In the narrative of John's gospel,
especially in places like this, and I've brought this up several
times, it's very difficult sometimes to see exactly what it is we're
supposed to know. Because there's some doctrinal
things there, that means there's some teaching there, but for
the most part we are seeing Jesus speak to his disciples intimately.
We've seen him wash their feet, we've seen him say that there
would be his accuser and send his accuser out. We've seen him
now also, as we closed out last week, prophesy that Peter would
deny him, the very zealous one among them. And now we get to
hear Jesus respond in that way. And so for the most part, a lot
of times people will take the first 14 verses of this chapter
and they will go all the way down into, well, this is a truth
and let's go ahead and just deal with this and get four or five
points directly to the church, make some practical application
and move on. But if you are spending any time
whatsoever reading the Bible, if you are in the text of scripture
and as you repeat it over and over and over again, it becomes
more and more familiar. And once something is familiar,
then you're able to begin to reflect upon it. That's what
the scripture says to meditate on the word of the Lord day and
night. Reflection upon that which is
familiar is where things begin to take shape. And so as we reflect on this
word this morning, I pray that it would not be new to you, but
that it would be a remembrance of that which you've already
been reading and dealing with for days, if not weeks, if not
years. But if it is new for you, may
the Lord grant you understanding. May the Lord help you to see
that this is not a great wisdom that I hold, that you don't hold,
and it's not because I've been studying a lot longer than some
of you have probably been studying, or anything of that nature. The
significance of God's Word speaking to His people is that God the
Holy Spirit Himself teaches through the hearing of the Word of God
alone. And so even in my commentary, without the Spirit of God teaching
you through the written text, you will not learn from me. You
will not learn from what you hear, you will not learn from
my exposition, you will not learn from my commentary, you will
not learn at all through my journey in scripture, yet it should edify
your journey in scripture. It should encourage your journey
in scripture. It should come alongside and undergird as we
together in unity see the gospel of free and sovereign grace.
And when we see Jesus teaching, And when we hear these words,
friends, this verse here in chapter 14 will be very familiar to all
of you. You might not have known this is where it is, but it is
a very familiar verse. Turn with me there to chapter
14 and let's read the first seven verses. Let not your hearts be
troubled. Believe in God. Believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many
rooms. If it were not so, I would have
not told you that I go to prepare... Would I have told you that I
go to prepare a place for you? That's a question there. And
if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will
take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. And you
know the way to where I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we
do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? And
Jesus said to him, I am the way, I am the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except
through me. If you had known me, you would
have known my father also. From now on, you do know him
and have seen him. Now there is more there. Philip
then says, show us the father and there's some other things.
But in this narrative, we need to pick apart not deep and hidden
meanings and deep and hidden purposes, but we need to pick
apart the essence of what's being said in its context. We need
to see what it is that Jesus, what caused him to say the things
that he's saying. We need to recognize what he's
doing in the midst of the experience that he himself is having. And it's not difficult. It's
just Time. Intimacy with God is intimacy
with Scripture. There is no such thing as intimacy
with God outside from the Word. There is no such thing as a relationship
with Jesus Christ outside of dedicated meditation and study
of His Word every day. So when we get up in the morning,
we go to bed at night, if we've not been in Scripture, we've
not spent any time with Christ. None whatsoever. We have said
to ourselves, I will not spend time with my Lord today. That's what we've done. It's so easy with 168 hours of
every week to find a reason why we're so busy to do everything
else. And then we strongly want to
be with Christ. We wish Christ would come back,
don't you? I mean, if we don't get this service finished, it
will not hurt my feelings. I will not be like, Lord, I was
almost done. I mean, come Lord Jesus and come quickly. There
is not one thing that I wish I could accomplish before the
coming of the Lord. Not one. There is not one regret that
I have that is worthless in the scope of eternity, that if the
Lord came back right now, it would all be moot. Come Lord
Jesus. And I say that all to you not
to bring guilt, but beloved, I teach from the Word of God
every week. And I say these same things,
you don't believe me? Go back to the church website,
just listen to the first five minutes of almost every sermon
that you've ever heard from this pulpit, and you will hear the
same echo chamber. Be in the word, be in the scripture,
be in the word, read the Bible, study the scripture, be in the
word, read the letter, read the gospel, read Colossians. Because it is there and there
alone that you will have the faith that you're looking for.
It is there and there alone that you will have the intimacy that
you're looking for. It is only in the Bible that God, the Holy
Spirit, He will teach you all things. And He will teach you
some things, and then He will teach you more things, and then
He will strengthen the depth of your understanding of those
things. And so even though our faith starts out like a child's
faith, that Jesus is God and He saves us, Beloved God will
teach you the depths of the mercies that he's given, of his grace,
of the foundations of the gospel that go so beyond human comprehension
that we are just in awe of the mercies of God and the riches
of his glory. That's why Paul uses those expressions.
I've had professors in seminary through the years that have always
said, you know, you can't use that flowery biblical language,
the riches of his glory. Nobody knows what that means.
It's because they're not reading the text. You don't have to have
a... What do you call that with the words and the answers in
the back of the book? You don't have to have an answer key in the back. You don't have
to have an index with the explanation of the riches of His glory. When
we begin to spend time with Christ and His Word, all of a sudden
we understand the richness of it. It's like trying to explain
someone the richness of a particular dessert that they've never had,
that they've never heard of, that they've never seen. And
you're just trying to, with verbs and adjectives and all sorts
of flowery language, try to describe to them what it is. Just put
it in their mouth and let them go... Taste and see that the Lord is
good. Friends, you will grow none if
you are not in the Word of God. You will have no intimacy with
Christ worth dealing with if you are not in the Word of God.
You will have no power given to you by God without the Word
of God. And the Word of God and everything
in it is so much more than just the exhortations and the admonishment
and the teaching. It's so much more than all of
that. Those things are there for our relational joy and our
relational good and our relational intimacy as unto the Lord. But
these are not the point of Scripture. The point of Scripture is not
to have a list of how we should live and things that we should
and shouldn't do and places that we should and shouldn't be. The point of Scripture is to
behold the glory of God and all of the fullness of Christ. That's
what it's all about. And I'll lose sight of that.
You lose sight. We all lose sight of that. That's why we must come
back to the table and feast upon the meal of Christ, the bread
of life, and know that even when the inside of our lives, when
we don't even want to be there, we still get dressed. We still
eat. We still drink water. We still
do what we're called to do in a way of discipline, sometimes
first and foremost. But by the mercies of God that
are new every single day, we are filled with all the fullness
of God. You realize that, don't you?
That when we are in the Bible, we are filled with all the fullness
of God. That all that God is, who is
Christ, revealed. With us, now we are with Him
and we have fellowship with each other as we are all in Christ. Then Paul prays to the Ephesian
church in Ephesians chapter 3. He closes that text out. I pray
that you may all be filled with all the fullness of God. Paul
is not being poetic. He's praying truly and literally
about a spiritual reality that is ours to claim in Christ Jesus. through intimacy with God's Word
and then intimacy with God's people. So the fullness of God
indwelling with us is when we are disciplined in the fullness
of the Word of God to see that which God has done in fullness
through the Son of God for us. Now of course I'm speaking of
the experience of the Christian life in the flesh. I'm not speaking
of the efficacy or the effectual nature of the gospel. I'm not
saying that we're not filled with Christ if we're not in the
Bible. The point is, do you experience it? You may not be starving,
but you might be hungry. You may not be malnourished,
but you may have poor nutrition. You are not going to be lost,
beloved, because Christ has saved you. You are not cast away because
He promised to never leave you. You will come and you will stand
righteous before the Lord, not because of what he transforms
you to be, but because of who Christ is and his perfection
and his righteousness. And so now let's approach this
text with this idea. Verse 36 of chapter 13, let's
hear this in context. Simon Peter said to him, Lord,
where are you going? And Jesus answered him, where
I'm going, you cannot Follow me now, but you will follow me
afterward. And Peter said to him, Lord,
why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.
Jesus says, will you lay down your life for me? Amen. Amen. I say to you, the rooster
will not crow to you have denied me three times. Now, that's what
Jesus just said out of his mouth when he says, let not your hearts
be troubled. And I'm thinking, Jesus, why
did you just say that? You just punched me in the stomach
that I'm going to deny you. And now you're saying, but don't
worry about it. Don't worry about it. You see how context is very
important? Verse 1 of chapter 14 is not
a new thought of some greatly disconnected conversation that
Jesus is standing on a hillside. Let not your hearts be troubled. It's an intimate conversation
after Jesus disrobed and washed his feet, washed the feet of
his disciples and of his accuser, and sent his accuser to start
the divine decree of crucifixion. And Jesus is troubled in his
heart, and Jesus is troubled in his spirit, and he's with
the most intimate friends that he ever will have in his incarnate
state. And they are worried about themselves.
Have you noticed that? They're worried about themselves.
Peter's worried. Oh, I don't want to be without
Jesus. You know, we talked about this last week. How it must have
felt for them who have lost all things and the only glue that
held them together that gave them sanity is that Christ was
with them and they were with Christ. And even if they went
out in a blaze of glory and lost their lives, oh, what a purpose
it was. I mean, We didn't give it up
for nothing, but now our master, our teacher, our Lord is saying
He is going and we cannot be there. And they're scared to
death. But Jesus in His divine knowledge
and purposes started His ascent to Golgotha. started everything
divinely in motion that will perfectly place him on the cross
at the exact moment that God had decreed before the foundations
of the world. And no man can thwart it. And
so he is troubled as he illustrates his humility, as he illustrates
the pending death of his flesh, the judgment of God upon him.
He's troubled. Would you not be troubled? I've
heard stories, read stories, rather. I've read stories about
people sitting on death row and being there for years and years. And some of them have penned
their final hours and what they felt, knowing that they were
about to die. But these people were dying justly
for crimes that they committed, for things that they should have
died long before. and the angst of the human condition
when we know that there is no escape from death. It's an incredible account to
read. But none of them can do justice to what Christ would
say had he pinned his thoughts for us. Nothing can ever come
close to the reality of what the righteous one of God must
have been feeling and thinking in his flesh, knowing he was
about to face the penalty of sin, which is death, by the hand
of the Father. He is in angst. We see it in the Garden of Gethsemane.
We see when he's praying there, we see that he is and so much
physical turmoil, so much emotional, I don't even know the words to
use there, state, such a harsh emotional state that the capillaries
of his face burst and the blood mixes with the sweat and blood
streams down his face. You ever been that stressed?
You ever been that tempted? That you shed blood? That's what
Paul's talking about in the writing to the Hebrew people. None of
you have been tempted to the point where you have shed blood. What's the temptation of Christ?
He is God after all. And if we were experiencing that
pending death by the hands of ungrateful sinners, and we were
God but yet sinners, Oh, what would we do? Jesus is impeccable. He could not sin, yet he was
tempted in every way and did not sin. Peter says he'd lay his life
down and Jesus tells him that he's going to deny him, not just
once, not just twice, but three times this very night before
the sun comes up. That's what that illustration
is there for. Then Jesus says these words as we begin our text
for today. Let not your hearts be troubled. Now, that's a good
word for the church. And it's not just a suggestion,
it's written in such a way in the grammar that it is a command.
It is a command. Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Now, that's something. Because what was happening in
the hearts of these disciples is that they were deeply troubled,
but they weren't near as troubled as Christ. And here's a time
when Jesus, as I've already alluded, was in great despair and He,
in a worldly sense, like most of us, in our deepest moments
of darkness, we need one another to come along and lift us and
carry us and pray for us and be there for us and to talk to
us and encourage us and rebuke us and be there in a way that
we are not burdening you, but we are carrying the burden for
you. And that's what Jesus needed in this hour, yet Jesus, even
in this hour, was carrying the burden of the selfish burden
of the people who should have been carrying His burden. What burden does He have, beloved?
What causes your heart to be troubled this very day? What
is it that wracks your soul into the wee hours of the night that
constantly gnaw at your conscience, that constantly deal with you
in a way that is unprofitable? What is it that our minds go
to? I have a list. Do you have a list? We all have
a list. We have a list. We know the things that bother
us. We know the things that we are laboring over. And in the moment of Christ's
greatest agony, Christ was carrying the burdens, even of those. Even of those things. And then he commands, do not
let your hearts be troubled. Now, let me speak pastorally
for a moment, because for those of you who don't know, I have
a lot of training in counseling from many years ago. And I operated
in that training for a long, long time. And then I realized
how worthless it was. And then I stopped. Because God's word is the only
thing that I've ever seen effectual in the life of the church. And I'm not knocking therapy
and psychology and things of that nature. It's just not my
calling. It's like being an architect
and everything that you're told to build is just a globe. We're building the mound houses
for the next 40 years. That's all you get to design.
Make sure it's well done. No, no, no, we're not doing a
little flowery thing. No, just this, that's it. And that's what
it feels like. When I know the power of God's
word and I know the command here, let not your hearts be troubled.
And then I try to do everything else to help you not be troubled.
You see how annoying that can be? It's like, oh, I have the
answer. It's the command of Christ. It's
the command of Christ. But I'll say this, is that really
effective? Was it effective for the disciples? When Christ commanded that, did
they immediately go, oh, okay, great, no more trouble. No, they
weren't like that. They were troubled for days.
They were troubled even after he'd been raised from the dead.
They were troubled after his ascension. They were troubled
but yet they had something else at work in them. They had a divine
power at work in them. Paul talked about that divine
work. Peter talked about that divine
work. And what is the foundation of that being there? It's two
things and two things only in discipline. Being in the Word
of God and being in the assembly of the saints. where and with whom we grow to
learn more about the work of Christ in the way that the scripture
reveals to us, not because we can read and understand language,
but because the Spirit of God gives us a supernatural divine
grasp. Which is we go to what Hebrews
teaches. It is faith. It is a confident
assurance of that which we cannot see. And beloved, sometimes that
which we cannot fully grasp. And when we do grasp it through
the word, when we do grasp it through gathering together, we
are what? The truth of the gospel and the
doctrines of Christ are made more and more alive and our faith
is strengthened. Our faith is strengthened. Then
we can agree, we go, yes, yes, this is what Christ has done.
Yes, this is who Christ is. Wow, this is what the gospel
means for me, and for you, and for us. It is not explicable. It is not
to where we can say this is what faith is. Now why am I getting
there? Because that's what Jesus says is the point of not letting
your heart be troubled. or your charts be humbled, whichever. How are we to not let our hearts
be troubled? Believe in God. Believe in God. See, it rests
on its own, doesn't it? I throw the higher critics in
the toilet, flush it twice, plunge it and flush it again. We know
that higher critics, if you know what I mean, those are the people
who pick apart certain aspects of scripture. Well, Jesus was
saying, don't you believe in God? No, he's telling them to
believe in God. Because the context rules the
meaning. Context changes the language.
that might otherwise mean something different. Context changes the
definition of a word that has been defined for a billion years
one way and the context makes it new. Jesus is commanding, do not be
troubled in your heart. Then he commands, believe in
God. So there's your answer. How am I not to be troubled?
Believe in God. But we know this point of this
text here. What we've already seen is what?
The Son of Man is glorified right now, verse 31 of 13. And if God
is glorified in Him, and if God is glorified in Him, God will
also glorify Him in Himself and glorify Him at once. So we know that the point of
this dialogue with the disciples is that He is explaining the
perfection of His glory and His glorification, and the fact that
He is glorified at this moment by the Father, and the Father
is glorified by Him. So now we see this God is glorified
and the sun is glorified and the sun is glorified and God
is glorified and now believe in God. And then he says again,
as a commandment, believe also in me. So that we know that our
hearts are not troubled because we believe in God and when we
believe in God, we are also commanded to believe in Christ, who is
God. I don't know if it was last week
or the week before. I don't know. It might have even been in another
class, might have been on my Tuesday class, but talking about how
we look at God and the nature of his power and how awesome
he is and even his children. You know, we know that God created
the world, the cosmos. We know that God delivered. He flooded the earth. We know
that God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. Jude says that Jesus delivered
the Israelites out of Egypt. We know that God did great things
and showed mighty power, and then we see Jesus. And we know
that the Bible says that Jesus is God, but we have compartmentalized
God the Son in a way that does not equate Him with the Almighty. We have, but He is the Almighty. That infant laying in that trough
or whatever it is that really took place there was the creator of the cosmos in all of its glory. Jesus Christ is God. And God
has taught us of Himself through Jesus Christ the Son, who is
God the Son, And God has redeemed His people through God the Son. And God has established the power
to not be troubled in our hearts through the work of God the Son,
through the Word of God the Son, and through the work of God the
Son. Let not your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God. Believe also in Me. Now think
about it. What is He saying? He's telling
them they shouldn't be troubled. He's telling them that one of
them is going to accuse Him and have Him arrested and betray
Him. He said that the most zealous of all of them is about to deny
Him. Now He commands, do not be troubled in your hearts. Believe
in God. Believe also in Me. And then
He expounds upon that in verse 2. He gives an illustration,
somewhat parabolic, he in some sense tells a little story about
what he's doing in a way that is not teaching us about the
qualities of heaven, but about the intimacy of his work. What has Christ already shown
about the intimacy of His work? Of His body being broken and
His blood being shed. He has said that those who come
and drink by faith, they will never thirst again. Those who
eat the bread that is life will never hunger and never die. Those who are given sight through
Him will never be blind again. Those who have died, yet they
have died, they are alive. For He is the resurrection and
He is the life. He is the light of the life of
men. He created all things and all
things exist and nothing that exists was not created by Him. And now He's explaining. His
humility, his work, his purpose in coming to this earth to redeem
his elect sheep out of the world. Through his own crosswork, he
would redeem them justly. The death of Christ was just.
In the economy of God's righteousness. Because God had forgiven and
forbeared much sin toward His elect for many millennia. And
Christ set the record straight, beloved. Jesus expounds on this. He says,
in my Father's house. He knows what His disciples are
thinking. Where is He going? Why can't
we come? Why can't we follow Him? Why
can't He just let us go with Him? What is going on? Maybe
we'll just follow Him and show up there anyway. How many times
did they try to find Him and they never could find Him? He
would vanish amongst them and just vanish. In John 6, one of
the most characteristic illustrations of Jesus vanishing after He feeds
the 5,000 men plus and then vanishes amongst them because they try
to put hands on Him to make Him king. And so all these people go down
to the sea, and they stand along the seashore, and a big storm
blows boats from Capernaum over to the shore, so that all of
them get into boats and go to Capernaum, and the disciples
themselves, looking for Jesus, get in the sea to go to Capernaum.
And you know the story, halfway there, three miles in, the weather is bad and they are
fearful, and Jesus steps out into the sea, or appears out
into the sea. and says, let not your hearts be troubled. He steps into the boat and teleports
the boat by his divine power into the shore of Capernaum.
It says that. Jesus stepped into the boat and
instantly the boat was on shore three miles ago. Either they
all had some messed up hairdos and beards because they went
really fast or Christ did a great divine work as a creator. against
the laws of nature, against the laws of physics, against the
laws of logic. And Jesus was there for them
then. But until He revealed Himself
to them, they could not find Him. And where He is going, they
will not go. So He explains to them what He's
going to do in a simple, childlike way. I mean, have we not shared
the same idea about death with our own children? They're sitting
with Jesus. So the idea of mansions in heaven
and houses in heaven and land ownership in heaven, do not give
me a yard to cut, trees to trim, dogs to feed. I don't want any of that. I want
to just sit at the feet of Christ. Martha should have nothing to
do in eternity. But sit with Mary. You see, that
is our job here. And it is good. It is glorious
to work. We are supposed to work. That
is how God created us before the fall to work. Now the work
is just harder. It is sinful. To hate work. Get off that soapbox. In my father's
house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have
not told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" Now is Jesus
here teaching that heaven has a bunch of rooms? That God has
a house? No. As a matter of fact, the
exact opposite is true in the teaching of Scripture holistically.
Jesus has not made service to go and prepare rooms for His
people. The point is, in this illustration, I could get into
the Old Testament, I could talk about these things, but this
idea of God being with man, this is the best way for us as human
beings to recognize it and understand it. Where Jesus is going is to
be with the Father. He's going to die. And He's going
to leave this world. And His body is going to be left. And He's going to be with the
Father, and no one can go with Him. No one can go with Him literally,
because they weren't to die yet, even though He does say later,
you know, or earlier, you will follow Me. You will follow Me
in death, but you can't go with Me this time. Because this trip,
this death, I'm going to prepare a place for you, because without
Me dying, you can't come to where God is. Without Me laying down
My life, there is no place for you. If I do not wash you, you
have no place with Me, Peter. Now he's illustrating it in his
death. If I do not go to prepare a place for you, there is no
place for you, Peter. If I do not satisfy the wrath
of the Father for you, there is no place for you. There is only one thing left
to expect and that is destruction and wrath and judgment and condemnation. What I've told you, I was going
to prepare a place for you if it were not so. And verse 3,
and if I go and prepare a place for you, I'm going to prepare
a place. You can't get there. How are
you going to get there? I'm going to come back. I'm going
to take you with me. I'm going to come back. I'm going to take you with me,
and then where I am, you'll be. And we will never be separated
again. Isn't that what we want? Until it takes place, beloved,
we're still with Christ when we let our hearts not be troubled
by believing in Him. And the way that is recorded
into our hearts and minds every day is to be in Scripture. That's
how. You want a taste of heaven? Be
in scripture, be in the fellowship of the saints. I promise you, there is a divine
work of God's word through which, in its hearing, all else is sort
of pushed away. For a moment, and then we pray
and leave, and on the way home, it all comes undone, doesn't
it? I mean, it happens. It's not a promise that it's
not going to come undone in our hearts and minds. But you know
what can never come undone? The preparation of Christ for
His people before the Father. Can never come undone. Your salvation
is not dependent upon you. Your hope is not dependent upon
you. The hope of your children is
not dependent upon you. Success in life is not measured
by job, by money, by prestige, by honor, by glory. Success in
life for the believer is the success of Christ on the cross. That's the point. And beloved,
we have it made as Christians in the world. We have it made. We've dealt with some hard stuff
over the years, haven't we? Some of us have had horrible
realities, horrible experiences, hardships, devastating news. We've got it made as Christians. We're not even suffering for
our faith, except that when we stand on the truth, the people
we work with and the people we live by and the people that call
themselves our loved ones sometimes Treat us with disdain. Mock us. Is mocking the hardest that we
have? I'm not belittling. I've experienced
it and I've wanted to die because of it. But we've really got it
made. And even if we didn't, we still
have it made. Even if being here together today was a death sentence
for all of us in the flesh, it is still the truth that we haven't
made in Christ because He has made a way and that way will
not be closed. Do you know that's what they
call the first century Christians? The way. They're followers of the way. Now see, that sounds like a cult,
doesn't it? Oh, they're part of the way. The way where? The way out of my town. I don't
care where they're going. I mean it just sounds spooky. But the clarity of what Christ
did to provide the way to eternal life was so certain in the first
century that it was known by everybody. Reprobates included,
haters, religious, so much so that that is the name they called
them. And then they became known as
the Christ followers. those of the Christ. But even in this way, we see
the faith of the disciples, don't we? Verse 4. It's important that
this is recorded for us because there is a great resolution to
this issue with Thomas at the end of this gospel. As a matter
of fact, it is where the writer of this gospel places the purpose
for his writing. The Lord of me and the God of
me is what Thomas says at the end of this gospel. Here, he's
dumbfounded. We do not know where you're going.
You're telling us you're going to prepare a room, a place. Where? Where is this place? How
do we get there? We don't know where you're going.
So how can we know the way? Isn't that true of the Christian
life? It's not just true of so many people in our day who have
a false hope, false faith, false conversion, all these things
in the name of Christianity. They're probably sitting in the
same similar circumstance that we are. There's some ugly guy
standing out there jawing and hollering and teaching something.
I mean, I could teach you how to glue Legos together and I
could still be teaching. But they have no hope because
they're not believing in the way of Christ. They have no trust
in the way of Christ. They're trusting in man's, I
don't know, they're trusting in man's molding of Christ's
teaching to suit themselves, to give them a better comprehension,
to give them a better handle to hold on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I
see it's Christ, but here's the handle I must hold on to the
bus of Christ. And that can look like making
a decision, that can look like accepting Him in your heart,
that can look like all sorts of things, answering the call
to ministry, it can look like a lot of things. But they didn't know. They wanted
to know the way. They wanted, like most people
in this world who claim Christ, to figure out how to get that
eternal life, how to get the place where Christ is. And we
know now, they didn't know then, that Jesus was talking about
eternal life. The way to the Father is eternal
life, John 17, 3. This is eternal life, that they
know you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have sent. But it is the nature of man to
find their own way. We see that illustrated in the
garden. In the first few hours of the first people, the enemy
tempted Adam and Eve to what? Find their own way to be like
God. Did you see that? The way we
stand before God is we must be like God. Do you know that? You cannot stand before God except
under judgment unless you are, of His essence, righteous. And I don't know of any of us
who have a divine nature, nor has the Bible promised to give
us one. So therefore, our righteousness is God's righteousness, and that
person is Jesus Christ, God the Son. He is our hope of righteousness. That's why this idea of growing
in maturity of holiness is hogwash. You are either righteous in Christ
or you are condemned before God and you will suffer the justice
of His wrath. Can you mature? Can certain sins be lesser? Absolutely. But disobey the law in one part,
you've broken it all, beloved. Our vernacular has ruined simple
terms because people have said, how do we know the way? Oh, this
is the way. Don't forget that Rome used to be Paul and the apostles. And it didn't take but about
300 years for it to lose sight of the gospel. Think about it. And within a thousand years,
the gospel was gone. And everybody had a way. And we'd be fools to think that
the Reformation was perfect. We'd be fools to think that the
Great Awakening had perfection. We'd be fools to think that anything
but the Word of God and the apostolic authority of its letters is perfect. So we hold there to not to a
place in the middle of it all, we go to the source of it all,
and the source of it all is that Christ provides the way. And
you're thinking, man, you are just making this stuff up. No,
I just know what verse 6 says. We do not know where you're going,
how can we know the way? And Jesus says to him, verse
6, I am the way. And that doesn't mean that we
look at what Jesus did and then we do likewise and we are ending
up where Jesus is. That doesn't mean that we follow
Jesus in a certain way and we end up where Jesus is. Because
if Jesus does not come and get us, we won't end up where He
is. You see that, right? The imperative to be where Jesus
is has never been laid on a human being. In salvation or in reality. Spiritually or physically. The
imperative that is here is that Jesus will get his people once
he prepares the way for them and he is the way. He is the
way to God. He is the way to life. He is
the way to glory. He is the way to righteousness.
He is not a way. He doesn't provide the way. He
is the way. And that's the emphasis here.
Not only am I going where you cannot go, I'm going to prepare
the way. I am that way. And the only way
you'll come through this way is when I come back to take you
the way. You see? Beloved, there is great hope
in this. There is great hope in this. And hope is not a wish. Hope in the context of believing.
Believing in God. Believing in Jesus Christ who
is God the Son. Believing that He is the way
is something that is given and granted by God. and then is something that is
cultivated and matured by God through His Word. Jesus is not just the way, He is also the truth and the life. And the emphasis here we see
is that Christ alone is doing all the work required to take
us to life with the Father. Friends, how many times have
you heard, let not your hearts be troubled? How many times have
you heard, I am the way and the truth and the life? And then
heard someone say to you or others, Now what you've got to do now,
because of this truth, is this, and that, and this, and that,
and this, and the list goes on. The first time that was offered
to the human ear was when Satan said to Eve, you shall not surely
die, for God knows you will be like Him, gaining all knowledge. seeing that it was good for food
and that it was good to make one wise, she ate of the fruit
and gave it to her husband who was with her and he ate of it
also. And immediately their eyes were
opened and they saw that they were naked and they hid themselves
for they were ashamed. You know what happens when we
stand before the Lord of judgment and we have come to the way through
another directive, other than Christ alone, we will be naked,
and we will be ashamed, and we will be condemned. But you, beloved,
will not be condemned, for Christ has borne our iniquities in Himself. And He is the truth. He does not speak lies. When
He says to Peter, Armin, Armin, it is so, it is so, it is true,
it is true. Amen for us is the end of it,
right? In the Lord, in the name of the
Lord Jesus, our Savior. Amen. That's like all the kids
like, yeah, we're free. Church is over. Woohoo! For Jesus, that's the start of
things. He is the amen. He is the truth. And He speaks
the Word of God. And this word is that he alone
will take, prepare and bring his people to life. He is the
life. And the emphasis of this is found
there in the latter part of verse six, no one. You see that? Who's included in that? Everyone. But him. I started over there. He himself
takes himself to the Father. No one comes to the Father except
through me. What's he saying? He's saying
that any iteration of man's ingenuity Any iteration of other spirituality,
any iteration of other religion, any iteration of other philosophy,
any iteration of other evangelism, other than Christ alone by grace,
is condemnation. Beloved, let me tell you something
pastorally. When I say that, I want you to understand the
emphasis of my love for you. Of my life given for you. For
the sake of teaching. and praying and building and
helping God's Word make sense by His mercy. Many of your loved ones are not
born again. Don't satisfy your soul thinking
that they are just because they have some sense of, hey, I believe
in Jesus. I prayed a prayer, I received
Christ, I was baptized, I've been in the church. That's not
okay. Jesus is the only way to the
Father. Faith in this reality is God-given,
God-granted, and it comes through the divine work of metanoia,
or change of disposition, which we so passionately call repentance,
which has nothing to do with sin whatsoever, in action, word,
deed, thought, or desire. It has everything to do with
God granting a clarity in the hope of Christ being the only
way. It is not faith. Faith comes
from it. Faith comes through hearing the
Word of Christ. It is the means through which
God brings faith to life. No one comes to the Father except
through me. Beloved, I could list cults,
and my list of cults is large. Pretty much anyone who would
call us a cult, by definition is a cult. Anyone who would call the doctrines
of grace cultish, by definition is a cult. For them not to believe
that which we believe, by definition is unbelief. We're not talking about nuances.
We're not talking about maturity. We're not talking about being
studied. We're not talking about ignorance. We're talking about
rejection of the divine truth of Christ. When he says, I am
the way. In this way. Alone, and people
go, nope, they are not born of God, they cannot be born of God.
It is impossible for them to be born of God. Hear that, beloved. And we live in a day now where
historically error in theology is just a table talk thing. And
I don't mean anything about the publishing of that. But, you
know, we sit around the table and talk about it. Kitchen talk. But it's not. It's life and death.
The doctrines of Christ are life and death. We believe in the
truth of Christ or we are dead in our sins. Unless you believe
that I am, you will perish in your sins, Jesus says to the
Pharisees. Then what hope do we have? We
have the hope of God, the son who says he is the way and he
has finished the work of redemption for his people and that we are
called to share the word of God. One of the most confusing things
that have ever happened in evangelism is all these tricks
and trinkets and things that we do and things that we say
and illustrations and tracks and cards and balloons and magic
tricks and all this other stuff. Thinking that any of that is
going to convert anyone to faith. Even the elect cannot be brought
to faith. If the gospel's not there, you're
saying, to what Christ shall they believe if it's not there?
You gotta believe in God, says all the world religions, says
all the cults, says all the false Christs of the world. You gotta believe in Jesus. Which
Jesus? The Jesus of man's creation or
the Jesus of self-revelation of the Word? The I am the way. Beloved, let not your hearts
be troubled. I sort of feel that in my spirit as Jesus tells the
disciples, one of you is going to betray me and then Peter,
Your passionate example is going to deny me. But don't be troubled. Believe in me. Believe in God. I am the way to prepare a place
for you. And you don't have to worry about
how to get there. I will come get you. I'll get
you. Christ will come get you. Christ's
Word will find you. Christ's truth will be your truth,
beloved. And if that is how you have come
to know the truth of Christ, by all means, back to the beginning,
be with Christ. Be in the Word of God with Christ. Be in the assembly with Christ's
body. Because He has done the work
of saving you. And you do know Him. If you know
Christ, you do know the Father. And if you have known Christ,
you would have known the Father. That's what he says there in
verse 7. Don't worry, Thomas. If you'd known the Father, if
you'd known me, you'd have known the Father, but you do know me.
So you do know the Father. And Thomas is going, what is
he talking about? Do you feel like that sometimes?
Do you feel like at the end of the teaching, you go, oh, what
now? Rest. Take a deep breath. Rest, rest in the finished work
of Christ. Trust in the finished work of
Christ. Let the word of God dwell in you richly. For the word of God is Christ.
Become flesh to dwell among us. And we have seen his glory, glory
as the only son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Let's pray. What a wonderful and beautiful
reality, Father.