Street Signs of Life: One Way

Pastor Phillips' Sermon

Sunday, July 9, 2006

Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, you have brought us here today. You have called us to your house and we rejoice that this is a place of worship, a place of comfort and encouragement and strength for our faith. It's also a place where we hear from you and we are guided by you. And we pray your Holy Spirit will bless us today with a wonderful message of encouragement and strength. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Today we continue our series on road signs, talking about the one-way sign. And if you think about the one-way sign, that's a pretty important one. You think about the consequences of going the wrong way. When we see these signs along the road, we can't ignore them. But I think, at some point, most of us have had an experience where we've gone the wrong way. For me, it happens sometimes when I'm in an unfamiliar area, a new town or neighborhood. And two years ago, Des Moines was an unfamiliar town to me. And I can remember a particular instance when I turned the wrong way. I had picked up my girls from school, and I was headed west on Franklin coming towards Merle Hay. And all the traffic was backed up because everybody was picking up their kids from school. All the moms and dads and everybody were backed up bumper to bumper, and I was looking for options. “Hum, how can I get out of this traffic?” And I pulled up to a stop sign and I looked off to my right and cutting off on a 45-degree angle was this clear and open road. And I thought, “That's it.” So I turned down that road, and I'm cruising along thinking, “Wow, this is great. What a clever move that was.” Until I saw the backs of the signs coming past me. I looked around. “Oh, no.” That worked out okay, but I don't think I'll do it again. I didn't have any accidents. I didn't get a ticket, but I just don't want to repeat that experience.

As we think about the bible and God's Word, it echoes this theme of one way. In fact, in the words of our scripture lessons today, we find powerful statements clearly indicating God's one way. Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” These words came from Peter as he was filled with the Holy Spirit. You might remember this story. He was on trial for performing a miracle. Actually, God had done the miracle through him. And he was standing before the Sanhedrin, which was the equivalent of the Supreme Court in his day, and yet he was unafraid because God filled him with the Holy Spirit and God gave him those wonderful, bold, and powerful words to proclaim. “Salvation is found in no one else. There is no other name by which we must be saved.” You can't get much more one way than that. Only in the name of Jesus are our sins forgiven. Only in the name of Jesus do we receive eternal life. Some people may think that's kind of narrow minded for Christians to claim their faith is the only way but, in this regard, Peter is in perfect agreement with Jesus Himself. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” One Christian author describes these words in this way. He said, “When confronted with what Jesus was saying, ‘I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,' you must make a choice. We must confess our faith. Either Jesus is a liar, either He's a lunatic, or He is the Lord. There are no other possibilities.” Each of us must confess what we believe in that regard. And I believe He is my Lord and my Savior and, in this fact, I find great comfort and peace.

The Jews who oppose Jesus and were listening to Him speak had no doubt what He was claiming. In fact, they were ready to kill Him then for claiming to be the Messiah and, in other places, for making Himself out to be equal to God. Maybe they thought He was narrow minded. But is it really narrow minded to go the right way on a one-way street? If there is only one way, is it narrow minded to travel that way?

In the Book of Acts, the Christian life is also called “The Way.” Acts 18:25 reads, “He,” referring to a Jew named Apollos, “had been instructed in the way of the Lord.” The way of the Lord. This expression speaks about the way of salvation but also it speaks about the life Christians are called to follow. Psalm 119 speaks of this lifestyle in Verses 9 and 10. “How can a young man keep his way pure by living according to your Word? I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray from your commands.” God reveals this way of life to us through His Word, through the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments show us the best way to live. They articulate God's design for our relationship with Him and for our relationship with each other. This is not some legalistic way of pleasing God or winning His favor. “You obey the Ten Commandments and God likes you.” That's not the way it is. It's simply a way to respond to the wonderful gift of salvation God has given us, a way to say, “Thank you. Lord, I know you love me, and I want to love you by obeying your ways.” Not only that, but it's the way things are designed. It's the way things work best. And when we follow them, there are built-in blessings with that design.

The first three commandments are summed by Jesus in this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” God's one way with regard to our relationship to Him is that we love Him. The commandments four through ten are summed up by Jesus like this: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So, according to Jesus, we are called by God to love Him and to love our neighbors, to love everyone else. With regard to our life in Christ, love is God's one way.

But let's take a look at the potential for tragedy of going the wrong way. The result of ignoring a one-way sign on a street can be tragic, as is the case with a friend of our family. When I was a Junior in High School, a young man was off at college. Apparently, he had too much to drink and decided he ought to drive his car and tried to enter the Interstate on an exit ramp. A head-on collision resulted, and he paid for his mistake with his life. And I can remember to this day the dark cloud that hung over our family and his family because his mom was my mom's best friend. This is the kind of devastation that can happen by going the wrong way on a one-way street.

When we put this back into the realm of religion, there's an even greater cost. Here we're not talking about getting a ticket or having a fender bender or even coming to the end of our earthly life. Here we are talking about something with eternal consequences. To allow for other religions, other pathways to God, and other ways to heaven may seem noble or tolerant or in step with society but, in reality, it's simply turning a blind eye to the tragic end of the wrong way.

As we journey through this life, occasionally we end up going the wrong way. For some reason, we ignore God's one way and end up in a head-on collision. We ignored God's command to be faithful to our spouse, so our marriage fell apart. We craved wealth and excitement and gambled away our retirement savings. We brought pain and suffering into our life because of our substance abuse. These and other similar collisions alert us to the fact we are going the wrong way. We need to make a U-turn. We're not going God's one way.

We live in this world and there are many struggles, many things that divert us off the path of God. And there are many people out there who don't have the benefit of growing up in the church like you and I do. For them, there is this hunger. There is this lost feeling, this desire to believe in someone or something. Dennis DeYoung of the rock band Styx captured this cry in the words of his popular song, Show Me the Way . Listen to the words: “Every night I say a prayer in the hope that there's a heaven and every day I'm more confused as the saints turn into sinners. All the heros and legends I knew as a child have fallen to idols of clay. And I feel this empty place inside, so afraid that I've lost my faith. Show me the way. Show me the way.”

I'm not endorsing this rock band or anything. I'm just saying this is what the world is crying out for and they search in all kinds of ways to believe in something, something bigger than themselves. They're lost. As they search for this something, they need to know someone. They need to know the one way that is Jesus. As they struggle to find peace and happiness, they need to experience the one way of Christian love. God's one way is He loved us so much that He gave His one and only Son to die for us on the cross to pay for our sins. God's one way releases us from the guilt of our past and invites us to a future of forgiveness. God's one way teaches us to love and forgive, just as we have been loved and forgiven.

Have you ever been driving around lost, unable to find a street sign to tell you where you are? Well, when we lived in New Jersey , that was pretty common. Because all the roads are built on these old cart paths from the colonial days. They're not straight and square like Iowa roads, you know, every mile you have a road and all that kind of thing. They followed these angles and intersections that are strange and very often you can't even find a street sign. And if you look at the map, they have numbers instead of the names so it's even more confusing. The same road can have two or three different names based on where you are along that road. So traveling through New Jersey can be very frustrating. But can you imagine what it would be like to travel through this life without Jesus, what it would be like to go through a heart-rending loss and have no comfort and no one to call out to and no one to guide you? The good news is God has placed hundreds and thousands and millions of these one-way signs everywhere. You see, we are the signs. We are the signs. We point the way to God's love and forgiveness to eternal life in heaven. Amen.

Copyright 2006 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church