Great Hope in the Midst of Trouble

Laurel Bible Church

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Yeah, it's an honor to be here with you all this morning. Thank you for having us and being so inviting and welcoming to Olivia and myself and our family as well.

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Just make sure you give them a hard time if you can while they're here. But yeah, like Chad said,

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I will just confess that we are coming here this morning with heavy hearts for sure.

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It's been a difficult week losing Pastor Danny at our church, one of our elders, and a personal mentor and friend to myself for many years now.

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And yeah, it's been probably the most difficult week of our lives, I would say.

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It would be fair to say that. But we are rejoicing in a life that was so well lived by him, rejoicing in the fact that he is in the presence of his

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Savior now as well and enjoying in his eternal reward with Christ.

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And so I just say that partially as intro as well because it's just been on my heart to come back to a text that I've studied and gotten to teach on before.

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But it seems all the more pertinent now just with life's circumstances as of late.

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And so this morning, if you have a Bible, I'd like to invite you to open to the 14th chapter of John.

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14th chapter of John. And it is perhaps this statement of Jesus in John 14 that is one of the most well -known in Christian circles.

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Very well -known statement from the Lord Jesus. And I want you to follow along with me. I'm going to read the whole passage that will cover this morning.

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But it's verses 1 through 6. John 14, verses 1 through 6 will be our text of consideration today.

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So if you can, when you get there, follow along with me. Verse 1, these are the words of Jesus.

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He says, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God.

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

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I would have told you. For 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 receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

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

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

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No one comes to the Father but through me. Now something

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I think that we could all agree on is that life is full of difficulty.

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It's a matter of fact, actually, that we'll all experience hardship in varying degrees at some point in this life.

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It's not a matter of if trials come your way, rather it's a matter of when they do.

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This is true for everyone. And the result of this is that we often are left with troubled hearts.

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Hearts that are overcome by fear, they can be overcome with worry or pain.

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This is a lifelong battle that we all face because there are simply so many things in this life that can cause trouble in our hearts.

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D .A. Carson understood this well when he said this, all we have to do is live long enough and we'll experience a deeply troubled heart.

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And most of you know that following Christ, following Jesus doesn't make life any less difficult either.

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The gospel, it promises a lot of things, but an easy life is not one of those promises.

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In fact, Jesus made it clear that his followers would not just experience the effects of a broken world in which we live, but that they'd also experience opposition from the world as well.

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John 15, 18 to 19, Jesus said, if the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

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If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I choose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you.

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And so in other words, we are to be reminded that the promise of following Christ is not that this trouble in our lives will end, but rather it's that through the power of the truth, we have great hope in the midst of trouble.

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Everyone clings to something when trouble comes. In the time of need, we all look to something to relieve our sorrow, relieve our pain.

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And the question is whether or not we will cling to the right thing. When our soul is troubled, what will be the thing that comforts it?

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So with that in mind, when we come back to our text now, we are engaging here with the 11 disciples, and not unlike us, they have troubled hearts at this time.

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Now the setting is the upper room. It's Thursday night of the last week of Jesus' life.

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And there are mere hours before Jesus would go to be crucified. It's his last night with his disciples.

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So this is Jesus' valedictory address to them. It's where he gives his final words to his own men.

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And his disciples, they've been with him for three full years at this point. If you've followed their lives and the ministry they've done with Jesus, they love him, they believe in him, but they're profoundly confused as well.

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And they're not just confused, we see that they're deeply troubled. And why is that? What is causing the trouble in their hearts?

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Well, earlier in John 13, 21, Jesus looked at his men in the eyes and told them that one of them would betray him.

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And then Jesus, he dismisses Judas and breaks this news to his men.

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He said, he's leaving. He told them that he was leaving. And not only that, he tells them that where he is going, they cannot yet come with him.

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And in fact, as soon as Jesus said this, Peter piped up as he usually does and said, wherever you're going,

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Lord, I'm going with you, I'm going with you. But Jesus said, you can't come now,

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Peter, but you will come later. And so there's confusion.

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They don't understand this. Panic sets in in the disciples' hearts. They're in despair. And it's because their best friend, their trusted leader, he's going to die.

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And they're finally starting to understand that. It's finally starting to sink in for the disciples.

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Their world was crashing down on top of them. They knew that Jesus was the

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Messiah at this point. They had seen his miracles. They knew that he was from God. They heard everything he taught, but they never thought that he was going to die.

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It wasn't in their categories. Jesus was leaving, and their hearts were greatly troubled.

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So what does Jesus say to them? Well, he says these words in verse one. Look there again.

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He says, do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.

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So now here's the big idea, the big picture, or the big theme that sits over the top of this passage.

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If you're taking notes, this would be good to write down. The big idea is that troubled hearts find rest in the promises of Christ.

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In other words, Jesus gives his followers reasons to have untroubled hearts in the midst of the trouble.

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And in this passage, he gives at least three of them, three reasons to have untroubled hearts, and we'll look at those in detail together.

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But this is Jesus' plea to them in verse one. He said, do not let your heart be troubled.

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So now Jesus knew them. He knew these men better than anyone. And he knew that they were crushed by what was coming.

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He knew that they had a hard time grasping it and understanding it and processing it.

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And what was coming was the removal of the physical presence of Jesus in their daily lives.

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If you can just imagine what that would be like. You know, ever since the disciples made their decision to follow

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Christ, he was always physically there. They saw his power on display when they doubted that God could do something.

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They saw that Jesus would accomplish it, and they were reminded that Jesus was the

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Messiah. So his physical presence was a massive comfort in their lives.

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But now he just told them that he's leaving. And Jesus knows the trouble that is in their hearts, so he reminds them and comforts them with this truth, soul -settling truth that is theirs and is ours as followers of Christ.

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And for us, if we wanna apply this to our own lives, we know that trouble will continue in our lives.

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It will not go away. Some of you might be in the worst trouble of your lives.

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I know I've personally felt that in this last week. Some of you may be on the cusp of hardship that you cannot fathom.

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And maybe you've had those moments personally where you've felt like nothing makes sense.

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Your entire world is caving in around you. You're not even sure how to react.

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You're feeling and maybe thinking things you've never experienced before and could feel like there's a very crisis in your soul.

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Well, listen, Jesus has words for you. And it's these three truths that bring comfort to our hearts.

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So number one, truth number one that brings comfort to a troubled heart is this.

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Your heart is comforted when you trust in Jesus. Your heart is comforted when you trust in Jesus.

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So Jesus looks back into the eyes of his men, having told Peter that he's leaving, that Peter himself would deny him three times.

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And he commands them to not let their hearts be troubled with two commands. He follows it up with two commands saying, believe in God, believe also in me.

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Now, if you're using a NIV translation or New King James Bible, it says, you believe in God, believe also in me.

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So it's a tough word to know whether that's a statement or a fact.

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Or if it's a command. But most of the early manuscripts use this word also at the end of verse one.

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And that leads us to think that the best translation is to see this verse as two commands.

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Believe in God, believe also in me. So believe, believe. And when you see the word believe, you could render that word as trust.

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So Jesus immediately comforts their worry by saying this, trust in God, trust also in me.

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He actually says that their worry is a result of trust. It's a matter of their own trust in God.

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And you know, if anyone has reason to believe in or trust in Jesus, it was these 11 men right here.

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Just consider what they had seen Jesus do up to this point. They'd seen him turn water into wine.

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They had seen a raging storm instantly calmed by the words of Jesus.

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They had seen the blind receive their sight. They'd seen the deaf receive their hearing.

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They'd even seen Jesus walk on water and bring the dead back to life. If anyone had reason to trust in Jesus, it was these men that night in the upper room.

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Yet, at the same time, Jesus had to remind them that in order to settle their hearts and their souls, they needed to renew their trust in him.

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And so what can we glean from that? Well, it's that we need the same reminders as well.

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When times get tough, the first step that Jesus says we ought to make is to renew our trust in himself.

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Renew our trust in the Lord Jesus. Trust that whatever situation you find yourself in,

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God has actually ordained it for not only your good, but more importantly, his glory.

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His glory. And you know, I think the obvious question that arises at this point, especially in the midst of trials, is why?

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It seems cliche to just say trust in God. Just trust him through these trials. So why would we, why should we trust in God in life's darkest moments?

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Well, the Bible has so much to say about this, and we could spend the whole rest of our time together just unpacking this, but I'll answer the question by maybe just asking this.

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If you look back on your own life, has there ever been a time where God has not been faithful?

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Now, I don't ever want to minimize suffering. I don't ever want to minimize loss.

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But the faithfulness of God never wavers. And what that means is that whatever he promises, it will come to pass.

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I personally have been clinging to that in these last couple days. Now, what did

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Jeremiah do when he was lamenting over the suffering of his people? This would be a good example in the

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Bible. Someone that suffered immensely, what did he do in those moments? Well, he recalled the faithfulness of God, God's faithfulness.

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These were his words in Lamentations 3, 17 to 24. Let me read them for you. He said, my soul has been rejected from peace.

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I have forgotten happiness. So I say my strength has perished, and so has my hope from the

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Lord. Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the bitterness. Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.

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Now, listen to this. This is his transition. This is what he recalls to his mind, verse 21.

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This I recall to my mind, therefore, I have hope. The Lord's loving kindness indeed never ceases, for his compassions never fail.

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They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.

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Therefore, I have hope in him. So we cannot see

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God, yet we believe in him, and we hope in him, and we trust in him.

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And why is that? Well, it's because he has always been faithful. His promises, they always come to pass.

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So that's truth number one. Our hearts are comforted when we trust in Jesus and his faithfulness.

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And when we trust in Jesus, we believe what he says in verse two.

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So look back at John 14, verse two. Jesus said, in my

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Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so,

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I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.

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So truth number two, that brings comfort to our hearts is this, your heart is comforted when you remember heaven.

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Your heart is comforted when you remember heaven. And friends, there are,

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I think, few verses in the entire Bible that bring more comfort to a troubled heart than this one right here.

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In the midst of the turmoil, in the midst of fear, not only has Jesus spoken of betrayal to his men, not only has he spoken of denial, but his main message to them had been of his departure.

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Again, he's leaving, and he was going to the cross. But what he does is he points his disciples beyond the cross.

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He points them to what awaits them, a place in the Father's house.

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Now, I tried to imagine when I was studying this passage what it would have been like to be one of the disciples up to this point, when

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Jesus would have said this. You know, I thought, you might say something like this.

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Jesus, we've been with you all this time. Your teaching is marvelous. Your power is beyond description.

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And we know that you are the Christ, but there's still one question that haunts me.

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It's the age -old question that Job himself asked. Jesus, if a man dies, will he live again?

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Because, Jesus, I can't stand the thought of all my labor, all my turmoil ending in death.

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So, Lord, is it a fantasy, or is it really true? Is there life after death?

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And then Jesus turns to you in your troubled heart and says, listen, in my

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Father's house, there are many dwelling places.

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In other words, yes, there is life after death. There is a heaven, and there's lots of room there.

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You won't be left out. And to clarify, the idea here, it's not about mansions.

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Maybe your translation says something about mansions, uses that word. Some versions put it that way.

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And I wanna just clarify, it's not about getting a sick pad when you get to heaven. That's not what this passage is about.

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It's not even about rooms. It's not about any physical building. The idea here is that ample provisions have been made, and there's more than enough space for all of Jesus' disciples to join him in the

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Father's house. That's the idea. So there's not this unforeseen challenge of fitting everybody in.

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Heaven is not going to be overbooked. God's not gonna have to double bunk people, in other words.

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And what this is about is the assurance that not one of his disciples will be left out of heaven.

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And then Jesus says this, if it were not so, men, if it were not so,

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I would have told you. I would have told you. In other words, if this were a myth, if this were not true,

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I would have told you because how cruel would it be if I let you go on so long, placing your hope in something that isn't true?

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And Jesus lets them know where he is leaving to when he says, for I go to prepare a place for you.

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Now this statement can seem confusing too, I think, when I first read it. You think, is Jesus on a construction site?

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Does he have his tool belt on building those mansions that aren't complete yet? Well, the answer is no.

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That's, of course, not the idea here. It's not about a construction project.

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In fact, Jesus already said in Matthew 25, 34, he said, come, you who are blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

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So this place, this kingdom, heaven, it's already been prepared. And the place that Jesus is talking about, the father's house, it's heaven, it already exists.

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Yet Jesus says, for some reason, that he needs to go and prepare a place for his disciples.

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So what does Jesus mean by that? If this heaven has already been prepared before the foundation of the world, why does

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Jesus say he needs to go and prepare the place right now? What is he telling his disciples?

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What is he telling us? What he's telling you is that he's going to go and make it so that you have a spot in heaven.

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Because how can any of us have a place in heaven? How can any sinner dwell in the presence of God?

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There is none of us here that deserve to go to heaven. Absolutely none of us. The best of the best, they don't deserve it.

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Only perfect people go to heaven. So how does that work?

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Well, the answer is because Jesus went to prepare a place for us. And he did that by going to the cross on Calvary.

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He paid our sin penalty in full there. And then he went to the grave and he rose victorious, never to die again, conquering sin and death, so that all who place their faith in him can receive salvation and have eternal life.

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Those who place their faith in Christ are made perfect in him. That's how imperfect people are made perfect.

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That's how we can have a spot in heaven. And don't you love that? And that's the gospel, friends.

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That is what brings comfort to a soul that is troubled. Whatever hardships you're going through, remember that Jesus, he went to the cross to prepare a place for sinners like us.

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And for the Christian, nothing is more certain than you having a spot in heaven once this life is over.

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His promises, and I firmly believe this, they are more sure than the sun setting and the sun rising tomorrow morning.

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And so listen, it's not about mansions. It's not about having your own room for eternity. It's about something infinitely greater, being in the presence of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And let me show you that. Look at verse three. Verse three, he says, if I go and prepare a place for you,

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I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

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So not only has Jesus prepared a place for us, but he will come again to receive us.

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He will come again. And now if you're not maybe as familiar with eschatology or end times, more simply put,

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Jesus is speaking of here what we call the rapture. The rapture.

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And now I think this is so good because oftentimes I think the initial reaction to future events can be confusion more than anything, or it brings fear to people.

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But really for the Christian, this is supposed to bring comfort to us. It's supposed to bring comfort.

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Now listen to how Paul describes this event, the rapture, in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 to 18.

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He says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God.

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And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the

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Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord. Then verse 18 here, he says, therefore, comfort one another with these words.

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So what Paul is saying is that Christ will return for his own, that is the preeminent event in history, the next event on God's calendar.

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His own will meet him in the clouds, and this ought to bring comfort to a troubled heart.

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And why is that? Why does this bring comfort to the believer? Well, it is because we will be with him.

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We'll be with him. In the midst of life's troubles, comfort comes from the fact that yes, there is a heaven, but more importantly, that Jesus is at the center of it.

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The physical presence of Jesus, it's not with us now, but it will be in heaven.

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And being with him is far and away the best part. Now, there's a lot of things to look forward to in heaven.

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I'm sure of it, a lot of things. But the greatest of those, far and away, will be being in the presence of the

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Savior. John Piper says it this way. He said,

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Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring

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God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, they will not be there.

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The gospel is not a way for people to just get to heaven. It is a way for people to get to God.

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It is intended that the hearts of God's people be quieted and comforted when we remember that there is a heaven where our

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Christ is. And we belong there because he prepared a place for us there.

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That's our home. And I personally, I long for that day. I'm excited to see that day.

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I can't tell you how much more I've even felt that this week. I long for that day.

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But guess what? Someone else will be more excited to see me than I will to see them.

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Jesus said this in John 17, 24. He said, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am so that they may see my glory which you have given me.

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What Jesus is saying there, friends, is Christ will be more excited to see me.

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He'll be more excited to see you than we will be to see him. Can you believe that?

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What a friend we have in Jesus. And reunions in heaven will be sweet.

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You know, I can't even comprehend how sweet they will be. I can't wait to see my friend

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Danny again. But it'll only be secondary to the first meeting with the

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Lord Jesus Christ himself, only secondary. But maybe, maybe these promises seem kind of far away.

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Life seems long. Rapture, heaven, these words, they seem distant in the midst of trials.

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And so we take our eyes off of those things and panic in our hearts sets in again.

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It appears that Thomas was feeling the same way. Look at verse four. Jesus said, and I know the way where I am going.

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Verse five, Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way?

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And that brings us to truth number three. So truth number three is that your heart is comforted when you know the way.

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Your heart is comforted when you know the way. Notice that Jesus affirms that the disciples do know the way.

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But Thomas responds with something like, Lord, we don't even know where you're going. So how can we know the way?

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We're totally confused. Lord, we want to go to this place you've told us that you've prepared for us, but how do we get there?

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Where, what is the way to this place that you're speaking of? And then here's

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Jesus' response. In an emphatic response, a response that is difficult to even comprehend.

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No one else in history would say this. Jesus responds and says, I am the way and the truth and the life.

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No one comes to the Father but through me. Now, I think many people spend their lives pursuing this.

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They want to find a way to God. But the truth is that there's only one way to God, not many, there's only one.

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That's what Jesus is saying here. And personally, I never thought of this verse,

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John 14, six, as a verse that is meant to comfort troubled hearts. My first thought is to use this verse as a defense for the deity of Christ and defend his exclusivity as the only way to God.

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And yes, those things are true. We must believe those things. And we'll address that in a bit.

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But friends, in context, these words are meant to settle our souls. They're meant to settle our souls.

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And why is that? Well, because if you know Christ, you know the way to God, you know the way.

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The worries of a troubled heart in this life, all the things we have the ability to put our energy towards worrying about, they are extinguished by the gospel truth that there is a way to the

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Father. And we know the way because we know Christ and he himself is, in fact, the way.

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And listen, he is the only way to the Father because he's the only one who's dealt with our sin problem.

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Jesus is the only one who's dealt with our sin. No one else in history. And Jesus is also the way because he is the truth.

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There is no falsehood in him. He's the embodiment of truth, the word in flesh.

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John 1, 14 says, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the

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Father, full of grace and truth. And Jesus is also the only way because he is the life.

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He is the life. All life is in him and through him. Place your faith in him and you will have life forever in his name.

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John 1, 4 says, in him was life, and the life was the light of man.

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And because Jesus is the way, because he is the truth and the life, no one comes to the

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Father except through him. No one gets to God except through the work of Jesus Christ.

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Nobody else is the way. No one else is the truth. No one else is the life. Therefore, like the apostle said in Acts 4, there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.

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And what this does is it actually settles our hearts. It settles our souls because we don't have to worry about all these different ways of getting to God, all these different paths we have to find to getting to the

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Father. All we have to know is the Son. You just have to know the Son. Now maybe this doesn't settle your heart.

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Maybe this actually unsettles you. Maybe you don't like the fact that Jesus is the only way.

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Or maybe you think it would be arrogant to say such a thing. And you think it's unfair that the path to God would be so narrow.

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And I understand that's not an easy pill to swallow. That is not maybe the most fun truth to come to terms with.

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But consider this for a moment, if you will. Just imagine if you are there at Calvary, at the cross.

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You're at the foot of the cross. And imagine that you have witnessed the

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Son of God suffer to the point of near physical death. You know that He hangs there, as He hangs there on the cross, then in three hours of darkness, the fullness of God's wrath is being poured out on Him.

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Imagine you witness all of this. And all you have to say is, well, that's great, that's great.

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But it isn't enough. Because what's implied, friends, when we protest the exclusivity of the gospel, is we say this to God.

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You haven't done enough. You haven't done enough. And it would be like rejecting a cure.

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You know, we have a disease, it's called sin. And God has made a cure for us.

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His Son, He lived the perfect life that we couldn't live and then died on the cross and paid that penalty that we deserve.

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There's a cure, it's there. And so our disease, we need it cured.

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And imagine a doctor says, hey, here's the cure, take it. And you say, well, is that the only one?

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Because I'd like a multiple or a multitude of cures to choose from.

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And since you can't offer me a multitude of cures, then I'm not gonna take the one you gave me. That's what that is like when we reject the

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Son of God. And friends, the fact that there is a way, the fact that there's one way is mercy.

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It is more than enough. God has always done enough. And that is, at the end of the day, what ought to bring comfort to our troubled hearts.

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That is why Jesus says it right here, is that there is in fact a way to God and we can know this way through the

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Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Now, friends, I'll just end with this.

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Trouble is coming. Trouble, it is, there's no stopping that. And the question is, what will you cling to in the time of need?

37:08

I have clung to this passage and these promises this last week. They've gotten me through.

37:16

So what will you cling to when those troubling times come? Will it be the things that the world offers?

37:22

Will it be the things that we have to do? Will it be those things or will it be these heavenly promises that Christ gives you? What will it be?