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[MUSIC PLAYING] The scripture reading of the morning is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, the second chapter. I begin the reading at the verse numbered five.

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"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

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but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

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Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

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and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." And may God bless to us this reading from his word. Pray with me.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Via veritas vita.

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Let's start in the middle. Jesus says, "I am the truth." Now, the truth is important because the truth is what sets us free.

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And Jesus is the truth about what living ought to be. Back in 1965, I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, participating in the committee that was drawing up amendments to the proposed confession of 1967.

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I developed a very painful headache one morning and so went for a walk thinking the fresh air might make me feel better. In Independence Square, I came upon a large truck,

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much like a moving van. And on the outside of it, a sign which advertised that inside the truck was a life-sized wax sculpture of the Last Supper.

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It was being sponsored by the Kiwanis for the benefit of crippled children and all of the money received from going into the truck and seeing this display went to those youngsters.

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I went over to go into the truck, and in front of me were a group of children, a mixed bag, two boys and a girl, giggling, laughing as they went up the ramp.

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And also a young girl, very attractive young girl, had a quiet radiance about her. We entered the darkness of the truck. The display was really something very beautiful to see.

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The look of doubt was on the face of Thomas. You could see the treachery in the countenance of Judas. Peter looked like a big, blustery, aggressive fellow. But of course, the dominant figure was the figure of Jesus.

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I looked at the children. They weren't giggling anymore. They were looking at his face, and there were stars in their eyes.

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I looked at the young woman. She was caught up in total concentration, gazing at his countenance. And perhaps, I'm not sure, there was the glint

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of a tear in her eyes. Outside of us was all of the traffic typical of one of the greatest cities in America, just a few feet away.

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And yet, none of us heard it. We were all captured by this one at whom we were looking, not at the art, but at the reality that when you look at Jesus, you see

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what life is supposed to be. Here is the peace that is to be typical of our experience. Here is the power and the love and the gentleness that are to belong to us as human beings.

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Here is the strength and the courage and the patience which are to be ours. You know, it frustrates me that so many can look at Jesus and see these things in him and still not acknowledge him

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as the truth about life. There are so many who contemplate him and wonder about him, but never arrive at any decision concerning him. Now, I would not belittle for one moment

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the process of thought, but thought is to lead to conclusion. It is futile for the mind, like some loon, to be spinning and spinning and spinning,

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but never producing any cloth. That's a kind of intellectual merry-go-round, where you go in endless circles and up and down, but never get anywhere.

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John Ruskin talked about the disease of thinking. The mind is to function like a court. You hear the evidence. You listen to the witnesses.

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You deliberate the matter, and then you arrive at a verdict. But there are so many who seem to be so in love with the process that they never arrive at the conclusion.

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All of their thinking is punctuated with commas and question marks. There are never any periods or exclamation points. Oh, I will acknowledge there are questions

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about some of the miracles. It's difficult for us to understand the metaphysical dimensions of prayer. There are debates amongst Christian scholars

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as to exactly what the atonement means. But when you look at Jesus, you can, it seems to me, lay these things aside and acknowledge if there is a modicum of honesty in you

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at all, that in this one, we see what life is supposed to be. Here is the truth about living. It is a basic axiom of knowledge that two opposite propositions

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cannot both be true. Truth is by nature dogmatic. Two plus two doesn't equal five, no matter how liberal you are. Our grasp of things is necessarily

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limited by our humanity. But surely when we see Him, we see what life is to be and what it's all about. He is not another window like Buddha or Confucius

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or any other one that you would name, through whom the light of God passes. He is the light of God itself. If you want to know about love, you look at Him.

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If you want to know about joy, you look at Him. If you want to know about forgiveness or mercy, you see it in Him. If you want to know what prayer is,

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when it's lived and practiced as it ought to be, you see it in Him. If you want to know courage, you see it in Him. If you want to know patience, you see it in Him.

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If you want to know how to die, you see it in Him. And you see victory over death there as well. When it comes to living, there is only one who is the truth about it.

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And that one is Jesus. And He is not only the truth, but He is also the way to the truth. Now, notice Jesus does not say, I will show you the way.

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He says, I am the way. He does not indicate to us that He is some kind of signpost. No, what He is is a present reality in life. He says to us, I am with you always.

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I'm not someone who points. I'm someone who leads. I always think of this in terms of the letter written by Daniel Crawford, who was

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a great missionary to Africa. This was years ago. And he wrote a letter when he was-- after he'd completed a journey through what was then

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called the Belgian Congo. And they were going to Elizabethville, which was then the capital, Kinshasa today. And he was being led by a great black man.

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And there was no path. There was no road. This man was going before him, hacking his way through the bush.

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And finally, being concerned about the fact that they were coming across no signs of any other people traveling that way, Crawford tapped the black man on the shoulder.

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And he said, are you sure you know the way? And the man replied with a great smile on his face, there is no way. I am the way.

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In other words, you follow me, and I will get you there. I read an author whose words were very eloquent. He said, the Christian life is to be following the bleeding footprints of Jesus, that Christ's beatitudes are

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our signposts, and that his cross is our milestone. That's very lovely. But it's not even one half of the truth. Jesus' guidance for us doesn't come in any theological system.

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And it doesn't come for us in any document left behind. We have a very present help in time of trouble. He is present by his spirit to give guidance. He is the way.

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There was a Swiss guide who took a number of climbers up to one of the Alpine Heights. And they came to the place where, through some natural process, a bit of the path

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had fallen away and a boulder kind of jutted out. There was no path around the boulder anymore. So this guy rappelled around that boulder. Then when he got on the other side,

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he stretched out on the path. And reaching out around the boulder, held out his hand and said to those behind him, step onto my hand and then onto the path with me.

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And they were hesitant. They held back. And he looked up at them and he said, don't be afraid. My hand has never lost a man yet.

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And that's what Jesus is. He is the one in whose hands no one is lost. Now, he is not the way necessarily to money. And he is not the way necessarily to power.

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And he is not the way necessarily to prestige. But he is the way to what life is. It's truly seen in him. I think of a young man that I met 22 years ago.

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I was speaking on a university campus in the Northeast. And I had gone in the evening into the Coke shop for a bit of refreshment. And this young fellow came over and he sat down.

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His life was a mess. That was his word to describe it, not mine. He was discouraged because his grades were sliding. And he said he wasn't able to get any sleep at night.

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And the circles under his eyes testified to that. Now, it was obvious that it was hard for this young man to talk. There was a long pilgrimage from the depth of him to his lips.

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And many times, I felt as if this big stone inside of him was somehow rolling up to his lips. But just when it would get there, it would roll back again.

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There were no tears, but he was sweating profusely. So I asked him a few questions, trying to make it easier. How are things at home? No good.

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My dad is an alcoholic. And my mother and dad are at war all the time. Have you thought about leaving home? I'm only 20 years old.

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I'm afraid to leave home by myself. Well, have you talked to your mother about this? No. My mother is spending most of her time with another man.

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And I don't approve of that. What about your own life? Is your own life what it ought to be? No, he said.

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I'm going with a girl on campus. Is your relationship with her what it ought to be? No. No, we are doing the kinds of things

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we ought not to be doing. Always discourages me when I hear that. If only young people would come to recognize that they're like--

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I know they won't like this description, but it's the one that's most appropriate to me. They're like beautiful gardenias. They have about them a grace, a loveliness, a perfume,

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an aroma which is magnificent. But you know, when you touch a gardenia, when you touch one of its beautiful petals, it's immediately stained.

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When you put your fingers on it, immediately the marks of the handling are there. And when young people become engaged in promiscuous affairs, they leave marks on each other.

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They don't see them at the moment. But when you've been there with them so many times, you wince when you hear of it because you know the marks are there and that they'll never go away.

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He summed it up. He said, my life is a disaster area. Well, I went to college, and I studied psychology. And I went to seminary, and I studied psychology, too.

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And one of the things that I learned about psychology is that there are some times when it's just better to skip it. So I skipped it.

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I said, what do you know about Jesus? He said, well, I use his name when I swear. I told him about Jesus. I told him about the disaster areas that had come to him--

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prostitutes and thieves and proud and learned and powerful people whose lives were all confused. And after I shared this, I said to him, could you pray honestly this prayer?

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Lord, I can't do it, and Thielman can't do it, but you are the way, and you can do it. And he said, yes, I can pray that prayer. It didn't come out exactly like that.

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God, he said, I'm in a fix. And then he began to weep. I don't know how it is with you. I've heard all kinds of crying.

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I've heard the crying of old people and young people and men and women and children. But the crying that always moves me the most is the crying of a strong man.

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And he prayed, and he cried, oh, God, I'm in a fix. Help me, please. And I prayed, oh, God, I promised him you would. And he did.

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Out of the life of discipline, discipleship, Jesus Christ brought order into the disorder of that young man's experience. Today, he is associate professor of medicine

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in one of our large Midwestern universities, and I hear from him very regularly, and I rejoice every time I do. So then when an older lady in our congregation said to me,

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Bruce, never stop telling people what Jesus Christ can do for a life, I was ready to say to her, I promise you I will not. For Christ is not only the truth about what life is to be.

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He is the way to the truth. And he is the life itself. He said, I am the life. All of us want peace and power in our experience,

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and many times there is confusion there. Life is like a grinding stone. It either polishes you up or it wears you down. Christ is the one who, when he moves into your life,

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transforms it so that you are polished. I am not suggesting for one moment that he makes life easy. We are regularly, as Christians, accused of that, you know,

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of having a faith which is some kind of crutch and is designed to help us across the difficult places in life. Well, Jesus is not a crutch.

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Belief in him is not that kind of thing. If faith does anything to your life, it challenges you more deeply. It calls out of you things you didn't know were there.

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It takes away all of the false and makes you confront realities and forces you to deal with them. And if you're unwilling to deal with them, then you are not moving as a disciple ought to move.

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And Jesus confronts you with those kinds of realities. Back when the Paris Priest Conference was being held in 1919, that was when Orlando was there from Italy and Clemenceau from France

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and Lloyd George from England and, of course, Woodrow Wilson from our own country. Clemenceau, he was called the Tiger of France, you remember. He stood up and he said to Wilson,

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when Wilson presented his 14 points, you talk like Jesus Christ. And then having said that scornfully, he said to the other leaders of the nations there with him,

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do you want to end all of war? They said, yes, we do. He said, then we must give up our empires. England must give up India, and France must give up

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North Africa, and the USA must give up its dollar domination of the Philippines and Mexico and Cuba. Well, they said, that's not exactly what we had in mind.

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And he said, then you are not looking for peace. You are looking for war. And he was right. They laid the opening stones for World War II,

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even as they gathered. Clemenceau was right about something else, that if you really mean discipleship, then there are going to be tough decisions to be made.

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There are going to have to be solid negatives announced. No, I will not do it. And there have to be ringing affirmatives as well. Yes, I will do it, even if it costs me everything.

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So we have a Stephen who dies being stoned to death in the service of Jesus. So we have a Luther who stands up at Worms and says, here I stand.

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Unless I can be convinced by my conscience or by scripture, I will stand here. God help me. Amen.

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And he stood. Here we have a Dr. Edward Carlson who stood solid for the gospel in the Congo, even as they stomped him to death.

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And here is the commitment of a Don McClure, who will stand up before murderers in Ethiopia and praise the name of Jesus. Jesus, when he shows us what life is

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and when he moves into us so that his life becomes ours, calls us to daring discipleship. And the peace that he gives is the peace that comes in the midst of courageous and committed

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and consecrated living. Two artists were asked to paint pictures of peace. And one painted a beautiful sunset. It was an agricultural scene.

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There was a lake in the center, and it reflected the sunset. Beautiful to look upon. He called it peace.

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The other artist painted a picture of a turbulent stream, a waterfall. And sticking out over the stream was a branch. And in the branch, there was a fork.

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And in the fork of the branch, there was a nest. And in the nest, there were two little birds asleep. And he called the picture peace. Peace for the Christian, you see,

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isn't the beautiful agricultural scene. Peace for the Christian is to be held up by the life of Jesus in you in the midst of all the turbulence, the rapids, the maelstrom

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of the human experience. His peace exists there. And that's what Brian Sternberg discovered. In 1960, Brian Sternberg was the best pole vaulter

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we had in America. He stood 6 feet 3 inches tall. He weighed 197 pounds. At that time-- and remember, this is 1960--

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he had jumped 17 feet 4 inches. Everyone expected him to make 20 feet soon. He was also the national champion NCAA for the trampoline.

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Now, anyone who knows anything about the trampoline knows you never practice on a trampoline alone. But Brian Sternberg was so good and had such confidence in himself that he used to go to the gymnasium

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there at the University of Washington and practice alone. And one day, while practicing a triple somersault, he made a mistake in judgment. And he came down so that his neck hit the metal frame

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of the trampoline. And he fell to the floor, his neck broken, paralyzed from his neck down. He would have died immediately not being able to breathe,

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except for the fact that a custodian happened to be walking by and saw him and rushed in. And he saved his life, got him to a hospital. They put him in a special bed there,

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a bed that reversed itself every 30 seconds. That's the only way that he could breathe. The bed had to do it for him. And he was in that bed for week after week and month

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after month. And this young man, who was so confident of his own strength and his own ability, hated it and hated life and despised it and despised life.

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And he was full of wrath and despair and anger. And there was young girl who came to see him time after time. And she sought to speak to him about Jesus. And he wouldn't hear her.

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And then the time came for her to go away for vacation. And she said, I'm going away now. I'll be back in four weeks. And while I'm gone, Brian, I ask you

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to think about turning your life over to him. He didn't even thank her when she left. She was gone that month. When she came back, when she walked into his room,

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she found him for the first time smiling. And he told her that he had become Christ's man. I saw Brian Sternberg only once. It was in 1968 at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes

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convention in Estes Park. First, they showed us a film of him as a vaulter and on the trampoline. And he was a magnificent physical specimen, an Adonis.

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And his grace was incredible to behold. And then after the film, the screen went up into the ceiling. And behind the screen, there was a rather high wooden chair. And on that chair, there were three pillows.

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And a big football player by the name of Wes Wilmer carried Brian Sternberg onto the stage. Brian at that time weighed 87 pounds. He sat him on the chair, propping him up

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with the pillows. I remember he crossed his one leg over the other to make him look more natural. But what he really looked like was a ventriloquist's dummy.

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And he moved the microphone over so that it was just inches from his lips. See, he could only speak for three minutes without the benefit of artificial breathing equipment.

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And he couldn't summon any volume at all. His voice was little more than a whisper. And this is what he said to all those fine young athletes gathered there.

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This is what he said. Forgive me if I do not talk louder. It is my prayer that none of you will ever know what I have known, that none of you

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will ever know the pain, that none of you will ever know what it is to be crippled as I am crippled, that none of you will ever know the humiliation and shame of not being able to take care of yourself,

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even in the most private of your bodily functions. I hope none of you will ever know the embarrassment of this, the sorrow and the despair of it. I hope you'll never know it unless, unless by knowing it,

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you will come to know Jesus. What Brian Sternberg was saying was this, that Jesus Christ was so priceless to him, so much the way, the truth, and the life,

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that even going through what he went through was worth it for the joy of knowing his Savior. So on this Sunday, which is the festival of Christ the King, I hold before you Jesus Christ, the King of history,

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the greatest treasure of human experience, the hope of the world, the power for living, the victory over life and victory over death. Jesus, to whom be the honor and the glory forever and forever.

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Amen. Let us pray. O God, our Father, by thy Spirit our Comforter, introduce us and claim us as disciples for thy Son, Jesus,

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that we might know the way, discover the truth, and live life as it ought to be lived. We pray it in his name. Amen.

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