The Way to the Father's House | Sermon 11/19/2023

If you would please turn with me and your Bibles to John chapter 14.

We're in chapter 14 now. We're going to be in verses 1 through 6 today.

John 14, 1 through 6. The title of the sermon is,

The Way to the Father's House. The Way to the Father's House.

So starting in verse 1 of the Gospel according to John chapter 14. Hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

God. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God.

Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. 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 also be.

And you know the way where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me. Thus ends the reading of God's magnificent word.

Let's praise the church. God, I ask that you would show us today, reveal to us, dear

Lord, the meaning of this text and how powerful it is, the promises that are here for us, but also,

Lord, the power in these words, the exclusivity of these words, that the only way to you is through your

Son. And so, Lord, this goes against, this statement of Jesus goes against many, many, many, many religious beliefs and so -called faiths,

Lord. And so, we take this seriously, God. Help us to understand your word today.

Edify your people by your Spirit and speak through me, Lord. I ask this in Jesus' name,

Amen. Church, there is no doubt that we are living in troubling times.

Many are troubled by the times we are living in as well. I think there is almost a sort of solace in knowing that each generation that preceded us, preceded us, felt similar things as us, that things were troubling.

But to many, there is an uncertainty to life. What does the future hold?

Where are we going? How do we get there? I remember as a young boy,

I always wanted to know where we were going. I'd ask my mom or dad, where are we going now?

You know, I had to know. I didn't want any surprises. I don't know if your children do that too. Where are we going? I wanted to know what to expect.

But even then, I didn't really care how I got there. I figured, I trusted my mom and dad that they would get us there, right?

I do remember, however, there were times that we were lost. And my parents couldn't hide it sometimes.

And when they were 10 % worried, I was 100 % worried, right?

So no one likes feeling lost. No one. We live in a world where there is an illusion of being found and knowing where you're going.

People think they know right where they stand and where they're going to go, but they, they don't.

Many are lost. The Bible speaks in the lives of men and women about eternal destinies.

One of two destinies that await every single person that has ever been created.

We don't know where we will be next week, but we can know based on this word where we will be after this life.

But what is the map? What is the way? How do we get there? How do we get to heaven?

How do we stop feeling lost? Let's define the answers in our text today, okay?

So at this point in the gospel, Jesus has now told the apostles twice that He's leaving them.

He's leaving them and they can't join Him now. Not yet. Every single man's head must have gone down.

I'm leaving and you can't come with me yet. And their countenances had fallen.

Not only will the Messiah, their Master, whom they have come to love and follow for three years, leave them, but one of the men whom they consider kind of a leader in the group, they just learned will deny

Jesus three times. So not only is Jesus leaving, but then the next guy who seems kind of important in the group, this

Apostle Peter, is also going to deny Jesus. And so they look at each other and it's like, well what will we do then?

Where are we going to go? Despair washed over the apostles here.

Things seem like they're about to fall apart very shortly. The shepherd will be struck and the sheep will scatter.

And so as a wonderfully loving and tender -hearted Savior, He will reassure them that things are not as bad as they seem.

There is still hope. There is still hope. Verse 1, do not let your heart be troubled.

Believe in God. Believe also in Me. And it truly is amazing that when

Jesus ought to receive emotional and spiritual support for what He's about to go through,

He's going to expend energy giving those things and instructing and comforting others.

And He gives these three exhortations in the imperative form, that is the command form in the Greek. Do not be troubled.

Do not be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me.

Now what I find incredible is that this demonstrates a transfer of a troubled heart.

Jesus was troubled at the sight of people weeping for the deceased Lazarus.

He was troubled after the Greeks came and sought Him out. And He knew that His hour was about to come.

And at the revealing of His betrayer before the apostles, He was troubled again.

Each time Jesus has been troubled, they have been one step closer to Him facing the cross, to Him facing death.

You and I never need to be troubled for our eternal destinies or if we will see

Jesus again or anything like that because He was troubled for us. He was troubled so that you don't need to be troubled.

Isaiah 53 demonstrates this transfer. It says that He was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief.

Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried.

Jesus became well acquainted with grief. He didn't just recognize grief. He was well acquainted with grief.

The Hebrew demonstrates that it was realized in His person. He experienced grief in Himself.

But it is not without purpose. He did this to bear ours upon Himself.

He took what troubles you and what troubles me. It's personal.

It's your troubles. It's your grief. And He placed them on Himself. The Hebrew gives us an image of a pack animal.

That's what this word is often used for. A pack animal is carrying an incredible load.

A load that is crippling to this animal. Its legs are shaking. Its countenance is dropping.

It's losing energy. It's weak. It can't go on any further. And then someone comes to this pack animal and relieves it of all of its burden.

All of its load has come off of it. Not a single piece remains on this animal.

The entire load was taken. It's all dealt with. But it can't simply be thrown off.

Do you get that? Because when you're traveling and you have a pack animal and they're about to die and their legs are shaking and they're weak, you can't just throw off the pack.

You can't just throw it on the ground because you're traveling and you need the pack. But in the case of sin and us carrying the load of being troubled and so many different things that that might symbolize, someone has to bear it.

You can't just fall off onto the ground off the pack animal. Someone bears the load. It has to be held.

It has to be carried. Our griefs He bore. Our sorrows

He carried. That's what it says. He tells the apostles and He tells you and me, you can't carry the trouble.

You can't. You can't carry the trouble. You can't carry the load. Jesus says,

I have to bear it. I have to hold it. And so that begs the question, what are you still trying to carry today?

What are you still trying to hold on your back today? What are you not surrendering to Jesus Christ?

Only He can carry it. You know, it's weird how pain works, different wounds that you've had.

It's been now over a year since I got the cancer cut out of my arm up here and the whole scar has healed up completely.

But it's so strange. I get these phantom pains. All of a sudden where the cancer was cut out,

I get this incredible shooting pain where the scar is. It's so weird. And you know, that is much like other things we face.

Things that have healed completely. But still, for some of us, we get these phantom pains.

Jesus took it, but sometimes it feels like we're still carrying it. Like it's still kind of there.

You get what I'm saying? We constantly need to remind ourselves that it's gone.

We've experienced healing. You know, back to the whole animal illustration. An animal that has been a beast of burden all its life, and it's been pulling plows, and it's been pulling wagons, and it's been laboring for so long.

An animal like that. It's very interesting. When that kind of animal has been retired, they might not even slaughter it because it's so pitiful.

And it stands there and they feed it until it dies. But what's interesting is this animal has been so conditioned by its work that when one of the masters or the ranch hands comes out, the animal sees that man and it starts trotting.

It starts pulling something that's not even there. It starts working. It starts laboring.

The old master of sin was cruel to us. Very cruel. Very cruel.

But the new master took the labor that we could never perform. He took the burden that we could never carry.

He took the punishment we could never survive. He took the trouble and the sorrow we had no way of dealing with.

For these reasons, he can say to us, do not let your heart be troubled.

And you can quiet your soul. You can have your soul quiet. We can rest.

We can have peace when he says something like this. And so Jesus bases that exhortation to not be troubled to his disciples on his

Father and on himself. He says, believe in God. Believe also in me. And this undoubtedly links

Jesus with the Father in a unique way. But it also tells us that when we are troubled and we can't see rightly and we are in full -on despair, we are not then believing correctly.

We're not believing correctly. You see that sort of thing happen in the Gospels. It's recorded five times.

Jesus tells them, you of little faith. He tells the apostles. He says, why do you doubt?

Several times on the road to Emmaus, he sees the unbelief and hopelessness of two disciples who were disillusioned after Christ's death.

They don't know these two men are walking back on the road to Emmaus. They think

Jesus is dead in the grave. It's over. The movement is gone. And they don't recognize it.

The text says they don't recognize that Jesus is right there talking with them. Their eyes are blinded to it.

And Jesus sees their despair because they don't realize that part of the prophecy of the

Messiah was that he would rise again. That he would live forever. And so in that moment he tells these two disciples, oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken.

This shows us that being troubled is related often to our belief in God.

And I'm not saying that if we're troubled, we don't believe in him and our salvation is gone and everything is ruined.

That's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is when we are troubled, we are not actively believing.

Or maybe we're not actively exercising faith. We can look at Jesus's words and think, come on man.

These apostles are full of fear. They're full of confusion. And you're simply going to say the words, don't be troubled.

It's like isn't there more to it? Shouldn't there be a speech? I know me. I ramble so much. I would have told them over and over again how things are going to work out.

That's what I do. But he says don't be troubled. Believe in God. Believe in me.

And that's enough. That's enough. I've said this a few times.

Every wrong desire or action is accompanied with a wrong belief about God or his word.

And so when we're troubled, think about it this way. When you're troubled, that's a wrong action.

Okay? There's times that you ought to be troubled in a fight -or -flight situation.

I would imagine that if you're confronted with someone about to take your life, you might be troubled.

So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about maybe an overthinking sort of being troubled by things of this world.

Things that shouldn't really shake us as much according to the word. Think about that. If we have that wrong action, it's accompanied by a wrong belief about God or wrong belief about his word.

So I feel troubled because I don't think that God is fully sovereign over this situation.

See it? There's the wrong belief. I am full of anxiety about what's going to happen tomorrow at this event because I'm living in the what -ifs.

And Jesus said don't worry about tomorrow. You know, you see what I'm saying? Wrong actions, wrong desires have often wrong beliefs about God.

So what do we what do we got to do? We've got to identify it. You've got to identify why am

I having this wrong action, this wrong desire? And then you come to the root and you go, okay, it's because of this.

Now I replace it with the truth. You replace the wrong belief about God with the right belief.

And then you reorient your thinking. So anyways, he's narrowing in on who alone can aid humanity and in whom we can find rescue from our sin.

It's him. Believe in God. Believe in me. And that exclusivity will peak in verse six because the fact is trouble doesn't go

Excuse me. I'm stuttering a lot today. Trouble doesn't go away with drugs. Right?

Trouble doesn't go away with alcohol. Trouble doesn't go away with a better career.

Trouble doesn't go away with a better reputation or with fame. Trouble doesn't go away with having tons of sexual partners.

Trouble doesn't go away by having the best and most hobbies. Trouble doesn't go away if you are transitioning your biological sex or having a same sex partner.

Trouble doesn't go away with Satan. Trouble doesn't go away with Buddha, Islam, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, evolution,

TBN preachers. Goodness, I love my brothers and sisters who love Jesus, but so many of them fall prey to TBN preachers who say, oh boy, you're going to have so much wealth because of Jesus saving you.

And then they're in this state of poverty, right? They go to Africa and people who are barely getting any sort of meals and these

TBN preachers say when Jesus has come to save you, He's come to give you wealth, health, and prosperity.

It's like they still have their troubles. How do we deal with the troubles?

That's the key. Atheism, whatever, you name it, these things won't take away our trouble.

Trouble only goes away when we believe the only God and His only Son. Belief has a particular object and nowhere or in no one else can you find this.

It's personal. It's real. It's in one that exists.

It's in God and He has a dwelling. He has a kingdom. And this is radical because part of what should cause us and the disciples not to be troubled is what

Jesus says in verse 2. Look at that. Verse 2, in my Father's house are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you.

The separation from Jesus was a substantial concern for the disciples.

The absence of Jesus is a cause for grief. Will Jesus go to a place that they cannot follow?

Does He consider or care for the disciples after His ascension?

He does. He does. Jesus doesn't simply go to a heavenly realm in which it's only

Himself and the Father and the angels. There is room for many, many, many more.

The King James Version translates this, in my

Father's house there are many mansions. But moni in the

Greek is far more simple. It's not mansions. Because again with mansions, and you think back to the

TBN preachers I was talking about, some have tried to argue that if there are many mansions, there are varying degrees of houses and land that are given to saints because of their faithfulness.

It's a reward. Some get larger and grander mansions for what they've done in this life.

Some get smaller and more meager living quarters. But this is not how this word ought to be translated.

And I don't even necessarily think that these are separate dwellings. Maybe they are. But more simply, since this is in the

Father's house, He says, in my Father's house there are many and this translation says dwelling places, but simply it was a room.

This word is often just translated room in the New Testament. In my Father's house there are many rooms.

There are many places to make your abode. There are many places to dwell. And the root word of mani is meno, which is to remain or abide.

There are many rooms to remain in where Jesus is going. Because this was a real concern in ancient times.

Not many have the space to house 11 apostles, along with their family.

It's not like today where you see these new houses in the valley where it says starting from 4 ,000 square feet.

It's like, goodness, you know, these houses are huge these days. But not only is there enough space for Jesus, there's enough for His disciples and there's enough room for you and me.

There's plenty of room. I find it amazing that the Son has had nowhere to lay

His head in His earthly ministry. At His birth there was no place for Him in the inn.

Jesus experienced having no dwelling so that you and I would have one forever. If there were not many dwelling places

He would have told us. If heaven couldn't hold you and me, He wouldn't have deceived us.

And this assures us He's speaking the truth. This is no empty promise. There's plenty of room in heaven.

They're not running out. There's going to be plenty of room for us. And so not only will

He die upon the cross for us, but afterwards He goes to prepare a place for us. The word place is the

Greek word tapas, which is where we get the word topography. In this setting tapas can mean something as large as a city, a village, or even bigger.

There's actually no size constraints to the word tapas. This can be huge.

And so the heavenly tapas, the heavenly place, can be grand.

I imagine it is. Now in this high inflation world many of us have wanted homes of our own and that's not a bad thing at all.

That's not bad at all. But we see two things that we must continue to keep in our hearts.

Number one, even Jesus, the Lord of glory, had nowhere to lay His head while on earth.

And number two, He had gone to prepare a place for us so that we can be with Him. And that's really what it is.

The consolation that Jesus is giving His disciples is not that they will finally get the land and houses that they've always wanted.

The consolation is that they'll get to be with Him. That He's the prize.

That He's part of it. That's what makes the dwelling places so great is Christ is there. Not that you become homeowners.

And so what should make them and us feel encouraged is that where Jesus is is where we will go.

And where He is there is plenty of room. Being with Jesus is the goal, not the

Christ did not ascend to heaven in a private capacity to dwell there alone, but rather that it might be the common inheritance of all the godly and that in this way the head might be united to His members.

Now if you go to verse three, preparing a place for us isn't the only promise. It says, 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.

This is not unlike a bridegroom in a Jewish culture where a bridegroom treats his bride, his betrothed, a certain way.

In Jewish culture a man would become engaged to a woman and he would go and he would depart from her and it might even take a year and he would build a dwelling alongside his father's house.

That they too, when he was done, could start a family of their own. The bride -to -be would wait and wait and he could be done at any moment, the ceremony would begin at that point.

Jesus talks about such a ceremony in His parables, in the Gospels, especially if you remember the ten virgins being ready with the oil on their lampstands, the wedding could take place at any time.

We saw in John chapter 2 when I preached on that, the wedding in Cana, Jesus is the eternal bridegroom.

John the Baptist said in chapter 3 in his I must decrease while Christ increase speech, he said,

I'm not the bridegroom. Do you remember that in John 3? John the Baptist said, I'm not the bridegroom,

I'm simply a friend of the bridegroom. He says, I'm the best man,

I'm here to help, I'm here to pave the way. Paul says in Ephesians 5 that marriage is a picture of Christ and His church.

He is head over her and gave Himself up for her. Revelation 19 shows the marriage of the

Lamb and His bride. All this to say, since Christ is our bridegroom, our divine bridegroom, and you and I as well as the disciples are part of His bride, then there is no doubt to whether or not

He will prepare a place for us. It is certain, we're called as part of His bride.

Jesus will bring us home with Him. Now, what does Jesus mean when

He says He will come again? In the gospel according to John, there are several ways that Jesus uses the language of, quote, coming back, or being with His disciples.

It happens in various places and in various times, various contexts in John.

Sometimes Jesus coming back is in reference to His coming to them after His resurrection.

Sometimes Jesus' coming to them is by the Spirit after He has ascended into glory.

And other times when Jesus talks about His coming, it's at the end of all things, at the final resurrection.

I think that word meno, I talked about the word for mansions, or again,

I said the better translation is room or dwelling place. And the root word there is meno, which means to abide or remain.

Remain. And I think that what Christ is trying to indicate to us is that when

He comes back, we will remain with Him. We will remain with Him forever.

This is a promise of a second coming. Right here in our text.

This particular promise of a second coming isn't meant to describe things like the end, or the eschatos, or the cosmos being changed, or things that are apocalyptic.

That's not Jesus' purpose here. He simply wants to comfort the apostles.

He's not going to go into all those things with His second coming. His promise of His coming is meant to be that comfort.

His coming again shouldn't scare us. It should relieve us. He's coming again.

And this coming coincides with John 5. If you remember in John 5, He made promises of a final resurrection of the living and the dead.

He spoke about a judgment. And so this is a new state. This is a new beginning.

The heavenly and earthly kingdoms becoming one. Now does this mean that the disciples and others who we know who love

Jesus are not with Him now? No. Not at all. Not at all. They are with Jesus.

Absent from the body, present with the Lord. They are indeed with Him. But their bodies are still here.

Their bodies are still on earth. Whether they have been crushed to dust, or drowned in the ocean, or blew up in a shuttle in the sky, going to the moon, whatever it may be.

The bodies of the saints are upon the earth right now. And one day He's coming again.

And He will speak a word. And every single person who is dead will reconstitute and rise again.

And those who are living at the sound of His Word, His Word is so very powerful.

His voice is so very powerful that even those who are living will rise and be caught up in the air to meet

Him. And they'll come back down and the dead will rise. And the living and the dead will be judged. And that's much of this coming that He's talking about.

But it's supposed to be a comfort. He's going to be here again. It's the already and not yet principle.

He's with them now. The saints are with Him now. And yet He will be with us then as well. Now, I love this phrase.

It says, That where I am, there you may also be. There's so many promises wrapped up in this.

If you've been alone for much of your life, you will not be alone in the next one. If you've been moving from place to place, never been able to settle anywhere for much of your life, you will have a place prepared for you by Jesus in the next.

If you have people in your life who have walked out on you, people who have deserted you or abandoned you,

Jesus has not and will not. Though you do not see Him, He loves you.

While He is away, He will consider you and I. He considers you even now. He cares for you even now.

And He's coming again. You know, there is something comforting in a situation when someone you love leaves.

When they say, I'm going to be back in a couple of days. I'm going to be back in a week. Imagine if you're a wife and your husband's going out of town and you give each other a hug and a kiss and I'll be back this

Friday. I'll see you this Friday. And it's like, ha, you're going to be back. Your wife is going somewhere.

She has to travel away from you and you're with the kids or whatever.

I'll see you. I'll see you in a week. And there's that consolation.

There's that comfort. I'm going to see them again. It's like a woman who has a husband who's at war in another country and he's in battle.

And she knows when his tour is going to be over. And every day she rises up and she gets up and she does what she needs to do.

And she puts her feet one in front of the other, thinking, he's going to come back to me.

He's going to come back. And now with those two examples, with those two illustrations of your husband going out on a trip, your wife going out on a trip, maybe you don't have a spouse right now.

Maybe it's your mother or your father is leaving out of town. When they say they're going to be back on this day, that is a relief to you.

When a woman who has a husband who's at war and you know when the tour ends and he's going to return. Even in those situations, there are variables beyond their control.

There are things that can change with those sort of things. Jesus says this. He says he's coming back again.

And it's 100 % certain. He makes a promise that he will never break.

He's going to return. Now, again, he is the treasure.

He is the one whom we will see again and we will run into his arms and we will embrace him.

It's not going to be about the dwelling place. I see so many sermons on this passage about him preparing a place for us in his father's house.

And so many of these sermons are about what we will get in heaven. I didn't want to preach it that way.

I don't see it that way. I see that what we will get is to dwell with him forever.

He's the object of it. Right? Amen. He is what we want.

And so imagine, I mean, just goodness, imagine you haven't seen someone in years.

Maybe it's a sibling. Maybe it's a parent. Maybe it's a loved one. A friend who you had when you were in high school.

Imagine right now a friend, someone you love, and you haven't seen them in years.

And you come up to their house and you knock on the door and they go, oh my goodness, it's you.

And you walk into the house and you go, this is pretty nice. Where am I staying?

Am I going to get a part of this? Or what's for me here? And that's what

I think is being done when these sermons are all about the dwelling place. I think really in that scenario, in that illustration, it'd be like the door opens and they go, oh my goodness, it's you.

And you say, it's you. And you come to them. You don't care about the house. You don't care what it looks like.

You don't care where you're going to sleep. You don't care about the food that they're going to serve you. You run into that person's arms with tears in your eyes and you praise

God that you're reunited. That's what it's going to be like coming to Jesus again.

That's what it's like. It's a beautiful picture. We're excited for heaven, not for heaven's sake, but because Jesus is there.

You know that? I don't want to dwell in a place that doesn't have Jesus in it. I don't.

You know, in LDS theology, from what I understand, only those in the highest celestial level get to be in the presence of God.

And the lower levels in LDS theology, they are not. The highest level gets to be in the presence of God.

I call those other levels hell. Where God's presence is not is where hell is.

I want to be with Jesus. I want to be with my Lord. I know you do too. Go to verses 4 and 5.

He says, and you know the way where I'm going. Verse 5, Thomas speaks up.

Thomas the apostle, he has not spoken a lot, but Thomas speaks up and says,

Lord, probably because Peter's silent for the first time. I'm sure Peter has just heard, you're going to deny me three times and Peter's head is down.

So Thomas looks over at Peter, Peter's head's down, and he's like, someone's got to speak up.

Thomas says, Lord, we do not. We do not know where you are going. We don't.

And how do we know the way? Jesus has been speaking about how it is soon time to leave.

Where he's going, they cannot follow him right now. But Thomas says, how can we know the way to go when we don't even know where you're going?

You know, if someone tells you, I'm going to Ogden, it doesn't matter what route they took to get there.

You can figure it out if you know where they're going. But here, these men feel more lost than ever.

Where are you going? Where will you be? It seems Thomas and the disciples have not come to an understanding that he truly is going to his father's house.

They can't wrap their minds around it. How could you be leaving? You're the Messiah. You're supposed to destroy

Rome. You're supposed to free us of our oppressors. You're supposed to go on the throne and become the

Davidic king. How come you're leaving so soon? Why would you go to the father's house? Remember our questions.

Where do we go? How do we get there? Thomas is saying that now. Where do we go? And so at this moment,

Jesus makes one of the most divinely powerful statements he's made in the entire gospel.

It's one of the most important and glorious statements in all of sacred scripture.

John 14, verse six. Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father, but through me. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father, but through me. This is one of Jesus's very intentional and famous I am statements.

If you haven't been with us through this whole series in John, there's tons of other sermons that talk about this.

This is ego amy in the Greek or Yahweh in the Hebrew. This is the name of God.

I am the truth, the way, the truth, and the life. And this is so unbelievably powerful.

There's so much to unpack in just this short verse. And so the first thing we see is

I am. We've talked about how this is a claim to deity. And not just being a

God or a mode of God, but the God. This verse is just one of a plethora of verses showing that God is a trinity.

You see, a mere man or an angel or a demigod or whatever can't make the promises the way that Jesus has made without the divine capacity and power to do so.

He is God's gracious and greatest manifestation to mankind. He is the promise of God in the flesh.

And think, there are so many promises of God throughout the Old Testament, and often

God ends those promises saying things like, I will do this or I will do that because I am

He. Jesus solidifies His promise that He's coming again, that He's going to prepare a place for them.

He solidifies all that by saying, I am. It's solidified with His very being because He is

God and He cannot lie, and His word is bonded to that. He won't fail us.

And saying I am also puts who He is in this verse in concrete, meaning because of this,

He is not just a way, He is the way. Because He says I am, He is not just a truth, but the truth.

Because He is the I am, He's not just a life, but the life. You get what

I'm saying? So the second thing we need to look at is the way. Previously He said,

I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the door.

I am the good shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. These famous I am statements of Jesus.

And now this, Jesus is the way. The word can also be translated road or path.

He is the road to the promised land, the eternal one. Many times in the

Old Testament, God has called His people to walk in His ways, to not turn aside to other ways or other gods, nor to the right, nor to the left.

God calls them to walk straight on His path. And that's the cry of the psalmist in Psalm 5 verse 8,

Oh Lord, make your way straight before me. The way of the wicked shall perish.

It says over and over and over again. The way is mentioned, honestly, hundreds of times in the

Bible. It says that the righteous must keep the right way. But there has been a problem for mankind for multiple millennia.

And it's highlighted in Psalm 119 verse 9. And it says, how can a man keep his way pure?

How can a man keep his way pure? There are ways down to death, ways to the adulterous.

There are paths of evil. There's the unstable way of folly.

There's the way to shield, the way of the lazy, the way of the treacherous. Proverbs chapter 5 verse 10 says,

Grievous punishment is for him who forsakes the way. And that's the thing.

Paul says in Romans chapter 3, All have turned aside from the way.

Destruction and misery are in their paths, he says. And it's not just the Jews. Paul goes on to say it's the

Gentiles as well. And in that he says it's everyone. Everyone has lost their way.

The wrong way has affected every single person since the fall. Listen to this.

Genesis chapter 3 verse 24, So God drove the man out. God drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard what?

The way to the tree of life. The angel with the flaming sword was sent by God to guard the entrance into Eden, which was the way to the tree of life.

What Jesus is saying is he's exclusively the way back to the tree of life.

Jesus is the way back to the tree of life. He is the road. But he's also the way as in the vehicle that takes us there.

You see, you guys, Jesus isn't simply showing us the way to heaven.

Oh, that's how you go. That's how you get there. He's saying he is the way. He is directly the way to the

Father's house. It's like a bridge. A bridge is not only a road, but the thing you stand upon to keep you from falling from death.

Jesus is the bridge. He is the way. Every other way leads you astray. Every other way is a dead end, physically and spiritually.

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 18 says, For through him we both have our access in one spirit to the

Father. It's through him. It's through him. Christ is not merely one more way among many.

He is the only way. He is the only way. Now, the third thing about this statement is that he is the truth.

This might remind you of the prologue of John. John chapter 1 verse 14, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the

Father, full of grace and truth. So how is Jesus the truth?

I'm going to give you a couple things. How is Jesus the truth? First, he is the truth because truth is a divine attribute of God.

Everything that truly is and everything that should be, all that is right, all that is opposite of falsehood is what

Jesus is. That's his nature. In John chapter 8,

Jesus said, The devil does not stand in the truth, as there is no truth in him.

When he speaks, he can only speak lies, because lies are the devil's very nature. He's the liar and the father of lies.

And so Jesus is the opposite of the devil. Next, Jesus is the truth in his teachings.

So he was the truth because he's God, and it's one of his attributes, but he's also the truth because of his teachings.

Everything Jesus says and does is the truth. When he has been saying,

Truly, truly, I say to you, it's his special formula to demonstrate that what he is saying is truthfully authoritative.

He has 100 % veracity. And this flies in the face of those who say there are many different truths.

By definition, listen to this, If A is true and B goes against A, then

B is false. Get what I'm saying? If B is true and A goes against B, then

B is true. People say, look, you can truthfully, you can have the truth, but also

I can have the truth. But what you believe goes against what I believe, and what I believe goes against what you believe.

So what is the truth? That's the question. Jesus is the truth while no one else is.

He is the source of all truth, and we can trust all that Jesus said. In Christ is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Paul tells us in Titus to not pay attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

And he says the knowledge of truth is to know Christ and his teachings. The next way that Jesus is the truth is in his identity.

He is who he says he is. Jesus is the truth because he is totally divine, and he is totally human.

He is the Christ, he is the Messiah, and he couldn't be the truth if he wasn't these things.

He is the one who has been promised to come all the way back from Genesis chapter 3. His affirmations of his messianic identity the heavenly endorsements of the

Father when the Father spoke audibly the I Am statements that we're seeing here his living out prophecy in real time his work on the cross his resurrection his ascension all these things these teachings these actions of Jesus speak to the fact that he is the truth.

They confirm his identity as the truth. And so what we need to know is that God cannot lie.

Therefore Jesus cannot lie. Numbers 23 19 says God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should repent.

Has God said and will he not do or has God spoken and will he not make it good?

God honors his word church. He honors his word. In fact, Hebrews chapter 6 verse 18 says that it is impossible for God to lie.

It is impossible for God to lie. And that goes with this last way that he is the truth.

He is the truth in his role as Savior. The truth conquers death.

And when he says he will he is the truth and he has and he's done it.

You know, truth is more than just facts. Truth is more than just data. It's not just something that we act upon.

Truth acts upon us. We can't change truth, but truth can change us.

Amen. And that's what Jesus does. He changes us.

He changes our eternal destiny. He changes our heart. He changes the heart's desires. He changes everything for us.

And so as Savior, he has made promises to justify us, adopt us, sanctify us, and glorify us to bring us into his presence once again.

And because he is not merely a man, because he is God, he cannot lie. All these things will indeed happen because Jesus Christ is the truth.

So, we've talked about how he is the I am. He is the way. He is the truth.

What is the last one? He is the life. The life. I'm going to go again, once again, to the prologue.

John 1 spoke of this. We're almost done. Keep hanging with me, church. John 1, it says,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men. What a gloriously exhaustive statement about Jesus.

It says, In John 1, all things, pontapos in the Greek, that means every all, the whole, the totality of a mass, object, or collective, all things were created, which is egoneto here, by or through him.

The totality of all things created, every single thing that would have creature or creation ascribed to it, everything that required

God to produce or make it, came into being through the Son of God, who is called the Word here.

And that means when you consider the two categories of created and uncreated,

Jesus is outside of the created category. Jesus is uncreated.

Do you get that? Specifically, for all things to be created by him, he must be outside the created box.

He must be uncreated. He must have eternality. He must be eternal from all the way in eternity past, and eternal all the way in the future.

All things were created through him, by him, and for him. He wasn't simply an agent, or where you have a filter, and you shine a light through it, and prism comes out, and God just used

Jesus as some sort of thing where creation came out of him. All things were created by him.

Now why am I saying this? He must be uncreated to be the life.

That's what I'm getting at. For Jesus to be the life, he must be uncreated.

In him was life. The life and light of all men. Both the

Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit share the self -existing life. In him was life and light.

They are in him, and they did not need to be given to him. They weren't applied to him.

This is about his self -existent nature. That's how he is able to create all things.

Where does life begin? Where does it originate? It originates from God. In him was life.

When God breathed the breath of life into Adam, it happened because Jesus is the life.

He is also the life in that he takes people who according to the word of God all died in Adam.

We've all died in Adam, and it says that he gives us new life. Salvation is likened to new life.

Our new life is hidden with Christ and God, and that produces then eternal life.

Because what kind of mere man can give eternal life?

None. No mere man can give everlasting life.

But Jesus is the life because he is given creative life.

He's given regenerative life. He's made you born again. And then Jesus is the life because he gives eternal life.

Creative life. Recreative or regenerative life in saving you.

And then he gives you eternal life. Only the one who is the life can wield that kind of power.

Life in every category is in Jesus's power. Life never ending.

Forever life. It's all in his capabilities, and he exercises it as he sees fit.

Revelation 22, 1 through 2 says, This is John. It says,

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and from the

Lamb. Who's the Lamb? Jesus. And it's in the middle of the way.

The way. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.

And the leaves of the trees were for the healing of the nations. You see that? From the throne of God, from the

Lamb, from the one who is the Christ, is flowing a river and water of what?

Life. And on every side of the river of life, there are what?

Trees of life. Life, life, life. He is the life.

Death will be over at that point. It says in Revelation there that the curse will be gone.

It will be completely cast away. You and I will dwell with God and only and forever know life.

You will only and forever know life. You will not know death. We will know life and life in the fullest.

And we'll know the life. That's what's coming. But let's wrap this up, church.

In Psalm 43, the psalmist cried out to God these words. In fact, I had

Dusty read them today. Oh, send out your light and your truth.

Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling place.

I find that this goes very well with our passage today. The psalmist says, send out your light.

What is Jesus called? He's called the light and life of all men. Who is He called? He's called the light of the world.

And the psalmist says, send out your truth. Who is the truth? It's Jesus.

And then the psalmist says, and let them lead me. Let your light and your truth lead me.

What is one led on? One is led on a path or a road or a way.

Let your light and your truth lead me on the way. And to where? Psalm 43, where does the psalmist want to go to?

What does it say? It says, let them bring me to your holy hill and to your what?

Dwelling place. What was in our text today? Dwelling places. Do not let your heart be troubled.

Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places. If it were not so,

I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. The psalmist's prayer was answered in the

I am, the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus Christ. Absolutely answered in Jesus.

And no one, not a single person, comes to the Father or the

Father's house but through Him. There is salvation in no one else.

There is no other name given among men under heaven, under the earth, that we must call upon to save our souls.

Jesus alone. And I suppose what I want us to remember is your life has already changed for the better.

It's already changed. It's changing. And if Christ has already saved you, you're already new.

You're alive. But amazingly, the promises go beyond this.

Jesus will bring you to a dwelling place that He has prepared for you. A casket is not your home.

A grave isn't your destination. Blackness is not the end.

Hades isn't where you will go and find rest. A place in the

Father's house has already been prepared for you and me.

And honestly, do we get that? Do we get the fact that this is the

God of the universe and He's going to let you dwell with Him? The God who made everything, the

God who is over everything, the God from eternity into eternity says, I'll let you stay with me.

You can find your abode with me. You can dwell with me. And it's not a short stay.

It's not a weekend trip. It's forever. It's forever.

So now you know, you don't have to be lost. If you don't know Christ and you want to know the way to heaven, if you want to know the way to the

Father's house, it's through Jesus. It's through this gospel. But if you're already a believer, you know where to go.

You know how to get there. And so you don't need to let your heart be troubled. You don't.

In the 1400s, a devotional book was written and many people believe it was anonymously written, while others believe it was written by Thomas Akempis.

And it's been disputed over and over who actually wrote it. But I think the person who wrote this devotion about Jesus would say,

I don't care if my name is remembered. That's what I think. And so I want to read it to you today.

This is from the 1400s, over 600 years ago. This is from the perspective of Jesus Christ.

It says this. Follow thou me. I am the way and the truth and life.

Without the way, there is no going. Without the truth, there is no knowing.

Without the life, there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow.

The truth which thou must believe. The life for which thou must hope.

I am the unbreakable way. The infallible truth. The never -ending life. I am the straight way.

The sovereign truth. Life true. Life blessed. Life uncreated. Christ is the way to the

Father's house. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this promise.

Thank you that this is bonded to your divinity.

This is a promise made in which you can never break. You'll never lie to us.

You'll never break your promises. You will come and you will bring us to you. You have prepared a place for us.

We will be with you forever. And Lord, we see the exclusivity of this statement.

We now know there is no other way to heaven but through you. And so,

Lord, we pray that you would continue to help us to see this truth.

Help us to not be troubled. Help us to remember, Lord, that we have an inheritance. That we have someone waiting.

When no one else is waiting for us, you are. And so, Lord, we will wait for you to be with you forever.

love you, God. Thank you for your word. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.