WWUTT 937 I Go to Prepare a Place for You?

John 14:1-4 and the Comfort of Christ’s Return

Jesus said to his disciples, I go to prepare a place for you. And I am coming back to receive you to myself so that where I am, you may be also. This is wedding language, when we understand the text.

You're listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt .com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled

Thank you, Becky. We come to our study in the Gospel of John to chapter 14, a very popular verse here in this section that we're gonna be looking at today, verses one through seven. Jesus said to his disciples, 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, there you may be also.

And you know the way where I am 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, 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 you have seen him. Jesus saying to his own disciples, do not let your hearts be troubled. I started here by saying that we have a very popular verse in this section and you may have known which one I was referring to once I read it.

That would have been verse six, but we really have more than one very popular passage here in John 14. And all things considered, that's the way that the upper room discourse goes. There are many very famous things that Jesus has said to his disciples over the course of this final address before he is to be arrested and tried and put to death on a cross.

And we start in chapter 14 with him saying, let not your hearts be troubled. Do not be troubled. Jesus is about to go from them. He has just said that he is now to be glorified. After Judas had gone out, verse 31, Jesus said, now is the son of man glorified and God is glorified in him.

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. And then he went on to say to his disciples, little children, yet a little while I am with you, you will seek me.

And just as I said to the Jews, so now I say to you, where I am going, you cannot come. Peter is so insistent that he is gonna go with Jesus. He says, I would lay down my life for you. And Jesus refused him and said, no, before the rooster crows, you will have denied me three times.

So here Jesus is talking about leaving them. You're not gonna be able to go where I'm going. Peter says, I'd lay down my life for you. Jesus says, no, before this night is even over, you're gonna deny that you even knew me.

You'll deny it three times. So by this point, the disciples are really confused. One of us is gonna betray him. We don't know who that is. Which one of us is gonna betray Jesus? Jesus told John, it's the one that I dip this morsel of bread with and give it to him.

And of course that was Judas. Judas went out, he's gone. But the disciples didn't know why he was leaving. He was the guy that carried the money. So maybe he was going out to get some more stuff for Passover.

And now Jesus is saying, I'm gonna leave you. You are even going to deny me, where I'm going, you can't come. By this point, the disciples are really getting concerned here. What is going on? We don't understand any of this.

So Jesus gives them such peace and comfort when he says to them, let not your hearts be troubled. This is why Jesus came. This had been prophesied, that he was gonna be arrested and tried and put to death.

So don't let your hearts be troubled by this. Now, of course, we know that once Jesus was arrested, as the prophets had foretold, the shepherd was struck and the sheep scattered. So when Jesus was arrested, all of the disciples fled.

Peter denies Jesus. John alone seems to be the only one there at the cross. And he's there with Mary. The rest of the disciples have run away. And so when Jesus is saying here, let not your hearts be troubled, that obviously didn't happen, at least in these moments, in the next several hours of events that are going to transpire, the disciples were clearly very troubled.

But this is Jesus comforting his disciples for the future. Again, when we came into this upper room discourse, Jesus, when he was washing his disciples' feet, said, what I am doing for you, you don't understand it now, but soon you will understand it.

So even in these words that Jesus is giving them, they don't fully understand this now, but they will understand it later. They don't understand the crucifixion and the meaning of it, but they will understand it later.

They don't understand the resurrection from the dead, but they will understand it later. And Jesus departing from them and going into heaven. It's only at that point that he opens their minds to understand what it is that the scriptures have said.

And so at that moment that Jesus is leaving them, their hearts are not troubled, but instead what they are looking forward to is the fulfillment of all that Christ had promised concerning his heavenly kingdom.

The focus changes and they're doing kingdom work now. They're not just wandering around on the earth, waiting for Jesus to fulfill some sort of messianic expectation they have of overthrowing Rome and restoring Israel to the greatness that it once had under David and Solomon.

They're not looking for an earthly promise anymore. They're looking for the heavenly kingdom. That's what happens at the moment that Jesus ascends into heaven. Their hearts are not troubled by the fact that their Lord is not with them anymore, but they know that he is seated at the right hand of the father, and this brings them great joy.

And their anticipation now is for his return in his heavenly kingdom, which is gonna be ushered in. So Jesus says to them, in the midst of the work that he is gonna commission them to do, let not your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God? You are comforted that he is Lord? And he reigns over all? Then you must believe also in me. If you know the words that God has spoken to his prophets in the Old Testament, and you believe those words, you must believe my words.

That's essentially what Jesus is saying. My words are as much scripture as everything that you know and had heard read in the synagogues. Verse two, in my father's house, Jesus says, are many rooms. And he's explaining to them here where it is that he is going.

He says, I'm gonna leave you where I'm going. You cannot come. And he's explaining, here's what it is I'm gonna do. When I depart from you, when I go into heaven, I'm gonna be preparing a place for you.

In my father's house are many rooms. This sometimes gets translated mansions, but more accurately, it's 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.

This is wedding language that Jesus is using here. I'm gonna go prepare a place. I'm gonna come back and get you so that you can be where I am. This is what a husband did for his bride, his betrothed.

They had not yet consummated their marriage, but she was promised to him. And he would go and prepare a place for his bride. So he would go and make the house, the dwelling, set everything up, establish everything so that he's ready to raise his family there, make a living for himself, care for his wife and for his children.

That's what it is that the husband would go and do. And so that's what Jesus is saying to his disciples. He's about to go and do. I am going to prepare a place for you. And we know by what the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians and even what I read yesterday in Ephesians chapter five, we know that the church is the bride of Christ.

So all who are disciples of Jesus, all who are his followers, we are his bride. Like not that we're going to become his bride. We are his bride now. We're betrothed. We're promised for all intents and purposes, the church is the bride of Christ.

We are married to Christ. That relationship or that part of the marriage has not yet been consummated, which is when Jesus returns, the church has been purified, sanctified, and he receives as a bride adorned in white because we've been clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

I charge you to buy from me white garments, Jesus says in Revelation chapter three. So we've been clothed in white. We meet with Christ. We all gather together at the wedding feast of the lamb that is talked about in the book of Revelation.

We are Christ's bride now. We don't become the bride when we enter into glory with him. That's just when the union is consummated. But now we are already as betrothed and we are sealed for that promise.

Also in Ephesians, Ephesians chapter one, the Holy Spirit is the seal that is upon our hearts. So this is a binding contract and it is not going to be an old. Whom Christ has placed his seal on, we are his.

We can't break that seal, nobody else can remove that seal because that seal is not just some metaphorical thing that we conceptualize or think of or imagine, but it is actually given in the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.

Could you break something that God is upon? Absolutely not. Could you turn back what God has declared? No, for with his Holy Spirit that is upon us, dwelling within our hearts, we are sealed for that day of glory.

We are his, we are betrothed to Christ. We are his bride. You see the marriage that we have on earth today, you who are listening, you might be married, you might have a spouse, husbands and wives, a man and a wife together till death parts us.

This is meant to be an earthly picture of some heavenly promise that is given to us in Christ Jesus. That is the reason why God gave marriage. Marriage is the metaphor, not that Christ and his bride are the metaphor.

That's the reality. That is a greater spiritual reality and existence far beyond what we experience here on this earth. It's gonna be so much better than marriage that we have here on this earth. And marriage can be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

It was designed by God. It was granted to us by our father in heaven. It was created by Christ that he might give us a picture of the way that he loves his bride. And so we enjoy marriage here on this earth, that wonderful companionship, that relationship, the intimacy that exists between a husband and a wife.

There is no earthly relationship that can be closer than that. And then we enjoy the relationship that we have with our children, fathers and mothers together with their kids. This also being a picture of the way our heavenly father loves his own children who have been adopted into his family through the blood of Christ.

Even this is a metaphor, but what we will experience in heaven is gonna be so much better than this. As pleasurable and as wonderful as these things can be, heaven is gonna be so much better. Some of you may be in marriages that are actually really, really hard, and maybe you are married to somebody who is not a Christian.

That's pretty common for us here in Junction City, being so close to Fort Riley. It's a very common story that a woman will have gotten married to a man and they did that very, very quickly because he's about to be deployed.

She fell in love with this guy. He may not have even been a Christian or maybe he told her he was a Christian then it turned out he really wasn't. He just gave her a line. But all these things happen so quickly.

She marries the guy and then realizes that my husband isn't actually saved. And so we'll have a wife that'll end up coming to our church and she'll explain to us her situation. We'll be praying for the husband.

And there have been occasions in which the husband has come to church and he got saved and I've had the privilege of baptizing him. But more often than not, the case is that he is unsaved. He'll come with his wife because he knows that it pleases her, but he's not really interested in the church thing.

And sometimes they'll end up leaving and I've never really successfully been able to convince this man to become a Christian and be baptized and become a follower of Jesus Christ. So there are some times where marriages are really difficult, abusive spouses, spouses who are unfaithful, constant quarreling and bickering and fighting that exists in marriage.

That's because a marriage is made up of two people who are very sinful. But the marriage that we have with Christ is a perfect marriage. We are not sinless, but Jesus is. He is perfect. And he is the faithful groom, though we might be the faithless bride.

But as Paul said to Timothy, though we are faithless, he remains faithful and he cannot disown himself. We might play the part of the whore and we might disobey God and we might go our own way and chase after the passions of our flesh, but Christ loves his own and has laid his life down for us, dying for our sins.

So that as we understand the promise given in 1 John 1, 9, if we are faithful to ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And as we considered yesterday from Ephesians 5, washing us through the water of the word, we are sanctified through the word of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, cleansed, being prepared as his bride for that day when this union between us and the groom, the head of the church, Jesus Christ, that relationship will be consummated and we will be with Christ forever in glory.

It's there in glory that Jesus is preparing a place for his disciples and at the proper time, when the fullness of time had come, as Paul puts it in Galatians 4, verse four, I believe it is, when that time is fulfilled, Jesus will return and will receive us unto himself and we will go to be with him in that place that he has prepared for us forever.

Remember, groom and bride together in heaven. I go to prepare a place for you and my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again.

Jesus saying, let not your hearts be troubled. Why? Because you know that I am returning to you. I will not leave you as orphans. Jesus says in another place in this discourse, I will come to you. In the great commission that we have in Matthew chapter 28, sending his disciples into the world to make more disciples, to baptize, to teach all that I have commanded you, he says, and lo, I am with you always to the very end of the age.

These words of comfort that Jesus gives to his disciples and also gives to us, for he will pray for us even in this discourse coming up in John chapter 17, where he also says there, as he's praying to his father, sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth. So it's through this word that we are being sanctified. We are growing in holiness. We are being made more into the image of Christ. And that bride is being added to and growing in holiness and purity until the day of the Lord comes, when we will be united with Christ in perfection, in corruption, forever in glory.

Jesus says, if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way where I am going. Jesus says, you know the way where I am going, because he's the way, the truth and the life.

But I'm not gonna spoil that quite now. That's the passage that we will get to tomorrow, John 14, six. But in the meantime, let us be comforted and assured today that our Lord Christ is preparing a place for us to be with him forever in glory.

I hope that those words are a comfort for you today. No matter how difficult your life may be, know that these things are but passing moments. Whether you're struggling with something physically in your body or something emotionally that's going on, or maybe just the uncertainty of the future, take comfort and take heart in knowing that Christ is preparing a place for us and he will come back to receive us to himself and we will be with him forever in glory in a place where there will be no more pain or tears or struggles or anxiety or death.

None of these things will exist anymore. All of those things will have passed away and we will be with our Lord forever. So I pray that that is a comfort to you today, that Jesus is preparing a place for us in glory and he will come back again to judge his enemies, to put an end to all evil.

He is making all things new. Let us pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the promise that has been given to us in Christ and I pray that this guarantee of Christ's return, the seal that is upon us, that we have been promised and betrothed to our Savior, that these things will continue to be a peace upon our hearts and our minds today, that we will not be troubled by anything that is going on in this world.

We will not fall into despair in any of these things for we know it is our Lord Christ who is working all things together for good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And indeed we have been called.

The evidence that we have been called is that we believe and we are growing in sanctification and holiness in the image of our Lord Christ, anxiously awaiting that day for his return. And so we pray with the Apostle John as he does at the end of the book.

Lord Jesus, come quickly, put an end to this. May our desire be for heaven. Let us not be clinging so much to this world that we hate the idea of leaving it behind. Far be it from us to be so attached to this that we don't rejoice to look forward to that day where we would be with our Lord Christ.

We want the kingdom. Seek first the kingdom of God as Jesus instructed Matthew chapter six. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these other things that we need even here in this life will be added to us as well.

Help us to seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. That is our hope and our peace, that place with Christ forever in glory. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find out more online at www .tt .com.