. You are responsible for reading the map,
fueling up, and moving out to go where God wants you to go.
Suppose
Francis Hitch had not come to faith in Christ in spite of his alcoholic father,
and become a pastor and responded to a call to move off the farm in Nebraska
and move clear across the country to pastor a church in the big city – then his
son may not have come to faith. What if
his son, Bryan didn’t follow his unique journey and develop his skills as a
musician and therefore end up, as a 7th grader in the high school
production of Music Man? You say what
does this have to do with anything?
Imagine if I had not pursued my unique interest in theater, I to, as a 7th
grader would not have been in that high school production of Music Man that my
brother, who was not into acting and not a singer ended up with the lead and
Francis Hitch’s daughter had the female lead which meant both her brother and I
got invited to be in the show and became good friends and eventually through
that friendship God showed your pastor the reality of Jesus Christ to whom I
gave my life to 3 years after meeting in that musical.
That is just a small part of my Unique
Journey. It does not have guns blazing,
or jail or drugs, but it is amazing to see how God was working, and I only
mentioned a few people whom God used to bring me to faith. You have a unique journey equally as
important. God was working in your life
long before you knew it, maybe long before you were born. I want you to begin doing some soul searching
– literally and see how God was working to have you discover THE unique journey
– Jesus Christ coming into the world – Jesus Christ coming into your life!
This
raises a fundamental question – “Where is Jesus going – more important, Where
does Jesus want me to go and where does Jesus want FirstB to go? What is God’s Unique Journey for me – for us?
Thomas
asked the same question: "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we
know the way?” Before you can
know how to get somewhere, you have to first know…what? Where
you are going. Have you ever started going somewhere without
knowing where you are going? Probably! Have you ever started going somewhere
that you knew at the start but forgot along the way? All the time. Where was
Jesus talking about going? To Heaven! If
we don’t know that is where we are going – how can we know the way? When sharing the good news with someone, we
don’t start with Jesus – we start with where the person is, where we can go –
Heaven and then lay out the map and the GPS – God’s Perfect Savior – THE WAY –
JESUS!
Jesus
went from the finish point to our beginning point then back to the finish so we
would know how to get from start to finish. If you don’t know where the finish
line is, running the race is pointless.
KNOW THIS: Jesus was not sent on a divine mission on behalf of the
Father. Rather, the Father himself was
and is on a divine mission in the life of His Son. That is THE UNIQUE JOURNEY.
Jesus’
work was not finished when he left earth, it was a continuation of his work on
our behalf so that our journey could get us to where he is – heaven. John 14:2-3 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for
you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to
be with me that you also may be where I am.
Jesus doesn’t just show us a way to the Father – he is
THE WAY to the Father – That makes our journey truly UNIQUE!!!
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