If you will, open your Bibles
with me today to John Chapter 14. I'd like to speak to us today from
maybe one of the best known passages of Scripture, John Chapter 14,
reading the first six verses. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that
where I am, there you may be also. And whither I go, you know,
and the way you know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord,
we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way?
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father but
by me. I want to speak to us this morning
about a house very special house. In our text, it's called the
Father's House. And in dealing with this subject,
I want to ask and answer from the Scriptures three questions.
But before we look at these questions, let's consider the context in
which this passage is given. Just before this, and of course
we know that Scriptures were divided into chapters later,
but just before this, several things took place that any one
of these could have caused these disciples to have trouble of
heart. Let me point out just a few.
First of all, if you notice in chapter 13 and verse 21, He had just spoken what had to
be some very shocking words when he said unto them, his twelve
disciples, verily, verily, I say unto you that one of you shall
betray me. Now Mark tells us in his account
that when our Lord told them this, they began to be sorrowful. and to say unto him one by one,
is it I? That surely would cause a person
to have trouble of heart. If you get the picture, just
a table with 13 men sitting around the table, and the Lord looking
at them and saying unto them, one of you, verily, verily, I
say unto you, one of you, shall betray me. And then it was night. You know, things just seem worse
at night, don't they? When a child gets sick during
the daytime, you go to the doctor, go to the drugstore, what have
you, but at night when all the offices are closed and Things
just seem worse at night to me. I like the sunshine, don't you?
I like the daylight. Well, notice it was night because
in verse 30, again of chapter 13, he, that is Judas, then having
received the sup, went immediately out and it was night. Then, here's something else that
happened. He told them, just after this,
at the same time, but just after those two things, that he was
leaving them, and they could not accompany him. Now, they
had been with him for at least two, two and a half, or three
years. They had been in his company.
They had been with him, walking with him, eating with him, sleeping
in the same place. all of this time, and now he
tells them, I'm going to go away. Where I'm going, you can't come.
Notice that in verse 28. I'm sorry, verse 33. Little children, yet a little
while I am with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whither I go, you cannot come. So now I say
unto you." Now, where was it? Think about this. Where was it
that he was going that they could not come? Well, if you look in
chapter 16, keep your place here, but turn over to John 16. Still in this same discourse,
in verse 28, he told them, I came forth from the Father and am
coming to the world. Again, I leave the world and
go to the Father. So he was going to the Father.
And he said, you cannot accompany me. And then one last thing,
in the last verse of chapter 13, he told Peter, before the
rooster crows, you're going to deny me three times. He said,
verily, verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow till
thou hast denied me thrice. Now, Peter was not their chief.
Our Lord warned his disciples about calling any man chief. He said, the Gentiles, the pagans,
do that. But that's not the way it will
be with my people. But Peter, you have to admit,
he was one who spoke out quite often. and usually said the wrong
thing. But he did speak out. Now, any
one of these things, as far as I'm concerned, could have contributed
to produce what he said that they had, let not your heart
be troubled. Now, in this world, and I know
this is nothing new to you, but in this world, God's saving grace
brings many comforts, many blessings to God's children But one thing
it doesn't bring, and that is exemption from things which will
trouble us in our heart. But what is the remedy? What
is the remedy when we have a troubled heart? It's the same as it was
for these disciples. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. That's always the remedy. It was a remedy when we first
trusted in Christ, when we first believed. This was a remedy for
our sinful condition. You believe in God, believe also
in me. You know, I speak with some people
occasionally, and they are troubled about assurance. Tell me, I just
don't have any assurance. I'm not assured. as I want to
be. Have you ever noticed in John
chapter 6, if you look here, what the disciples said, John
chapter 6 and verse 69, they said, we believe and are
sure that thou art the Christ, art
that Christ, the Son of the living God. Usually when people say
I have no assurance, I like to ask them this question. Are you
saying that you are not sure that Christ, that Jesus is the
Christ? Oh no, I don't question that
at all. I believe with all of my heart
that He is the Christ. Well, are you saying that you're
not sure that he is the Son of God? Oh, no. I'm not saying that. I believe that with all my heart,
that he is the Son of God. I have no question about that.
Then what is it? What is it that you have in your
mind that assurance is? And I find, maybe they won't
express this, but most people, their idea of assurance is some
feeling. or some experience that they've
heard that someone else had or has told them about, and they
don't have that same feeling or that same experience, and
so they say they have no assurance. But the disciples, their assurance
was that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. We
believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the Son of the
living God. He is our assurance. It's not
in ourselves. Anytime we begin to look in ourselves
for anything, any assurance, we're going to be sadly disappointed. Our assurance is in Christ, who
He is and what He's done and where He is and what He's doing
today. That's our assurance. Consider
Paul's reasoning or his deduction as he gave it in Romans 8 in
verse 32, when he said, he that spared not his own son, but delivered
him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give
us all things? He will, because he is God. You believe in God, believe also
in me. He will. He's already given the
greatest gift that he could give. That is, He has given His Son,
and we are convinced of that, sure of that, shall He not also
with Him freely give us all things? All things that we need as we
go through this world, as we make our pilgrimage, as you please,
through this world, He will give us all things that we need. So the comfort for these disciples
that day is the same comfort for us any time that we too have
troubled hearts and there's plenty in this world to trouble God's
people. There's plenty. And the older
we get, I suppose, the more we see it. The more we see it in
ourselves and the more we see it in other things. Maybe we've grown, I hope so,
in our knowledge of him, but we never outgrow believing in
him. You believe in God, believe also
in me. Those are his words. Now, let's
take a few minutes and think about this special house. First,
I want to ask these questions, first, Whose house is this special
house? Whose house is this special house? Well, he, in our text, the Lord
says, my father's house. My father's house. It is God
that he calls his father, the first person in the blessed Trinity. Now remember this. God is the Father of the Lord
Jesus Christ in a different way than He is our Father. God is
the God of Jesus Christ in a different way than He is our God. Let me see if I can show you
that. If you turn to John chapter 20. John chapter 20. Maybe I said that last statement
wrong. He is the God of the Lord Jesus
Christ in a different way than he is our God. Same God. I don't want to be confusing
about that, but notice what he said to Mary Magdalene after
his resurrection in verse 17. He said, touch me not, for I
am not yet ascended to my father, but go to my brethren and say
unto them, I ascend unto my father and your father and to my God
and your God. He is, that God is the father
of the Lord Jesus Christ by what men call eternal generation,
which means that he has always been the son of the father. He is equal with the father.
He is of the same essence with the father. He's our father by adoption. He's his father by eternal generation. He is one with the father. So
much so that he said in this same passage, he that hath seen
me hath seen the father. But he is his God by his incarnation. When he was made flesh and came
into this world as the surety of that everlasting covenant,
God became his God. He is his God as he is the God-man,
the surety of the everlasting covenant. He is our God by his
covenant. Remember one of the promises
that the new covenant contains is, I will be to them a God and
they shall be to me a people. What a wonderful promise that
is. When the Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross, he cried out,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? He didn't cry out
my father. My father, why hast thou forsaken
me? There is a union between the
son and the father that could never be broken. There's a union
between them. That's the greatest union that
we read of in the scripture. We read of our union with Christ. We read of the union of the Godhead
and the man. manhood of Christ. All of these
are great unions, but the greatest of all union is the unity in
the one Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So he didn't
cry, my Father, my Father, why hast thou forsaken me, but my
God, as he was a representative man, the surety, the second Adam. And God was his God, and he was
a servant of God. Isaiah 42, God said, Behold,
my servant, my elect, in whom I'm well pleased. So whose house is this special
house? It's God's house, right? It's
the Father's house. This is the house of Almighty
God. Can you imagine what His house
is like? Here's a second question I want
us to think about. What are some of the names of
this special house? You know, great men in this world,
many times their houses are named. We've had the privilege over
the years to visit different houses. We visited the White
House one time. That's a house of a great world
leader, president. We visited Mount Vernon, Monticello,
Hermitage. We visited a number of houses
of great leaders. Last summer, I believe it was,
we were in California and we wanted to visit the Hearst Mansion,
William Randolph Hearst, great newspaper man years ago. This house had three floors,
and you could only buy tickets to visit one floor. Either you
chose the first floor, the second floor, or the third floor. Well,
we pulled up and we just thought we'll run in there and get a
ticket. In fact, my daughter-in-law, we let her get out at the entrance
there, run in there and buy us tickets. She came back out and
said, we can get on a waiting list to get in at five o'clock
this afternoon. Great houses. And these houses
all have different names. Well, this house, this house
I'm speaking to us about today, this house that our Lord speaks
about, it has different names given to us in the scripture,
and each one of these names tells us something about this house.
In our text today, It is called My Father's House. Now, what
does this name, when our Lord gives us this name of this house,
what does it reveal about this house? Well, it reveals to us
that in this house there are many mansions. There are many
dwelling places, which means that there are going to be many
people in heaven, right? There's not going to be just
a handful, a few. There's going to be many because
there's many dwelling places in my Father's house and I don't
believe that one of them is going to be empty, do you? They are
all prepared for a particular person and every one of those
persons is going to be there throughout eternity to inhabit
that place that the Lord Jesus Christ has prepared. Man came to our Lord one day,
and this is recorded in Luke chapter 13, and he said, Lord,
are there few that be saved? How did our Lord answer that
question? He didn't say, well, there's going to be so many million. I know John says the number is
so great that he could not number it. It's a finite number. An infinite number. We can't
tell. We don't know. But God knows. And when this man said, Are there
few that be saved? He didn't tell him how many.
He just looked at him and he said, Strive. Strive to enter
in. Why did he say strive to enter
in? Because there are few that find
it. And then he said, when once the
master of the house has shut the door. There's not many people striving
to enter in today, are there? I don't think so. But there's
going to come a time, no doubt, when the master closes the door
and there's going to be many people striving to enter in.
But they're not going to enter in. Just like I imagine you read
that passage about Noah when the waters began to come up and
that ark lifted up off the ground. I would imagine there were many
people around that ark who wanted in, but not one of them entered
into the ark. Only eight souls were saved.
They all entered into the ark when the Lord called them into
the ark. And He shut the door. And one
of these days, I know it sounds strange to us, but one of these
days, my friends, the gospel is not going to be preached again.
You may be here this morning and you sit Sunday after Sunday
and hear the gospel preached. And it's just as though you will
always have this privilege, that this will always be something
that you can hear and accept or not accept, receive or not
receive at your pleasure. My friends, that's not so. There's
coming a day, there's coming a time when the door will be
shut and no one shall enter. That's the reason he said today
is the day of salvation. Strive to enter in today. Get serious about this. Most
people, I may be talking out of place here, but I notice most
people are not serious about this matter of their relationship
to God. Nothing could be more serious. Nothing. So the first thing, we find that
this great house, this unusual house, is called the Father's
house. And this tells us, this text does, that there are many
mansions, there are many people going to be in this place. And
I sure want to be one, don't you? I sure want to be there. You know, it is also called a
house in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 1. Paul said, for we know
that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. Now, I've run into some people,
maybe you believe this, they say, well, that's our resurrected
body. But we don't receive our resurrected
body, my friends, until the time of the resurrection. The comparison
here in this verse is not between bodies, it's between houses.
We now live in a house of clay. In fact, I believe it's called
a tent. You know much about a tent. A tent can be taken down quickly,
can't it? How quickly this tent can be
taken down. There'll be people all over this
world today who will get up this morning, eat their breakfast,
and go out of their homes fully expecting to return tonight and
sleep in their own beds who will not be alive when the sun goes
down. Happens every day all over this
world. This is a tent we're living in now. But just as soon as we
leave this world, just as soon as we breathe our last breath
in this world, we have a house eternal in the heavens. What
does this text tell us about this house? It tells us that
this house is eternal. It is the Father's house, and
because He is eternal, His house is eternal. Look at another place. In Hebrews
chapter 11, here's another name by which it is called. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse
10. Speaking of Abraham, for he looked
for a city which hath found foundations, whose builder and maker is God. What is revealed to us here by
it being called a city? It has foundations. That's what
is revealed. It has foundations. Its builder
and maker is God. This city is founded upon God's
eternal purpose, God's purpose from before the foundation of
the world. to save a great number of people,
and he chose those people in Christ. This city, it has foundations. I live in a city, you may not
know this about Houston, but Houston is sinking. If you came
to visit us, we could take you to a suburb of Houston, Baytown,
Texas, which is right out of Houston. We could go out there
and there's a whole subdivision that's just almost underwater. Forty years ago, those were new
homes. Just sinking. The whole city
is sinking. Mexico City, I remember going
into the art museum there and you go in, you walk up a few
steps and you're on the going in what used to be the second
floor. The first floor is now sunk down
into what they call a basement. This city that I'm speaking to
you about today has foundations, right? It's built upon the everlasting
purpose of God. His purpose. And he worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will. Jesus Christ is that foundation
stone, isn't he? Look down at verse 16 in this
same chapter, Hebrews 11. Here it's called a country. But now they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly what is revealed to us when this
city is called a country. Well, it's a better country.
It's a heavenly country. The word better, it always suggests
comparison, right? Always it suggests comparison. And you name any country in this
world and this country, the Father's house is better. In every country
in this world, there's sin, there's sickness, there's sorrow, and
there's a possibility of war, pestilence, and famine. We saw
this, we still see it in the news, the outbreak of Ebola in
West Africa, and then a few have come into our country, and how
pestilence, that could happen in any country. and just wipe
out a large population of the people. But this country is better
for in this country, there's no sin. All of these things that
I've just mentioned, wars and pestilence and famines and all
of these things are consequences of sin. In this country, there
is no sin. There's no death. Neither sorrow
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former
things are passed away. What a country is this? It's
a better country. I love our country, and I know
you do too. But this is a better country,
better than any country in this world, because in every country
in this world, there's sin, there's sinners, and all the consequences
that come with sin. One of the poets, I heard this
read several years ago, but she wished for a place like this,
a land she called the land of beginnings again. I wish that
there were some wonderful place in the land of beginning again.
where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all of our
poor selfish grief could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the
door and never put on again. I wish we could come on it all
unaware, like the hunter who finds the lost trail. And I wish
that the one whom our blindness had done the greatest injustice
of all could be there at the gate like an old friend that
waits for the comrade he's gladdest to hail. We would find all the
things we intended to do but forgot and remembered too late. Little praises unspoken, little
promises broken in all the thousand, and one little duties neglected
that might have perfected the day for one less fortunate. It
wouldn't be possible not to be kind in the land of beginning
again, and the ones whom we misjudged and the ones we grudged their
moments of victory here would find in the grasp of our loving
hand clasp more than penitent lips could explain. So I wish
that there were some wonderful place called the land of beginning
again, where all our mistakes and all our heartaches and all
of our poor selfish grief could be dropped like a shabby old
coat at the door and never put on again. Thank God there is
a country. It's God's country. It's this
house I'm speaking to us about. The Father's house. This city
that has foundations. This better country. And here's
the last word by which it is called. And this is found in
Luke chapter 23, if you want to turn there. Luke chapter 23. In verse 43, these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ
as he spoke to that man who looked to him in faith
there on the cross, and he said, Verily I say unto thee, today
thou shalt be with me in paradise. Here's another name. It's called
paradise. In 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle
Paul tells us about himself being caught up to the third heaven,
and then he refers to that third heaven as paradise. What is it revealed to us? When
it is called paradise, when it's called a house, it is revealed
that it has many mansions. It's eternal. When it's called
a city, it is revealed to us it has foundations. When it's
called a country, it is revealed to us it's a better country.
And when it's called paradise, what is revealed to us? Christ is there. Christ is there. And that's what makes it paradise.
Christ is there. This is how Paul could write
in one of his letters and say, I am in a strait betwixt two,
having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far
better. When a child of God departs this
world in death, that person is immediately in the Father's house,
in the city that has foundations, in the better country. in paradise
in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ to dwell with him forever
and ever. Now here's my third question.
I'll be very brief. Are there many ways to this special
house? Are there many ways to this special
house? We got off the plane Thursday
and I plugged in a GPS that's been in the drawer, one of our
drawers at the home for probably a couple of years, and I plugged
it in before we left Houston just to get it charged up a little
bit. So when we got at the airport,
got our car, I put in the address of the motel, and you know that
thing thought it was still in Houston. And I looked at that
screen, and boy, there's all kinds of lines and dots and points. And I thought, well, you know,
there are many ways if I was in Houston to this motel here
in Lexington. If I were to tell you today,
give you directions to my house in Houston, there's many ways,
many different roads you could take. But aren't you thankful
today when we ask the question, are there many ways to the father's
house? No. There's one. There's one and only one. Jesus
Christ in our text here, he said, I am the way. He's the way. He's the way of reconciliation. Would you have peace with God?
He's the way. Would you know your sins forgiven?
He's the way. Would you be just before God?
He's the way. Would you be holy? He's the way. He's the only way. The only way
to the Father. He is our righteousness. He is
our sanctification. He is our wisdom. He is our redemption. And don't make the mistake when
you read this verse or hear it read, I'm the way, to assume
in your mind that what he is saying that he made a way. No,
he is the way. He is the way. You wrap your
arms of faith this morning around the Lord Jesus Christ, and he
is the way to the Father's house. He's the way to this house. The
only way. And thank God, my friends, each
day, for those of us who know Christ, each day we're one day
closer. One day closer. Every hour we're
one day closer. One day nearer. to the Father's
house in which sin cannot enter. What a wonderful day that's going
to be, to be like Christ, to be with Him. To be with Him is
wonderful, but to think about being like Him, that's amazing,
isn't it? I pray the Lord would bless this
word to all of us here today, and my prayer, my desire is that
one day all of us will meet again in the Father's house. Thank you.