The Last Lessons – Part 2: The Heart (John 14:1-31)

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC...

The Last Lessons – Part 2: The Heart (John 14:1-31)

 

On that day you will know that I am in my Father,
and you in me, and I in you. 
John 14:20

In John 13, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and showed us the example of serving one another in His love. In chapter 14, Jesus addresses the heart. He acknowledges that his disciples are confused, worried, and saddened when He said,

 

I am with you only a little longer… Where I am going, you cannot come. (John 13:33)

 

And so Jesus moves to console his friends, to give them hope, to comfort their hearts. He tells them that He is going back to the Father and is preparing a place for them. Which reminds me of a joke!

 

A lawyer and the pope were both killed in an accident.

 

The two meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Peter looked them up in the book and then proceeded to show them their eternal dwellings.

 

They walked along the clouds and came to a huge mansion with all sorts of lavish trappings. St. Peter turned to the lawyer and told him this was to be his house.

 

The Pope, knowing how important he was to the church, could hardly imagine what his house would be like. St. Peter and the Pope continued on to a small, beat-up wooden shack. St. Peter told the Pope that this would be his dwelling.

 

The Pope, shocked, said to St. Peter, "Just a minute!" That other guy was a lawyer and he gets a mansion. I was the head of the Roman Catholic church, and this is all the reward I get?"

 

St. Peter looked at the Pope and said, "True, you have done great things. But we have lots of Popes in Heaven, and that guy’s our first lawyer."

 

We have many ideas about heaven. Most of us aren’t thinking about the size of our mansion in glory. We’re thinking about seeing the face of Jesus and rejoining our loved ones. But the hope Jesus gives is more immediate than eternal dwellings.

 

The place where Jesus goes to prepare a place for us is in heaven AND heaven is coming to us in our hearts.

 

In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:19-20)

 

It’s a BOTH AND kind of thing. It is also a now and not yet kind of thing. We can enjoy heaven in our hearts now. Jesus resides within us through the Holy Spirit. And… we have yet to experience the fullness of heaven in new bodies made to last forever.

 

To comfort his troubled disciples, Jesus goes to prepare a place for them and promises to come back and take them to where he is, so that they can be together. My first thought is that Jesus is talking about what the Church calls the Second Coming. But if you read John 14 closely, you will see that Jesus will rejoin his disciples much sooner than we might expect.

 

The disciples don’t understand where Jesus is going. They don’t grasp his metaphor. Jesus is returning to heaven to rejoin His Father, by way of the cross. The disciples want to know the way so that they can follow Jesus. Jesus tells them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

 

This passage has been used to threaten people who haven’t confessed faith in Jesus. But reading it in context Jesus is answering his disciples. Where is he going? Jesus is going back to the Father in heaven. How can they know the way? They know the way because they know Jesus.

Jesus is the way. How is Jesus the way? He is the way to the Father by His work of salvation upon the cross.

 

No sinner can approach the Holy One. The prophet Habakkuk wrote that God’s eyes are too pure to look upon evil. He cannot gaze upon sin and the troubles caused by it. (Hab 1:13) God, in His mercy and love for us, provided a way out of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus. His blood washes our sins away, so that we can stand before God with out blemish or shame.

 

What’s important to understand is the intimate union between Jesus and The Father. Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Jesus. The two are one. Jesus promises that same intimate union with those who keep his commandments.

 

How do we keep the word of Jesus in our hearts? The brother of Jesus taught the church to repent.

 

Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. (James 1:21 NIV)

 

Keeping Jesus’ commandments is a sign of our love for Jesus. If we do as He has taught us, He will dwell in us through the Spirit.

 

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever… he abides with you, and he will be in you. (John 14:15-16, 17b)

 

Jesus tells us that if we keep his commands, The Father and He will live in our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

 

“Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)

 

Jesus is going to the Father, and the Father and Jesus are moving in with those who obey His word. Jesus is making our hearts his home.

 

He told his troubled disciples, “In a little while you will see me!” That little while was 3 days. For on the third day Jesus rose from the grave. The disciples saw the Resurrected Lord Jesus. He taught them for 40 days about the kingdom of God, appearing and disappearing like a ghost. He ate breakfast with them like a human. After those 40 days, He ascended to heaven. Ten days after that, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to the Church. It is through the Holy Spirit that we can know and see Jesus, when the world cannot.

 

The word translated as know is ginosko, It means to learn, to know, to recognize, to understand, or to become acquainted. You can become acquainted with Jesus, because He lives in you, his faithful followers who keep his commandments.

 

Michele’s favorite hymn is In The Garden. The lyrics speak to an intimate time with Jesus. He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.

 

How is your time with Jesus? Do you experience joy in your relationship with the Lord? He’s right there with you in your heart. Slow down, breathe, and know. Become acquainted with your Savior who has chosen to make His home in you.

 

The word translated as see is horao, which can mean to perceive with the mind, to experience, to heed or pay close attention. Be honest with yourself. How closely have you been paying attention to God? God is dwelling in your heart.

 

The disciples were troubled. Jesus told them to trust God and to believe in Jesus. If you are acquainted with Jesus, then you know God. Because Jesus and God are one.

Jesus told them if they couldn’t believe in Him as the Christ, then at least believe on the miracles he performed. These divine works are signs pointing to Jesus as God’s messiah.

 

Then Jesus says something surprising. He says that His disciples will do even greater works than Jesus. What? He raised Lazarus from the dead. He restored the sight of a man born blind. He turned water into wine. He walks on water! Any of you ever done anything like that? Me either.

 

I think the better reading is that the Church will do many more good works through the power of the gospel and the work of the Spirit. It’s not that we will do miracles bigger than any Jesus performed. It’s that Jesus is no longer tied to the single human form of the Carpenter of Nazareth. Instead, the Spirit of Jesus dwells in over 2 billion Christian hearts, minds, and bodies around the world. His disciples have done and continue to do good works in an amount that far exceeds what Jesus was able to do by Himself. Now with Jesus living in His Church, for we are the body of Christ, He empowers us to do many good deeds that bring glory to God.

 

On that last night in the Upper Room, Jesus comforted His troubled disciples. He told them to trust God and believe in Jesus. He told them He was going to prepare a place for them, AND he told them that if they keep his commandments, He and the Father would make their home in their hearts through the Spirit.

 

Jesus said, Peace I leave with you. It is the kind of peace that is not of this world. Paul wrote in his letter to the Ephesians…

 

remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For he is our peace;

 

in his flesh he has made both Jews and Gentiles into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, ¹⁵ abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross… (Eph 2:12-16)

 

He himself is our peace. He won for us peace with God through the cross. He brings us closer together through His love, making peace in all our relationships. Peace is the answer to the troubled heart.

 

Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble, but take heart, for He has overcome the world. The great Overcomer who conquered death and all the troubles of the world in his own body, now shares His victory with you! He lives in you, and therefore you will live.

 

Be encouraged. Don’t let your hearts be troubled, instead let your hearts be open wide to Jesus and His peace. Shalom.