Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel according to John 14, John chapter 14. I thought since we had Determined that we were going to use this passage as our memory verse that it would be a good thing for us to speak about it this morning our goal is mostly just to go through verses 1 through 6 and we may not even deal with all of that in its Particular detail, but there are a few things here that I would like for us to look at and see and given that we're going to be going over this and again and again and again on Sunday mornings and in our own time as we begin to try to memorize it. My hope is that there would be some things that we could glean from it that we would be thinking about as we do that. So before we begin, let's pray and then we'll get started. Father, you are good to us. We thank you for the time that you've given us to be together. We thank you for this passage, Lord. As we meditate on this, we are in truth meditating on our Lord Jesus who said these things. We know that it is Your desire to reveal Yourself to us, and so we pray that as we understand this better, as we think about it more, that our worship would increase, that our love for You would increase, and our desire to be more like our Lord Jesus would also increase. We recognize that we can't do that, so we are asking You to do that in us. And it's in Jesus' name that we ask it. Amen. John chapter 14, verse one, let's just read one through six to start with. 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 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? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. And no one comes to the father except through me. In this passage, particularly in the last verse, there are significant doctrinal ramifications that we'll get into. But before we deal with those things specifically, and before we get understanding out of those things, I want us to understand some of the heart and some of the purpose here. And we begin in verse one, just looking at the very first sentence that Jesus gives us, let not your hearts be troubled. let not your hearts be troubled. And I want to think about that from two aspects. The point of view of our Lord Jesus, and then the point of view of the disciples, the people that he was speaking to. Jesus, we see in this, let not your hearts be troubled, his great love for his people, first of all. He loves them. And they are the most unlovable, the most hard-headed, the people who can't seem to get anything. They don't pay attention. They're only interested in what they're interested in. And try as they might, even when they're doing their very best in order to be obedient and to do the things that he wants them to do, they tend to fail miserably. Sounds just like me. Just like us. But these guys, particular failures, this is the last week of Jesus' life. It is moving toward the last week of his life. And he is going to die, and he knows it. He knows it. And interestingly enough, if you turn back, you don't need to now, but if you turn back to John chapter 12, There is an interesting comparison here. Because in John chapter 12, it's about verse 25, 26, 27, in that area, Jesus says, and now my heart is troubled. For what shall I say? Father, deliver me from this hour. But it is for this hour that I came. His heart had been troubled. And then he ends that with, Lord, I want you to remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. He knows he's going to die. As we move forward in this week, we started with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, where everyone is worshiping him and saying Hosanna and throwing their palm branches and their coats down in front of him as he enters. into Jerusalem and it's not long after that that problems begin to start and these problems are centered around the fact that the reign of Jesus Christ as the Messiah was not the reign that these people wanted or expected. What they wanted was for a ruler to come in and to take complete control, to drive the Romans off, to establish an earthly kingdom right then and there. We see that expectation that the disciples had because they are constantly arguing amongst themselves about who will be the greatest in this kingdom and who will sit on Christ's right hand and on his left. They have no understanding of what Jesus is trying to do here. When it gets down toward this chapter, Peter himself, Jesus is telling them over and over again, I have to go away. I'm going away. Later he will talk to them about the promised Holy Spirit, but he says, I'm going away and they're going to kill me. And Peter says, no, you're not. And Jesus says, yes, I am. And Peter says, well, if nobody's going to come away, Lord, I'll go with you wherever I'll die for you. And Jesus says, before the cock crows three times, you'll deny me, Peter. And it wasn't just Peter, they all did. They have a misunderstanding of what Jesus is doing. And though he's been with them for three years and taught, and they've seen the miracles over and over again, and they've heard him speak, and they've been around him, even in those private times that aren't recorded for us, they saw his sinless nature, how he always did the will of the Father, how he always served people, and yet these guys don't get it. And they're constantly messing it up. Just like me. Just like you. And yet when we come now to the verse 14, they are in consternation. They still don't understand. But what they do understand is that Jesus is going to go away. And they don't want him to go away. And they are completely devastated, discombobulated. They don't get it. They don't want it to happen. And Jesus, rather than handle this in the way that I probably would, at least in terms of attitude, if not in my words, would be, I'm done with you people. I have my own stuff to worry about. You don't know what's coming even though I've told you. They are going to hang me on a cross. And I'm going to take the full weight of the wrath of God for sin. And you people still don't understand what it is that I'm telling you. And you still don't listen to me. And I'm just about up to here with you. You need to go over there for a little bit so that I can kind of... These same guys who Jesus said, come to the garden with me, pray with me. And he comes back, and they're asleep. And he does it again, and they're asleep. These are the same guys who do that. But Jesus responds to them, and this should be a great encouragement to you and I. In the midst of what he's about to do, in this last week of his life, what he says is, let not your heart be troubled. See, His love, His compassion, His concern for the well-being of His people is so great that even with what He is going to now face, His concern is, let not your hearts be troubled. He knows they're scared, and He knows they're afraid, and He knows they don't understand. He knows that they are and have done many questionable, silly things that they shouldn't have done. He knows all of these things and yet his chief concern for them is that they're upset and they don't know what their life is about. They've spent three years and they don't even know why they've spent it. They don't understand. And he says, let not their hearts be troubled. They needed that message. But of course, we must recognize that often in our own lives that we need this too. And Jesus loves them. He loves them and he doesn't want their hearts to be troubled. Now from their perspective, when they are looking at this, what we are going to see is more confusion. He tells us that he doesn't want our hearts to be troubled. but we don't understand anything he's doing. Part of their inability to understand what it was that he was doing was because they were too busy wanting him to do what they wanted him to do. That will get you in trouble. If you believe that God's action is going to be best when God does what it is that you want him to do, you will always misinterpret what God is actually doing. It's not that we can't ask God to do certain things, but ultimately he's sovereign over all things. He does what he wants to do. If I interpret what God should do through the lens of, or what he will do through the lens of what I want him to do, I'm going to set myself up for a significant amount of disappointment a lot of times. And in this case, it's happening, but Jesus loves them so much that he's telling them, don't let your hearts be troubled. They might not get this now, but they will later. And it is somewhat similar to the way that we approach Christianity as well. And it goes somewhat in cycles. Yes, over time we should mature in Christ and our faith should grow, but there will be times when it is lessened. There will be times when new struggles, new challenges, new problems come into place. And what we need is, let not your hearts be troubled. And then we need the simple reason that is given here as we move on into the text, which is this. You believe in God, believe also in me. You believe in God. These were Jews raised in the Jewish religion. They believed in God. Believe also in me. exercise faith. What does believe in me mean? You believe in God, so believe in me. Let me give you a hint. He's about to give them a piece of information about the kingdom of God and what's going to be prepared for them, what they're going to get. So oftentimes we present believing in Christ this way. You need to believe in this person, this thing, this idea, this philosophy that is outside yourself. And it's very similar to believing a lot of things that people believe, a belief in the tooth fairy. I know some of you are sad, not questioning it. Look, believing without substantial evidence in something just because you're told to is not helpful. What Jesus is saying to them when he says, believe in me, It means believe what I say. Believe in who I am as revealed by what I say and what I do. Believe in me as a person that has been revealed to you, not as an idea, not as a get out of hell free card, not as a talisman that is going to meet all of your temporal, financial, or relational needs, but believe in me for who I have revealed myself to be to you by what I have said to you. and he's going to say something else. And so it's incredibly important that we understand that. Because if not, what we'll do is we will believe in a Jesus who we create in our own heads, who will do the things that we would like him to do. It's very important for these guys and for us that we believe in the Jesus who has said the things that he's about to say. Because if we believe in him, and it's true, we put our faith on that rock, then what he is going to say will bring us much comfort. There is very little comfort to be derived from believing in a Jesus that you've basically created in your own head. Very little. But there is great comfort, and there is great strength, and there is great encouragement, and there is a lessening of a troubled heart for someone who believes in Christ as he has revealed himself in the word of God. So how does he reveal himself to these guys here? Why should they not be troubled? Well, he says, don't be troubled. Believe in me. Believe what I tell you. And here's what I'm going to tell you. He even backs it up. If it weren't so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? So he's saying, it's directly connected. I'm just going to do it one more time, even though it's repetitive. I said something to you. I said something to you. It's true. You don't need to have a troubled heart. He is basing who he is on what he says. And what he says is, you don't need to be troubled because I told you something. And when I say things, when Jesus says things, they're true. So I've never lied. I've never gone back on a promise. I've never told you anything that wasn't exactly true. Whether you believed me or you didn't, it was still true. I've never said anything to you that was false, misleading, deceptive, something that was going to be hurtful to you, something that was going to be harmful, something that was going to make you believe something that wasn't quite true about whatever situation or who I am. So he said, you guys have known me to tell you the truth, and I'm telling you the truth now. I wouldn't have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you if I were not doing just that. I am going to prepare a place for you. Verse 3. The implication, then, of if you accept that you're going to believe in me, and that means you're going to believe in what I say, and I'm not lied to you, so you're going to believe it, and I've said I'm going to prepare a place for you, then there's an implication. So he's bringing them through this. And again, I just want to stop here and just comment on the love and the grace and the compassion and the caring that he has for these people. Because he's leading them through a logical set of steps here. I don't want you to be upset. I don't want you to be troubled. I don't want you to be that way. Why? Because you need to believe in me. Believe in what I said. And I've said that I'm going to prepare a place for you. And the logical conclusion to I'm going to prepare a place for you is the next part of it. If I go, verse 3, and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself. Get this, Jesus is telling them because here's what their greatest concern is. He's going away. He's leaving. He's not going to be there any longer. So their biggest concern is, we're not going to get to be around Jesus anymore. We're not going to get to be around our Lord anymore. We've misunderstood entirely what he was going to do, but we know that we, it's even been revealed to us that he's the Messiah. We don't necessarily understand everything about that, but we certainly do know that we want to be around him. And now he's saying he's going away. We don't want him to go away. Well then what does he say? He says, well I told you I'm going to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am you may be also. In my father's house are many rooms. We skipped that. And now I think we'll put it in. Not many mansions. Different word. The idea is not that I'm going to create this opulent place made of gold and jewels and all of those things for you. There's going to be a room for you, my followers, those people who believe in me. There's going to be a place for you. I'm making a place for you. And the key The key element of the place that I'm making for you is that it is near me, as Jesus would say. That is the key place. Now, I talk about this sometimes in some other ways that we preach, but it is important and I'll bring it up here. Heaven is not heaven because there are streets of gold and gates of pearl. And it's not heaven because Somehow you believe that God is going to give you all of the fleshly desires that you had here. You don't get a cabin in the little meadow and some elk in the meadow because that's what you liked, or you don't get a bowling alley or a golf course. I'm not going to say indefinitely that some of those things aren't there, but they're not the point. And to say that they are there without any scriptural backing at all is kind of silly. The point of heaven is that Jesus will be there. The point of this exercise in giving these guys comfort was not so much that, well, Peter, you're going to get a big fishing lake where you're going to get to go fishing. And Matthew, you can go over here and you'll be able to conduct business because that's what you've always wanted to do because there'll be a place for that. Those things aren't the point. The thing that they were troubled about is that they weren't going to be able to be with Jesus anymore. And so the point of heaven for them was this. I'm going to have a place for you and you're going to get to be with me. You're going to get to be with me. Please, please understand and don't miss this. There's fundamental problems in the way that most people understand heaven. And we don't need to add to the confusion. I've heard it said, I think I've said it to you a number of times through the years. Most everybody, if you talk to them, wants to go to heaven, they just don't want God to be there when they get there. Because what they believe heaven will be, is something that will allow them to pursue all of the things that they were worshiping on earth, only they'll be able to worship them better there and participate with them better in that environment. That's not what's being offered. And if a person has not spent considerable parts of their lives by God's good grace, If they've not spent what life they've been given is a better way to say it, after God has saved them. Seeking to be with Jesus, seeking to know Him, seeking to honor Him, seeking to want to be around Him, seeking His priority, that the motivation of their heart would be to please Him. To think about what could I do that God would be pleased with? If that's not the motivation, and it's not perfect, it won't be perfect. But if it's not the motivation, if it's not what we're reaching toward, heaven won't be a very pleasant place for us. Because truth of the matter is, if you don't want to be with Jesus now, why would you want to be with him for eternity then? Because that's what he's promising. See that? That's what he's promising. But for us, for his disciples, for his brothers and sisters. He has said, you've wanted this thing all your life long. You've not wanted it perfectly. You've had to be disciplined sometimes when you didn't. Circumstances haven't gone the way that they should have always. You didn't act like you should have. You fumbled around and failed and misappropriated a lot of things. You didn't get it right. But you were headed in that way. And through my spirit, you matured. You became more like me. And the reward is going to be all of your folly, all of your sin, all of your misunderstanding, all of your finite inability to do these things. I'm going to take all that away. And you're going to get to be in my presence without anything getting in the way anymore. For the real believer in Jesus Christ, that is the best thing that you could possibly give anybody. That's what we want. And so we don't want to present heaven. We don't want to present the gospel to other people as like, well, it's this thing where you get what you want. What you get is Jesus. And if that's not enough, then I don't know what we're all doing sitting here this morning. That's what he promises them. So he says, I'm going to go and prepare a place for you. And I'm going to come again. I'm going to take you to myself. But where I am, you may be also. And then he throws this thing in in verse 4, which again throws them for a loop. You know the way to where I'm going. Have you ever assumed that someone should know something and they tell you you don't know it? And it is irritating. Like, I told you this. I wrote it down for you. Most of the time I think I do this to my wife, you told me that. I didn't hear that. He's told them, he's told them, he's told them, he's told them, he's told them, they don't understand. Just like us. But he says, you do know the way, I've told you. So he gets the question in verse five. Thomas said to him, Lord, We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? I appreciate Thomas. Because most of us, we just want to act around and sit around and say, I don't know what that guy's saying, but it looks more spiritual if I just be quiet and nod my head. Yeah. Yeah. God is good. Yeah. Thomas is all, And wait a minute, I have no idea where you're going and I have no idea how we're going to get there. We need to be like that. We need to be like that. Jesus answering the question gives us everything that we need to know. and I appreciate it because, and the Lord often does this, He condenses things. He will, in the scripture, He will give us sometimes long treatises on great truths that are pretty intricate and detailed, and there's a lot to learn about them. And we're thankful for those. But He also In the scripture, it gives us just little short things that are just packed with truth that we can hold on to. And that's part of the reason that we're memorizing this, is because it's a little package that has a whole lot in it. Thomas says he doesn't know. They all don't know. When Jesus answers him, he gives us this verse that we've all heard, know many of us have probably memorized at least this part of this, I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." So we'll take that just a little bit at a time, but we won't spend forever on it. You could. Jesus says, I'm the way, the method, the path to the Father. So everything that's been promised before, I prepared a place. In that place, you're going to get to be with me. Centers on being with Jesus. We covered that. So how do you get there? Center on being with Jesus. Remember what was said of the disciples in Acts. It was said of them. These men, it was obvious they've been with Jesus. And Jesus wasn't even on this earth anymore. But they could tell. They had been with Jesus. I'm the way. The truth, the big question anymore, has been forever, still is ultimately in people's mind, what is truth? What is truth? Things that we thought were a certain way our whole lives and are revealed to be not that way. We have more information now than we have ever had in the history of mankind in terms of our ability to access it, and probably less truth, at least in some areas. At least, if we put it this way, maybe it's not less truth, but maybe it's more access to untruths. I don't know. Jesus says that he is the truth. the veracity, the truthfulness of everything is measured through the character and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, through what he has said. And it is either true or it is not true. And you say, well, there are a lot of things, like I make this distinction, I compartmentalize between these spiritual, religious, churchy sorts of things over here, and then over here I live my regular life, and I know how to do certain things, and I have certain skill sets, And I kind of compartmentalize that off. The Christian life is not supposed to be that way. We do have the things that we know how to do and our skill sets and responsibilities and all those things that we're to do. And those things are not separate from our relationship with Christ. He owns all of those things. He informs all of those things. And so we give a simple example then to try to help you understand this, because the way and the truth is necessary in the Bible. Do we have instructions on how to change a tire? The answer would be no. No. No. Well, you just said that it's the truth and it's the way. So if there's not an instruction about how to change a tire, how will I know how to change a tire? Listen, don't look at it like that. There are a lot of things that you're going to have to do that the Bible doesn't cover. But I don't know about some of you, Maybe the actual mechanics of how to change a tire might not be in Scripture, but my attitude having to change that thing, that's in Scripture, is it not? My inconvenience of having to change it, my irritation at whatever happened that made it go flat, my ability to treat others around that situation in a way that they ought to be treated in that moment, that is certainly informed in Scripture. What else is informed about my tire changing? Don't be lazy, get it done, it's your job. What if I can't? Then ask somebody for help. Humble yourself and ask somebody about you. Wait, there's a lot about all of these things in scripture, is there not? But I don't want to belabor this. I just want to say that to make a distinction in between the holy and the common in this way, everything in the believer's life is considered holy. Everything in the believer's life is related to Christ. Don't compartmentalize things. We are in constant communion with Christ, whether we're working or whether we're eating or whether we're praying or whether we're engaging in church type things or anything else. That is what we need to be. This is not a one or two time thing a week. This is all of the time. This is who we are. This is how we live. How does that translate to our passage? If that is true to the degree that it is true, to the degree that God works that out within us, then we can see how he is the way and he is also the truth. Because who he is and what he has said informs everything that we do. Even our very lives, the entirety of it. But not just this one, the one to come. He is our life. Christ is our life. And some of you will look at that and say, well, yeah, but I fail. I don't do it like I should do it. I misunderstand. I out and out sin sometimes. I mess up. I don't do what I ought to do. So how can that be said of me? Let not your heart be troubled. Remember who he was talking to and when he was talking to them. It's not an excuse for bad behavior or lack of faith, but there is an understanding that there's going to be some of that. Hopefully less as time goes on, but after we meet new challenges and new struggles, we may find that there are certain areas in which we all of a sudden are not really mature, not nearly particularly as mature as we thought we were. And when we're at the most confused, and the most devastation and the most trouble of our heart, this is where we can come. And there are certain things that we can hang on to. And that's why we wanna learn this passage. And here are those things, and we're about done. Jesus is preparing a place for us so that we can be with him forever. And the way that we get to that place, is that we start here, we start now, and we experience as much of that as we can by recognizing that he is the way to that place. He is the truth and He provides the life that we need in order to establish that. And that life, those seeds that are being planted now that sometimes grow in fits and spurts and sometimes have to start over because we didn't get it and all those things, those things will bud out into eternal life, out into eternity forever. And we'll have eternal life with Him. We often, get hung up on stuff, don't we? It's the little stuff. We worry a lot about all kinds of things. And some of us have things in our lives that we could legitimately say, well, if somebody talking to us, you could say, well, you'd worry if you had that in your life, too. Maybe so. It's not a matter of being unwise. It's more a matter of this. When you recognize how weak and pitiful and how little control we have over anything. It is far better to put our lives and our hearts and our trust in the Lord Jesus, who has control over everything, who's the king of the universe, who knows the beginning from the end. If I can do that, my heart's not so troubled anymore. So this is the promise that we have to us. I want to end with the last sentence there in verse six, because without this, we do need to get this doctrinal point of this in, and it's just this, no one comes through the Father except through me. I saved this for last. Some people lead with this, and maybe that's appropriate, but I didn't feel like it was for this, but it's also not appropriate not to mention it. So, no one comes to the Father except through me. This is the doctrine of the exclusivity of Christ, and what it is teaching, what Christ is saying, is that if you don't come to Christ, in repentance and faith, you cannot be saved. You will not go to heaven. You cannot be with the Father. This is what Scripture teaches. So why is it important? Well, it's important first of all because many people, some of them even naming themselves as evangelical Christians, would like to argue that there are many ways in order to get to the Father, right? There are many ways in order to accomplish that. Working hard, being a good person, worshiping a false god, doing that in every way that you can, having more good deeds than bad deeds in your life, all of those things, right? And even in Christianity as well, we have people who would say, well, at one point in time in your life, did you ever pray a prayer and get wet and so now you're good, right? Jesus is not talking to those people. You may have been saved through praying a prayer. I don't disregard that. But if you did that and then spent the rest of your life not caring anything about what the Lord Jesus Christ said or not even looking at what he said, then probably nothing happened for you. If that's the kind of Christianity we're looking at, if that's the kind of religion that we're looking at, then these verses would make absolutely no sense to a person like that. You're promising me that I get to be with you forever? closest thing I know to being with you is to go be around all those stuffy church people and listen to a guy who can barely talk preach. And really, there are much better other things to do with my life than that. If that's the way you look at it, well, if reading that book that's hard to understand and that brings conviction to me and I don't get it some of the time and it would just be easier if I didn't, You'll go through stages like that. But if you go through your whole life like that, be concerned. Because that's not the person that Jesus is preparing a place for. And so he says, very specifically, that no one can come to the Father except through me. God set up a way for our sins to be dealt with and to give us true life in Christ. And that is through the substitutionary death on the cross and the resurrection. It is through repentance and faith where we give up on ourselves and we believe in Him. We give Him our lives. Anything less than that is not Christianity. It's just adding a few little nice things on to life. We want to look at this exclusivity. And of course, you know, it can be broader. People can say, well, you know, other religions, other things, as long as people are really sincere, God will accept that and they will get to come in. No, this is teaching. No, you come like this or you don't come at all. All roads don't lead to Rome in this case. So finally, to finish. We have much reason to not be troubled. And sometimes I think we have, we think in our minds that with everything that's going on, and some of you I know, there's a lot, right? There's a lot. And some of you I don't know even know all of it, but there's a lot. And you think, if anybody has a reason to have a problem and to be troubled and to be worried and to be upset, I have it. Here's what I want to say to you this morning, and I want to say it confidently, not based on my own understanding, but based on this text. Whatever it is, you have more reason to not be troubled than you have to be troubled. Because he's going away to prepare a place for you. And if he's going to prepare a place for you, then you'll get to be with him. And you know how to get there. You know how to get there. I have questions about what I know. That's OK. Read. Act on what you do know. Keep heading in that way. Seeking you'll find. Knocking the door will be open to you. Don't give up on that. And the way is Jesus. And the truth is Jesus. And the life is Jesus. And that's how you get there. And you'll ultimately be in his presence forever. And as Drew said earlier, all of these other things, we don't make light of them, but all of these other things will seem light and momentary in comparison with the love and compassion and the glory that we'll experience there. Let not your heart be troubled. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your goodness. And Lord Jesus, thank you for saying this to your disciples and by extension to us. We want to be more like you. We see how much you loved these followers of yours, even through one of the most stressful, heartbreaking times in your life. And yet you were concerned predominantly with them and their charts. Lord, make us like that. Make us concerned with thinking about how we can be with you now. And ultimately, we look forward to that time when we will be with you forever. And sing your precious name, we pray. Amen.