The Father’s house isn’t primarily about heaven but about the reciprocal relationship of rest. When Jesus said He goes to prepare a place for us, He was speaking of providing rest for our souls through His death and resurrection. This creates a two-way relationship where we find rest in God through faith in Christ, and God finds His rest in us. The same Greek word used for “rooms” in John 14:2 appears again in verse 23 when Jesus says He and the Father will “make their home” with believers. Our belonging to God’s family means we enter His rest, and He dwells within us—a beautiful picture of God’s love on the stretch.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] It was great to hear Jim reminiscing and connecting himself with Isaac and the similarities between them both. I have lots of memories of Jim too and baptisms and connections. One in particular was when my wife was baptised. She wasn’t my wife then but she became my wife after that. But Jim did her baptism down in Adelaide. I don’t want to take too much time telling the story but I’m sure you’ll appreciate. It’s cold down there and the hot water system that was used to fill up the baptismal pool wasn’t used all that often and it was on the fritz. It died and it was really rather fresh and my girlfriend at the time, I think, don’t think we were fiances then. She was getting baptised and it was really fresh. Anyway, Jim, as he does, welcomes her into the water and then in typical Jim style, he went off on this big story about baptism and on and on it went and slowly but surely my girlfriend was turning blue.

[00:01:19] But I suppose it achieved the thing that when she actually went under the water, she was already frozen solid. She couldn’t feel how cold it was. Very exciting to witness a baptism. What a joy to see a young man who has professed and prepared in front of us all to obey Jesus. We’re going to be talking about John chapter 14. We’re talking about love on the stretch. Jesus in John chapter 13, you guys into the Bible app here? You will be soon. He said this, before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who are in the world, he loved them to the end. So Jesus in the events that we’re about to follow, in what happened in the upper room, the teaching that he gave, the things that he did and then what would happen in the next few days, the first Easter, Jesus was displaying what the limits of, if you like, he was showing the full

[00:02:46] extent of his love. Of course, we know that greater love has no man than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends and what we’re going to do in preparation for Easter, we’re doing it early, but what we’re going to do is get ourselves up to speed with what are the very things that Jesus was doing, that Jesus was teaching, that we could regard as love on the stretch. He had shown this before, He said I’m a good shepherd, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, he who has a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and he flees and the wolf snatches them away and scatters them. He flees because he’s a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep, I’m the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me. He said, look, I’m going to lay down my life for you, but I don’t think when he said that,

[00:03:50] that everyone understood what he meant. But as we come to John chapter 14, we’re seeing the love of God being stretched out, we’re seeing the limits of it. Now, I know the words that we read in John chapter 14 are normally linked to heaven. Most of you would have heard the words when Jesus said, don’t let your hearts be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me, I’m going to prepare a place for you. We hear those verses normally at funerals. I was at a funeral just this week and the widow asked me to read those very words. And the idea being that here we are when somebody’s died,

[00:04:40] we can understand or be encouraged by the thought that Jesus has gone up to heaven, has built a home for us there, and so when we die, we can go and be in that room that Jesus has built. And many, many people over the centuries have found comfort with that idea and well, I was reading it just this Thursday. I’d love to tell you the story of this funeral but I won’t, I haven’t got time. It was really interesting, it involved coffins on yachts and traveling on canals. It was fantastic but we read John 14 1-7 at the graveside and everyone was thinking

[00:05:33] of heaven. But I don’t think Jesus was thinking about heaven when he was talking about his father’s house. I want to show you another way to understand these verses which I think is better. But I do understand that many people, perhaps because of the emotional connection to the funerals that they’ve heard these verses at, maybe because it’s just the simple idea, the Father’s house, they just immediately think of heaven. But what happens is that we miss the depth of what these words can mean if we read them another way. So what I want to do is show you that other way because it does show, I believe, Jesus’s love on the stretch and it brings our hope from just what’s going to happen to us to die, it brings us out of that into the present, makes us more able to obey Jesus’s request

[00:06:37] to let not our hearts be troubled. All right, what I want to do is talk first of all about what is the Father’s house. What is the Father’s house? Somehow everybody thinks the phrase of Jesus, my Father’s house, is talking about heaven, I think, because that’s where God lives, isn’t it? But the Bible says that heaven is God’s throne and the earth is His footstool, meaning that He occupies the whole place. And we know even today that a home is more than a house, it’s more than the building in which the people live, a home is made of people in relationship. A house is really not what a home is, we all know that a home is something more than just the building. Thinking of Adelaide and the cold and my wife’s baptism, I’m reminded of when I was a young man growing up in Adelaide,

[00:07:48] I was actually a small boy, about 13 years old, I reckon. And one night I was coming home, if you don’t know, if you’ve never lived in a southern state, you won’t appreciate this. Did you know that down there in winter, if you work fairly long hours, you can leave for work in the morning and it’s still dark and you can come home at the end of the day in darkness. That’s how it is down there. And in the middle of winter in Adelaide, it may never get above 15 degrees during the day. And there I was 13 years of age and it’s freezing cold, I’m coming home after football, AFL training after school and it’s dark. You’re usually wet, it’s the wet season in winter down there and there’s mud, you’re tired, you’re exhausted. And I was riding my bike, I had an old dragster with a banana seat and I’d extended the forks and got some cowhorn handlebars on the front and I’d put a carrier

[00:09:02] on the front of it, welded it to the forks myself. That’s another story in itself because I can’t save my life with power tools. And so I had my bag on the carrier on the front with these big forks, big cowhorn handlebars and I’m riding home, I’m cold, it’s dark and I’m hungry. I rode up a hill that we lived on, come to the top of the driveway and I could just roll in. The trouble was that filling the air was the smell of my dinner. It was wafting out of the house and up the driveway, it was Brussels sprouts. For sure, if you’re anything like me you can smell them a mile away and I knew that in just a short amount of time I would be sitting looking at an evil mutant cabbage. And my mum and dad would force me to eat it. I would have melted ice cream at a distance, unable, I wasn’t allowed to touch it until the Brussels sprout has gone. My plate is so clean,

[00:10:34] I’ve absolutely licked it clean except for the one Brussels sprout. It was a token, a messenger from Satan himself, a thorn in my flesh and I had to eat it and there it would be getting colder and even more terrible. Eventually, I just knew that this torture was ahead of me. But I’ll tell you something, as a 13 year old, the draw to be home, the draw to be with mum and dad, the very service of the Brussels sprouts was so strong. To come home was something that just drew me past the torture of Brussels sprouts. So when the Bible talks about heaven, when the Bible talks about what’s going on in eternity, it’s not the place that’s important, it’s who’s there, it’s home. What makes heaven so special is God’s presence there. And all through the Bible we talk about being with the Lord at the resurrection in 1 Thessalonians 4, it says, and so shall after we’ve been caught up and we’re

[00:12:17] going to meet the Lord in the air, it says so shall we be with the Lord. Paul says it’s better to be absent from the body and, he doesn’t say, and in your home in heaven, no he doesn’t say that, he says it’s better to be absent from the body and with the Lord. The number one thing about heaven I’m going back I’ve got the wrong passage there. The number one thing about heaven is that God is there. I used to ask people what’s going to be in heaven when we get up there. I want to, I’d like a black Porsche. I certainly, maybe at least a GT Falcon. I don’t know what you might like but that’s the kind of stuff that I’m wanting to have up there. I’m certain that a number of bikes, perhaps one for each day. There’s all lots, some people are thinking golf courses, some people, I don’t know what you’re thinking of, whatever your idea of what heaven’s

[00:13:22] gonna be like. But I used to say, well what are we gonna have there? What’s it gonna be like? And someone said to me, you know, what makes it special? It’s not what’s there. It’s who’s there and in particular it’s God Himself. That is what makes heaven special. There will be undiminished, unbroken, complete connection with God. Our dwelling will be with Him. God will dwell with us and He with Him. We will be His people and God Himself will be our God. We would want to go to heaven simply because we’re gonna be with the Lord. Being a Christian means that you are in God’s family, that you’re in a relationship with Him. He provides love and acceptance equally to us all. To be with God, to be in His presence, is to be home and His house is not a building or a temple, it’s

[00:14:43] actually us. In the nation of Israel they were being built into a house, a dwelling place for God by Moses and then Jesus turned them into or turned the story into a spiritual one and talked about us being His house. He said therefore holy brothers you who share in a heavenly calling consider Jesus the Apostle and High Priest of our confession. He was faithful to Him or pointed Him just as Moses. Also was faithful in all of God’s house for Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself for every house is built by someone but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all of God’s house as a servant to testify to the things that would have

[00:15:42] spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And look at this, and we are His house. If indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. Peter confirms the spiritual nature of the house. He says you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. The prophet Isaiah could foresee it all. He said heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you’re going to build for me? And what’s the place of my rest? All these things my hand is made. And so all these things came to be declares the Lord. So where can I live? And then he says, but this is the one to whom I look. It’s not a place, it’s a person. He who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. So when Jesus in John chapter 14 says in my father’s house, it is as it is elsewhere in the scriptures.

[00:16:59] It’s not talking about heaven, it’s not talking about a place. The father’s house is indeed prepared by Christ, but it’s in the hearts of those who have come to believe. My father’s house is where he dwells and it is among his people. Then there’s this word I don’t know if you read the King James still, but I’ve learnt those verses that Jesus has gone to prepare a mansion. In my father’s house are many mansions. The newer versions have rooms. I don’t know if I want to spend eternity in a room. When I went to Bible college, we lived in a unit there, which could be classed as a room. I think they would have sold it as a three room unit, but it actually was just a room. The bad thing was that Pauline and I lived on the end of a row of these units. Jim’s dad actually told us why this was the case, but our room, we found out, was smaller than

[00:18:23] everyone else’s. We got really cheesed off about it. When you went to visit other people, you’d walk in the door and go, your room’s bigger. We were on the end, it was better because it was closer to things, but it was smaller. Jim’s dad told us because he was around when they built it, he told us they’d made a mistake either drawing the plans or when the builders were following the plans. When they came just building unit after unit down the line, ours was built last, and they’d forgotten to allow for the width of the bricks in all of the walls along the way. So come to the end, there just wasn’t enough space. What are they going to do? Oh, well, just make a smaller one, and that was our unit. So when you say you want to live in a room, I’m not thinking positively at all, and neither do I think positively if you put the word mansion in there, which is the same as the word for mans. Who wants to live in a mans?

[00:19:36] Talk to any pastor. You don’t encourage them with a positive idea, hey, you can live in a mans with all of eternity. Most pastors will go, well, no, thank you. There’s only one good mans I’ve seen. I don’t know about Jim. You can check with him. The best mans I’ve ever seen was at Tent Hill Baptist. Best mans ever seen on the side of a hill looking down over the beautiful valley where they’re growing small crops. Absolutely fantastic mans. All other manses, you don’t want to live there. But this word that’s translated room or mans, then it’s struggling to know how to do it, but I don’t know why. The same word is only used on one other occasion in all of the New Testament, which is later in John chapter 14. He says, in my father’s house, in many rooms, that’s the word. If it were not so, would I have told you that I’d go and prepare for you? John 14, 23 says, Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he’ll keep my word,

[00:20:41] and my father will love him, and we will come to him, and we will make our bang. That’s the same word with him. And they translate it home there. And I like that that’s how it’s translated there. And I just reckon they should put the same word up in verse two as well. The word home, I think a theologian would want to swap the word home out and put the words resting place in its place. If any man loves me, he’ll keep my word, my father will love him, we will come to him, we will make our home, we will make our dwelling place with him. Do you know the famous words in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, where Jesus says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Have you heard those words before? The words in front of them are important. All things have been handed over to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father,

[00:22:04] and no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labor in a heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I’m gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. No one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son. Jesus is speaking of his unique relationship to God as his father, but it goes on, no one knows the father except the son, and anyone to whom the son reveals him. So him and the father have a unique relationship, but there’s other people that know the father too, and they’re the ones that Jesus has revealed him to. And then he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So what is the rest of verse 28 that Jesus will give? It is to be introduced to the father.

[00:23:18] To know God the father is to find rest, and it can only happen through Jesus. To find the father, you come to Jesus, and Jesus declares, in relationship to my father, there are many resting places. So let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe in me, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. John 14 and Matthew 11 are, in a roundabout way, saying exactly the same thing. Jesus provides rest for our souls by introducing us to his father, bringing us into his family. That is how Jesus is showing us the extent of his love. Are you hearing me? Yeah, no, I’m looking at scanning around the room. Yeah, you’re going all right. Jesus’s departure.

[00:24:29] Jesus said, I’m going to prepare a place for you. Some of us, I’ve even heard a song about Jesus taking lumber and building a house. I’ve got a song where Keith Green says, if he’s been up there building for thousands of years, he made the world in six days. What’s he cooking for thousands of years up there? Most of you, all of you are going, who’s Keith Green? And then all the older people go, well, we know. And the young people go, well, we don’t. What is Jesus doing when he’s going to prepare a place for us? I’d like to suggest to you, by looking in the Gospel of John, that he’s not talking about getting up to heaven where Jesus, where God is and doing some construction up there. What he’s talking about is going on a journey that he’s about to be on and what that is creating for us. And that actually is a place of rest. I’m going to prepare a resting place for you.

[00:25:45] What he’s talking about is his passion. All through John, he talked about going on a journey. I’ve got a lot of these. I’ll go through them pretty quick. In John chapter seven, he’s talking to the Jews and he’s saying, you guys, you can’t come with me. I’m about to go away. In a little while, I won’t be around and you’ll seek me, you won’t find me and where I am, you can’t come. And then John 8, 21, I’m gone away, you’ll seek me, you’ll die in your sins and where I’m going, you can’t come. Verse 13, this is love on the stretch. I’m about to depart out of this world. I’m about to go to the Father. This is my love to the end. Verse 3, knowing that the Father had given him all things into his hands, that he’d come to God and he’s going back to God. His journey is going to end up in heaven. Little children, he says in verse 33,

[00:27:10] in a little while I’m with you, you’ll seek me and just as I said to the Jews, so now also I say to you where I am going, you can’t come. So I understand, well, the Jews weren’t allowed to go, but now even his own guys aren’t allowed to go. Peter asked, where are you going? Jesus said that Peter, you may follow afterwards, but the initial journey, no one can come with Jesus. Peter ejected that he was willing to follow even to death. Jesus said, no, you’re not. And he predicted Peter’s threefold denial. Then there’s our passage in John 14, where he’s going to prepare a place. And verse 5, Lord, we don’t know where you’re going, says Philip. How can we know that what says Thomas? Thomas says, we don’t even know where you’re going. Then verse 12. Have I got verse 12? Yeah, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do. Greater works than these will he do because I’m going to the Father. Jesus is going

[00:28:19] on a journey and because of that journey, there’s going to be the presence and power of the Spirit in those who are left behind. You heard me say to you, I’m going away and I will come to you. If you love me, you would have rejoiced because I’m going to the Father. For the Father is greater than I. And now I’ve told you before it takes place that when it does take place, you may believe. And it goes on and on. Jesus talked about leaving and how it was for our benefit that he would go because once he was gone, he could send the Spirit to us. And it goes on and on and on. Jesus is on a journey. What that journey is was him laying down his life in paying for our sins and then resurrecting and ascending to the Father in heaven. That is the journey that he could only take and take alone. As a consequence, he was creating a place for us to find rest for our burdened souls in him. And at the same time, he was creating for God

[00:29:39] a dwelling place where he could dwell. And so there is a place where we find rest for our souls and God finds rest in us. Us dwelling in him, him dwelling in us. That’s the place that Jesus was going to prepare. You got all of that? I have trouble at funerals now when people say or they read John 14 in my father’s house and many resting places. I think I’ve learned this stuff enough now. I’ve stopped thinking about heaven and Jesus building a room. And now I think of lost and weary souls finding rest in Christ. And I see grieving relatives at funerals who perhaps are in need of rest more than most, needing to know, needing to know God’s peace in their hearts. And it’s all available to them right then and there because Jesus has made the way.

[00:31:21] Any burdened soul, any troubled heart can simply trust Christ. And because he has taken this journey alone, then they they will find rest for themselves in him. And the wonder of it is that God will make us his home. He will find rest in us. It’s called a reciprocal rest relationship. Are you aware that Jesus’s claims on you are for you to come and find rest, but also that you would become the resting place of God? I think of that little boy coming into the home in Adelaide, despite the smell of Brussels sprouts. And I’m there because it’s my home. My mum and dad were there. They loved me. I needed all of that. Think, think of God. Where’s his home? It could be your heart.

[00:32:57] He so wants you to have a relationship with him. He wants you to hear his voice. Like Isaac, hear, get baptized. You need to get baptized. Eventually, he goes, yes. And God finds more comfort in that young man’s life. God wants to be at home in your heart. What a joy. What a wonderful thought. It’s Jesus’s display of the extent of his love that he would do all that’s necessary for us to find rest in him, but that he would find rest in us. Amen. Let me pray. Father, we thank you for all that you’ve done for us in Christ. Lord, nobody was aware of where you were going. Even your closest followers were struggling to understand. We don’t know where you’re going.

[00:34:25] Jesus said, no one comes to the Father, but by me. I am the way, the truth and the life. Lord, thank you that you prepared this place for us, a place of rest. But help us not to forget the other side of the coin. It’s not just about us. And us finding rest for our weary souls. It’s about you and you finding your rest. It’s about you creating a house for yourself. And Lord, may we know the wonder of your presence within and all that it means. The wonder that we individually and collectively as the church are the home of God. Lord, we thank you in Jesus name. Amen.