When circumstances are troubling, the answer is not only to believe in God, but to take the further step of believing also in Jesus. He is the one true way to the Father. To have seen Jesus is to have seen the Father. Also, Jesus has gone to prepare a specific, permanent resting place for us “in His Father’s house”, and He promised to return personally to take us there, so that “where He is, we may be also”. Turn your stance of being a theist to also trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour. One day He is coming for you to take you permanently home to be with Him. At His first coming, He came to die and rise for you. At His second coming He is arriving in Person to collect you and take you home.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] As this morning we mentioned, we’re in John 14, both morning and evening today, except that we’re going backwards. We did the later verses in this morning, but we’re starting in verse 1, John 14 verse 1. You can see it on the screen. And here Jesus is getting closer to when he’s going to have to suffer and die and pray for our sins but he’s talking to his disciples and he’s sharing more and more with them about what’s going to be happening to him. And as a consequence, of course, they are greatly troubled. So we begin in verse 1, let not your hearts be troubled. And by the way, some of the commentaries on this passage will say that the disciples are worried because maybe there’ll be bad ramifications from what happens to Jesus as far as they’re concerned. But there’s actually a deeper reason for them to be troubled.

[00:01:01] It is, of course, that they have been given a tremendous security in having Jesus and they’ve had an opportunity to believe in things far beyond their previous expectations because of who he has turned out to be. But then they’ve realised that they’ve had in Jesus all of heaven’s powers. He’s the Messiah, the Anointed One, and He’s been telling them along the way that He is more than that, that He is the Son of God. And so they’ve had Jesus with them and they’ve really stepped out in their belief a fair distance to be in a position of secure in who he is. And of course, the seeing of the miracles and the attending to His demeanor of life only agree with all that He said. quite convinced that they were through Jesus in very good hands and then he said that he’s going to go away.

[00:02:02] Because he said that he’s going to go away, they’re greatly troubled because he has been their security. Jesus answers them and he says to them straight away, believe in God. In other words, when things suddenly go wrong and the direction that circumstances turn does not please you or threatens you, it’s a tremendous ability that you believe that there is a God who’s in charge. And a part of what is the very nature of the Jewish religion that they had grown up in was to be able to trust in God, it was a part of what it was to be a Jew. We have here actually something very interesting because though you might not notice it at first, there is a transition, there is a development that’s implied.

[00:02:50] It’s sort of not obvious, but Jesus says, believe in God, believe also in Me. What he’s saying is that it’s one thing to believe in God, it’s even a further thing that it’s an advance to believe in Jesus. Now that’s a truth, that’s a reality that’s something that applies to you and to me. There is a belief about God – and you can become someone who is a theist – a theist is someone who does believe there is a God – to believe in God is a step further than that and the Bible is rich in verses talking about the benefit of us putting our trust and faith in God and when you believe in God there is the stability it brings to your life. There are many people who discover that stability by becoming someone who does believe in God. It’s a great blessing.

[00:03:45] It is, in fact, perhaps the heart of the Old Testament religion, to be people not only believe that he exists, but to trust in God. That word, believe, especially when it’s got a little in in it, is in such a manner in the Greek grammar as to imply more than just mental assent. The way they used to talk about believing in God was not to use the usual expected tenths in the thing that you believe in to be the dative, but they used to put it into another one, so put it into an accusative, and then it has the meaning of believing into God more than just believing about God but believing into God. And so what Jesus is saying is that when you get into real disturbance because things are not going as you might expect, one of the resources that we have and we’ve been taught

[00:04:44] in the Old Testament is to put our rest in God, to put your trust in him. And that’s something that develops along the way of your being a Christian but it also develops along the way of your coming to a person to come to terms with the very existence of a deity. But then he goes on, believe also in me and don’t miss that little word also. What he’s saying is that it’s a step further, not only to be a believer in God, not only to have what would amount to the Old Testament level of faith, but also to believe in Jesus. And that is a step further because Jesus has revealed himself to be. The Scriptures teach it that in Christ is the fullness of the whole Godhead bodily. I’ve been stressing this.

[00:05:37] I’ll give you a little confession. I didn’t realise until about a month ago just how true it is that Jesus is more than just a third of the Trinity. I think I had hints that way but when I come across the verse it says about Jesus, that in him dwells the whole of the Godhead bodily in Jesus. So that if you’ve got Jesus, you’ve got something far more comprehensive than just believing in the Father or just believing in the deities there. Believe also in me. And what this is saying is that if you are a person who has got a belief that God exists and more than that you’re a belief about him being good and you’ve been learning to trust

[00:06:25] him and maybe through Old Testament verses you’ve come to see wonderful wisdoms and things about belief in God, Jesus is asking you to take a step further. Believe also in me. And one of the things that he has to say is that he, Jesus, has made provision while he’s speaking to the disciples, he’s letting them know that the reason why they shouldn’t be troubled is not just that you’re a naughty person who’s a disciple getting your head up here, good disciples rest back and believe God. He’s saying a lot more than that. He’s saying that if you believe in me, you can trust me to take care of all matters. Here’s of more importance and of more power than just the fact that you’re believing in

[00:07:19] God. And he goes on to say some other things that he’s going to be able to provide for them. He says, in my father’s house are many, the old King James Version read, mansions. The term mansion has come to mean so much more. It looks like it means less when it just says rooms because you might think of a mansion as a glorious big building with all sorts of things up above there and servants running around. The difference here is what Jesus is asking you to believe in is that there is room in the father’s house for a particular spot where you will be able to rest. And the actual word for rooms is a word that comes from the verb to remain, places where

[00:08:15] you can have a permanent abode, places where you can be there long enough. I don’t know whether you found it so, but when I used to do a lot of travelling, every time I moved I didn’t sleep well the first night. I tossed and turned. I felt awkward because I wasn’t yet at home in that new place. But maybe give me three weeks or something. And suddenly something happens where this has become where my home is. And going overseas and being in a foreign culture where you don’t understand all the things you are doing wrong, all the things those other silly Americans are doing wrong. There comes a time when you suddenly realise that you can be fitting in here and in the

[00:09:01] apartment that you’ve been allowed to have, you find yourself now to be at rest and you can go to sleep straight away, I can go to sleep pretty quick, put my head down and I’m off. And it happens when you’ve been long enough in one place that you’ve come to rest there. And that’s actually what this word is implying, the verb of it is mene to remain, and the noun means a resting place. Believe also, I mean my father’s house, there are many resting places for each person to have one as yours. And God is telling you, let me correct that, Jesus is telling you, trust him that in his father’s house, where is his father’s house by the way, how do you pray?

[00:09:52] How do you pray? Heaven, our Father who is in heaven. The father’s house that’s his throne, and sometimes it’s referred to as heaven, he rules it, all things. But in my father’s house, there are many resting places where you can, you will be at home. The encouragement that Jesus is saying to the disciples is, firstly, he knows that they’re going to be looked after to have something special for them when they go to glory. Now I sometimes cruise my way through the commentaries when I’m getting ready a sermon, which I did for this one as well, and discover some of the commentaries had bent to the pressures of the generation or the decade in which they were written to accept a lot of the latest

[00:10:45] ideas that theological educators have. And there’s one that is called about the coming of Jesus to not believe he’s actually physically going to come, but there’s an experiential experience that we can have which is the spiritualisation of the idea. That sort of understanding says it’s been called realised eschatology, eschatology is the study of the last things, the eschaton is the last thing, and eschatology is the study of the last things. So realised eschatology is about your Christian experience, has made the essence of it happen here and now. Its getting the eschatology to be what you have now rather than something that will happen

[00:11:29] in the future and with you eventually getting a getting in heaven. just a flat denial of what was our culture’s basic belief that people go to glory or go to heaven when they die. And you’ll find most of the people, if you ever are involved in taking a funeral for folks that were not really church attending, it’s rather fascinating as they talk about the loved ones. And I remember when my wife’s father passed away, but his wife Michelle’s mother had already died, and all the relatives who said they were atheists and while they were talking about how in heaven these two were talking, having fellowship. I found it fascinating they suddenly switched. It was nicer to believe at the funeral that way. But that’s just a common cultural status or belief that we have to believe that there is somewhere where God reigns and if you’re a Christian you go there eventually. Now what Jesus is saying is that there are many

[00:12:37] rooms, there’s going to be room for you in glory. There is a heaven and we do go there if we’re a Christian when we die. And then he goes on to say, if it were not so, let me see, I’m probably quoting the King James, if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you If you read it in the King James, it’s slightly different. He says, if it were not so, would I have told you, and went on with a second thought, I go to prepare a place for you? But in the Bible versions you have in front of you, the ESP, he reads as it is on the screen, if you were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? Now the little word for place, this is interesting, you know, the whole of the scriptures come alive if you have the access to the meaning of the original language, because you learn a lot by the words. And the word for place is the word topos. Do you know we get an English

[00:13:39] word from topos? Do you know what it is? Anybody got an idea? Sorry? Yep, I couldn’t hear where the voice came, but it’s correct if it was. Topography, yeah. Topography, I remember when Kevin, Kevin Amina, were telling us about in China where he did his PhD was where these three rivers came down and merged together. It was quite a place that not many people went, but those rivers coming the way they did changed the surface of the earth. The surface is called the topography, just how the earth is. You can include in any human things added, but topography is just how it’s found. If you go into a city and you go into the, go into the, our city you’ll see the topography of how the streets are arranged with the ones with female names going one way and the ones with male names going downhill, going the other way. And anyway, topography means a place, a physical place. And Jesus

[00:14:39] and Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you. Heaven is a place. Remember the other Sunday, our little song, Heaven is a Wonderful Place, filled with glory and grace. That’s a song that this church used to sing, I can remember, as a visitor singing your songs and that was one. It’s the belief of the Christian church down through the centuries that Jesus is going to take us to heaven and that’s exactly what he says about his going to heaven, and he went there first, in order to prepare a place for us. And he goes on to say, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. The second coming of Christ rests, the truthfulness of it, rests on his blatant statements. And to believe just in a sort of eschatology that’s realized but nothing ever is really going to happen

[00:15:35] and the idea of us not going to heaven is joined by him not actually coming back, but the understanding of the second coming of Christ is a more spiritual experience you have in becoming a Christian. By the way, the answer is not to pick one and reject the other, it’s a both and. There is an experience of Christ coming to us and resting in our hearts too. Which, this morning, we’re looking at in the rest of this chapter. If you read a bit more after tonight and go back to what we were on this morning. You’ll see how one of the later verses talks about Jesus saying, if anybody keeps my commandments, my father will love him, we will love him, and we will come and make our rest in him. And that’s a spiritual experience this morning. We’re talking about that the Father, the Son, the Holy

[00:16:21] Spirit come to make their presence resting in you as a Christian. That’s the glorious Christian experience that we can know. But here Jesus is not talking about the rest being just their presence, the Trinity’s presence in us, in our hearts. He’s talking about the final, him coming to us to collect us. And what’s beautiful about this passage it says, I will come again and take you to myself. Meaning he’s come to get us for ourselves. Don’t know whether you’ve watched the little children when they’re upset or they get too tired or something or other. I was watching Callum, my oldest son, with his little daughter and she’d been at different relative’s places and was a dead tired and really crying and he got her and cuddled her and she ceased to cry. And there’s a

[00:17:16] sense in which little children need their parents to be with them. They need them to be close to the parents. There’s something beautiful about that. Where Jesus is talking similarly and he says, if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself. That where I am, you may be also, when I watch Callum and the little daughter, is because she was with Daddy. And when we go to glory, we’ll be with the Father and we’ll be with the Son, we’ll be with the Holy Spirit but it’s Jesus who’s the one who’s particularly coming to catch us, to get us. He’s not going to be sending any angels to necessarily have to collect you. If there is an angel involved in helping then he’s going to be bringing you to him. And that’s why he’s coming again. He’s coming not primarily to

[00:18:14] do all of the things to scold the bad people, not just because he’s got some winding up to do all of that may be the case. But the reason why Christ is going to come again, do you know what it is? You’re it, because if you belong to Jesus he’s coming again, having prepared a place in heaven for you, a special place where you’ll be able to rest and belong, then he’s going to come back to collect you and he’s going to take you by the hand, he’s going to take you to that spot because he looks at heaven as where you and he are going to be together, that you where I am you may be also. These are fantastic promises. Now then he goes on in verses 5 and following to something which is often quoted in evangelistic moments when we say what Jesus promised to people and why they should come to

[00:19:11] him and I want to show you something a bit deeper about those those statements of Jesus. Let’s read and in verse 4 he says you know the way to where I’m going and Thomas it’s not actually the one that betrayed him but the other Thomas Thomas said to him Lord we don’t even know where you’re going how can we know the way? Pretty practical straightforward statement and Jesus said to him I am the way if we can move on I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me. Now he’s saying a really deep spiritual truth that the way to get to glory the way to get to heaven isn’t only that you’ll go this through this bunch of stars or you go there where I don’t really know what to say is to how you’ll get to whatever wherever heaven is it might be

[00:20:10] another dimension for all I know but I want to tell you that the way is a person that’s Jesus he is the root R-O-U-T-E he is the way and the way to get to glory the way to get to the Father the way to make peace with God is always and ever only through Jesus he is the way I know there’s lots of different religions and they all have good things about them and they have people who believe that they’re right but they’re not there is only one way to the Father Jesus says this I am the way the truth and the life I’m trying to catch where it is no one at the top of the screen that no one comes to the Father except through me and that coming is not only the coming at the end of the age when Jesus collects us and takes us to heaven the coming in the first instance is in

[00:21:17] here and now when you’re a person who’s been learning about God and you haven’t actually come to a place of being secure in Him and then you make that big commitment to belong to him, to give yourself over to him, to trust in him. In that moment you succeed only if you come to Christ because he is the way. No one comes to the Father except through me. There’s only one way to get right with God successfully and that is to come to Christ. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me you would have known my Father also. And what Jesus is referring to here is not just mysterious language, it’s got some meaning there if you could shake it out. He’s actually speaking in accuracy about the Father and him being in a union. And when Jesus came, as I’ve quoted the verse just previously, in him dwells the whole of the Godhead bodily. The Father is

[00:22:22] in Jesus. If you want to check up on this idea that I’m putting across and you’ve got time on your own sometime at home, look up about the works of the Father and the works of Jesus. And you know what you’ll discover? Jesus didn’t say that he did any works of his own on his own. He said the Father does the works in me because the Father and Jesus are so unified that the Father’s working his works through Jesus’ works. They’re the same works. Jesus says, No one comes to the Father except through me. And what he has to say to Thomas is, If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father. He was not obliterating the distinction between the identity of the Son and the Father, he’s elaborating the union. There’s an Old Testament verse which is a bit of a mix-up of how the language runs but they had to write it in bad grammar in order to get across a point. But it is about the one God and then

[00:23:29] it uses the word for God, God, that’s in the plural, Elohim, that’s a plural form of God. But then it uses a verb, a doing word and it says is. It doesn’t say the one God’s are, it says the one God’s is because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, they are a plurality that is also a singularity in their being the one God. That’s the great confession of the Jewish nation which they used to confess and never understand. Don’t blame them. It’s a deep mystery that our one God is the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. And when the Son came, he was born of Mary, that’s how he got his humanity, but in that moment the Holy Spirit overshadowed his birth and then the statement of scripture is, and so the thing that was born, going to be born in you Mary, is going to be holy. And what’s the Holy got to do? It’s because he’s God, God the Father and there’s something beyond

[00:24:39] our ability to explain. But the union of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is there in Jesus and so he has brought God into the world by being born. That’s Christmas. Well we did have a Christmas song just a minute ago so I’m free to add a bit of Christmas to Easter. Well this is Jesus speaking and he’s got some disciples there and they’re not always catching on. It was Thomas in the later part of the chapter but here in this part it’s Philip. I went through and saw the disciples of Jesus and I think the fellow who had trouble catching on took the longest time was Philip, although he got there in the end. Philip said to him, Lord show us the Father and it is enough. He must have liked those words, it is enough. When someone asked, do you have enough fish and he said it is enough. I think it’s him. But anyway he said, Lord show us the Father and it will be enough. And Jesus said to him,

[00:25:42] I’ve been so long with you and you still do not know me, Philip. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father when I’ve been showing you the Father? You can’t understand me unless you know the Father is in me and the works you see me do are the works the Father’s doing through me. That’s the whole statements of Jesus about his ministry. And Philip was sort of, I don’t know whether he was shaking his hand or what he was doing, but he hadn’t got it. And Jesus said, have you been so long, whether you haven’t woken up? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. That is enormous. Well we’re talking about the relationship between Jesus and the Father, and it’s a lot more deeper than you might have imagined. It’s not just that there’s, you know, I remember when I was teaching at the college that I won’t say who it was, but one of the other

[00:26:46] lecturers was teaching in a church, that there’s only one entity and he has a Father identity and he does things in the Father identity, and then there comes a time, when he does things in the Son identity and there’s other times where he does things in the Holy Spirit identity is only one person. I want to tell you that’s a heresy. I want to tell you it’s so much less than the truth of what this passage is saying. Have I been so long with you and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father? What this means is that the faith, the Christian faith, which is to be all resting on Jesus, is the advancement of the Old Testament faith that had resting upon God and his correct instructions and all the rest in his covenants, the old Covenants, but the new covenants that has to do with Jesus. And the New Covenant, the New Testament

[00:27:49] religion, is an advancement on the Old Testament. One of the struggles we as pastors have often and lots of churches, is that even though we as Baptists say we’re people of the book and we believe the whole book, what we live out is basically an Old Testament religion. I can remember lots of Baptist churches, it was more so when I was younger than today, where the thing that made you a Baptist was what you did not do. You didn’t go to the shop on Sunday. You didn’t go and play sport on Sunday. I can remember as a bit of a halfway house, my parents made me wear my little double-breasted suit with short pants, but they didn’t let us kick the football over the big rose garden on Sunday, because they knew that there’s no rule in the Bible is what the scriptures are talking about like that. There’s a Jewish rule that had to do with being a Jew of not working on the Sabbath, and it actually was

[00:28:49] a Saturday. But it’s interesting how our Baptist denomination was pretty strict on what you could do and could not do on a Sunday. Now please don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not saying you should feel free to do anything on a Sunday. If what that thing you do stops you worshipping God, because it is scriptural to recognise the Sunday as the day that recognises Jesus’ resurrection, and to make the day that the early church changed their worship from a Saturday to a Sunday, and so to put aside the Sunday so that you can really worship the Lord is the thing to do. It doesn’t mean that if you’re a nurse in the hospital, I’m glad there were some when my grandson got taken there after the morning service. I’m glad there are people who do lots of things on the Sunday. But the principle of having a day that you set aside to worship God is one of the first big steps of becoming a Christian and then getting someone who’s serious about it, because we worship

[00:29:55] the Father, we worship the Son, we worship the Holy Spirit, and thanks to our worship people, how they scatter in our music that we sing, just those truths. I am really pleased with some of the wording that music people put in the songs. And not only do we praise the Lord all positively, but we’ve even got that one of our praise when we’ve been unfaithful. It’s got a truth in it, you can always come back, and just because you haven’t been perfect doesn’t mean that you’d not worship God. Maybe it’s when you need to worship Him most. But we have some good things going in our church, and I’m not trying to say to change any of them except that, make worship a cheap thing that Sunday is for. It doesn’t mean you can’t do other things, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fellowship. It doesn’t mean that you can’t watch TV and whatever. I’m just saying, make the priority that you have opportunity to find yourself in worship with God. And that is,

[00:30:57] I think, the precedent of the New Testament as well as the practices of the Old Testament the Jewish people. They made it the Saturday. We make it the Sunday. But the point is to worship the Lord. And do you know what you worship him for? Let’s do a little bit. I’m curious to know how many people have a quick answer. Why did the Jews worship and why do we worship? There’s a common purpose. What’s the common purpose between why they worship and why we worship? Someone tell me quickly. I know my questions aren’t always that clear, so you have an alibi if you don’t know what I’m saying. Yes? Please God is the overall general result. We can narrow it down to more of a purpose. Why do we come on Sunday? What is the thing that Sunday is about? The resurrection. Right? That’s the nearest we’ve gotten so far, the resurrection. And when the resurrection happened, what is that? What’s the significance

[00:32:05] of that? Give me some of the significance of the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. Many of you know these things. Come on. I know I don’t make it clear what I’m chasing. What’s the significance of why do we worship? It’s the same reason the Jews worship, though they had a different partial reason. It’s something new that we’ve got exactly out of our Christian salvation. This will tell you, what has ceased to happen that caused us to worship? Same for the Old Covenant, Old Testament. Why did they have a Sabbath? I’m trying to leave the… Alright, it has to do with the death of Christ in our case. And what does the death of Christ and his resurrection all put together? What does that allow to be the case? Celebration, certainly. That’s what our worship is. What has ceased? In the Jewish case, they ceased on the seventh day because what had finished? Come on, I’m leading the crowd. What had finished? Sorry? Not just that.

[00:33:34] Something actually has finished. Indeed, it is what God has finished. Come on, surely. What had God finished to cause the Jewish people to have a seventh day of non-working? Yay! Creation was finished. God’s work in creation was over and then he rested. It doesn’t mean he would stop doing things, but he rested from creation. And that’s why they made the Sabbath, to celebrate that God had ceased of his work of creation. Now, go to the New Testament. It’s no longer about creation being finished. What is finished in our case? This man’s already given us a hint. What has finished? You come along on worship. I’m sure many of you know. Is it because you’re scared? I’ll say you’re wrong. Yes? Salvation. Yeah, salvation’s finished. What was done that made it finished? What was done? Give me the things that were done that finished our work for salvation. Not our work, the work on our behalf. Jesus’ sacrifice. It is finished, he said.

[00:34:51] Jesus’ death and resurrection. A bit more, what else has happened after Jesus’ resurrection? Yeah, his Holy Spirit eventually went to heaven and was crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The whole thing necessary for our salvation is completed, for the next step at least, so that we worship because we thank him and we worship him for what he’s done. And you come to church to say, Lord, we didn’t save ourselves, but look what you did. When we have communion, we do it about the finished work of the death and the cross and the shedding of the blood, the availability of Jesus life. The work is finished. And when you have an attitude of God has completed his work, then you worship him. That’s fairly simple, isn’t it? Tell me off if you think I’ve got it wrong. I don’t mind. That’s why we worship. And to have the Sunday as the seventh day, not like a Saturday’s seventh day, but it’s actually the first day. Jesus rose, did he not, on the first day of the week. To have that,

[00:36:09] to be when we worship him for how he completed all that was necessary, eventually goes to heaven and before the Father, he’s done the lot. That’s why we worship. And that’s a pretty big reason. So I reckon to put worship on the Sunday as the biggest priority. It doesn’t mean you get legalistic and you don’t let yourself go for a run or anything, but no, you put the time there and you make sure you don’t go out so late Saturday night that you’re a dead loss on Sunday. All right, usually young people have to learn about that. All right, so we’re talking here about Jesus finishing his work and his work is a step forward. It’s the advancement from the Old Testament. One of the things this passage is teaching us is that we learn not to keep living an Old Testament religion. It had partial, the part of the truth and we love having the Old Testament as a part of our Scriptures, there’s many good things in there. But nonetheless, the New Testament worship is

[00:37:17] taking things a step further and even that will be further advanced when we get to glory, when we get to heaven and there our worship is going to be absolutely wonderful. I had more to say but I’m not going to labour it tonight. I think that’s a good place to stop. Let’s have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father I thank you for what Jesus has done. I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. Father we thank you for how you champion the way to the Father and more than just champion the things that you did, like your death and the cross and like your resurrection and like your returning to glory. Lord thank you that also in your very person, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit is there and in consequence of us coming and being forgiven we receive all that God is to make his home in us and there will be an equivalent, maybe somewhat in the reverse direction when he comes to collect us and take us to where is his home and that will be that final moment when we are in a resting place and we are there to be with Jesus. We thank you for this in his name. Amen.