Mike Novotny - Jesus Is the ONLY Way to Heaven
Summary
In his sermon "Jesus Is the ONLY Way to Heaven," Mike Novotny gets into those heavy moments when life hits hard in family, friends, health, money, or faith, and how we usually either escape the pain or obsess over fixing it—but Jesus gives a better way: don't let your heart stay troubled, just turn your focus toward God and remember heaven's waiting. He camps out on John 14:1-6, where Jesus tells his freaked-out disciples about his Father's house with tons of rooms he's prepping for them, then drops the bombshell "I am the way and the truth and the life—no one comes to the Father except through me," hammering the Greek where it's definitely "the" way, not just one option among many. Mike's big point is that heaven's gotta be perfect—no sin, pain, or ugliness allowed—so Jesus' death on the cross is the only thing that wipes us clean and qualifies us, not our goodness or other religions; he pushes back on the "all paths lead to God" idea with stories like chatting with a lady on a Chicago bus who thought that, and admits it's tough because we all know great non-Christians we'd love to see there. With stuff like prayer requests full of cancer and stress, or his buddy in jail still trusting "God has got this," he wraps by saying when trouble hits, physically turn toward God ASAP, remind yourself you're his kid with a room ready, and trust Jesus—the exclusive but gracious way—who's got everything under control.
What Do You Do When Problems Hit the Five Key Areas?
What do you do when you have problems in one of those five key areas of your life? I’ve been alive for 42 and a quarter years, and I’ve been a pastor for almost 16 years. I’ve realized that what people like me and people like you care about more than anything else in the world are the five key areas—essential areas of our life. The question I want you to wrestle with today is, what do you do? Because we all do something. What do you do when something goes wrong in one or more of those five key areas? As you think about that question, I should probably clarify what the five key areas are. Grab a pen; write these down. I’ve noticed that the five things we care about most in life all start with the same letter: the letter F.
The Five F Areas: Family
The first one that I can guarantee you care about is family. All of us, deep down, as complicated as our family might be, long for a family that is close, right? We want to have a tight relationship with our mom, our dad, our brothers, our sisters, your son, your daughter, if you have children; if you’re dating or married to someone, your husband or your wife. But I don’t have to tell you that family is complicated. Sometimes you want to be close to your mom, but I don’t know, you and your mom just butt heads all the time. You’d love to be like the guy who can call up his dad and get the wisdom from his experience, but your dad’s, I don’t know, been emotionally distant or physically distant. What do you do when your family is flawed?
Or dating someone? Someone sent me an Instagram message this week: «Pastor Mike, is Christian dating supposed to be this hard?» Right? Because even if you’re a Christian, I mean finding someone, you always know if they’re compatible or not. «I want to be serious about this relationship, or we’ve been together for a long time, but it doesn’t feel like it’s getting better. Do we want to commit until death do us part?» That’s incredibly complicated. So you go online and you try to date, right? But that’s super, super overwhelming. And guys, no offense, but guys can be really weird. And women? I’m not going to finish that sentence. You can—I’m not that dumb, right? I mean, like people are people, and I don’t know, sometimes we look good on a screen, but in real life, it’s more complicated than that.
So what do you do when your relationship status is messy and complicated? Or you want a kid, but you can’t have one, or you have a kid, but that kid’s making some really bad decisions? Sooner or later, you’re going to have family problems. My question to you is not what your problems are, or if you have them, but what do you do when you have them? How do you cope? How do you deal?
Friends
Or maybe your problems aren’t family problems, but they’re category number two: friend problems. Just like a good family, all of us ache for close friendships, but finding a good friend and keeping a good friend might seem simple on paper. Have you noticed in life it’s not like that at all?
Whether you’re 6 years old and newly at your school, or you’re 16 trying to survive middle and high school life, or you’re a grown-up, think of guys I’ve talked to from our church who have drinking buddies and old friends that they see on Facebook, but real friends that you can talk about real life with—that is way more uncommon than people might guess. So when you are struggling to find a friend, when you’re sitting at the lunch table and things are tense, when it’s been a long time, when you know you need help but you don’t know who you can get help from, what do you do?
Fitness (Physical Health)
Or problem number three: fitness problems, not the way we’d say it—we’d say physical health. And physical sounds like an F; it’s technically a PH, just in case you didn’t know, but you know what I mean, right? I was reading your prayer requests just a couple of Sundays ago, and there was this long list of all the physical things that are weighing you down. There’s the injury, there’s the disability, there’s the surgery, there’s the recovery, someone’s praying for cancer of the lungs, another for cancer of the liver, another for cancer of the blood. My dad has dementia; my sister was intubated; there’s an infection. Like, your friend group might be great, but when you look in the mirror and you see a body that’s breaking down, or you’re going to the hospital to visit someone you love, what do you say to yourself in those moments? How do you get through them?
Finances
Or maybe it’s not something physical; maybe it’s something financial. Anyone here broke? Yeah, lots of us are. Some of us, you know, check our banking app every day just to make sure we have enough money to pay this bill or that one. We have to pick and choose because we don’t have enough to cover it all. Some of us have lost jobs recently; some of us are struggling in our careers. Some of us don’t even want to check the banking app because we know what the answer is going to be. And some of you, it seems like you have a lot, but with the big house and the nice car come some pretty big bills that burden you and keep you up at night. When you feel financial stress and you’re not sure if you’re going to be able to make ends meet, what do you think about?
Faith
Or faith. Finally, as long as we’re in church, some of us have faith problems, right? You ever been in a group of Christians and just kind of looked around and felt like you were a little bit behind? These people know more about the Bible; their relationships seem better. Here I am, struggling not to drink, not to get high, not to go back to old ways, not to lose my cool, not to, you know, snap—whatever. And here are these people, seeming like nice Christian families. It might be one of those things, or two of those things, or all of those things.
Today, really, though, I don’t want you to make a confession about what your problems are; I want to force you to answer this question: what do you do when you have those problems? Like, what’s your default reaction when something goes wrong in an area of life that matters so much? I might not know you, but I do know this: you do something, right? You have some way of dealing with it. For some people, it’s escapism, self-medication. You know, if I just don’t think about it, it’s not real. If I drink enough, I’ll forget—at least for tonight. If I’m anxious about it, I’ll smoke a joint with my friends; I’ll shop; I’ll grab my phone and scroll; get lost in video games—like just ignore it. That’s what some of you do.
Or some of you, on the other hand, you double down and try to fix it, right? You stay up at night thinking, worrying, fretting, figuring out what you’re going to say, what you’re going to do, how you’re going to handle the situation. You work twice as hard to fix the issue. If they give you a second to think, could you come up with your default reaction? Because today, Jesus wants to give you another option.
Jesus’ Teaching on Troubled Hearts
We’ve been journeying through the Gospel of John, and we’re going to get to the point where Jesus tells us exactly what to do when our hearts are troubled—when we’re worried and anxious and afraid about something that’s going totally wrong.
And Jesus has every right to speak about this because his friends were freaking out on that Thursday night. You know the story of what we call Holy Week: Jesus is going to die on a cross on Friday, but the night before, on Thursday, he’s gathered with his friends. He has this huge sermon where he tries to teach them as much as he can, and in that sermon, he says, «You know, some of you are going to abandon me; one of you is going to deny me; one of you is going to betray me; the world is not going to love you. I’m about to leave you.» And the disciples, if you could picture them, their hearts were just swirling, moving 100 miles an hour; they were anxious, they were afraid, they were panicked. Their eyes were this wide. And that’s when Jesus told them exactly what to do. And today, Jesus is going to tell you, too.
In John chapter 14, in just six verses, Jesus is going to tell us exactly how to deal with the problems that we face in this life. So let’s grab our Bibles and look at what Jesus said. John chapter 14, let me read to you just verse one: «Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.» At first, that seems like really shallow advice, doesn’t it? Don’t imagine going to counseling if you’re struggling with anxiety, and the counselor just says, «Well, stop.» How much am I paying you, right? I mean, just says, «Don’t let your heart—I know your hearts are troubled—don’t stop it. No more.» Which seems insensitive until Jesus says something that might be easy to read by, but don’t. He says, «Do not let your hearts be troubled.» Period. «You believe in God.» Obviously, these were very religious Jewish men. Why did Jesus say that?
It is so easy when you’re face-to-face with something troublesome to forget completely, «Oh yeah, I’m not an atheist. I believe in God. I believe that God exists. I believe that God knows all things. I believe that God holds the situation in the palm of his hands. I believe that God has compassion for me. I believe that God is using all things for good.» There are all these things we talk about all the time about God, but when trouble hits, it’s so easy to forget, «Oh yeah, I’m not an atheist. I believe in the most powerful, beautiful, compassionate, forgiving person who exists in the whole universe—Jesus.»
A really simple but powerful answer: don’t be troubled; remember that you believe in God. I might picture it this way: imagine that this is the thing that’s stressing you out right now. You didn’t choose it, but here it is, and you spend most of your days thinking about this and worrying about this and focusing on this. What Jesus is saying to his friends is, «You believe in God.» In the original Greek of the New Testament, it literally says, «You believe towards God.» It’s a directional word. Like you’ve been focused—your direction, your heart, your attention is on this problem, the thing you want to fix, the thing that you can’t fix. Don’t forget to believe towards God, right?
Turn to his direction. The way the human head is built, I can’t like look at this and that at the same time. I’ve got to choose one or the other. And Jesus is saying, like, you’ve been choosing to focus on this. No wonder you’re freaking out! Hey, don’t forget; believe in God—towards God. Pay attention in his direction. You might be surprised by the kind of things that happen in your heart.
Remember Heaven: The Father’s House
In fact, what Jesus says next is one of the most important things to remember about God when you’re facing some problems and freaking out. Let’s read on with Jesus.
Verse two: «My father’s house has many rooms. If that were not so, would I have told you that I’m 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.» What does Jesus want his friends to remember? My father’s house. Fancy way of saying heaven. When you’re focused on the problems of Earth, don’t forget that you’re the kind of person who believes in heaven. When’s the last time you stopped and thought for at least one minute about how absolutely unbelievably amazing heaven is going to be? Was that part of your last week? Did you just think about heaven for a second?
Sometimes people call it a better place. I think that’s an insult to heaven, right? Heaven is so good. The Bible says there’s no struggle, there’s no pain, there’s no suffering, there’s no death. No one is stressed in heaven; no one is anxious in heaven; no one is afraid in heaven; no one is down; there are no bad days in heaven; there are no broken bones in heaven; no mental health struggles in heaven. There is just glory and joy that is so good that the most eloquent speaker could not find the words if he saw heaven for five seconds, right? What makes you happy on earth is so unbelievably small compared to heaven.
Have you ever fallen in love before? Once you get to heaven, you’ll think that falling in love was lame. It’s really good. You ever seen like a last-second buzzer-beater in some Final Four game? Some of you have. In heaven, the angels are yawning, like, «Oh, boring. That’s boring, » because I get to be with God. You ever seen a video of a bunch of little puppies? There’s nothing in heaven that compares. The beauty of heaven, the power of heaven, the glory of heaven is so incredibly great. Jesus is saying, «Don’t forget, don’t forget my father’s house.» Because do you know who lives in that house? The Father! Who lives in your house? You! Who lives in my house? Me! Who lives in the Father’s house? Say it together: the Father! Yeah! When you get to heaven, you will be with God the Father!
Forgive me for being a cranky middle-aged pastor, but I get riled up when people are like—do you think we’ll play golf in heaven? I don’t care! God is going to be there. We’re going to see God! It’s the father’s house! It’s not free 18 holes in a cart. God is there. Can you even imagine the most wonderful, beautiful, interesting, creative, forgiving, loving, compassionate father in the world? Jesus says, «Don’t let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God the Father. He has a house.» And get this: «My father’s house has many, many rooms.» There’s a lot of room for people like us in the Father’s house! Can you imagine if Jesus said, «In my father’s house, there are three open rooms?» Peter and James and John? Thomas would have looked at each other: at least I’m not as bad as him, right?
No! Jesus is saying, the vacancy sign is on in heaven; there’s room there for a person like you. Because if Jesus would say this: «I’m going there to prepare a place for you, » if he could promise a room in the Father’s house to guys like these who would deny him and abandon him and sin against him, that is really powerful proof that maybe, just maybe, there’s room for a person like you. Some of you— I have a hunch here today—think that maybe you’re not good enough for heaven. Maybe you’ve made some decisions that make you unworthy of heaven. You’re aware enough to realize that if God is good and you’ve done things that are bad, that’s a problem with getting to heaven. And I’ll tell you this: you’re exactly right. Right? If God just looked at me, if he looked at you and he knew everything and saw everything, well then yes, we would not have a space, a room reserved for us in heaven. It’s a holy place, a beautiful place. People that say unbeautiful and ugly things would not fit there.
But notice—notice the subjects of Jesus’s verbs. He said, «I am going there. I am preparing a place. I will come back. I will take you to be with me.» Jesus is hinting at what, in Christian faith, we call the Gospel. That getting to heaven is not about being a really good person or fixing your mistakes; instead, it’s all about Jesus. It’s about a Jesus who cleanses us, who washes us of sins, who forgives and saves us. He doesn’t give us a coupon for 20% off of our moral ticket to get into heaven; he just pays the whole thing. He reserves the room, and when you check in at the gates and you say the name of Jesus, the room is ready, even for a person like you.
Now, some of you, in your brain, might push back at that. You say, «Pastor, you don’t know what I did.» When I was totally disconnected, when things got emotional, when we were going through the divorce, the things I said, the choices I’ve made… and I would say, «Yeah, it might be bad.» But Jesus said that to Peter, a guy who said, «I don’t even know Jesus.» He denied his friendship with him and yet said, «Peter, I’m preparing a place for you, too.»
Jesus: The Way, the Truth, and the Life
That’s why he clarified the way to the Father’s house in the last verses from our text for today. Let’s pick things up where Jesus said: «Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way? ' Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'»
Now, I love the apostle Thomas. He was not an almost honest Christian, so he didn’t get it, but he just decided to admit it. He didn’t smile and nod; he raised his hand and said, «Ah, Jesus, I don’t get it. I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t know where you’re going. How can I know the way to get there?» Which is a really good question to ask. How can you know the directions if you don’t know the destination? The other day, after I read John 14, I pulled up my phone and I said, «Hey Siri, give me the directions.» You want to guess what Siri said back? «Where are you going?» Right? I can’t tell you the way until I know the where. That’s what Thomas is saying.
«We don’t know where you’re going, Jesus; how do we know the way to get there?» And so, Jesus clarifies. He says, «My father’s house, God, is the destination, and I am the direction to get there. If your hope is to get to heaven, if you want to see the amazing presence of God, if you want to escape the pain of hell, then God is the way, and his son, Jesus, is the way.» It doesn’t matter how broken or bad you’ve been or how good you think you are; Jesus says, «Here I am, the way. No one comes to the Father except through me.»
Now, how many of you have heard John 14:6 before? Can I see a show of hands? Yeah, a lot of you. If you don’t know and you’re new to church, this is maybe one of the top five things that Jesus ever said, John 14:6, one of the most highlighted verses in the Bible app. But the more you think about the words, you realize, wow, this is an incredibly offensive and an incredibly amazing thing for Jesus to say. Do you see why?
The offense makes me think of a woman named Robin. About a decade ago, I think it was 2013, I was on a bus in Chicago at the airport about to fly over to Greece, and I’m sitting in the seat with my pastor friend, and sitting in front of us is the biggest extrovert in the history of extroverts. I quickly find out, because she’s an extrovert, her name is Robin. She quickly finds out that I’m a pastor and my buddy’s a pastor, and she starts talking and talking and talking until she says this one line: «Oh man, don’t you guys think it’s great that no matter what a person believes or what path they follow or what religion they are, that there are all these different ways to get up to God?»
And my buddy, I think he said it really respectfully, he said, «Well, actually, do you know in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, 'I am the way'», not a way, but the way? I remember what Robin said back. She smiled and said, «Well, I think all three of us know that in the original Greek of the New Testament, Jesus did not say that he was the way, but he just claimed to be a way.» To which I thought on the bus, I wish I had paid attention in Greek class. Like, I knew the English; I memorized it as a kid, but I wasn’t positive what the Greek said. So I had to grab my Greek Bible when I got home.
And I want to show you what I found. So this is the Greek of John 14:6. That’s what Greek looks like—really small words: Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδός. This is like really simple. John was a fisherman; when I studied Greek in college, this was the first class we took, reading the Gospel of John. It’s as easy as it gets. Dr. Luke? Much harder. Fisherman John? Very easy. Let me show you a simple translation. Let me leave out a key word. So Jesus was saying, «I am blank way, and blank truth, and blank life.» And what goes in the blanks are those three letters that kind of look like a fancy N. Do you see them?
That one letter is also a very, very simple Greek word. You want to guess what it is? The! It’s not mysterious; it’s kindergarten grammar! Jesus did not claim, «I am a way.» I am just one of many spiritual options; I am the way! In fact, he doubled down on that when he said, «No one—categorically no one—gets to the Father, gets to heaven, except through me.» And I can understand why Robin would want to filter Jesus.
I’m not sure who you know and who you love, but I know and love people who are not followers of Jesus but are pretty good people. You know people that bring me joy, people that I love. They’re not church people; they’re not Christian people; they might not care about religion, or maybe they follow another religion. Do you know and love people like that too? But we can’t filter Jesus and say, «Well, it’s fine; maybe he meant something else.» This is what he said! And so the question we have to wrestle with is: why would Jesus say that? Why would he make this exclusive claim that unless you believe in me as your God, your Lord, your savior, and your king, there’s zero chance that even the best of you can get to heaven?
I’ll tell you why. Because heaven is not just a better place; it’s the best place. Because if anyone who was, you know, kind of sort of mostly good could get into heaven, what would happen in heaven for those moments when they’re not good? Right? If heaven is going to be much better than Earth, the answer isn’t just to get rid of the Hitlers. The problem is, what would God do with the ugly parts of me and you? If you’re not always patient, or not always kind, or not always selfless, and God just let you walk through the doors of heaven, what would happen in heaven? We’d have to fear the same stuff that we fear here on Earth. We’d worry about the same family and friend problems that we do right here. If God just had an open door to flawed people, heaven would be a flawed place. And so Jesus says, «No, you can’t just get into heaven by being good; that’s not good enough.»
So how’s it possible that a person gets into heaven? Well, Jesus gives an answer: «I am the way. I will prepare a place. In fact, I will prepare you as a person.» When Jesus left that upper room and went to the cross, what he did was not just give us a noble example of selflessness; what he did was die to make us perfect. I don’t know if you’ve heard that, but that is what Christians believe! Jesus is not just our example; he is our savior. He highlighted everything I’ve ever done wrong, and on the cross, he pushed delete. He took all the moral mistakes you’ve ever made and he separated them as far from you as the east is from the west. If you’re a believer in Jesus, as much as you struggle and as much as you’ve sinned, God can actually look at you and say, «You’re actually good enough for this perfect place. I see no flaw in you. I have nothing to blame you for.»
If Jesus died not for some of it, but for all of it, then everyone who has Jesus knows the way, can get to the Father, can live and die with the hope that heaven is ours—hard stop, no doubt, no question mark or exclamation point through the mighty name of Jesus.
The Solution: Think About God ASAP
This is what the Son of God taught us. When you are worried, when you are afraid, remember you believe in God. You believe that there is a place where there is no pain. You believe that you are going there because I have made you good enough. I am the way, and you will come to the Father through me.
So grab a pen; let’s write down the big idea for today. What’s Jesus' solution to our five P problems? I’ll summarize it this way: think about G ASAP. As fast as you can, get your brain thinking not about the thing but about God. So here’s my homework for you: it’s a simple little Christian exercise. The next time you know—here’s the problem, you’re thinking about it, you’re stressing, you got your phone, someone said something nasty, someone told you some bad news at work—I physically want you to do this with your body. I just want you to go right. I want you to like physically trigger your brain to say, «If I’m a Christian, this isn’t the whole story. In fact, it’s like the smallest part of the story. I’m a person who believes in the God of this book. I got a powerful, loving God who saved me from my sin and is going to save me from all of my struggle.»
If you want to add a cherry on top, just say, «I am not an atheist. No, no, I’m a child of God, and in my Father’s house, there is room for me.» That’s what my friend did just a few blocks from this church. My friend, for a few months, was sitting in an orange jumpsuit, awaiting his trial. As the date approached, he didn’t know if the judge would say, «You’re free, “ and he’d be sitting right back here in church, or if he’d spend maybe the rest of his adult life in prison. Can you imagine sitting in that cell, marking one day closer to the date where your whole life will be decided? He was worried for a while, but then he wrote me a letter. And when I opened it, I didn’t just love hearing from him; I loved, loved, loved the three words he put at the bottom of his letter.
He told me about the case, about the date, what the lawyer said, how he was holding up in jail, and then after he signed his name, he just wrote three words in big letters—a statement of his own faith. He wrote, „God has got this.“ God’s got this! That’s what he said. He’s facing 20 years behind bars, but in that moment, he turned and said, „My God is a God who can use this. My God can save me from this. Even if it turns out bad, I will not be alone, because in my Father’s house, there are many, many rooms.“
Brothers and sisters, if you are a follower of Jesus, your God has got this too. You will have trouble, but do not let your hearts be troubled because you and I are people who believe in God.
Prayer
Oh Lord, man, we’d love for you to take away the stress, the problems, the debt, the cancer. You say that we can ask you about anything, and so we’re asking you in your mercy, take that stuff away. Make life a little bit easier today. But God, whether you do or don’t, we pray even more for faith—the faith that turns away from the problem and turns to you as the solution. A kind of faith that knows that Earth is so temporary, but the Father’s house is eternal. Help us to be distinctly Christian people, with a passionate connection to a big God of glory and power and love. So easy to forget that in a moment, God. So may your spirit open the eyes of our heart to remember who we are and whose we are. We pray all these things because we need your help, and we know that you’re going to give it because we’re asking you today in Jesus’ name. And all God’s people said, „Amen.“