Explanation of Solas:

So for the last 3 weeks Pastor Steve has been walking us through a series on the Solas…

Each week he has explained what the Solas are, but let's do a little reminder one more time…

On October 31^st we will be celebrating the 500 hundredth year of the Reformation…

Martin Luther in 1517 walked to Castle Church and nailed his 95 thesis to the door, which kicked off the Reformation…

The Reformation was a call for change within the Roman Church…

But the Roman Church church responded to these 95 questions with no change… 

What was essential to the Reformation and what Luther believed are expressed in the Solas… 

Sola means, “Only…”

So the first week of this series we looked at Sola Scriptura which means…  Only by Scripture… 

Two weeks ago, we looked at Sola Gratiis, which means…  Only by Grace…

Last week we looked at Sola Fide, which means…  Only by faith…

Now this week, we are looking at Solus Christus…  Which means…  Only through Christ… 

The whole idea of this “sola” is the theology of Christology or “study of Christ” but also it is the idea of that only through Christ can we be saved. 

This “sola” came out of a time when the Roman Church was suggesting that humanity could be saved through earthly means such as: good works, pleasing church leadership, paying money, and several other ways.

The reformers believed in "Solus Christus” meaning that only through Christ can we be saved…

No amount of works or pleasing the Church can one be saved…

But Creekside, the battle for who Christ is and his role in our Salvation hasn’t changed or stopped…

The world is constantly trying to destroy who Christ is…

And trying to find ways that people can be “saved” without Christ…

It is important for us this morning to truly understand who Christ is and how we are saved through him alone…

So as to help us better understand who Christ is, we are going to look at John 14:6.

Turn with me to John 14:6

Read passage:  John 14:6

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father expect through me.”

The Way:

The word, “way” in Greek is “hodos” which has the idea of path, direction, journey, or road…

The word way here is getting at the idea that Jesus is our way to the Father…

But Jesus isn’t a guide that stands quietly by like a ride operator directly us to some hidden trail…

Jesus himself is the way by whom we get to the Father…

He is the one by which we get to the Father, the very gate we go through…

He is the path we walk on to get to the Father…

Then Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us through the journey to the Father…

Jesus is the way to God because He is the truth of God and the life of the Father… 

This last year or so, the young adults have been going through the Old Testament book by book…

Understanding how the Old and New Testaments fit together….

So as we understand the importance of Christ alone…

Lets quickly tie the Old Testament into the New Testament…

Throughout the Torah, the first 5 books of Moses which are the Law…

We see God’s instructions to His children on how to offer sacrifices that temporarily pay for their sins…

These sacrifices were like placing a band aid on cancer and God created them to not solve the problem of sin…

God wanted His children to be constantly aware of their sins…

And to realize their constant inability to solve their sin on their own…

Hence showing Israel their need for a Savior…

Fast forward several thousand years of Israel being promised a Savior, a Messiah that not only would save them from their oppressors but also provide everlasting life to them…  

Jesus steps on the scene proclaims He is the Messiah and then is crucified…

Thus fulfilling all the prophecies and becoming the ultimate sacrifice who completely pays the blood price for sins that no animal could ever pay…

With Jesus’s death, He became the one and only way by which we gain life and communion with the Father…

Without Jesus there is no way that we can ever pay for our sins…

Jesus is the way, the way to the Father…

This world we live in so often tries to convince humanity that there other ways to god but God is the one and only way to God. 

The Truth:

Jesus is the Truth… 

In a world where most people believe that truth is relative, Jesus says that He is the one and only Truth…

He is the Truth of God, the one that reveals the truth of the Father…

You see, God becomes our mediator and reveals to all of humanity that the Father is God…

Jesus helps humanity understand the Father and have a relationship with him… 

1 Timothy 2:5 says that “there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus…” 

Jesus becomes the very one that stands in between God the Father and humanity…

Helping humanity to bridge the gap that sin caused between us and God… 

Within youth ministry, we often use the idea of two cliffs with a deep valley in between….

When God created Adam and Eve there was no valley in between but instead we had a perfect relationship with God… 

But when humanity sinned, and turned away from God…

A deep valley was formed in between and created two cliffs…

Now there was no way for humanity to reach God…

But the famous verse, John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world that He sent His only son, so whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life…”

So God sent Jesus to die for us and thus bridging the gap of sin…

The important thing to understand and one of the key reasons all of these solas were even created is because there is nothing that humanity can do to earn salvation… 

It is only through Christ that we are saved…

Ephesians 2:4-10 says, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

That is why it is so vital for Christians to understand that Jesus is the one and only Truth…

The one that reveals to us the truth of God the Father and helps us have a relationship with Him…

The Life:

Jesus is the life…

As we have already mentioned, Jesus is the sacrifice that fulfilled all other sacrifices and paid the price for our sins…

We have also seen that Jesus is the one that bridges the gap of sin between man and God…

But there is also more to the fact that He is the life…

Not only is Jesus the final sacrifice and the bridge for the gap…

Jesus also took on our sin and became sin for us…

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

This is so important because humanity can not live or endure under the weight of their own sin… "

When it comes time for humanity at their end of their life to face God, if they haven’t sought Christ’s forgiveness and substitutionary payment for their sins…

They will go to hell…

But, Jesus being the life isn’t only pertaining to nonbelievers…

Jesus being the life also affects believers…

The very fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins in place of us…

Affects every believer as well…

Think about this, Christ didn't just die for your sins prior to accepting Him as your Lord and Savior…

He died for every sin each one of us has, is currently, and will commit…

Romans 6:10 and 1 Peter 3:18 bring evidence to this…

Creekside, we have a Savior who died for you before you were even born…

And paid the price for your sins forever…

But Romans 6:1-2 tells us that we should not sin so that we give grace the ability to reign but instead we must turn from our sin and repent and live in Christ…

All of this is wrapped up in the very fact that Jesus is the life…

He is the one by which we can live…

Not physical life but eternal life…

Never ending perfect union and relationship with God the Father…

Choosing Jesus at the core, shouldn’t be about the fact that we want to be saved from hell…

That is a perk…

Choosing Jesus really should be about the desire to have a perfect relationship with God, bridging that gap that is there due to sin through Jesus…

Except through me:

Now the final part of this verse is when Jesus proclaims that no one can get to the Father except through Him…

Now hold on, I don’t know if you have caught in the past three claims but Jesus has already made a huge announcement and claim to who He is…

But now that claim is even bigger…

Jesus here is claiming that He is the Messiah…

The Son of God, the chosen one…

The one that has been promised…

The one that will offer salvation and is the ambassador of the Father…

The one and only way to God…

This was life altering for Pharisees, they claimed this was complete heresy…

They didn’t believe Him to be the Messiah…

Jesus clearly claims that no one can get to the Father except through Him…

Jesus is vital for us to have salvation and a relationship with the Father…

Now throughout history, there has been many times that people have destroyed who Jesus is and tried to find other ways to get to the Father…  

Back in the early 300’s A.D, there was a man named Arius…

Arius believed that Jesus was not the true son of God but instead He was the created one of God… 

Within Arian Theology he believed that “There was when He was not”

Arius believed that the Word or Jesus was created by God… 

Thus there was a time when the Word (Jesus) was not. 

Arius claimed that the word was not God but strictly the first of all creatures. 

Before anything else was made the Word was created by God. 

The bishop of Alexanderia claimed that the Word was divine and could not be created instead was co-eternal with the Father. 

Arius tried to distinguish between God the Father and his son saying that God’s divinity could not be shared between the two so the Son must be created. 

You see, if we believe that Jesus was a created creature of God and not fully eternal with God, fully God and fully man we must either cease to worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God or declare that we are worshiping a created flawed creature that is not God. 

So as a rejection of this heresy the bishops of that time meet together in 325 A.D. and proceeded to write out what is now know as the Nicene Creed. 

In this Creed there is a very key word mentioned. 

This word is "homoousios" which means “of the same substance.”  

You see the bishops wanted to make sure Christians clearly knew that Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father. 

He was one with the Father not created. 

But the distortions about Jesus continued throughout history and are found today…

Many religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormonism, Atheism, and others claim that Jesus is just a good man, or just one god among many, or just one way that we can reach eternal life…

But it is so sad to see that the distortions of who Jesus haven’t been isolated to nonbelievers but instead they have always penetrated the evangelical church….

Think about this, many believers within Bible believer solid churches have no idea the importance of what Jesus did on the Cross…

Some believers, aren’t even sure if they truly believe if He is the Son of God…

Many don’t even believe that God is three in one…

But here is the thing, Christians should have no excuse for incorrect theology of who Jesus is…

Because God’s word, which we learned 3 weeks ago is inspired and breathed out by God, tells us more times then we can even count exactly who Jesus is, His relationship to God the Father and the Holy Spirit, what He did on the cross, and how that does and should change our life…

It doesn’t take have Pastor in front of your name or Bible school or seminary education to understand… 

It is written out for us… 

But hold on, please don’t hear me insulting anyone here… 

It is totally fine to admit we don’t understand everything that is written here in the Bible…

No one ever will…

Pastor Steve and I are happy to sit down with anyone and together study this amazing book and understand… 

But what I am getting at is the common trend among Christians to not even pick this thing up ever…

And then claim that they don’t understand… 

The challenge for believers is to pick this up, read it, study it, because I promise you it will make more sense to you…

Processing all of that…

As we close today, Jesus is the way and only way to the Father…

He is also the truth and the life for all of humanity…

But Jesus is also our bridge between God and man…

He is our salvation and life-changing God…

The question, do you truly believe all that the Bible says about Jesus…

Do you believe He is the way, the truth, and the life… 

As a reminder of the importance of who Jesus is…

We are going to recite the Nicene Creed…

As I mentioned earlier, this creed was created entirely out of trying to destroy the heretical beliefs of Jesus…

Read the Nicene Creed….

Lets pray…