WWUTT 938 Where I Am You May Be Also?

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Jesus said to his disciples I am going to prepare a place for you and I am going to receive you to myself that where I am you may be also and he said you know the way to where I am going the way is

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Christ when we understand the text this is when we understand the text a daily study of God's Word that we may be filled with the knowledge of his will for questions and comments send us an email to when we understand the text at gmail .com

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here's your teacher pastor Gabe thank you Becky we continue our study of the Gospel of John chapter 14 and as with yesterday

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I'll begin by reading verses 1 through 7 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

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I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you

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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

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Thomas said to him Lord we do not know where you are going how can we know the way

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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 have seen him so Jesus comforting his disciples before he is about to be taken away arrested tried beaten crucified and buried and before these things are going to happen he says to his disciples let your hearts not be troubled furthermore after he rises from the dead he'll be with them for only a few days and then he is gonna ascend back into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the father he will no longer be with them but he has knit himself so closely to them and they are so incredibly fond of their teacher as well you see the affection that they have had for one another that our

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Lord has for his disciples and that his disciples had also for him and so we can know that all of us who are followers of Christ are likewise his disciples and he has deep affection for us as well

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Jesus is with us his Holy Spirit even within us so that wherever we are we know that God is with us to David in Psalm 139 7 says where shall

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I go from your spirit or where shall I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven you are there if I make my bed in Sheol you are there if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me if I say surely the darkness shall cover me and the light about me be night even the darkness is not dark to you the night is bright as the day for darkness is as light with you this is

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David saying there's nowhere we can go from the presence of God his spirit is always with us especially considering that from the day of Pentecost on everyone who is a follower of Jesus has the

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Holy Spirit poured into our hearts and he is with us even now back in Psalm 23

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David prayed even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death yet you are with me your rod and your staff they comfort me the rod that corrects and the staff that guides through the discipline that the

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Lord gives us we know that he is with us shaping us more and more into the image of Christ he who began a good work in you

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Paul said to the Philippians he will be faithful to complete it on the day of Christ Jesus is with us lo

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I am with you always to the very end of the age Matthew 28 20 and so we have nothing to fear we have not been left alone our

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God is here and you can know that when you pray and you call upon the

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Lord he answers he does hear you and he has given you life in his son so there is nothing that the world can take from you there may be times when in your body maybe in your physiology you feel alone there is a depression that covers you a darkness that is over your mind that might make you wonder and ask

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God are you there but know what he has said in his word for you for the

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Word of God the Bible gives you the answer he is with you he will not leave you nor forsake you

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Paul describes him in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 as the father of mercies and the

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God of all comfort and the most difficult of trials will happen to you because as Paul says in verses 8 and 9 of that particular chapter that this has happened to you to make you rely on God who raises the dead to make you rely all the more on the

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Lord who has forgiven you of your sins and has seated you in the heavenly places with Christ this eternity is guaranteed for you all who have faith in him so you know that the

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Lord has not left you he is with you do not be troubled do not fall into despair and anxiety

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Jesus is your friend he says believe in God believe also in me you trust in God you know him according to what has been written in his law according to what the prophets have said you have come to believe in God through these then therefore you can believe also in me for what

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Jesus has said had been given to him by the father he spoke the words of the father what the what the prophet said

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Jesus has said and more so and even more intimately for the the prophets did not have the association with the father that Jesus does that the son does he came from heaven and revealed a will from his father that was far deeper and even more glorious than what the prophets had been privy to when the

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Lord had spoken to them Jesus shows us the way to the father so you believe in God believe also in me who has come from the father in my father's house are many rooms if it were not so what

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I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you Jesus is explaining to his disciples in his comforting of them he's explaining what he is leaving to go and do he is going to go and prepare a place for them by Christ's death and his resurrection from the grave he has prepared a place for his disciples by his ascending back to the father and seated at the right hand of him and is mediating for us on our behalf he is our advocate before the father he is working out in us our salvation our sanctification growing us in holiness and in his image even in these ways

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Christ is preparing a place for us and he says to his disciples if it were not so would

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I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you

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I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am there you may be also and this is a promise as Jesus gave to his disciples we are still looking for even now the return of the

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Son we can pray with the Apostle John we cry out with him Lord Jesus come quickly bring an end to this world judge your enemies deliver the righteous put an end to all evil dry our tears relieve our pain heal our sicknesses and diseases bring us to where you are we want to be with you in heaven forever in glory is that the yearning of your heart or are you still so attached to this world that you dread leaving it you hate the idea or the prospect that you might have to give this world up you know when

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Paul was talking about this with the Philippians he says I'm kind of torn between the two whether to go to heaven or whether to stay here now if Paul so desired to be with his

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Lord why would he be torn between those two options well because if he were to stay here and Paul says to the

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Philippians that would be better for you so it's out of his love and his affection for his brethren whom he is growing according to the knowledge of God and his word and the gospel he is growing them in the knowledge of these things and that is for them that's for their sanctification and the spread of the gospel so that others may hear and know and be saved so that's why

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Paul would want to remain that's the explanation that he gives to the Philippians but he says for me to leave and go and be with God well

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I know that's far better for me because then I get to go and be with my Lord and glory which one of these am

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I going to be between I'm kind of stuck between the two so that shows his heart for the the fellow saints and also for others the the sake of the faith of God's elect that they may hear the gospel and come to believe that Paul would even want to give up what he knows the father has promised him in glory he'd want to give that up for a time for the benefit of the body of Christ that more may be added to that number and that those who are in the body would grow in the knowledge of God in righteousness and in holiness and I sympathize with Paul in that I desire to want to go and be with my

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Lord in glory but for the sake of my wife and my children I would rather stay here for this time that I may continue to to disciple my wife and raise her up and discipline my kids and teach them in the training and the admonition of the

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Lord so that that they may grow in sanctification and be presented as holy before the

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Lord on the day of glory and my responsibilities as a pastor giving the Word of God to my congregation that we may all be knit together in love growing in maturity and holding fast to the head who is

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Christ let me ask you does this reflect your attitude do you desire to get off this globe and go and be with God forever in his presence or does that idea fill you with dread are you like you know what

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I don't want I'm gonna die and go be with God there's still things on this earth I have yet to experience there's stuff

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I want to possess I don't yet have let me ask you this what can this world possibly give you that's better than being with God several years back there was a woman in my church who had been diagnosed with brain cancer and it was fatal it was she had just a few months left to live and I remember when

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I first heard about the diagnosis I went over to her house to visit with her and she was so bitter about it she was so angry at God about this diagnosis and she said

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I'm not yet ready to go there's still things I want to do there's people that I want to meet why would

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God do this to me and it was not what I was expecting going over to her house that that's what

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I was going to encounter and I was so troubled in my heart wanting to know how as a pastor can

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I possibly shepherd this woman what can I do to prepare her for the kingdom to excite her about going and being with God I understand the dread of receiving a diagnosis of brain cancer

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I understand how dreading that would be I wouldn't want that diagnosis and and how painful the last days would be up until your body dies and you go and be with Jesus but I still had to wonder as a pastor how can

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I continue to shepherd this woman to prepare her for that day that she could be looking forward to that day and not bitter and angry at God especially but even rejoice in the

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Lord that she had received a diagnosis as terminal as this unfortunately the story doesn't have a happy ending she was bitter all the way to her dying day and it was more and more difficult to share the gospel with her in those last days because the brain cancer eventually took her vision and her hearing and so it was very hard to communicate with her and I don't know where her soul is and that that really really troubles my heart a couple of years later there was another woman in our congregation who was diagnosed with the same thing she had already had lung cancer and beaten it but then she received a diagnosis of brain cancer and when

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I went over to her house to talk with her I had that same feeling of dread on me again what if this is going to be the same kind of a situation that I was in with this other woman and when she received her diagnosis and she was angry and bitter with God so I prayed to the

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Lord I was still a pretty young pastor at that time and I was just praying to God and give me wisdom words that I can speak and oh let me tell you this this woman's name was

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Margaret and she was a dear in our church my oldest daughter Annie loved her a woman who was born in Korea she married a man who was a soldier stationed there they moved back to the

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States and started attending our church back in the 70s so she had been at our church longer than I had even been alive when

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I went over to her house she was so filled with joy she was rejoicing at this diagnosis that she received and she even said to me quoting from the

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Chris Tomlin song she said my chains are gone I've been set free my

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God my Savior has ransomed me and she said pastor Gabe I am so ready to go home and be with God and I tell you what she ministered to me in those last days even seeing how much the cancer had ravaged her body and she was a frail little thing by the time she died you know what she was still in church two weeks before she passed away she was she was still there to worship

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God and I even went up to her when I saw her in church house like Margaret I can't believe that you're here and she said to me where else could

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I be then with the people of God before I go home to be with my Lord it's so touching my eyes fill with tears now even thinking about it was she was such a dear woman and and I wept for her more than I had ever wept for anyone else who had passed away in my church

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I loved her very much but but I know that I'm gonna see her again in glory when

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I go and be with our Father God and what a beautiful thought that is so it is certainly dreadful to think about death and the ways that we could possibly die and it's hard to think of something being good news to receive some sort of terminal diagnosis like that but but yet could we also find within our hearts that desire to be with God so much that we would rejoice to receive some sort of diagnosis like that because then we've got a date now set on our lives on about this approximate time

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I'm gonna be leaving the world to go and be with God we do not know when Jesus is going to return but we have all been promised that he is preparing a place for us and so all who are in Christ Jesus have nothing to dread of that day that we die death has lost its sting we know that on the other side of death we will be with God forever

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I remember listening to Chuck Colson one time some of you may remember Charles Colson but he was he was talking about it this was in a sermon in fact he said

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I am not afraid of death what I am afraid of is the way that I'm gonna die

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I think R .C. Sproul has said something very similar in fact he said I don't know what that's gonna be like so I do dread that kind of passing over when the body dies and the soul goes to to be in the next place which will be with my

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God forever in heaven but but but what's gonna happen on the other side of that I have no fear of that because I have the promises of God that have been given to me here in the scriptures and Jesus says to his disciples as he says to us even now let not your hearts be troubled you have trusted in God you trust also in me believe in God believe also in me

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I am going to prepare a place for you and I am coming back to receive you to myself that where I am you may be there also and he said to his disciples you know the way where I am going why did he say that to his disciples when clearly they didn't know

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Thomas said Lord we don't know where you're going how can we know the way because they know

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Jesus and Jesus is the way and that was the answer that he gave to them next

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John 14 6 Jesus said to Thomas I am the way

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I am the truth I am the life no one comes to the

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Father except through me if you know Jesus then you know the way to heaven in John chapter 10 verse 7 going back a few chapters to where Jesus said truly truly

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I say to you I am the door of the sheep all who came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not listen to them

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I am the door if anyone enters by me he will be saved it is through Jesus that we get to the father it is through Christ that we enter into glory and we dwell with God worshiping him forever

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Jesus says I am the way I am the truth and I am the life no one comes to the father except through Jesus it is only by faith in Christ that our sins have been forgiven and we are promised eternity with God that is the gospel that you have heard and believed and so you are saved by faith in Jesus it is that gospel we must also share with others so that they may have the same hope that we have that on the other side of death there is nothing to fear there's nothing to fear of the judgment of God because in Christ Jesus the the price for our sin has been paid and we have nothing but fellowship with God forever for all eternity eternity does not start the day that you die and you go to be with God in glory eternity starts the day that you give your life to Christ and you believe in him and he seals you for that day and your guarantee is an inheritance with him in his father's kingdom what good news and that's why we call it the gospel let us pray our

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Lord and Savior I've had goosebumps all the way through this as I've been talking about my

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Lord and being with you and being in heaven with you forever and the promise that is laid up for us there and the kingdom that awaits for us if we endure to the end help us to stay steadfast help us to fight the good fight to endure the race to run with endurance all the way to the end setting our eyes on Jesus the author and the perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God Jesus preparing a place for us

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Lord bring us into that place but until that day until we go to be with our

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Lord in glory keep us faithful here obedient unto the Lord caring for your sheep loving one another building each other up in love teaching and admonishing one another according to the word of Christ so that on that day when our

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Lord comes for us he will find us good and faithful servants and will say now great is your reward may we do all things to the glory of God our

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Savior who has promised us a place forever with you in Jesus name we pray amen you've been listening to when we understand the text of pastor

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Gabe Hughes Monday Tuesday and Wednesday Gabe will be going through a New Testament study then on Thursday we look at an

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Old Testament book on Friday we take questions from the listeners and viewers tomorrow will pick up on an