Listening No.4 The Way Home

Breath. He saves the poor and none shall find him. Let's stand, please.

The Lord gives eyesight to the blind. The Lord supports the fainting mind. He sets the laboring conscience free.

He helps the stranger in distress. The widow, the fatherless, the fatherless, and grants the prisoner sweet relief. Let's look into the Word of God, and then we have a peace song, not just by men, but also by ladies, I think, which will help us as we come around God's holy and inspired Word.

We go to the Gospel of John and to the 14th chapter. Some very beautiful words indeed. Do not let your hearts be troubled.

This is John 14, 1 through to 6. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am.

You know the way to the place where I am going? Thomas said to him, Lord, we don't know where you are going. So how can we know the way? If you have the NIV, read the sixth and final verse with me. Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. Amen. And he who would the Father seek, mercy came, Lord, by thee.

Thou art the truth, thy word alone true wisdom can impart. Thou only canst inform the mind and purify the heart. Thou art the life, the rending tomb proclaims thy conquering arm.

And those who put their trust in thee, nor death nor hell shall harm. Thou art the way, the truth, the life, grant us that way to know. That truth to keep, that life to win, good joys eternal flow.

Would you have your Bibles open at John's Gospel where we just turned? If you don't have a Bible and you're next to someone who does, then they'll be very glad to share the Scriptures with you. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

We're still talking this whole area of our Christian commitment and living as believers within the kingdom of God. And here in this 14th chapter of John's wonderful Gospel, you have what is in effect the commencement of the longest sermon that our beloved Lord ever preached. I wonder if you've ever been in a circumstance like those disciples who actually were his audience on this occasion, though I think he was speaking not just with the immediate disciples in mind, he was also envisaging you and me, because there's something eternal about the Word of God.

That means to say that when you read the Bible, it's distinct from any other book. It's just as though it's fresh from the print room of heaven and the book is directed to you. So it is historical, but it's also contemporaneous.

So I pick up on what I was saying. I wonder if you've ever had the experience when you feel that your world is crashing in upon you. The sun has stopped around 12 o'clock during the day, shining, and gone into an eclipse and it looks as though it will never rise again.

Maybe like those pitiful people beneath that dam in Yugoslavia, wondering if the wall is going to crack and whether gallons and gallons of water will sweep down onto the villages that are just beneath and thousands of people will be drowned. No, it seems to me that that was something like the context that our Lord was addressing as He speaks to His audience yesteryear and maybe as He speaks to us today. For Peter and the rest of his colleagues were going through what the Puritans later on would call the dark night of the soul.

And I remember in studying the life of Lloyd-Jones how he says of himself in a very honest passage, I've been there many a time. Are you there at the moment? At the particular point when you need more than anyone else in this church to hear someone address your circumstances and say, don't let your heart be troubled. Isn't it interesting that when you first read the Gospel records concerning the life of our Lord, in the opening volume of the Gospels, you've got the depiction of Herod and the people in Jerusalem and they are troubled.

Ironically, they're troubled because, well, Jesus has been born and Herod completely misunderstands the situation. And as a result of his venom and his wrath, the whole of Jerusalem is troubled. And here is our beloved Lord and He's speaking actually to the likes of you and me.

And He says, don't let your heart be troubled. That's not what I want at all. But be mindful of this as I set in the introductory theme, as I paint the back cloth just for a moment or two, that not only do you have your eyes upon the disciples and the things that are troubling them, but you should have your eyes upon Jesus because if any man needed someone to minister to him, surely it was Jesus at this point.

You see, just around the corner is the Garden of Gethsemane. Those bloody spots of perspiration will be creasing down His forehead. He will be hauled off like some criminal and stood in front of Annas and Caiaphas and Herod and Pilate.

And ere long, He will be done to death in a way that the artists have never dared to picture Him, utterly naked. And He will feel that desolation as not only earth burns Him, but heaven does also. And He will cry out, speaking of God, why have you forsaken me? Now, if anyone needed to have their needs attended to, then it was our Lord.

And yet it's just like Him to bypass His circumstances and bring central stage the problems of others. So He doesn't address Himself. He addresses His disciples.

He addresses you and me. And He says, don't let your hearts be troubled. Someone has said that this 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of the Gospel of John are unsurpassed in all Scripture.

It's been described as a heart-melting address. The disciples are in difficulty. Why? Well, Jesus has indicated in the 21st verse that He of the previous chapter, that He is troubled in spirit.

And the reason why is, well, one of them, His disciples, is going to betray Him. And another reason why they are also in a state of anxiety is that He has said that He is going away from them. And so He addresses this compound problem that is represented by the disciples.

And He says, look, I don't want you to get over-anxious. Here is the solution to your problem. Now listen, because my dear friend, whether you're in the tab this morning for the first time or the first time in many years, this I'm sure is God's word to you.

Trust in God. Trust also in me. Here is a double exhortation directed primarily to Jewish disciples, but also directed, as I've been spelling out several times thus far, directed towards us, trusting God.

Now the disciples did this, didn't they? Good Jews that they were. But they couldn't see God. They knew that God was, that God is all-powerful, that God is omniscient, that God is omnipresent, but they couldn't see Him.

Yet they trusted in Jehovah. Now Jesus says in language, which if you think it through, is implying that He is of the same caliber as Jehovah. Trust in God.

Trust also in me. Why does He say that at that point? Well, give it a few weeks, and He's not going to be present, not even in resurrection appearances, is He? Peter, later on, will remember this incident because writing the letter that bears His name, he speaks to Christians like ourselves who love the Lord Jesus even though we have not seen Him. We love Him.

We believe in Him. Trust in God. You do that, says our Lord Jesus.

Trust also in me. And when you start to put your confidence in God and in the things that really affect eternity, rather than just in the things that affect time, you're able to cope with the latter because of your confidence in the former. For instance, I wish no one to have the ravages of cancer eating away their body.

I wish for no one else. It's hard enough to cope within our church fellowship to think of our dear friend Anne having gone through an amputation with all that she's had to suffer in recent years. But if that did come your way and you have a trust in God which tells you that life is not all that there is to live for.

There is an eternity beyond. It enables you to cope with the problems of time from the vantage point of eternity. So Jesus says to these disciples, trust in God, trust also in me and trust in me when you can't see me as you trust in Jehovah when you can't see Him.

And he goes on with these most reassuring words speaking of father's house. Yesterday we had a delightful time at Evelyn's son's home as quite a number of TAB friends and family and we're glad family are here this morning as we've also as a church family recognized this occasion. We gathered around the piano later on and it brought back memories of my youth.

You see, a couple of the granddaughters were showing us the skills that they'd acquired in playing the piano. And I remembered when I was six or seven plaguing my parents with there's no place like home. Some of you will remember there are certain tunes, certain pieces that piano teachers sing broad scale throughout the country always to inflict on parents as they teach the kids how to be like Evelyn is although most of us don't make it on the keyboard.

Mid pleasures and palaces there's no place like home. And Jesus will tell you that in his ministry. He told the disciples in the seventh chapter I'm with you just for a while and then I'm going on.

I'm going home. In the second chapter of John's gospel he refers to the temple and he talks about my father's house. And then later on when he's into that lovely high priestly prayer he says in the first verse of the 17th chapter Father, the time has come.

What has the time come for? Well, it's come for me to go back to you. Verse 13 I am coming to you now. Verse 24 Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am.

In my father's house are many mansions. You see, Jesus, I speak reverently of course was a home boy. He loved home.

And when he was on earth he recognized that in one sense he was just a pilgrim going through. As you and I should recognize this. And he spoke a lot about home and father.

You know, the most idyllic situation I think I'm not exaggerating on earth is a good home, isn't it? With mum and dad perfectly in accord and with the kids. You know, there's nothing that touches my heart more probably because of being ourselves childless is to see boys and girls who've got a loving confidence in mum and dad. I used to believe in the years of the Second World War towards the end the few experiences that I can recall that when my dad was around it didn't matter what Hitler was doing to Sheffield.

You see, when dad was in the air raid shelter it was safe in my father's house. That's where I'm going. Our beloved Lord was a home boy.

And when he speaks to the disciples and by extension he speaks to you and me he does so as though we're part of the family. And the destination that is his is also the destination that you and I, by his grace can look forward to sharing. In my father's house are many rooms.

Go back to Herod. Here's our beloved Lord and there's Mary and there's Joseph, if you remember. They've come down from Galilee.

It's the census. They're taking the poll of the people. And Mary was pregnant although I prefer the expression with child.

And they went to Bethlehem and all the hotels were full. There was no room. Remember? No room.

How extraordinary. When a greater than David comes to David's city and there's no room. But Jesus says in contradistinction in father's house there are many rooms.

Many rooms. You read 1 Kings chapter 7 about the temple and you'll discover there are many anti-rooms in the temple. Places where people can go.

And you know, there is never a person who wishes to go to heaven who will find some note on the door saying, no room. If you seek me, you will find me. If you search for me, with all your heart.

There's a wideness in God's mercy. Like the wideness of the sea. The love of God is beyond computation.

In father's house are many mansions. Trust in God. Trust also in me.

Let not your heart be troubled. I'm sorting it all out. But I can't go to father's house, can you? You see, here I am in my prodigality.

What do you mean? Well, I've lived as though father was dead. As the boy lived in the story that Jesus told. So often I've taken what father has given me and squandered it.

So often the human race has done this. I blush for the human race. I'm not being theatrical when I tell you that sometimes I'm so ashamed of the species that I represent that I wish I was not part of it.

Why don't you think of what we have done to our world? If you feel I am exaggerating, I will take anybody on. They can stand up publicly and challenge me or they can come and challenge me at the end of the service. I sometimes feel that the human race ought to hold its head down and seek the forgiveness of the rest of the inhabitants of this planet.

But father, father had always towards the prodigal a heart of affection. And Jesus is saying to us, I'm going to take you into the father's house but there's something that needs to be done to make it possible for you and father to be in accord. In my father's house and many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you, I am going there to prepare a place for you.

You know there's a song that speaks about going home. The way of the cross leads home. Do you remember that? It's an old one.

It's a good one. Many of the old ones are very good ones. Some of the new ones are good ones but some are not so good.

The way of the cross leads home. The only way to get into father's house is through the way of the cross. You see, here is our beloved Lord and he's speaking again about going back to the father and he's anxiously awaiting that but before there is the savagery of Gethsemane and Calvary to go through.

Why? Because he's going to prepare the way for you and for me to be comfortable in father's house. If you go to the book of Hebrews, you find one or two very interesting references which I think dovetail in the teaching that we get in John's gospel. So let's spend a couple of moments in Hebrews.

Let's go to Hebrews chapter 6 for a moment or two. Where you read in the 20th verse of our beloved Lord Jesus, Hebrews 6.20, Jesus who went before us has entered on our behalf. Went where? Well, went to father's house.

Went to the place where the father is. He went before us. There's a Greek term in the military vocabulary prodromai.

And that's the word that actually is used here in John's gospel when our Lord says I am going there to prepare a place. It's a word that's used here in Hebrews when it speaks of our Lord Jesus who went before us. Now look, the Greek, no not the Greek, the Egyptian city of Alexandria is a port.

It's very much like St. Petersburg in the Soviet Union. I mean by that, entry to these ports is dangerous. And so what happens is a pilot ship, certainly used to, probably the channel is deeper now than what it was, well obviously so in our Lord's day.

A pilot ship would take the larger vessel into Alexandria, the prodromos. As today, a pilot boat will take you down that narrow corridor into the port of St. Petersburg. And our Lord was saying this, I am the prodromos.

I am the one who goes before. I am the one who risks dangerous places in order that those who follow me in safety can arrive at their destination. All right, hold that in your mind and I'll link it up with something else.

And if you concentrate, you'll follow what I have to say, I do believe. Let's go to Hebrews chapter nine and verse 23. Now remember Father's house in the Old Testament is actually the temple.

That's how our Lord described it at any rate. Now what happened in the temple? Well once a year, the high priest used to go into the holiest place in the temple because the temple was in a sort of rectangle and it was curtained off into a square right at the top and that was called the Holy of Holies. No one could ever go there apart from once a year.

But once a year, the representative of Aaron and he would go with the blood of an animal that had been slain and he would make his way through the sanctuary into the holiest place of all and then he would daub the altar with the blood. And when he came out, the people would believe that an atonement had been made for their sins. The sanctuary would be splattered with blood.

Now our Lord is the great high priest. Before he goes back to the Father's house to heaven, what does he do? Well he goes to the cross and there he's crucified. And he takes the effects of that crucifixion, the blood if you please, even into heaven itself.

We're told, verse 23 of Hebrews 9, it was necessary then for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these for Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one. He entered heaven itself now to appear for us in God's presence. Do you understand? Our beloved Lord is the one who goes before.

He takes on the danger caused by your sin and mine. He offers his life at Calvary's cross and the blood that is shed there becomes an atonement for the sins of the world. So you can effectively say that what happened at Calvary is transported in its benefits into heaven itself and therefore heaven, Father's house is made open to you and to me not because of anything that you have done, not because of any worthiness on your part but because the Son of God has prepared, has opened the door, has made it possible for you and for me ultimately to have residence where God is.

Isn't that wonderful? In my Father's house are many mansions. Ah, Lord, but they can be the greatest mansions in the world but the likes of me, I could never go. I'm so conscious of my own sin.

Even sitting here in the town with so many people who seem to me very holy people. Lord, I feel utterly uncomfortable. Not the likes of me.

And Jesus says, look, I've gone to prepare. I took you into consideration and incidentally you're probably no worse than the rest of them were that tyrannize you just at the moment because you feel wrongly that they're completely holy and you're not. You see, the Lord God deals with failures.

The Lord God deals with sinners. It's the stuff of which saints are made but they're only made through the perfections of our Lord Jesus on the cross. The application of His blood, and the infilling of His Holy Spirit.

So let's get back to base after that. That's a little digression. I go and prepare a place for you and I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

If you're in love with someone, the thing that you want more than anything else is to be in their company. Now here is a staggering thought. Heaven would not be heaven for the Son of God without you.

I'll pause. That needs some taking in. Repetition.

Heaven would not be heaven for the Son of God without you. Romantic thinking from the pulpit? Verse 20 of chapter 17. Sorry, verse 24.

Jesus talking to Father. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory. That word want is one of the keenest words that you can get in the Greek language to express desire.

I don't know that there was any time when Jesus used this language before or after this prayer. Apart from here, he doesn't employ it at all. This is what he desires more than anything else.

Father, as I come back to your house, I want those you have given me to be with me. His heaven would not be complete without your company for you are one for whom he bled and died. That really is a magnificent thought.

Back again to John 14. So the disciples, this troubled group of men, are being informed by our Lord as to what is in store ultimately for them, even though they don't at that moment appreciate the price that will be paid to gain their eternal security. Now our Lord says, you know the way to the place where I'm going.

And he's certainly been teaching them that on several occasions. I could take you into the context, but I lost so much time in my digression. You'll have to read the gospel narrative through again for yourself.

But you know those disciples, they were dull, but so are you and I. So we can't really blame them for that. Sometimes we need to sing, tell me the old, old story because it's true, we forget so soon. We don't take it in.

I was taught some of these things when I was a kid, knee high to a grasshopper. I wasn't always as big, whatever the sketch said, as I am now. But I need to be informed and re-informed.

And some of you, you learn these things at your mum's knee. Some of you, well perhaps it's been some time before you, since you last thought them through, but they remain the same. But when you get to the end of your life, you won't be feeling then that those people who attend the church, these evangelical Bible bashers were quite such a curious breed as you thought.

You see, when you get to the end of your life, you'll reach out to hang on to something. Look, look, I give you a piece of advice. If you ever think a man is an intellectual and he's made a great impact on life, take, let's pluck one out of the pack, take Bertrand Russell, a favourite of mine, in some ways.

Read his biography. Don't read his History of Western Civilisation. No, that's a brilliant book.

Read his biography. Read how he died and ask whether his philosophy held him at the end. All these great men.

Try H.G. Wells. Do you know what his last book was? Mind at the End of the Tether. When you come to the end, you'll want to remember those stories that your mum told you.

And you'll want to know that those stories were anchored in fact. He's gone to prepare a place for you. You know.

You know the way to the place where I'm going. Well, Thomas, thank God for Thomas. He articulates the problems of many of us but he's prepared not to be so shy.

And so he says, Lord, as he articulates his doubt, we don't know where you're going so how can we know the way? And it was that doubtful interrogative, that doubtful question of Thomas that prompted Jesus to give perhaps the most sublime answer that ever fell from his lips. I am. Seven times in John's Gospel he says, I am.

I am the bread. I am the light. I am the door.

I am the shepherd. I am the resurrection. I am the true vine.

And here he says, I am. I am. I am.

I am the way. They've scotched this in the English language. It's there in the original.

I am the truth. I am the life. You've got to connect each of the nouns with the verb and with the pronoun.

I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

Jesus causes three Jewish concepts to cohere in his one person. You say, what do you mean? Well, the Jews had a theology of the way. I'm out of time or else I would have taken you into the Old Testament and shown you the many times when Moses and the prophets make reference to the way.

What's more, in Judaism there is another stream that runs through the Old Testament, the truth. Many times the proverb writers make reference to the truth. And again the psalmist makes reference to the life.

These three streams, they come, these three rivers if you like, they come through the Old Testament and Jesus says, there's a confluence. They all flow into me. I am the way.

I am the truth. I am the life. And our Lord is implying that he is more than just an ordinary person.

He's not just the best teacher. He is teacher par excellence. Of the substance of God he is.

And with the revelation of God he comes and makes himself known to the world. All the attributes of God rest in him. The way directs to God.

The truth frees us from sin and the life rejuvenates. You know, the sons of Adam and Eve, they were called what, Abel? And Cain. Do you know what Cain means? Cain in the Hebrew means the wanderer.

We used to have a song, didn't we, in the 1950s, I Left a Girl Wandering? Well, Cain wrote it. The context was completely different. He went a-wandering from God.

We're all God's Cains. Or at least we're all Cains. I don't know about God's Cains.

But we can come back from the wandering as we respond to the truth of the gospel as it is in Jesus. I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

Do you know in England with freedom of religion one church in London had to take that text down from its poster? What? Because the Islamic community objected that no one can come to God but by Jesus. And our Archbishop of Canterbury who started so well with that magnificent sermon that he preached on his enthronement or however he'd become an archbishop, I think the enthronement, he's now dropped the evangelistic push towards Jews and the Muslims. I say with pain in my heart, I don't want to lampoon the man he went to the same college as I went to.

I know he's got a very difficult situation. There is what the BBC once called the scandal of particularity that is part and parcel of Christianity. What does it mean? That there's only one way to God and it's through Jesus.

And that's what he teaches here. That's what he teaches, what the early church teach in the Acts of the Apostles. There's no name given among men whereby we must be saved.

The Apostle Paul, that is one mediator between man and God. This is why the early church was such stalwarts in pushing forward the gospel because they believed it was the only hope. The only way that men could get out of the trouble in which they found themselves was by responding to the gospel.

And my friends, what happened in the first century is exactly the same in the 20th century. There is no other way. But thank God through Jesus there is a way to Father's home.

Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you. My integrity is on the line. I told you the truth about everything else.

If this had not been true, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. My sprinkled blood in heaven will be the means whereby you will be received, not just as a servant, but as a son.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will return and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also. Why? Because my heaven would not be heaven without you.

Father, the thought is still stunning us that the Lord Jesus' love for us is such that heaven would be less than what it should be if defaulting from heaven was any for whom he had died. Lord, gather your loved ones back into your fold. The prodigals that have strayed, the sheep that once were in the flock visibly but are still there secretly but not with any public acknowledgement.

Lord, deal with us all. We thank you again for the blood of our Lord Jesus. We thank you that into heaven itself he went bearing those wounds.

And even now the marvel of heaven is that God should love the sons of humanity so much as to send his son to die for them. Lord, you're magnificent. Father, your love overwhelms me.

We're utterly flabbergasted. But we thank you that it's true. Help us to reach out and to show our love for you.

Those of us who are poor in our relationships with one another, because of the relationship we have with you, strengthen them, we pray. Bring us all back to what we should be, as Christian people. And if not as Christians at this moment, then enable us to confess Jesus as Lord and to be brought into the fold.

We thank you there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There's a door that is open and all may go in. At Calvary's cross it's where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus.

Amen. We'll sing a hymn and then Brother Tim will conduct a time with us around the Lord's table. Are we on 513? 203.

203. Hail thou once despised Jesus. Hail thou Galilean King.

Let's enjoy singing this to a very triumphant tune. The peace that he brings me. He's eternal sun.

O sinner, thou art pleading. And how I need thee. Holy Christ.

And Father, that says it all. That's our response. Lord, we mean it.

Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. The way of the cross leads home.