10/25/2025
Have we found Jesus, and are we attempting to reach out and bring others to Him? Well, before we do, we should be certain that we really know who He is ourselves. If we think we have sought and found Him, I wonder if we really have, because scripture seems to say that we don’t find Him through searching... God draws, or calls, us to Him. Is this an enigma; a great mystery? Let’s read two passages and then I will reveal a truth to you...
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—”
John 6:44-45 ESV
And then:
“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."”
John 14:6-7 ESV
So, if we can’t come to Jesus unless the Father draws us, and we can’t know the Father except through Jesus, then how are we ever to be saved? This appears to be an unsolvable mystery and a riddle without a solution… a conundrum, a paradox. I am laughing right now because I intentionally baited you by cherry picking these particular passages of scripture and taking them out of context to create this endless loop. This type of scriptural presentation is something we must be very careful to avoid in our teaching, lectures, and sermons, but it has allowed me to make a point today.
If we read these scriptural references in proper context they present no endless loop whatsoever. There are mysteries here, but not the one I previously presented. We are drawn by the Holy Spirit to know Jesus and through Him we come to know the Father. The mystery in the first scripture reading from John 6 is in how God leads us to Jesus, because it is so different in every life. What were the circumstances in your life that brought you to the feet of Christ? Then once you were there, what did you see in Him that touched you so deeply and saved your soul by leading you to proclaim Him the Son of God? Perhaps an additional passage can help us understand...
“To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”
1 Corinthians 9:22-23 ESV
Jesus appeals to each of us in a very personal way. To some He appears weak and vulnerable, but to others his strength is beyond our ability to fathom. Whatever the appeal, He leads us to sit at His feet and learn. Some of us will remain there and others walk away; which of those will you, or I, ultimately be? While in His presence we learn of the Father, and how to live and conduct our lives in Him. Pastor Oswald Chambers makes a wonderful observation about the criticality and magnificence of our remaining at the feet of Jesus when he writes these words:
“Never choose to be a worker, but when God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or the left. He will do with you what He never did with you before the call came; He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.” - Oswald Chambers
Then there is the second scriptural reference I used to establish the feeling of an inescapable loop as I built a seemingly unsolvable riddle for you... John 14: 6-7. The mystery is not the loop I initially baited you into contemplating, but there is great mystery in these words that on the surface seem so straight forward.
These particular verses have been studied and quoted from memory as often if not more than any others. Verse 6, which reads “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”” is interpreted in many ways; volumes have been written on this verse as commentators have expounded upon it, but once boiled down to its essence, I believe it to say this to us... Jesus is our path [way] to God, and then by saying He is the truth, He is defining His own character for us. Jesus is the truth in the Word, the truth in righteousness, the truth in holiness, the truth in purity, the truth in sinlessness, He is the truth in perfection, and the one true lamb without blemish, which makes Him the truth in sacrifice, and redemption. These examples only name a few of His traits, and help us to understand the mystery of His proclaiming Himself to be the truth.
Then thirdly He says He is the life. In this I believe He is saying that He has purchased eternal life for us by His very sacrifice. So, unless we believe that, and take it to heart, then there is no way to the Father... the law has been fulfilled and perfected in Him, and this stands on its own as the sole means of coming to God. Without Jesus Christ being the Messiah and the Lamb of God we have no hope. Thus He was able to say, “It is done.”
Finally in verse 7 He sets up the doubt of Thomas when he chided Him by saying “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." The Father and the Son are together, they are indistinguishable, and they are one. This is a great mystery for us as creatures of flesh and bone, and akin to the great mystery of man and woman becoming one flesh in marriage. Yet, mystery or not, the truth is revealed to us just as it was to Thomas. Are we doubters too?
So, the mystery is there but it is not as I originally presented it. The true mystery is in our understanding Jesus Christ, and that when we see Him we see the Father; and that when we know Him, then we know the Father. Perhaps in visualizing this as a hand within a glove, we can grasp the concept of God within the flesh of the man Jesus Christ.
Then there was our challenge regarding how we search for Jesus, and that mystery is solved by our very summons to Him by God Himself. Oswald Chambers resolved that for Himself in this way:
“It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. Here, in this College [fellowship], God is at work, bending, breaking, molding, doing just as He chooses. Why He is doing it, we do not know; He is doing it for one purpose only - that He May be able to say, this is my man, my woman. We have to be in God’s hand so that He can plant men on the Rock, as He has planted us.” - Oswald Chambers
God drew us, and he did so for reasons, and in ways that remain a mystery to us, but draw us He did. So here we are in the midst of a fallen world, holding onto the hem of Christ’s robe while at the same time reaching out as the emissaries of God to draw others to Jesus. It is precarious in that we seem to be fluttering like a moth about the flame. We are holy and yet dabble about the circumference of sin, plucking from it those who God presents to us. At this, I will close with one final Quote from the writings of Oswald Chambers...
“A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s noble man or woman amid a crowd of ignoble things.” - Oswald Chambers
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for drawing me to your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for the mysteries of faith that are founded, not to confuse me, but in my inability to understand you. Lead me Father to Jesus and allow me to abide there as He teaches me of you, and then on that day when He stands beside me before your throne open my eyes that I might see the solution to these questions that confound me now. Your ways are far above mine Father, but I trust in you, and that one day I will have my eyes opened so that I will no longer see as through a glass darkly, but in the brilliant clarity of your Son Jesus Christ... in the crispness of your child. In Jesus let me see you Father, and in Him let me know you... draw me ever closer; reveal your mysteries to me in due time, and I will give you all the glory as I cry out to all heaven and earth… “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come! Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! and Amen!
“And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”
Isaiah 6:3 ESV
“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!””
Revelation 4:8 ESV
Rich Forbes