Good morning. This morning's scripture reading will be Acts 1, 6 through 11, page 909 in the Bible in the chair in front of you. Again, that's Acts 1, 6 through 11, page 109 in your Bible. And as you're flipping pages, I'll fill the void of emptiness with a few words. As we read this scripture, We are recommended Jesus is speaking to his apostles, and this is the end of the 40 days Jesus spent on earth after his resurrection. So Acts 6, 11, verse 6. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes and said, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. And I invite you to open your Bibles with me to John chapter 13. John 13. If you're using one of the Pew Bibles, that's page 901. John chapter 13. We'll be studying chapter 14, one through seven, but to set the context, we'll begin reading in chapter 13. John chapter 13. And let's read verses 36 on into chapter 14, verse seven. So John 13, 36 through 14, seven. This is the word of God. Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterwards. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow till you have denied me three times. 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, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 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 am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and 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 I've seen him. May God give us ears to hear his word. As we conclude 2015 and embark on 2016, I'm curious this morning, what is it that's worrying you? Seriously, there's no sense hiding it. What is it that's worrying you? As you anticipate this new year and all that's coming, all that it brings with it, all that we're going to encounter, what keeps you awake at night? Perhaps you're worried about your finances. We have gas prices dropping, but the stock market's all over the place. Unemployment is down, but cost of living is up. The nation continues to go trillions of dollars into debt. And I know that some of us are kind of wondering, where am I going to get the money to pay the bills this year? Where am I going to get what I need to clothe the children and put food on the table? Maybe you're worried about your health or the health of a loved one. I know that several in our congregation have received disconcerting news this last year about their health or about somebody in their family that they love. And few things cause us to worry more than our physical health, am I right? When the doctor says, come in, we've got some test results we'd like to discuss with you, it's not the kind of news we want to hear. Perhaps you're worried about the state of our nation. Our nation has changed dramatically in the last decade, hasn't it? Not all for the good. We've got another election coming up this year, and the next president may have the ability to appoint up to four Supreme Court justices, which is a really big deal. That could be really good or it could be really bad. Some are claiming that this might be the most pivotal election in the history of our nation, and for some of us, that worries us. Possibly you're worried about militant Islam and the Islamic State. We've all seen the news reports of the beheadings. We've heard about the terrorist attacks in Paris and then that thing in San Bernardino. We've seen how ISIS just continues to grow and nobody seems to be interested in stopping them and many of us are afraid. Will militant Islam come here? Might we face a terrorist attack here in Muncie? Anybody ever thought that? As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, I ask you, what is it that worries you? What is it that weighs you down with care? What is it that causes your heart to be troubled? What is that? Well, whatever it is that's causing you to be anxious, the passage we'll be studying this morning is speaking directly to you. In this passage, John 14, one through seven, we're gonna see how Jesus gives to his worried, fretful disciples some strategies for fighting worry, attacking worry. And as we're gonna see, these strategies are all rooted in realities that are yet to come. Truth about heaven, truth about Jesus' return, fixing our minds on those in this life are the cure to the worry we face in this life. Now just to explain why we're talking about Jesus' return, for the last several years, we have concluded every year with a sermon intentionally on the second coming of Jesus. This is kind of an annual tradition around here. Right after Christmas, we always talk about Jesus' future return. Now you might wonder, why is that? Why in the world would we be talking about the second coming? Well, we do that for this purpose. It's to remind you again and again and again that the same baby who was born 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem is coming back. The same baby who is God in the flesh, who lived the perfect life of obedience we should have lived, who died a horrible death in our place on the cross, who rose again and then ascended to heaven, that same Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. And when he comes, he will once and for all deliver us from this present evil age and set everything right. So we're going to be talking about the second coming this morning, but before we do, I want to make a couple of quick clarifying comments on the purpose of this sermon, what I'm trying to do and what I'm not trying to do in this sermon. Now the fact that the Bible teaches that Jesus is coming again, that is undisputed by true Christians. You need to believe that only if you want to be a Christian, that Jesus is one day coming again to judge the living and the dead. However, what's not so agreed upon are the finer details of the sequence of events. We've talked about this before among good, Jesus-loving, Bible-believing Christians, including some in this very room right now. As small as we are today, I know that there is disagreement amongst us as to the finer details of the end times times table. Some of us disagree over whether or not the Antichrist will be revealed before or after Rapture, will the church experience any, most, all or none of the great tribulation, the timing, the nature of the millennial kingdom, the role of Israel in the future, all of these details and more, good Jesus-loving Bible-believing Christians disagree. And my concern is this, my concern is that many Christians get preoccupied with getting the fine details right and they lose sight of the fact that Jesus' return is primarily there to motivate us to holiness and to comfort us. Do you know that that's really why the second coming of Jesus is in the Bible, not so that we can identify who the little horn is, but so that we can be comforted by the fact that Jesus is coming again to rescue us from this present evil age and that that reality ought to motivate us now to holiness. That's what the second coming is all about. So what this sermon this morning is, it's not some sort of technical full-scale chronology of end times events. Now certainly I believe there is a coherent chronology and if you've attended our Wednesday night study in the book of Revelation you'll know what I believe there. That's just not what this is this morning. Instead what this is this morning is really meditation on truths in John 14 that we all should be able to affirm. Regardless of our beliefs on the tribulation, on the millennial kingdom, on the role of Israel, we should be able to rejoice together in the truth found here in John 14 about heaven and the second coming. Well, let's put the passage in context. That's where we always begin. And to make good sense of this passage and to really feel the effect of this passage, we'll spend a little bit of time putting it in context. Let's begin in verse 1. Jesus says there, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. Now you'll notice the first thing here is Jesus' exhortation not to be worried. Don't let your hearts be troubled. Don't be overcome with fear and anxiety. And if you ponder where John 14 falls in the overall storyline of the Book of John, the Gospel of John, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would be saying this right now. John 14 takes place just a few hours before Jesus' death. By this point in the book of John, Jesus has finished his three-year ministry of teaching, performing miracles. He's already eaten the Lord's Supper with his disciples. He's already seen Judas depart, intending on betraying Jesus. All of that has already taken place here. And again, in a few short hours, Jesus is going to be hanging on the cross, dying for our sins. And try, if you could, to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. Really imagine this, the man that you have devoted your entire life to for the last three years, I mean every single day for three years you've walked with him, talked with him, slept in the same room with him, and now he's telling you, I'm going to be leaving and you're not going to be able to follow me. You essentially have no other income, no other way to support yourself, you've abandoned your family, abandoned your friends, and now this guy that you thought was going to be the king of Israel is leaving. Can you understand how under those circumstances they would have troubled hearts? That they'd be fretful and worried? I can. Commentator Jay Adams nicely summarizes the context here when he writes this. After the revelations of the previous chapter, it's no wonder that we find Jesus' disciples troubled. One of them would betray Him. He would leave them and they would look for but be unable to find Him. He would lay down His life and Peter would deny Him. That was more than enough for them to be concerned about. But though problems seem to be mounting up, He urges them to remain peaceful. You've got to realize the disciples felt as if their entire world was falling apart, as if everything was crashing in on them. And yet, into the midst of that hopelessness, that helplessness, Jesus gives the disciples these strategies for fighting worry. And what you've got to realize is that if those strategies worked for the disciples, and in all that they were going to experience, certainly they'll work for us, with our far less significant worries. Another thing I want you to notice about the context here is how the cure to fighting worry is rooted in trust in Jesus. This is undeniable. The cure for worry is rooted in trusting Jesus. He says in verse one, believe in God, believe also in me. The way that you'll enable your hearts not to be troubled, the way that you'll fight that worry is by trusting in me. Just like you believed in God the Father and in his word, now believe me and in what I'm going to tell you. Now one last thing about the context here before we look at these specific strategies. I want you to understand that this passage is very much a display of the compassion of Jesus. The compassion of Jesus. Jesus knows the hearts of his disciples. He knows they are weak sinners. He knows that at this very moment they are worried and fretful and yet what does he do? He does not shame them. He does not condemn them. He does not castigate them for their weakness and slap them upside the head and say, come on guys, why be worried? No, he is a compassionate Savior. Like a loving shepherd, he speaks words of comfort to them. It's like Psalm 103, 13 says about the Lord. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he remembers our frame, he knows that we are dust. Again, realize that the words we're gonna be looking at this morning are words spoken by a compassionate savior to worried, fretful disciples. And this is the exact compassion we should anticipate whenever we draw near to Jesus in our time of need. Now keeping that context in mind, let's consider three specific strategies found in this passage for fighting worry. For fighting the fret, the anxiety, the trouble that weighs us down, three specific strategies. Let's begin. First, you can trust Jesus' words about heaven. We'll see this in verse two and following. You can trust Jesus' words about heaven. Now look at verse two. There our Lord says, in my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? Now in this verse, that phrase, my Father's house, that's obviously talking about where God currently is. In other places in the Bible, this is called heaven. That's why Jesus talks about our Father in heaven, our heavenly Father. Heaven is where God currently resides, and here it's described as my Father's house. Now you'll notice that it says, in my father's house are many rooms. Now I want to make a couple of comments on that. First, I realize that the old King James Version translates this as many mansions. And many of us probably memorized this in the King James. Raise your hand if you memorized John 14.2 in the King James. Yeah, most of us. Now, I want to be careful here because I love and respect the King James Version, and I've read it entirely myself a few times. the word mansions is not the best translation here. The reason for that is because the word mansions as it's used today does not mean what it meant back in 1611. I mean, when you hear the word mansions, what do you think? You probably think lifestyles of the rich and famous, you know, you think these amazing glitzy $2 billion homes, you know, that's what you think, right? Well, realize that the Greek word translated mansions here doesn't actually mean mansions in that sense. It means dwelling places. Really, apartments might be a good translation. It's just this idea that it's somewhere for you to live, to dwell. It's not necessarily all blinged out with gold and jewels, but a dwelling place, somewhere you can reside forever. The other thing I want you to consider when he says that there are many rooms in my father's house, realize the emphasis is not on the specific number. Okay, it's not like we should be sitting there thinking, okay, you know, am I going to get extras if there are ones left over? You know, if I'd be a really good boy, am I going to get, you know, three or four or five rooms? That's not the point at all. Instead, the point is that there's plenty of room in the Father's house for all who believe. You know, the Father's house, heaven, it's not only for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but there's ample room there for everybody who calls upon the name of the Lord. That's the emphasis. Now, when we expand from this passage and go into what the entire Bible says about heaven, it truly is remarkable. And you owe it to yourself to sometime in your Christian life, study carefully what the Bible teaches on heaven. Maybe get Randy Alcorn's book or maybe John MacArthur's book on heaven, both of which are in the church library. But the Bible's teaching on heaven is truly amazing and it's really helpful to know. For example, the Bible is clear that heaven is a place of complete freedom from sin and all of its consequences. And that's hard to imagine because so much of what we encounter has been tainted by sin. But just try to imagine if this world hadn't been tainted by sin. It's hard to imagine. Heaven's a place of immense happiness, freedom from all sadness. There's no sin in heaven, no sickness in heaven, no disease in heaven, no exhaustion in heaven, no death in heaven. Moreover, it's a place of freedom from temptation. So not only will you not sin, but you'll not even be tempted to sin by the world of flesh and the devil. Anybody looking forward to that? You'll fellowship in heaven with the believers from all time, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, Paul, and John, though not Ringo. Best of all, you'll fellowship with God himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All of this and so much more due to the death and the resurrection of Jesus. In Revelation 7.16, describing heaven, the Spirit says this, Now one real quick detail as an aside here. Something you'll notice about John 14 is the way in which heaven clearly is not simply a state of mind, but is an actual literal place. Now for most of you, if you've been coming here for any length of time, you think, wow, that's obvious. But we do need to make some of these points sometimes because they're not always as obvious to everybody. Heaven is not simply a state of mind, but an actual literal place. As real a place as China is this place called heaven. Sometimes you hear people describe heaven as sort of a dimension of mental consciousness or some sort of stuff like that. Those ideas do not come from the Bible at all. They come from Eastern religions, and we need to understand that very clearly in the Bible, heaven is a literal, real place where people really go. And you, if you are a Christian, should be asking yourself, if heaven is my final destination, if it's a real place where I'm gonna live forever, how should that be impacting my life now? How should I be living now in light of my final destination? Continuing on in verse 2, Jesus says, I go to prepare a place for you. As you can see, he's going to heaven for the purpose of getting everything ready. Now this is helpful because it gives us insight into understanding why Jesus would leave his disciples at this time. You know, you read the Gospel of John and you think, you know, this seems to be the disciples' time of need, the time when they most need Jesus. Why would he be leaving them now just when they need him most? Well, part of the reason he's leaving is to get everything ready. Part of the reason he's not staying around here on earth is to get things ready in heaven where we'll dwell with him forever. You know, I was kind of thinking about it this way. On Christmas morning, my mom used to get up about three, four hours before everybody else, and she'd get the turkey going, she'd get the pies baking, she'd get everything all ready so that when we got up, everything was prepared. Am I right? Probably some of your families were the same way. We need to imagine it that way when it comes to Jesus. He's gone to heaven not because he doesn't love us, but because he's preparing a place for us, a place in which we'll dwell forever. Now a question people sometimes have about this passage is how is Jesus preparing this place for us? Should we really imagine him up in heaven with a hammer and nails? Is that how we should imagine this? Ever wonder about this? Believe it or not, John 14 is actually a passage about which I've changed my mind significantly. I taught this passage once several years ago, and back then I gave it this kind of mystical interpretation. And I said back then that we shouldn't really imagine Jesus is actually creating anything, but by preparing a place, what that means, He's praying for us at the right hand of the throne of God. That's what I used to believe, and that's what I do. Any of you heard that interpretation? That Jesus actually isn't creating anything, he's praying us into heaven. Now, it's true that Jesus is interceding for us at the right hand of the throne of God. I just don't think that's what this passage means at all. I think we're supposed to imagine Jesus as actually preparing a place for us, a literal real place where we'll dwell forever. I think a key here is Revelation 21. You don't need to turn there, but listen carefully to Revelation 21. This is talking about a city called the New Jerusalem. In Revelation 21, we read this, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eye. And death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Now, you're probably familiar with that passage, but in that passage, John is describing this city, the city called the New Jerusalem. And in the distant future, that city literally descends out of heaven and becomes the capital of the new heavens and the new earth. And you'll notice in Revelation 21 that it says that the New Jerusalem has been prepared. Did you hear that as I read it? Revelation 21 too, and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down from heaven prepared as a bride. Now this is what's really important. That's the identical word that Jesus uses over in John 14 when he says, I am preparing a place for you. So here's what I've come to believe, and you can tell me at the door if you think this is good exegesis or not. But I think Jesus has gone to heaven and he's literally preparing a place for us there called the New Jerusalem. How he's doing that, we don't know. Is he swinging a hammer? Who knows? But somehow, probably using his creative word, he's preparing the New Jerusalem, which will then descend out of heaven and be our eternal dwelling place with God forever. That's at least the conclusion I've come to most recently. Like many times in my life, it was John MacArthur who helped me here. In his really good book, The Glory of Heaven, he writes this, New Jerusalem, the capital city of the eternal realm, descends right before John's eyes, in Revelation 21, out of the very realm of God, where it has already been prepared. Who prepared it? Evidently, this incredible heavenly city is precisely what our Lord spoke of when he told his disciples that he was going away to prepare a place for them. Now at the unveiling of the new heavens and new earth, the city is finally prepared and ready. Those of us who are Christians, we ought not to imagine our eternal destiny as sort of like angels floating around on clouds playing harps. No, our final destiny will be a literal city where we'll literally walk around in literal glorified bodies, fellowshipping with one another. That's the city I believe Jesus is preparing for us right now and that city is something we should eagerly look forward to and anticipate. Now a detail I want to emphasize here in John 14 is that the you there, realize that is not talking about all people without exception. Very clearly in context, Jesus is talking about you who believe, you who trust in me. So when he says, I go to prepare a place for you, don't imagine Jesus is saying that every last person who's ever walked the planet is going to heaven. As we're gonna see in verse six, that's not true at all. There's one way. So what this means is that at the end of the day, Jesus is there preparing a place for those who will believe. Now pause just for a minute and see if we can summarize a bit of what we've said. The first strategy to fighting worry, to fighting anxiety, is to trust Jesus' words about heaven. Jesus says, I know that I'm going to be killed in a few hours. I know that I'm going to be gone. I know that you're going to be scattered like sheep without a shepherd. And yet, here's what you must do to fight worry. Think on heaven. Think on the Father's house. Think on your eternal destiny there. Now at this point, some of you might be thinking, you know, this all is kind of nice and churchy talk, but I need something practical. If my finances are falling apart, if my health is going to pot, if my family's not happy, I need something practical. Why are you talking all this on heaven? Well, what I hope you see here from John 14 is that this is the practical truth that will help you, whatever your worry is. If you fix your mind on something in this world, something temporal, it too is corrupted by sin and it too will fall apart and decay just like everything else. So what we need to do is we need to get our minds out of this life and into something eternal. Into something that does not change, that does not pass away. That's the way to fight worry here and now. You see? I could illustrate this with the life of an old pastor named Richard Baxter. Richard Baxter, if you wanna see a picture of him, his portrait's hanging up in my office back there. But Richard Baxter's a pastor in his 30s, and he comes down with some terrible disease. We don't know what it was, but some sort of terrible disease, and he goes to the doctor, and the doctor says, there's no hope, sorry, go get your affairs in order, prepare to die. So that's what Richard Baxter does. He gets everything in order, and he just kinda waits for death to come. Laying in bed, laying in bed, waiting for death to come. Death doesn't come. So what does he start doing? He starts thinking on heaven. I mean, what else are you going to do? You're just laying in bed waiting to die. So he begins intentionally thinking on heaven, intentionally setting aside a good part of every day thinking about heaven. And he claims that that brought incredible joy to his heart, even as he laid there waiting for death. Well, to tell you the rest of the story, Richard Baxter did not die. The doctors were wrong. He ended up living several more decades. But here's what happened. He was so comforted by this activity of thinking on heaven that he continued to do it for the rest of his life. For the next several decades, he would devote a little bit of time every single day to thinking on heaven. And his counsel was that for all Christians, Devote a little bit of time every day to meditating on your eternal home. You know, just like you might set aside a little bit of time to pray, to read the Bible, set apart a little bit of time to thinking on heaven. That will bring you joy now and that will fight your worry in this life. I'm trying to encourage this kind of thinking within my family, to get us thinking on heaven and longing for heaven. Sometimes one of my kids will bring me something that's broken. You know, oftentimes it's an action figure or something like that. And I try to fix it. Sometimes I can, but often I can't. And when I can't, what I say is, wouldn't it be great to live in a world where nothing ever gets broken? Seriously, wouldn't it be amazing to live in a world where things don't decay, things don't fall apart, relationships don't end, you never have to say goodbye to anybody? Realize that's heaven. And the longings you have for that kind of world now are simply longings for heaven. Now, at this point, some of you might be sitting there thinking, you know, what about that old saying I've heard, he's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good? Raise your hand if you've heard that before. We've all heard that before. He's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good. I've gathered that oftentimes people use that to justify lack of church attendance, but is that true? Can somebody be so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good? Well, biblically speaking, that's not. Biblically speaking, it's actually impossible to be so heavenly-minded, you're no earthly good. And here's the reason why. If you're heavenly-minded, your grip on the things of this life is loose. You can give up your money, give up your possessions, give up your time to serve others because you know that your true home is in heaven. You're actually freed to love others if your hope is fixed on the Father's house. Therefore, if you're truly heavenly-minded, You'll be a better husband, a better wife, a better mother, a better child, a better employee. Don't buy that lie that he's too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. That's just not the way the Bible looks at it at all. This is our first strategy for fighting worry. Trust Jesus' words about heaven and think about life there often. Quickly, let me give you a second strategy for fighting worry. You can trust Jesus' words about his return. to calm your anxious hearts, trust Jesus' words about His return. Now look at verse 3. It says, 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 am going. Now a few things to point out to you quickly. First, notice the connection between Jesus going and His return. You see that? The connection between His going and His return. Just like He left, one day He's going to come back. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again." Now, like I said, the fact that Jesus will one day return to wrap up human history as we know it, this is something that all true Christians agree on. And this is one of the clearest doctrines in the entire Bible. Just to remind you of the passage Bud read for us earlier, in Acts 1.11 it says this, men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Christians have believed this doctrine going back all the way to the beginning. If you look at ancient church documents, something like the Apostles' Creed from the fourth century, even back then they viewed that as a fundamental. We as Christians believe that Jesus will come again. Now, as John 14 indicates, when Jesus comes again, that's when those Christians who are still living will be taken to be with him. Now, we know from other scriptures that some Christians will die before Jesus comes again. They go straight to heaven. No purgatory, no time in jail, nothing like that. Those who die now go straight to heaven, but those who are still alive when Jesus comes again are taken up to be with him. And like it says, there you will be with me also. Now this, interestingly, is the very same sequence we see in 1 Thessalonians 4.16. Listen to 1 Thessalonians 4.16. It says, The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Now something both John 14 and 1 Thessalonians 4 point out is how the ultimate joy of the return of Jesus is Jesus himself. You see that? The ultimate joy of the return of Jesus is Jesus himself. That's why he says, where I am you may be also. We should say the same thing about heaven. The greatest joy of heaven will not be the streets of gold. It will not be seeing your loved ones as much as we love them. It will be being in the presence of Jesus himself. Interestingly, this emphasis comes up so often in the Bible. The greatest gift God can give us is what? It's himself. You ever think about that? It's not. As much as, you know, I get headaches five, six times a week, and they're really awful frustrating, and I, you know, you wish you didn't have them, and I'm sure you have your own health problems and ailments. And as I ponder heaven, I really look forward to not getting headaches anymore. Anybody with me? And yet, I've got to remind myself that as great as it will be to be without headaches, even greater still will be seeing the face of the Savior who bled and died for me. That will be infinitely more joy-producing than not having headaches anymore. Psalm 27.4, it says, one thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. Revelation 21.3, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. Understand, brothers and sisters, that God is the greatest joy. God is the greatest treasure. God is the greatest pleasure. To see the smile of his face is the greatest experience possible. And this is what all of us who believe on Jesus will experience when he comes again. Now, if all of what I've just said is true, this prompts me to ask a convicting question. And I realize I've read this quote several times. If you're sitting there thinking, I've heard this quote before, you have. You've probably heard it three or four times if you come here regularly. But I ask it because it's quite a convicting thought. I find it quite convicting myself. But John Piper asks this. The critical question for our generation and for every generation is this. If you could have heaven with no sickness, with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ were not there? Think about that. Could you be satisfied with heaven? No headaches, lots of fun, lots of food, lots of relaxing, but no Jesus. I find that incredibly convicting. We need to eagerly anticipate the return of Jesus. More than that, we should be cultivating a longing, not only for Jesus' return to wrap everything up, but to be with Jesus himself. I think you'll know that if you've ever encountered older godly Christians they have this longing to depart from this life and to be with Christ. They just sort of smell like Philippians 1 where it says my longing is to depart and be with Christ. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I know that this was definitely Pat McLaughlin's testimony before she died. I remember visiting her, sometimes visiting her with Bud, and she would just say, you know, I'm so looking forward to heaven. You know, it's not that she didn't love her family, didn't love her husband, she sincerely did, but she had suffered so long from her cancer, and she had been a Christian for so long that she just was ready to go. I'm kind of like sitting in the Airport, waiting room, ready to take off. And for those of us who know the Bible, we recognize that is a good, godly thing, a sign of spiritual maturity. I'd encourage you to do what you can to cultivate a longing for Jesus to come again. Really, actively do this. Do what you can to cultivate this longing to see Jesus, to be with Jesus. One practical way to do this is through prayer. Pray regularly for Jesus to come back. We pray this in the Lord's Prayer when we say, your kingdom come. Realize that we pray many things when we pray that, but one of the things that we pray is for Jesus to come back, for the kingdom to come in its fullness. Ultimately, this longing to see Jesus indicates that your heart belongs to him and not to this earth, and that again is a strategy to fighting worry. So trust Jesus' words about his return. We've got one final worry-conquering strategy. trust Jesus' words about heaven. You can trust Jesus' words about his return, you can trust Jesus' words about heaven, but most importantly, you can trust Jesus. Look at verse 5, Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going, how can we know the way? Now, if you've read the Gospels before, you'll know that throughout Jesus' ministry, his disciples, they're often there almost as the comic relief. They hardly ever understand what's going on. They're oftentimes saying these goofy things. And right here, Thomas says the question that's on everybody's minds, Lord, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? Now before I sound like I'm criticizing the disciples too much, realize we'd be saying the exact same things if we were in their shoes. You know, Jesus' teaching was so counterintuitive, so world-changing that, I mean, it's hard to understand such things sometimes. And Thomas says, Lord, we don't get this. We don't even know where you're going. How in the world are we going to get there? But it's interesting that in verse 6, Jesus says, actually, you do know the way. You don't know it, but you do know it. You know the way to heaven. You know the way to the Father's house. You know the way to be ready for when I come again. You just don't realize you know it yet. And what's the way? Look at verse 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. You want to know the way to heaven? It's Jesus. You want to know the way to be ready for Jesus' return? It's Jesus trusting him. That is the only way to be ready for when either you die or Jesus comes again, whichever happens first. The Bible is clear that we've all been made in the image of God, and yet we've all sinned and rebelled against God. We've intentionally, flagrantly broken God's laws thousands of times. And God promises in His Word that those who rebel against Him, those who break His laws, those who defy Him, there will be a fearful expectation of judgment. God is a righteous judge, and don't think you can escape from that. And yet the Bible goes on to say that this God is a compassionate God, a gracious God, a merciful God. And this God, though He could have left us to judgment, He didn't. He made a way possible that sinners like you and me could be forgiven and reconciled to Him. God Himself, the Son of God, Jesus, comes to earth and is born as a little baby. That's Christmas. lives a perfect life of obedience, the life we should have lived, and then he dies on the cross in our place. We celebrate it and call it Good Friday. On the cross, he's bearing the judgment we deserve, the chastisement we deserve, the punishment for all of our sins is driven into Jesus on the cross. Three days later, God the Father raises him back from the dead. He ascends to heaven where he's currently preparing a place for us. And one day he will return to judge the living and the dead. And yet it's in between his ascension, going to heaven, and his return that there's this open window of opportunity. Come to me now, believe on me now, trust in me now, and be forgiven, be reconciled to your creator. And I would invite you this morning, if you have never trusted in Jesus like I've just described, do it now. Before you walk out those doors, trust in Jesus. Stop running from God. Stop trying to live life your own way. Trust in Jesus, who he is, all that he has done to make us right with God. Trust in Jesus. And as always, if any of you would like to discuss any of this further, would like somebody to pray with you, would like clarification on something I've said, please talk to me after the service. I'll be at the front door to greet people on the way out. But trust Jesus today. Now we can't conclude this passage without talking about verse 6. John 14, 6 has become one of the most controversial verses in the entire Bible. If you look at the way culture is going, more and more this verse is going to be pinpointed as divisive, as bigoted, as hateful. Prepare yourself for that. But a couple of things I want to say on John 14, 6. I want you to notice here both the wideness and the narrowness in coming to the Father. Both the wideness and the narrowness, both are here. First, when Jesus says He's the way, notice the wideness there. This is a way open to anyone who will believe. Not only to the rabbis, not only to the rich, not only to the powerful, not only to the wealthy, not only to the beautiful, but all who put their trust in Jesus. It is, in one sense, a wide open way, whosoever may come. Jesus said in John 6.35, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst, and whoever comes to me I shall never cast out. So realize as much as John 14.6 is maligned, there is a wideness there, whosoever may come to Jesus. And yet at the same time, there's no denying there is a narrowness there, an exclusivity. For what does Jesus say? I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Could Jesus be any clearer? I mean, imagine you had the job of putting some verse together that says there's only one way to heaven through Jesus. Could you come up with a way clearer, more emphatic than John 14 6? You can't. I know you realize that many today claim all religions are basically the same. Christianity is just one road of many. I saw a recent Pew Research survey that said 57% of professing evangelical Christians thought that many religions lead to heaven. And yet we've got to say that as popular as that idea is, as good as that might make us feel, Jesus will not allow that. It was Jesus who said in Matthew 11, 25, all things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. John 5.23, Jesus said, Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Please believe, brothers and sisters, you either worship God through Jesus or you don't worship Him at all. You either know God through Jesus or you do not know Him at all. There is salvation in no one else for there is no other name given under heaven whereby men must be saved in the name of the Lord Jesus." This is why it says in verse 7, if you had known me you would have known my father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. Do you see there's such a tight connection there between the father and the son that to know the one is to know the other. But if you don't know the one you don't know the other either. Well, to wrap up our time this morning, like I said at the beginning, we all worry about different things, don't we? We shouldn't, we hate the fact that we do, but we do, we worry. Might be our health, might be our finances, might be our country, might be international affairs, but just like Jesus' disciples, our hearts do get troubled and we do get weighed down with worry. And to such struggling people, Jesus' counsel is clear. Fix your minds on eternal truths. Get your minds out of this world and on things that are yet to come. Specifically, trust my words about heaven. I have gone to prepare an amazing place, the Father's house. That's where we'll dwell together forever. Think on that now to fight your worry. Trust Jesus' words about his return any day, and I'd love it if it were this afternoon. Jesus will come and take his people to be with him, and we'll be with him forever. Trust that now to fight your worry. And most importantly, to fight worry, we trust Jesus himself. We see him as the greatest joy, the greatest comfort, the greatest treasure. Trust Jesus. To conclude, I'll ask one last question. This is a question to my brothers and sisters. In light of all we've said this morning about the return of Jesus, Jesus coming again, setting all things right, here's my question. Are you prepared, my brothers and sisters, if Jesus were to come this afternoon? Seriously. Imagine you got this magic email from heaven and the magic email said, Jesus is coming this afternoon at four o'clock. Is there anything that you'd do to get ready for that? Anything come to mind right now? You know, maybe relationships you'd seek to reconcile, phone calls you'd make, return that watch you stole from your brother, something like that. Very seriously, if you knew that the Lord Jesus were coming this afternoon, what would you do to get ready? Let's pray together. God in heaven, thank you for your word and for the eternal truths it contains. Help us, Lord, to fix our minds on these, especially when we're worried and cast down with care. Help us, Lord, to fix our minds on that which is to come. We do praise you that the Lord Jesus is coming again, and we would pray that he would come this afternoon. Lord, we'd love to see him again, so please send the Lord Jesus back very soon. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.