Now we're going to read from God's word. We're looking at John chapter 14. I'm going to start in chapter 13, just a few verses earlier, verse 36, and read through John 14, verse 14. Simon Peter said to Jesus, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake. Jesus answered him, will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. "'And if I go and prepare a place for you, "'I will come again and receive you to myself, "'that where I am, there you may be also. "'And where I go, you know, and the way you know.' "'Thomas said to him, "'Lord, we do not know where you are going, "'and how can we know the way?' "'Jesus said to him, "'I am the way, 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. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me The works that I do, he will do also, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father. And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it." This is the word of the Lord. Well, we're looking at part of John 14 tonight, and there's a bit of overlap in what we'll cover, so we're not covering everything in the passage that we've read. We'll touch on some of it next week instead. But what we have here is Jesus, he's about to leave his friends soon. And these are his friends, these are You could call him his 12 interns. These are his disciples, and they're going to find themselves very soon without their rabbi, their mentor. It's going to disappear, and his departure is not going to be ceremonious. It's not going to be dignified, like moving from one stage to the next stage. When Jesus departs, it's going to be abrupt. It's going to be violent. It's going to be terrifying. And so, in these very intimate chapters, John 13 through John 17, Jesus is preparing them. He's preparing his interns, his dear friends, for his imminent departure. Now, when you were a kid, did you ever worry about a departure in your family? Did you ever worry that your parents were breaking up. Maybe you saw them quarreling. Maybe you heard stories from your friends about other moms, other dads who divorced, and you started to get worried that your own mom, your own dad, are they gonna stay together? You worried that dad was going to leave. You worried that mom was going to leave. That's the feeling in the room for these people. Chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus says to them, little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. And so Jesus says, I'm going to go far away. I'm gonna go far away. And this is one of the major themes in this set of chapters. Maybe we could call, if this was a series that we were gonna give a title to, maybe we could call this series, When Jesus Feels Far Away. When Jesus feels like he's far away. Days are coming for these people when Jesus will feel very far away. Well, when is it that Jesus will feel far away? From our text today, Three things in our text for when Jesus will feel far away. First of all, when I fail, when I fail. Secondly, when I feel far from home, when I feel far from home. And then thirdly, when I can't see God. So when I fail, when I feel far from home, and when I can't see God. When will Jesus feel far away? The first thing, Jesus will feel far away when I fail. But when I fail, and this is what we're going to see, when I fail, he will comfort me. So we're looking at chapter 13, verse 36 through verse one of chapter 14. Verse 37, Peter, one of Jesus' closest friends, one of his most trusted coworkers, Peter swears, Jesus, I will stick with you even if I die. being loyal to you. And then in verse 38, Jesus says, you say you will die for me, in just a few hours, you're going to deny even knowing me. Jesus knows all things and Jesus knows Peter, in a matter of hours, will resolutely deny even knowing Jesus. Peter's going to run away with the rest of them when the temple police arrest Jesus. And so, Peter's gonna fail. He's gonna fail colossally. He's gonna have three chances. It's like three times at bat, at the plate, three pitches, and Peter is going to fail Jesus every time. Peter's gonna fail, and when he fails, it's not going to just be him that fails. he's going to then subsequently see Jesus, their rabbi, executed by the government, and then they'll see his body, his dead body, buried, and in his failure, Peter is going to feel like Jesus is far away. And so knowing what Peter's about to do, knowing that Peter's about to fail spectacularly, knowing what Peter will need to hear, what he's gonna need to remember at that point, Jesus is just, he's planting this into Peter's mind, planting this in his mind for him to remember when he fails. Verse one, this is what he plants into Peter's mind. Let not your heart be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. Jesus is saying, now I've just told you, Peter, I've just told you that you're about to sin publicly terribly, and I'm gonna be far away from you, I've also said that, but don't. Be troubled. Don't be rattled. You trust in God. Trust also in me. He's saying this. He's saying, when you sin, when you have this failure that's about to come up, when you sin, remember this, Peter, and turn back to me. God is going to forgive your great sin, and I will pay for your great sin. That's an expanded version of what Jesus is trying to put in Peter's mind. Now, Peter doesn't fully understand this. Jesus says, you don't understand this now, but you're going to remember. After this, remember. Peter doesn't fully understand this, but Jesus is preparing Peter so that after the cross and after Peter's sin, Peter will remember these words and there will be comfort when he remembers these words. Now, I've recently thought about, we're looking at Peter's fear, we're looking at Peter's cowardice. I've recently been thinking about my own fear, my own cowardice, times that I am afraid to say something. I'm afraid to say something that I ought to say, perhaps for me because I'm afraid of displeasing. the person that I really should say something to. Maybe I'm too fearful about being disliked if I say it. And so I don't speak up. Maybe I don't speak up when I'm with someone and they are trash-talking another person, and I don't speak up, even though I should, because I'm a coward. I've seen other people speak up. They'll be like, hey, we're not going to do this. We're not going to gossip. We're not going to trash-talk someone. We're not going to clown that person. But then I've got my own cowardice. I don't speak up when someone needs to hear maybe that they're wrong. I need to just stop the conversation and say, hey, that's not right. Hey, you shouldn't have done that. And then I'm a coward, so I miss the moment to speak, and I hate myself for the cowardly silence. You know, sometimes we sin and our sin will be the point where we feel like a failure. We sense, I failed there. I think about this time when I was in college and we were at the student Christian organization's summer retreat. And I remember there was a staff worker. It wasn't the staff worker for our school. It was multiple campuses getting together. But I remember this staff worker, this man, he was talking about an early point of, of failure in his Christian walk. He had recently, he was recounting when he had first become a Christian in college, and he'd been very zealous. He had been excited that Jesus saved him, that his sins were forgiven, and now he wanted to tell other people about it. He lived in a hall, or I can't remember if it was a hall or a house with other guys, and he had a Bible, and he had his Bible out, and he wanted to tell people about Jesus. And he was a young Christian, full of zeal, but young, young in the faith. And he tells a time where he was in the room, in their house with these other guys. They weren't all, I mean, I think he might have been the only Christian there. And I don't know if you, I've heard of magazines, back then there were magazines. We don't have magazines anymore, we have websites and phones. But anyways, in the house that he was at, someone had left a pornographic magazine on the table. And for him, he realized this is a temptation. And he sat there, it was there, he was all alone, and he wrestled with it, he resisted, and he gave in. He looked at the magazine and immediately he was just smitten with grief, with conviction of sin and a sense that I have failed. Like all this talk that I've made publicly with people about how I'm a Christian and how they need to look at the claims of Christianity. He says, I failed. I have failed. My sin, I failed. And for him, it was very much a Peter process. He says, I failed. But it had to come to the point where I saw later in the scriptures Jesus reinstates Peter, and Jesus completely restores him back to the work, back to his walk with Christ. But the sin, and our sin, it can leave us feeling like total failures. And we hate ourselves because of our sin, and maybe we find that we heap on ourselves shame and self-loathing. Maybe other people heap on us shame and self-loathing. And the experience is something like Romans 7, this sense of failure as a Christian. For I know, that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. What a wretched person I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? And so not only would Peter play the coward and deny his association with Jesus, this wasn't the only time Peter acted like a coward. Years later, Peter's cowardly behavior reared up again. In the letter to the Gentiles, another apostle, the apostle Paul tells about another late incident in the life of Peter, another late incident of cowardly sin in Peter's life. Peter at this point, He's a leader in the faith. He's highly positioned, and in the congregation, he's visiting one of the congregations in Antioch. Peter, who's a Jew, but he's a believer, Peter, who's a Jew, he sits at meals with everyone else in the congregation. He will sit with Jews who believe. He will sit with visitors. He will sit with people of other ethnicities in the congregation, the Gentiles. But then, The day comes, while he's still there with the Antioch believers, some highly respected other Jews from the capital, they come to visit the congregation at Antioch. And these visitors were not happy and were not comfortable sitting with people from other ethnic backgrounds. It would have been like the times of segregation where white people in church would not sit with black people or black people in church would not sit with white people. And Galatians 2 tells the story of how Peter again became a coward. He stops sitting with people of different races, different cultures. He denies that they are of the same race. And Peter's denial again, it's cowardly and it hurts people. To Peter, with his multiple counts of sin, And for you and for me, with whatever our repeat sins are, with our repeat offenses, Jesus says, he says, do not be troubled. Don't let your heart be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. Trust that if you believe, your repeat, repetitive sin, your sin today or tomorrow, trust that it doesn't make you, move you any further from God if you're a believer. You're in the same place with God. Confess, repent, but believe that you stand justified. You've already been justified by Jesus. He loved you, he saved you when you were far from God. He loved you and brought you near when you didn't deserve to be close, and that means you can't do anything that he hasn't already determined to cover. He loved us while. we were yet sinners. Now, sometimes when we sin, we make this mistake. It's understandable and it's common. We feel like we have to impose on ourselves time out. If I sin, I need to put myself into time out spiritually. You know, maybe I lusted, maybe I drank, maybe, and I got drunk, maybe I stole, maybe I blew up and I erupted with my temper, and now I have to stay away. Stay away from God, stay away from his people, stay away from his worship until I, I serve a sentence until I have done my time out. I've got to earn my place back. But Jesus says, he says, come now and let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. And so, when I fail, Jesus will comfort me, and Jesus will clean me. Now, next, Jesus is going away, and Jesus says, when this happens, you are going to feel far from home. You are gonna feel like you are far away from home. And here, this is in verses one through six. These men are troubled to hear that Jesus is leaving them. And Jesus is trying to prepare them for this new reality. He will no longer be physically present. They will no longer have his bodily presence with them. And they're gonna have to continue to do life, do ministry, without his bodily presence. But Jesus tells them, Don't let your hearts be troubled about this either. Don't let your heart be troubled when I go away. Now, why? Why? Verse two, Jesus says, in my Father's home, there are many rooms. That's a better translation than some of the older translations. In my Father's home, there are many rooms. In my Father's home, there are many suites, and I am going there to prepare one for you. a place for you. Jesus is saying, heaven is a big place, and I'm leaving you to prepare for your arrival, a place for each one of you with a reserved room in God's big house for each one of you. And to these people, the men in this room, Jesus brought them deep into his work And he talked about a kingdom that would not be of this world. He raised their hopes of having a permanent place in a permanent kingdom. And he taught them things. He showed them all kinds of things. And now Jesus, he's getting them all set up for this. He's raising their expectations. And Jesus says, I'm gonna leave. And you're gonna be very disturbed by the way I depart, the cross. But I don't want you to be troubled about it. prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you will also be. And so what he's speaking to is the deep sense of alienation that we all experience in this world. Even believers, this is normal, Even believers experience this sense of being disconnected, of not truly knowing people, even people in your own congregation, this sense of not being really known by people, even people in your own congregation, your own community, this community. And all of us, what he's touching on, what he's tapping into, we all wish for home, with a capital H. Even if you get, maybe you've been looking for a condo, an apartment, and you've been on a wait list, and there's finally an opening, and the housing comes through, and you get it, and you move in, you set it all up, you decorate it, you furnish it, and it's really perfect, and it's located in the perfect spot. But over time, what always invariably happens? The shine fades. Problems. creek, the drywall cracks, and you find that you're still longing for home. You know, at best in this fallen world, the best that we can experience is temporary home. That's the best we can experience. And it's just a shadow of true home. That home It's the home that, it's almost like it's in our ancestral, instinctive, core memory as human beings, the home that we once had, but we lost it when Adam sinned, in the garden home. Jesus warns us, even, he's warning people who know him, this, all this is not your final home. and you're gonna have days, you're gonna have times when you feel very far from me, and you're gonna feel like you just don't belong anywhere, like there's no place where you belong in this world. You know, when, I mean, you get a taste of this, when friends join the church and then friends leave the church, when someone puts a dent in your undented car, or when the company is downsizing, the organization is downsizing, and what was a really great job, now it becomes no job, when your child tests positive for what will turn into a lifelong burden. Hebrews 11 says, You eventually, as a believer especially, come to this point where you confess that we are all strangers, we are all exiles, we're foreigners on the earth, and we're seeking a home. We're seeking a homeland. I don't know what your American citizenship status is, but the truth is none of us have permanent resident status here. This world is not our home. And if Jesus for you feels far away, you know, you read your Bible, you pray, and you ponder, and you listen. And in spite of all of that, God seems a million miles away. Jesus says, I will come to you. And I want you to know why I'm so far away right now. He says, I'm preparing a place for you in the heavenly home where we will all Be together, I will come again and receive you into God's forever home. Can you picture a little bit, at least a little bit, can you even have a little hope in what Jesus is describing? All of us wanderers on this huge ball of dirt and stone, we've got no lasting place here. But Jesus will bring us home, and he's gonna bring us home into one house, into his house, into the Father's one house. And because it's the Father's house with many rooms, that means he wants to be with you. He wants to know you, and he wants you to know him. He wouldn't book you. into his own house unless he was looking forward to spending a million years and a million more years together with you. You know, in our society, there's a huge need for hospitality, the traditional historic Christian practice of hospitality. inviting others into our own living spaces, whether it's a big one or whether it's a small one. There are people out there who are single. There are people out there who are widowed. There are people out there who are married, but they're incredibly lonely. There are people from other countries, far from their own homes, and they have long hours alone. None of us do well spending hours in the same rooms, solitary. And when Jesus says, the Father has a place in his home for you, what this tells us is that heaven, heaven is a house of hospitality, of being wanted in his home. Can you make a place in your house for others? Well, for now, Jesus says, I will not be with you in bodily form, for now. It's gonna be different, he tells these men. But then in verse five, Thomas asks, well, where is this place? What are you talking about? And how can we know the way to get there? to the Father's house. How can we know the way to the Father's house? Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Now, if you're someone visiting with us and you're someone who's exploring Christianity, we welcome you here. I hope that you keep exploring Christianity among us. Two things to see about Jesus here as we're looking at this. First of all, look at his exclusivity. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus says, no other way. No other teaching, no other way to God except me. Now, this is not my interpretation of it. I didn't write this, Jesus said this. And so Jesus in some ways is just throwing up what is in this day and age, it's a bit of an offensive barrier. But he said it, it's plain. The second thing here though that we see is Jesus is not teaching a religion. Unlike the major world religions, Jesus is not teaching a religion, Jesus is offering a relationship. The language all through here and the rest of these chapters, it's incredibly relational. It's not about propositions. It's not about policies. He is talking about, from all these different angles, a relationship, a father, a home where he wants you to dwell with him, coming into your heart and residing with you and always being with you, an intimacy. He's offering a relationship. A religion, on the other hand, which is different from a relationship, says, you gotta make this pilgrimage. You've gotta learn this body of information. You've gotta donate your money. You need to volunteer hours. You need to keep yourself from bad behavior. You need to be doing good behavior. Obey, and that is how you can come to God. But Jesus says, no one gets to the Father that way. No one comes to the Father except through me. You can't get to heaven by just learning Reformed theology. You can't get to God just by keeping the Sabbath holy. You will not obtain a place in the Father's house by doing good in this world. Jesus says, I am the way. There's nothing you can do. He says, you've gotta trust me to do what needs to be done. You've gotta trust that I cleared your charge statements of all of your failures and all of your sins. You've gotta trust that I have done right everything that you should have done. Trust that I have given everything for you. Trust that I have given everything to you. Now, how can you tell when you really get this? Because this is something that we gotta go over and over, week in and week out here. How can you tell when it's really still lodged there, that it hasn't kind of drifted and floated free in your thinking and in your heart? Well, here's one way. You can tell that you really get this when you sin. You're gonna sin. I'm going to sin, you're going to sin. But you can tell that you really get this when you sin and you care that you sin, it hurts you that you sin, but instead of beating yourself up for hours or for days, you sin, it hurts you, but you can say to yourself, I am forgiven. It's too good to be true. I'm forgiven. And you can tell that you really get this not only when you succeed sin, but also when you succeed. You can tell you get this, you really get this and understand it when you succeed. When everyone is looking at you and slapping you on the back and saying, you are such a good example. Your life is so pulled together. You are a pillar in this community. We couldn't have got here without your presence. And when the praise is ringing in your ears, and maybe you're even replaying it in your head, this is how you can tell you really get it. You think to yourself, I'm never actually going to be enough, but Jesus did all things well, and God approves of me as if I actually did all things well. And if you're living in that identity, when I feel far from home, Jesus is going to come and bring me home and God will welcome me home, then you're still living in that place where we all need to be. Now, the third and the last thing, when you can't see God, when you feel like you've lost sight of God, where is he? It's like you're traveling in the path, but the path is foggy, the light is low, It just feels like God has gotten ahead of you, and you're like, you can't tell where he is. It's been a long time since I've sensed that I can see the Lord. Jesus says, I'm going away, and at times, not only will you not see me with your eyes, you're gonna feel like you can't see God. When Jesus feels far away, when you can't see God, this is what the passage tells us. Jesus will show me the Father. This is verses seven through 11. Now, this passage, like a lot of John's writings, there's a density. There's a density which you could spend hours trying to understand and hours exploring. And it's likely because some of this is just, it's an abbreviation of the full teaching that Jesus gave that night. But the clear overriding message here is this. Jesus says, when I am far away from you, you're going to wish that you could see God. And we're living in that right now. Jesus physically is not present with us. And we have these times, maybe long, long stretches of time, where we wish we could see God. Verse eight, Philip says this, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. That will fulfill our souls. To see the Father, to see God, all people, You know, if you can just slow down, put your phone in a different room and just still yourself and have an inner stillness, just quiet your thoughts, reflective assessment, you can find a yearning, a spiritual hunger to see God. And Jesus says, even when I feel far away, and you can't see God, but you want to see God, you're hungry to know God, to see him. Jesus says, when you're at that moment, see me. If you've seen Jesus, he says, if you've seen me, you will, you have seen the Father. See, that's because the teaching of Jesus is Jesus is a messenger from God, but he's not merely a messenger from God. Jesus is an intermediary from God, but he's not merely an intermediary between us and God. Jesus here, he begins to uncover this sublime Trinitarian intimacy and the unity of the persons of the Godhead and When you, because of all that that's going on, when you see Jesus, you see the Father. He says here, Jesus is in the Father, and the Father is in Jesus. And the actions of Jesus, they're so united. The actions of Jesus are the actions of the Father. And the words of Jesus are the words of the Father. And so that's why you've got this kind of language and position here where the worship that the Father deserves, the faith that should only be given to the Father, it's the worship and the faith that are also due to Jesus. And that's why he can say something like, you believe in God, you trust in God, believe also, trust also in me, like on par and in the same way. And it's like two notes played together, but both going. to the same, to the Father and to the Son. And so in the gradually unfolding of the teaching from heaven, we learn that we know God through knowing Jesus. And so here in the text, we see this big difference between seeing Jesus and knowing Jesus. Verse nine, Philip says, show us the Father. And then Jesus replies, I already have. Have you been here so long and yet you haven't known what you are seeing, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. And what this is telling us, and it's, he's saying this to Philip, I've been with you for three years. It is possible to spend three years around Jesus but never actually know Jesus. It's possible to read the Bible cover to cover and never personally know Jesus. It's possible to learn all the doctrines of the faith and still not know Jesus in this intensely spiritual, personal relationship. In verse 11 to Philip, Jesus says, trust that I am in the Father. Trust that Jesus is in the Father and trust that the Father is in Jesus. I mean, this is very abstract, but Jesus is being also plainly concrete. Trust that your desire to know the Father, to get to the Father, trust that your desire to see the Father will become a reality when you seek Jesus, when you ask Jesus, when you trust Jesus, and when you love Jesus. In my own life, I grew up, with parents who believed, and I grew up going to church, and I learned memory verses, and there came a time in my mid-teen years, there came a time when something was going on in me. The Lord was working something in me, and I was, if I would sit and still myself and look from the inside, look towards the Lord, I found that my heart was filled with an ache. to know God, to know him really in this sense that we're looking at. And I had believed for as long as I could remember, I had believed that he was real, but now something was happening and I wanted him. I wanted to be in his presence, to know him. And that was a season, that season in my life as a mid to late teen, the season was a time of asking Him. It was a time of confessing to Him and even to others, confessing my counter desires. It was a time of just waiting, spending time waiting on Him, taking time away from things that might interrupt, blocking out time. It was a time of being alone, making solitude to pray, to read, to seek him. Sometimes I would be in a place where they would help set up a structure and they would call it a retreat of silence. And they said, hey, we're all here for this week, this weekend, go take two or three hours just by yourself. It's a retreat of silence between you and the Lord to look for him in prayer, to listen for him in the Bible. And when I did that in those times, he came to me. Jesus promises those who seek me will find me. This is a promise for you as well. Jeremiah 29, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Do you know God? Now I know for some of us, you feel like I don't, I've never felt like I know him. I hear all these people talking about how the Lord showed them this, the Lord encouraged them this way. I've never experienced that. Now, that is a great, honest, frank self-assessment. You discover that you've never sensed that you knew God. Well, don't be content just to leave it there. I encourage you to seek him. I don't know how long it'll take. And I'm not saying if you would just go out and spend three hours with your Bible and nature and no interruptions, then it will happen. I'm not saying that. But I do know that if you seek him, and you find that you've got an ache in your heart because you don't feel like you've ever met him, and if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul, like it says in Deuteronomy 4, if you seek him diligently, the Proverbs promise, you will find him. He will come to you. The human agony is all of these things. We fail, we long to be home, and we can't see God. Part of the reason that this is so painful is because at the beginning, as human beings at the beginning, we once possessed all of those things. Now, we fail, but it wasn't always so. Originally, we had not failed. but then we rebelled and we were cast out. And in the beginning, I mean, now we're not at home, but it wasn't always that way. We once were happy at home, but then we fell into our own unrighteousness and we sinned and we were cast out. And now we feel like we can't see God, we can't see the face of God, but it wasn't always that way. Once we daily enjoyed the face of our father, but then we were cast out of his presence from Eden. We lived in the center of the garden, but we rejected God and God had to cast us out. But I'm here to tell you that Jesus is the way back in. When we sinned and we were cast out of the garden, we lost sight of the face of God. But in the gospel, Jesus, who was always before the face of God, the Father, and Jesus in the gospel lost the face of the Father. And he was doing that to make us pure in heart so that we could see God. And in Eden, You know, now we live in this known experience of, I failed, I failed. But in the garden, Adam hadn't failed. Adam knew no sin, but Adam chose sin, and then we lost closeness to God. But in the gospel, Jesus knew no sin. but he became sin and was cast out of the presence of God so that we could draw near and know the righteousness of God and become inheritors with God. And then in Eden, Adam failed and he was cast out of home. That's when we lost our home. But in the gospel, Jesus is the one who left the only home he had ever known in order to make a way for us to move into God's home forever. Have you failed? Are you far from God? Are you longing for home? Jesus is the way. Let's pray. Lord, you've tapped into some of the things that cause deep ache and longing in our hearts, but you have also raised our hopes and you've promised that Jesus is the way, and if we would trust in him and seek him, he will come to us, he will show us the face of the Father, and he will take us home. And so we pray, Lord, today that we would find home, we would find your face, we would find comfort when we fail in Jesus. We ask in his name, amen.